Sarah Stevenson - Underneath (Sarah Jamila Stevenson)

But I know I heard it, loud and clear.

“No, you just said you wish we could have done something for Shiri,” I insist. But she looks so surprised that I’m no longer sure.

“I was thinking something along those lines. Did I say it out loud, Ali?”

“Hm? Sorry,” Dad says. “I wasn’t listening.” He goes back to cleaning his plate, still preoccupied with his own thoughts. I try to go back to my meal, but it’s hard. My head is spinning, confused. Full of static fuzz with bursts of coherence like a poorly tuned radio station.

“Poor girl,” Mom sighs. “Poor Mina.” And I’m not sure now if she’s talking out loud or if I’m going crazy.

But as I stare at my mother, her words trickling to a stop, I know it in my bones: It’s in my head. Her mouth isn’t moving, but I can hear her voice in my head. Her bewilderment, her grief—they’re filling me up, ready to overflow.

My jaw involuntarily clenches, and my teeth grind to-

gether. I shove my chair away from the table and run up the stairs. I can hear my mom’s questioning tone and a mumbled response from my dad. It makes me want to plug my ears.

By the time I get to the top of the stairs, I’m in a cold sweat and I’m shaking. I go into the bathroom, strip off my clothes, and duck into the shower, blasting myself with hot spray. I must have been dreaming. Or hallucinating.

I shudder, despite the warmth of the water and the suffocating steam. The less-appealing explanation is that I’m somehow going crazy. That I’m cracking from the pressure of everything that’s happened.

I get out of the shower and wrap myself in a fluffy towel. My mom’s voice comes through the door, muffled, asking if I need anything. Tea. Aspirin. I say no, I’m fine.

Normally, I’m a perfectly functional person under stress. I even like it. Coach Rydell can tell you that. I’m the one she boasts about having ice in my veins before a swim meet. This kind of thing—it’s not me.

I read something in Shiri’s journal yesterday, though. There was something unexplained happening to her, too, a mysterious “that.” “ THAT happened again, ” she’d say, never quite saying what “that” was. But it got worse and worse until eventually she couldn’t take it anymore.

Going back into my room and sitting on the bed, still wrapped in my towel, I glance at the desk drawer where I hid the journal away. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. What if she was hearing voices, too? What if something was seriously wrong with her, and now it’s happening to me? I can’t even fix my mind on that idea—that what’s happening to me isn’t just stress, but something weird.

Really weird.

From Shiri Langford’s journal, January 31st

Another “incident.” I was hoping it would stop once I got back to school, far away from everything my dad says and does and how my brother gets everything he wants all the time and my mom doesn’t say anything about it. I always thought it happened because of them, and so I couldn’t stand being home. Couldn’t stand hearing, knowing. Knowing too much. Feeling so out of control.

Yesterday Professor Macken talked about people who enable inequitable behavior by not ever protesting, people who imply tacit agreement with an unfair situation by never expressing their disagreement. And she said well-behaved women rarely make history.

My mother is definitely an enabler.

I don’t behave. We’ll see if I make history.

“Sunny honey,” my mom says. “It’s time.”

I press my lips together and stare at a spot on the wall across the waiting area, unwilling to leave the holey vinyl chair. As long as I stay in this stupid, shabby little waiting room, I won’t have to talk about anything. Not talking equals not thinking, and not thinking equals not driving myself crazy. Which I think I’ve mostly succeeded in doing this past week and a half, since …

I pull my phone out of my pocket and start scrolling aimlessly through my contacts list. I could text Cassie, or Spike: TRAPPED IN THERAPY. PLS SEND REINFORCEMENTS. Spike, at least, would laugh. Cassie would get that smile she gets whenever I’m joking around and she doesn’t think I’m all that funny.

“Honey, this is for your own good. I think you’ve been getting depressed the last couple of weeks, and Bettie can help you.” My mom reaches out her hand and tilts her head at me with a coaxing smile, like I’m five years old, but her eyes are exhausted and shadowed.

“ Getting depressed?” I say. My attempt at sarcasm only succeeds in eliciting the Stare of Pity . I’m no match for the Stare of Pity, so I give in and swing myself up out of the chair, past my mother, and into the therapist’s office.

Halfway through the door, I hesitate. I wonder if I should talk to her. About all of it. But if hearing voices in my head suddenly means I’m a “troubled teen” or “debilitated by grief … ” I have visions of my arms strapped down in a white straitjacket, a burly orderly standing by with my daily dose of chill pills before I spend the rest of the afternoon watching game-show reruns in the mental asylum rec room.

The worst part is, it doesn’t sound all that bad.

“Sunshine Pryce-Shah! What a great name. Come in . I’m so glad you’re here.” Bettie practically leaps up from her swivel chair and shakes my hand, hard enough to make me flinch. “I have some readings for you about the stages of the grieving process. They’re geared toward adults, but after talking to your mom I think you’re mature enough to handle it.”

I spend ten minutes listening to a spiel about the stages of grief, Bettie’s curly blonde hair bouncing in time with every sentence, and I nod silently when she hands me a list of suggested books from the library.

After that, the questions start. How am I feeling? Is this the first time I’ve lost someone close to me? How do I feel about Shiri? Am I angry? Am I sad? Have I talked to my parents? I want to flee. Instead, I remain monosyllabic, hoping it’ll speed things up and get me out of here. Okay. Yes. I don’t know. Kind of. Yes. No.

There aren’t any windows in Bettie’s office, so I stare at a spot on the wall where the ghastly orange paint is partially scraped off, revealing a gray layer underneath.

Then she says, “I want you to start keeping a journal. I’ve already mentioned to your mother that I think it would really help you.”

I groan, knotting my hands into the bottom of my sweatshirt. This is not exactly a time in my life I want to preserve for posterity. I’m tired of thinking about it. I’ve thought about it over and over and it still doesn’t make any more sense.

“If writing a journal had helped Shiri,” I say, as levelly as I can, “maybe she’d still be around.”

Bettie winces, then sighs. “Just try it,” she says. She takes off her cat’s-eye glasses and cleans the lenses, looking tired. Once again, I consider telling her everything. But if they tell me something’s really wrong, or put me on medication … Shiri was on antidepressant medication, and it didn’t help her. And … what if that’s what made her … change? What if they made her feel different? I read an article online about that, how some antidepressants actually make certain people more depressed. What if they try to give me the same medication? What if I—?

My head is full of my own thoughts, my anxieties. I don’t say anything else.

In the evening, Spike rings the doorbell, ostensibly to drop off history notes from the days I missed. His eyes are sleepy like he just woke up, and his unruly hair is squashed down under an old beanie that he’d never be caught dead wearing at school. He gives me an awkward hug and hands me a giant baggie full of cookies from his mom.