“You’re lucky you didn’t get detention, Lenzi,” Mom said on the way out of the counselor’s office. “Running out of class without permission and locking yourself in the bathroom. That’s not like you. Has something happened?”
All the way to the car I wanted to tell her—I really did, but I couldn’t do it; it would break her heart, just like it was breaking mine. My chest ached when I thought of what she’d been through and what she might have to go through again.
Sliding into the car, I rolled a hair band off my wrist and pulled my hair back in a ponytail. “I didn’t lock the door. It just got stuck or something.”
Mom pulled her sunglasses case out of her purse. “The counselor said you were screaming.”
Tightening the hair band one more twist, I grimaced when my fingers brushed the lump on the back of my head. “Yeah, it scared me when the door wouldn’t open.”
She shoved the glasses case back in her purse and turned in her seat to face me. “Do you want to talk to somebody, Lenzi? Dr. Alexander said you could see her anytime.”
Not this again
. I leaned over, pretending to search for something in the outside pocket of my backpack. Right now I wasn’t up to an argument. Imagined or not, the episode in the bathroom with the invisible bogeyman—no, bogey
baby
—had taken all the fight out of me. I was going crazy.
I snapped the seat belt, leaned my seat back, and closed my eyes.
Like flickering snapshots, images of the cemetery in Galveston where Dad was buried flashed through my head. I opened my eyes, and they stopped.
Mom stared at me, her hand on the keys in the ignition. “Are you okay, Lenzi?”
“Yeah, I’m fine, Mom. I just want to get home and shower before Zak takes me out for my birthday.”
She started the car. “I’m sorry I have to work tonight, Lenzi. I’ll make it up to you next weekend.”
“It’s fine, Mom. Really.” And it was. This was my first birthday without Dad, and hanging out with Zak would make it easier.
I closed my eyes again, and the images flickered.
The gate to the cemetery; the marker on Dad’s grave; a tall Celtic cross; a marble angel with a cracked face; a tall, thin guy. The guy was smiling. I liked him. I missed him.
With a gasp, I opened my eyes.
Mom was staring straight ahead, concentrating on the road.
I was losing my mind—no doubt about it. First the voices, and now I was having some kind of hallucinations. My dad had given me a gift this year after all: his schizophrenia.
“Happy birthday, Lenzi,” I whispered under my breath.
TWO
A
t my request, Zak canceled our dinner reservation and picked up sandwiches from my favorite deli. A picnic on my living room floor was the perfect birthday party. Especially with the day I’d had.
“How about a spot under this magnificent oak tree?” he said, gesturing to the support beam across the ceiling. He flipped a blanket in the air, spreading it over the wood floor. “Perfect amount of shade.”
I sat cross-legged on the corner of the blanket while he pulled a sandwich out of the bag, unwrapped it, and peeked inside. “Pastrami for me.” He pulled another out. “And roast beef for the lady.”
I removed my sandwich from the paper wrapper and set it on a napkin. “Thanks for keeping tonight low-key.”
“Wanna talk about it?” He popped the top of a Coke and set it next to my knee.
I took a bite and shook my head. He knew I’d been hearing a static buzz for a few days, but the voice thing was different. I wasn’t ready to tell him yet.
He shrugged and went to work on his food.
The sandwich wrapper was my favorite texture. Thin and pliable, but stiff enough to hold creases. I closed my eyes and made a fold, then the cross-fold. My fingers slid across the waxy surface as if of their own accord. Folding over, folding under, then a tuck inside a previous pleat. Every piece of paper had its own personality and dictated its shape. This wrapper was a flower. Another petal materialized. I could feel my stress transferring into the hard folds, and I began to relax. The creation of beauty from something formless. I opened my eyes to find Zak smiling. I couldn’t help but grin back.
“You do that a lot.” He nodded to my hands. “Make stuff out of paper.”
I rotated the flower in my hand and folded another petal. “It calms me down. I started doing it when I was twelve, when Dad was hospitalized for the first time.”
He popped a couple of chips into his mouth, watching me tuck in the folds of another petal. “So did someone teach you, or did you learn it online or from a book or something?”
I bent the tip of a center petal to curve it. “No. I kind of figured it out on my own, I guess.”
“Help me, please, ”
the child’s voice cried from right next to me.
I jumped to my feet and backed away, hand over mouth, heart hammering.
Zak was at my side immediately. “What is it, Lenzi?” He placed his hands on my shoulders. “Lenzi?”
“It’s, um . . .”
“I need your help.”
Not again. I looked in the direction of the voice. “I can’t help you.”
Zak gave me a little shake. “You okay, babe? Who’re you talking to?”
The tears welling in my eyes stung and blurred my vision as the child’s sobbing faded to silence.
“Lenzi!” He held my face in his hands. “Lenzi, look at me.”
I couldn’t bring myself to meet his eyes in case he was giving me the you’re-a-crazy-person look, so instead, I wrapped my arms around him and crushed my body to his, feeling safer near his size and warmth.
“It’s not just noise in my head anymore,” I whispered against his chest. “Now I’m hearing voices. Just like Dad.”
I could barely hear him over my sobs. Hearing voices was terrifying, but losing Zak would be worse. He was the only thing anchoring me to reality.
“Shhh,” he whispered into my hair. “Hey. ’S gonna be okay. You’re not your dad.” He rubbed his hands up and down my spine and kissed the top of my head while I caught my breath. “You’re not your dad, Lenzi. You listening? You’re not any more like him than I’m like my old man. And I’m not a cokehead, right?”
I nodded, still unable to look him in the eye. I focused on the tingly trail his hands were leaving on my back rather than the churning dread in my chest. Telling him about the voices didn’t make me feel better. It just made my worst fear seem more real.
He stopped rubbing my back and leaned down to look at me, smoothing my hair away from my face. “I have a present for you.”
We’d agreed he wouldn’t get me a present. He was struggling to pay his bills and community college tuition, so we’d decided dinner was enough. But before I could protest, he put his finger to my lips. “Nuh-uh. I didn’t pay for anything. I made it myself.”
He took my hand and led me to the sofa. “Sit here, and I’ll be right back.” He flashed a grin, dimples and all, and disappeared through the front door, returning in moments with his guitar case. He snapped it open, pulled out his guitar, and sat on the coffee table in front of me. “Ready?” he asked, tuning it.
I leaned back and took a deep breath. Maybe he was right. Maybe I wasn’t like Dad. I nodded and smiled.
I could sort of play the guitar, but Zak was a fantastic musician. He was especially good at Spanish classical, which I couldn’t play at all. Dad could a little bit, but not like Zak. I watched in amazement as his fingers flew over the strings, creating a complex, bittersweet tune. Within only a few measures, I found myself breathing in time with the rhythm, heart in sync with the melody line. The song built, and by the end, I was completely engrossed, almost out of breath when the vibrations of the last chord stopped humming through the wood of his guitar.
“Wow,” was all I could manage.
Zak smiled and set his guitar in the case. “You like it?”
“Love it. You just made that up?”
He straightened and ran his hands through his thick hair. “Not just now. I’ve been working on it for a while.”
It was the best gift ever—enough to almost make me forget the rotten day I’d had. “That was amazing. Thank you.”
“I credit my inspiration.” He sat back down on the coffee table. “You do that to me, you know—make me better than I really am.” My heart skipped a beat when he knelt in front of me, placing his hands on my thighs. The heat from his palms seeped through my jeans and radiated through my body, making me melt into the sofa cushion. “Glad you liked it.” He threaded his fingers through my hair at the back of my neck and pulled me to him. His lips were as warm as his hands. “Happy birthday, babe.”
I closed my eyes as he deepened the kiss. Immediately, the images I’d seen in the car ran through my head. They were like vivid memories playing over and over, only other than Dad’s tombstone, I didn’t recall ever seeing any of these things in real life. When the guy flashed through my brain, there was a strange constriction in my chest, like I’d lost something and I needed to find it. I jerked my eyes open.
Zak stilled and stared at me. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
He got up, placed his guitar in the case, and snapped it shut. “Talk to me, Lenzi. We don’t keep secrets from each other. What’s going on?”
I couldn’t answer. It was bad enough I was hearing voices. If I told him I was seeing things, he might tell my mom. Or worse, he might give up on me. I couldn’t bear that.
I’d lost all my friends when Dad flipped out, so I didn’t really mind it when we had to move to Galveston to be closer to the hospital. We hadn’t even finished unpacking when he died. Right after the funeral, Mom and I moved back to Houston. Zak had been through some hard times himself, so he accepted me as I was. I didn’t have to pretend or cover up my past. But hallucinations might be a deal breaker.
“I just miss Dad,” I said, which was true. “This is my first birthday since he died.” I laced my fingers together to keep from fidgeting.
Hands on hips, he studied me. “You sure you’re okay? You’re acting strange.” He sat down next to me and pulled my hands into his lap.
“I’m fine,” I said. “I’ve just been super edgy all day.”
He squeezed my fingers. “Did that Xanax you took yesterday make the noises stop?”
I folded my legs under me and shifted to face him. “Yeah.”
“Have you tried it on the voices?”
“No.”
“Do you have any more?”
I nodded. “There’s still more than half a bottle left in my mom’s medicine cabinet.” Mom had pretty much popped them like candy during Dad’s last hospital stay, but she hadn’t taken any since the move. He let go of my hands and followed me up the stairs to the bathroom I shared with her. At the back of the medicine cabinet, I found the prescription bottle of Xanax. “Use as directed for anxiety,” the label said.
I’d do anything to shut Bogeybaby up. I bit one of the long, white pills on the first score line, stuck my mouth under the sink faucet, and swallowed the quarter of it. Zak took the remainder from me and dropped it into the bottle with the other pills, then handed them to me. “Keep these close, Lenzi, in case it happens again.” He brushed my hair behind my shoulder. “Let’s hope it doesn’t. I’m worried about you.” He wrapped me in his arms and stroked my hair.
I was worried too. The images added a whole new layer of crazy. I closed my eyes to see if it would happen again. Right away, the graveyard images began. I needed to go there.
“Zak,” I said, “will you help me? There’s something I have to do.”
THREE
T
he cemetery was locked up tight with a chain strung through the wrought-iron gate and secured with a rusty padlock. The peeling paint on the sign at the entrance read GATES CLOSE AT DARK. NO TRESPASSING.
After passing me his guitar case through the bars, Zak handed me my dad’s and hoisted his leg over the gate. When he dropped next to me, his boots crunched as he hit the gravel. He unscrewed the top on his bottle of Jack Daniels and took a swig while I sent Mom a text message telling her I was out with Zak and would be home late.
The Xanax had made the voice in my head go away, but not the constant noise that sounded like static on an out-of-tune radio. I wondered why the pill had worked on the static yesterday, but not today.
“I’m happy we’re here if it makes you feel better,” Zak said, taking his guitar from me, “but I can’t believe this is how you want to spend your birthday.”
I couldn’t believe it either, honestly, but something in me
had
to come here.
The cemetery was in a rough part of town, so I’d never been here at night. I didn’t know what scared me more—the overall creepiness of the place, the prospect of being busted at any minute by the police for entering the closed cemetery, or the fact that Zak had opened a bottle of Jack Daniels when he crossed the causeway bridge and had been drinking ever since.