04 | clinically depressed

The doctor here said that I am clinically depressed. Considering that he got this diagnosis out of a single interview where I neither replied to any of his questions nor made eye contact with him, I’m actually kind of impressed.

I’m not quite sure what that means. Can someone be un-clinically depressed? Or somewhat clinically depressed? Or just depressed?

I now get to wear an orange rubber bracelet with the words “clinically depressed” stamped on it in big black letters. They also moved my room to the wing with all the cutters and anorexics. My room is bigger, but these annoying nurses keep popping in all the time to make sure I’m not trying to kill myself. Once I told the nurse that she didn’t need to worry about me. After all, I’m not in here for trying to kill myself; I’m in here for trying to kill other people. She clapped a hand over her mouth and then yelled for the orderly. They searched my room for murder weapons and made me go talk to that stupid doctor again.

I don’t make jokes anymore.

By “here,” I mean the Valorian State Institute for Psychiatry, where I am currently a patient.

My name is Oceania Greanleefe. I’m thirteen years old. Three weeks ago, I was a student at the Valorian Hill Academy, a private boarding school two hours outside of Valori, the Valorian capital city. But don’t get me wrong. Valorian Hill isn’t one of those snobby private schools you see in teen movies, which are always hyper-religious and make their students wear psychotically ugly uniforms. It’s pretty relaxed. We don’t have a uniform, or even a dress code, and we have a bunch of hipster clubs, like the Anime Club and the Photography Appreciation Club, that they don’t have at other schools. There’s always a few stoners smoking weed behind the gym, and hardly anyone goes to the on-campus chapel.

I say “we” but I should be saying “them,” as I was expelled for stabbing this horrible twit Senchila Welke with a plastic knife from the cafeteria, and so technically I do not belong to any Valorian Hill group and have no business using the pronoun “we.” Old habits die hard, I guess.

I don’t remember much about the stabbing. They had to pull me off her. She was screaming, and there was a lot of blood. I can’t say I cared all that much.

I would like to confirm that I’m not a psychopath. It’s just, you know when you hate someone so much that you don’t even wish for their downfall? Like, you won’t even celebrate their untimely death because they matter so little to you? Well, that’s what I was feeling, a kind of detachment, like it wasn’t even me doing the stabbing. I don’t expect you to understand.

So why did I do it? The answer is…hard to explain, but I’ll try. A pair of blue eyes the exact color of the Valorian sky. Freckled cheeks and scandalously short skirts. And at the bottom of my chest of drawers, a pair of thick blonde braids the color of summer straw.

And maybe those aren’t good enough reasons, but if you’ve ever sat down at your table in the cafeteria and some two-faced bitch sat down across from you, chewing too much gum and talking too loud, and telling you how good it was that she was dead, that she had problems and should have killed herself a long time ago, all the while smiling like a fat cat because she knew exactly how close you and her were, you would have stood up and told that little piece of shit that she didn’t know a damn thing about her, that if she didn’t shut up you’d kill her, and the scary part is, you would have only been half bluffing.

Maybe, when she wouldn’t shut up, your friends would try to pull you away. Mine did. But by that point, you would be too hot and burning with rage, and so you would have picked up the closest thing to you and tried to drive it into her eye.

And if that thing happened to be a knife, so be it, because at least by then she would have shut the hell up.

Yep. I’m good at ruining things.

Naturally there was a big blowup, on account of private schools generally don’t want to give scholarships to kids who have a nasty habit of stabbing their classmates. In fact, they like to make sure those types of children don’t attend their schools, period. And the parents of those kids who get stabbed are generally very interested in prosecuting whatever poor son of a bitch stabbed their precious little daughter.

Which put my stepmom, Isolde, in a really awkward position. She’d just gotten this sweet little deal on Earth, working for the High Lord Cielare, the Centauriian senator to the Federated Union of Sentient Life. You see, newspapers like to write stories about fuck-up royal children. And a story like that could destroy her career. But Isolde is twenty-seven and beautiful and used to getting her way. So she hired this absolute crook of a lawyer, Eddie Billet, to make sure I didn’t go to juvie. Not for me, you understand. It was for the Greanleefe family name.

Isolde is very concerned with what other people think. It’s touching, really, how much our reputations (mine and my brother’s) matter to her. Isolde is the reason that I can play four musical instruments, the reason I dance in a professional company, the reason I have been shuffled through several different exclusive private schools, while my brother, Llenwi, has to slum it in public school.

You see, I didn’t use to be a fuck-up. I used to be a good example. I used to be the kid my stepmom would brag about at parties where she pretended to be richer than she really was, the kid that my brother was always held up to, the kid Isolde used as a shield to pretend that she wasn’t born into this life, that she married up, that her “royal husband” was just a drunk old sot and her “children” were the progeny of a suicidal mother and would never, not ever, replace her own flesh and blood.

Oh yeah, I had problems before I started stabbing people. My dad’s had a drinking problem since before I was born. My mother was the victim of an olive branch gone wrong, a gift to pacify my father’s disgraced family. She took her own life when I was two and Llenwi, my brother, was six. I don’t remember her, but I think he does. He and I have nothing in common. He’s dyslexic and ADD, so he’s never done that well in school, which leads everyone to tell him he’s not as smart as me, which leads him to resent me, and then…the cycle starts all over again, resentment and comparison and excelling and resentment and comparison and excelling.

He’s probably celebrating right now.

Anyway, back to Eddie Billet. We thought my case was pretty hopeless. Worst-case scenario I got a few years in juvie and a criminal record. Best case scenario, I got expelled from Valorian Hill, which would probably prevent me from getting into any Centauriian private school ever again, and get a restraining order, which would require that someone watch me and would still require a court date. Either way, it was a big blot on my record.

But Eddie Billet, in his own criminal way, was kind of a genius. Somehow, he convinced the court that I had emotional problems that resulted from my suicidal mom and my abandonment issues, and I was acting out in the only way I knew how-violence. They really sold it-they brought in a psychiatrist and everything. And the court ate that shit up. The downside was my subsequent expulsion from Valorian Hill and my commitment to the State Institute. So that’s how I got here, anyway. But there’s more to the story than that. Remember the hair in my chest of drawers? It’s not mine-it’s too pretty to be mine. My own hair is this stringy brown mess that gets really greasy really fast. I have brown eyes too, persistent acne, and pasty white skin. I’m very thin for my age, and very tall too, but I have absolutely no curves and I’m flat as a board. Which is good for a dancer, but not for a woman. I don’t even have a period yet, not that I’m dying to get one.

In truth, Isolde, with her green eyes and blonde hair and perfect skin, looks more like a Greanleefe than I ever will.

But back to the story. Her parents sent her to a summer camp that year. For rich kids, very exclusive. She didn’t want to go, but they made her. She promised to text me every day. She kept that promise.

She always did.

But somewhere in the middle of her stay, she took a bunch of pills and decided to end her life.

You wanna know the really fucked-up part? Her parents didn’t know she was dead until they came to pick her up from camp. Two days later, they were both dead, OD’d on the same pills she took.

I knew something was terribly wrong. She wouldn’t have killed herself. Not without calling me first. We had made a promise, sealed into law with our own blood, and that’s not the kind of promise you break.

Of course, the police were no help at all. When they determined the cause of death, they interviewed all of us, her friends, about her. You think one of them would have told the truth. But all everyone kept bringing up was the bad stuff. Like the cuts that ran up her arms like sadistic stripes, or the fact that at the parties she wasn’t supposed to go to, she would drink a bottle of beer before she got on the dance floor. They made it sound like she was some kind of stupid druggie slut. But the cops bought it. They didn’t even put my testimony on record.

I guess you only find out who your real friends are in death, huh, Anni? You were always the one who said how those people were actually really nice, that I was too judgmental and bitter. I think secretly, you knew all along. You always smiled, but you and I both knew no matter how popular you got you could only trust a few people.

And at the funeral-speaking of which, do you have any idea how hard that was for me? To get the phone call that said that my other half, my soul, was gone forever? Do you know I was the only one of our classmates who was actually there? People are very good at being disappointing little shits.

And then your brother came up to me, looking totally pathetic and smelling like alcohol, with snot running down his face and pressed those two long coils of your hair into my hands, said, “Keep them,” and then, “She would have wanted you to have them. She was thinking about getting it cut-” and then he started crying, not movie-tears, but loud messy sobs that sounded like they were coming out of his gut. And I wanted to cry too, to comfort him, to say I knew what he was feeling, but I was still reeling from the shock of that phone call, still not wanting to believe you were gone. And so I was stone-still, and silent, and strange.

I want to know the truth. I want to know why you left me, why you left us all. So I called the police and the security at the camp. I pretended to be a reporter. Only later did I realize my mistake. Cops never want to talk to the press. I tried again. I wanted to know if you left a note. And if you did, I wanted to read it with my own eyes. You were nothing if not methodical. I know there was a note. There had to be. There had to be someone to blame for this whole thing.

Your aunt and uncle believed there was. Your aunt and uncle sued the Valorian police for tampering with the evidence. Oh yeah, your body? It was never taken for burial. It was placed in the state morgue for “examination purposes.” Your aunt and uncle, your parents…they have never seen it. And neither have I, though I’ve tried. I have called the morgue seventeen times. Each time, I am told that your body, which by all rights, anyone can view since it is a public morgue, is “off limits.” The police are hiding something. Something big.

And that something else is what I aim to find out.

You were the only consistent person in my life, Anni. I refuse to believe your death was a cruel trick of fate. I want-no, I need-to know why you did it.

Only then can I get you out of my mind.

••

I received a letter today from one of the orderlies. Isolde has pulled some strings and now I can come out of the institute and join her on Earth. She will send some people for me as soon as possible, which in Isolde-speak means tomorrow.

The doctor is very generous. He is allowing me to go into the city to buy some clothes. I am grateful. All of my old stuff was taken from me when I got in, and I’m not about to fly to Earth in white linen drawstring pants. I can buy whatever I want, provided I stay with my chaperone and if I have “an episode” to return to the institute immediately, no arguing.

The Grand Valorian City is much the same as I remembered it. I was born on Centaurii, but Valorian I will always consider home. It is so clean and sparkling it practically shimmers, and you can see all kinds of people walking around. One day, I want to sit at a subway stop and just watch the people.

But today I do not have time for that. I stopped at one of the thrift stores she always loved. She had impeccable taste, always did, and her clothes were always different and imaginative, and all of us would rush out to copy them, but we never fit into them quite the same as her. If only she could see me now, I think idly.

The place looks more like a warehouse than an actual store, with everything thrown haphazardly on top of crates. I go in, the orderly following behind silently. I shuffle through the mess, but nothing seems right until a little black lace dress that laced up the front. Then chunky black boots with platform heels. In the corner, I find a white white foundation and a red red lipstick, plus black eyeliner. Without thinking, I open up the makeup and smooth it onto my cheeks, my lips, my eyes. When I am finished, an unearthly being stands in front of me-a cool, beautiful alternative girl. The person I was trying to be before I got kicked out.

After the funeral, school started, but it wasn’t like it was before. I kind of assumed the five of us who were left-Jessica, Lauren, Berthie Lou, Sheila, and me-would go on being the most popular girls in school, but that’s not what happened. She had always been our leader, and with her gone, we had little to say to one another. We drifted off our separate ways, Lauren to the jocks, Jessica to the artsy kids, Berthie Lou to the smart kids, and Sheila to the alternative kids.

And me? I hadn’t had much of a group to begin with, so I weighed the options. I wasn’t a hard-core athlete, so joining the jocks was kind of out of the question. I really hated poetry and all that shit, so no go on the artsy kids, either. I had good enough grades to join the smart kids, though, and I liked Berthie Lou okay, so I drifted with her to that crowd.

Boy, was that a mistake. I learned the hard way that nerds can be just as disgusting and toxic as anyone else. So I cut them out and started hanging out with the alternative kids, which was liberating in a way. It was a bigger crowd than I was used to, and though at first they seemed loud and rude and pretentious, I figured out they weren’t that bad, just a little fucked-up and a little confused. Which I could understand. So I assimilated. I smoked my first cig and my first joint. I dyed my hair black. I got two more ear piercings. I drank cheap wine in Sheila’s dorm after midnight. It was something else entirely. And since none of them knew me, I felt free. I didn’t have to put on a face. I could see who I really was. And I liked that person.

The pimply guy working behind the counter comes out. “I hope you’re going to buy that.”

I nod and hand it all over. He bags it silently, tells me how much, and I swipe my card. I have forty eekaks left, enough for one more thing. I grab my bag and cross the street to the hair salon, the orderly hustling to keep up.

Once I get there, I start to feel nervous, even though there’s no reason. I look like a mental patient, in my white linen pants and grey sweater, with my hair all tangled and greasy. Then I remember that I am a mental patient, and I smile. When the stylist, a lady with magenta hair, comes up to me, I am master of myself enough to say, “I want a dye.” My voice sounds strange after so long being out of use.

She looks confused. “All your hair or..?”

“All of it.”

“What color?” she asks.

“Uh…” I haven’t thought about this part, but then I see it on a poster on the wall. The woman throws her pale head back so her hair spills down her back. And what magnificent hair it is! It is red and gold and pink all melded together, as if her hair was just splattered with paint. It is vibrant and tropical and somehow, exactly what I need. “I want that.” I tell her, pointing at it.

To my relief, she looks unfazed. Perhaps it’s popular right now. “That’ll be thirty-five eekaks.”

••

The next morning, I put on my new clothes and run a brush through my new hair, which is even better then it looked in the poster. I put on the makeup, then admire myself in the mirror. The dress was made for someone a little shorter than I am and the shoes for someone with bigger feet, but I don’t care. With my hair and face I practically radiate in this drab white space.

Once I’m done, through force of habit, I try to pack, but then I remember I have no suitcase and nothing except what I’m wearing right now. Then I remember the braids. I have to take those with me, but how?

I seize the plastic bag that held my clothes and put the braids in carefully, then start piling old institute sweaters on top of them. When I am satisfied that you can’t see them underneath, I go to the waiting room, wondering all the while why Isolde has selected this particular arrangement. After all, I might be crazy, but it’s not exactly like I’m on some kind of no-fly list. Ever since I was six or seven I’ve been flying to and from home by myself. Why I need an escort now is beyond me.

It’s a strange system, but people can make a good wage that way, escorting rich minors to and from various planets. I’ve never met one of these people myself, Isolde being too cheap to hire one, so this should at least be interesting.

The woman finally arrives, and I study her closely. She’s wearing a cheap blue polyester pantsuit and her makeup is immaculately done, perhaps to make up for her steel grey hair. Her age is impossible to determine-she could be an older forty-something or a younger sixty-something. She introduces herself as Miss Rochelle. I can already tell she doesn’t like me from the way she looks at my hair.

After some paperwork, I follow Miss Rochelle back to a hotel, which has these long dank hallways that smell vaguely of cigarettes. The room that she leads us to is…well, I’ve never considered myself a snob, but the beds are narrow, the water pressure is dismal, and the bathroom is a most alarming shade of salmon pink.

Not to mention the kids. Miss Rochelle has two kids, or perhaps grandkids. They have grimy faces and smell like garlic sauce, and are wearing unfortunate identical pajamas. (Red, with snowflakes on them.) Their names are Gloriabella Lynne and Esmyliaralda Jane, she tells me. I doubt either of them have ever been to school, and I really doubt they have had all their shots. They have ratty blonde hair and look like walking lice farms. I make a mental note to avoid them.

I plunk my stuff down in the corner, standing over it in case Gloriabella or Esmyliaralda turns out to be a thief. Miss Rochelle then informs me that we are going out for dinner, but that she will not tolerate me looking, in her words, “like a homeless hooker.”

Whoa. Did she just say that? I have never in my life had anyone tell me I look like a hooker. This bitch is just asking for it. “Who are you, my mom? I’ll look however I damn well please, so you can just shut the fuck up. Maybe worry about how your own kids look.”

Miss Rochelle shoots me a withering glare, then barks at the rug rats. “Gloriabella! Esmyliaralda! Give me some of your clothes!”

“But auntie-” they groan. They pronounce it “anty.” I decide that they are retarded.

As they say in some classic book that no one reads unless they have to, there is much weeping and gnashing of the teeth. Or rather, there is a lot of screaming bloody murder. I’m pretty sure my ears are going to bleed because they’ve just taken in an unsafe amount of decibels by the time Miss Rochelle hurls the clothes at me. “If you don’t put these on at once, I am not paying for your dinner.” she snaps. “You may be used to getting your way because you’re related to rich people, but my house, my rules.”

“That’s a damn lie!” I shout, because I can’t think of anything clever to say. I’m suddenly wishing I didn’t spend all my money on my hair. But I have to eat, so reluctantly, I grab the clothes and slam the door to the bathroom.

Once I’m there, I examine my haul. They’re in a green Frankie’s Fast Fashion bag, and I take them out gingerly. There is a pink t-shirt with stencilled designs on it, a grey skirt, white denim jacket, pink beanie, and shapeless brown boots. The beanie has gum stuck in it. I throw it directly in the trash. The skirt is either too short or the shirt is too long. I find it is the latter, for when I tuck it into the skirt and lash the dorky little attached belt as tight as it will go, it still protrudes an inch beneath the skirt. Fuming, I grab safety scissors and trim it to a reasonable length. The jacket, the only acceptable piece of clothing, is too short and too tight under my arms. And the boots reek of unwashed feet and flap around my calves. I look terrible, but at least I get to eat.

We go to a fast food joint where everything is swimming in about a ton of oil. Gloriabella and Esmyliaralda take turns aiming savage kicks at me under the table, apparently not over the loss of their clothes. By the end of the meal, my shins are black and blue, and despite my angry outbursts (“You touch me again, I don’t care if you do have mental problems, I’ll beat your ass!”) and their pleading with their mother (“Mommy, mommy, did you hear what she just said?”) Miss Rochelle remains unmoved.

“You have to find some way to get along, if only for the rest of the trip.” she lectures.

“They’re assaulting me, what do you want me to do, take it lying down? You need to control your animals, lady!” I snap.

“I don’t know how your parents let you talk at home, but when you’re with me, sweetheart, you treat me with respect.” she hisses, swerving the car into the fast lane with rather more force than is necessary as podships zoom overhead.

I don’t get a wink of sleep back at the hotel, because I have to share a bed with those ugly kids, and the relentless kicking continues. I end up trying to sleep on the floor, but it’s hard as rocks and I end up staring at the ceiling waiting for God to put me out of my misery.

The next morning, over stale hotel cake and too-sweet potted fruit, Miss Rochelle grudgingly tells me there’s a package for me. She brings it in, a big massive rectangle immaculately wrapped in pink cupcake-print wrapping paper.

The sight of it proves too much for Gloriabella and Esmyliaralda, who as soon as they clap eyes on it, dive for it. Miss Rochelle snatches the poor thing out of the way just in time, and a screaming match ensues. In the chaos, I manage to grab it and flee for the bathroom, whose door I bolt as I tear into it eagerly. It’s a nice red suitcase, better than my own battered purple one, brand new. And inside is a soft pink skirt and glittery shirt, with the silhouette of a familiar building on it-the Eiffel Tower. Perhaps I will see it when I go to Earth, I think excitedly. There’s a smart blue coat, grey shoes, a stupid little hat, and best of all, a box of cookies, plus a handwritten note.

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I smile, not knowing how best to express my gratitude for this Candie. I’m imagining a sexy, intriguing blonde, someone with excellent taste. A real hero.

••

The next day, I have the satisfaction of throwing Gloriabella and Esmyliaralda’s clothes back at them as I parade around in Candie’s gifts. They practically wet themselves with envy. True, they’re definitely not what I would have picked, but they’re clean and they fit and the coat is long enough to cover the ugly pink skirt.

I hide the hair under the clothes I bought from the thrift shop, which I carefully pack away in my suitcase. I forgo breakfast and lunch in favor of cookies, and when we finally board the ship I’m feeling slightly sick. As we rise up from Valorian soil I feel sicker, and finally throw up all the macaroons. The ship has an observation deck, which passengers can visit if they choose, but I am too sick to try it and spend most of the two days that it takes to make the journey huddled up in our cabin. The kids and Miss Rochelle have no sympathy at all.

When we finally stagger from the ship onto New Rastabaria Spaceport, I’m shivering with fever and exhausted from the gravity difference and two-day lag. The kids kick me all the way through our cab ride, and I arrive on Earth feeling and looking like hell.