“If you’re all alone on the island, you won’t have anyone there who loves you,” he said.
“I think I’ll survive somehow,” I told him.
“Don’t you ever want to be in love?” he said.
I knew where he was going with that. Allie again. Man, he doesn’t give up. I guess he thinks one of these days I won’t realize what he’s doing and spill the beans. Here’s a clue, Cat Poop: There are no beans.
“What’s love, anyway?” I said. “I think it’s just something greeting-card makers made up and try to get us to believe in. Between you and me, I’d rather have an Xbox.”
Thankfully, my time was up right about then, and I escaped back to the ward, where it’s mostly safe. Rankin being the exception. But I haven’t seen him. He’s probably in his room reading
Later on I told Sadie about my session with Cat Poop. “What’s his obsession with love?” I asked her.
“I don’t know,” Sadie said. “But I think love is really important.”
I thought for a minute that she was messing with me. Then she looked around, like she was making sure no one was listening, and whispered, “Want to see something?”
She didn’t wait for me to answer. Instead, she dug around in her pocket and pulled something out. It was a piece of paper. She unfolded it and handed it to me.
It was a newspaper clipping. The headline was hero rescues girl from watery grave. I looked at Sadie. “This is about you,” I said.
She nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “I cut it out and kept it. I have a lot more at home. Sort of a suicide scrapbook. But this one’s my favorite.”
Alongside the article was a picture of a man. He had a round, happy face and bright blue eyes. He was going bald, and he had a thick moustache.
“That’s Sam,” Sadie said, seeing me looking at the picture.
“The one who saved you?” I asked her.
She nodded. “My guardian angel.”
At first I thought she was making a joke, but when I looked at her face, I knew she wasn’t. She was staring at the picture of Sam like it was a picture of Jesus or something. It creeped me out a little.
“Doesn’t it make you depressed reading this over and over?” I asked her.
“No,” said Sadie, sounding surprised that I would even ask. “It makes me happy.” She brought her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. “It makes me feel loved,” she said. “He loved me enough to save me.”
I followed her eyes to the picture of Sam. Did she really believe he loved her? He didn’t even know her when he went in after her. She was just someone who needed saving. She was acting like he was her father, or her boyfriend.
I folded up the article again and handed it to her. Before she put it back in her pocket, she kissed it, like it was a magic charm or something.
I still can’t believe she keeps that thing. It’s kind of crazy when you think about it. And I don’t understand why she thinks that guy—Sam—loves her. I mean, he was just doing the right thing. I think most people would jump in and try to help someone who was drowning.
Or maybe not. Maybe some people would just stand there and watch. I guess that’s why Sadie thinks this guy is so special. But it’s still weird that she’s all in love with him. I’m not sure who’s crazier, her or Rankin. Right now I’d say it’s a tie.
Day 31
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? Just one. It can be anything—a physical thing you wish you had or didn’t have, a talent you’d like to have, anything. But you only get one.
That was the question we talked about in group today. You’d think that we all would have picked something to do with why we’re here. But mostly we didn’t. Juliet said she wished she could play the cello, because she’d like to be able to make people feel the way she does when she hears someone play. Sadie said she wished she could talk to dead people. Rankin said he wished he could throw a perfect spiral pass. And I said I wished I wasn’t afraid of heights.
Later, in my one-on-one, Cat Poop asked me if I’d noticed anything different about what I’d said compared to what everyone else said. I thought for a minute but couldn’t come up with anything.
“You were the only one who said you wanted to get rid of something,” he told me. “Everyone else wanted to add something to themselves, but you wanted to give something up. Why did you say you’d like to get rid of your fear of heights?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “It was just the first thing that came to me.”
It’s true, too. I am afraid of heights. I don’t even like going up in elevators past about six floors.
“What about that fear makes it the one thing you want to get rid of?” Cat Poop asked me.
I had to think about that for a while. Finally I said, “I guess because it keeps me from doing things I’d like to do.”
He asked me what kinds of things, and I told him I’ve always wanted to try skydiving, or maybe even bungee jumping. “But I’m afraid of heights,” I said. “So I can’t.”
“What is it about heights that you’re afraid of?” he asked me.
What a dumb question. Falling, of course. I’m afraid of falling. That’s probably why I dream about it a lot. Actually, what I said to the doc was that I’m afraid that suddenly I’ll have this uncontrollable urge to climb up on the railing of the bridge or run to the edge of the cliff or whatever and just throw myself off before anyone can stop me.
Cat Poop wrote something on his pad, which by now we all know means I’ve said something he thinks is interesting. This time I asked him why he thought my answer was worth writing down. Since it’s my life he’s dissecting, I figured I had the right to know.
“Why do you think you have this urge to jump?” he said, instead of answering my question.
“I guess because sometimes it’s nice to lose control,” I said after I’d thought about it. “I feel like I’m always trying to keep control of my life. Sometimes I’d like to be able to just let go and fall.”
“Even if it means you might get hurt?” he said.
“I don’t think about that,” I answered. “I just think about the falling, with no parachute or net or anything to catch me. I just think about falling, and it scares me.”
“How about falling in love?” he said. “Are you afraid of that?”
What, is love like the topic of the month around here or something? It sure didn’t take him long to get back to that subject. “I’m only fifteen,” I said.
“A lot of people fall in love for the first time around your age,” said Cat Poop.
“Why do you want to know?” I said. “Do you have a daughter you want to introduce me to or something?”
He pushed his glasses up his nose. “No,” he said. “I don’t.”
“What if you did?” I asked him. “Would you want her to date a guy like me?”
“That’s impossible to answer,” Cat Poop said. “I don’t have a daughter, so I don’t know how I would feel about her dating anyone. It’s purely hypothetical.”
“Well, purely hypothetically,” I said. “Would you want her to date someone like me? Someone who’d been in a place like this?”
Cat Poop scribbled something on his pad. “Are you afraid people won’t want to date you because you’ve been in here?” he asked me.
“I asked you first,” I said.
We stared at each other for a while. I guess we were having another game of Psycho Chicken. Anyway, Cat Poop blinked first this time. “I would want my daughter to date the person who made her the happiest,” he said.
