When it’s my turn, I introduce myself as Josh Raymond, seventeen, no previous experience beyond my recent halfhearted experiment with sleeping pills. “The Jovian-Plutonian gravitational effect is life,” I add, even though no one knows what this means.

At that moment the door opens and someone runs in, letting the cold air in with her. She is hatted and scarved and mittened up tightly, unwrapping herself like a mummy as she finds her seat. We all turn and Demetrius smiles a comforting smile. “Come in, no worries, we’re just getting started.”

The mummy sits down, losing the scarf, mittens, and hat. She turns away from me, blond ponytail swinging, as she hooks her purse strap over her chair. She settles back, smoothing the loose strands of hair off her cheeks, which are pink from the cold, and leaves her coat on. “I’m sorry,” Amanda Monk mouths at Demetrius, at the table. When her eyes get around to me, her face goes completely and immediately blank.

Demetrius nods at her. “Rachel, why don’t you go ahead?”

Amanda, as Rachel, avoids looking at me. In a wooden voice, she recites, “I’m Rachel, I’m seventeen, I’m bulimic, and I tried to kill myself twice, both times with pills. I hide myself away with smiles and gossip. I am not happy at all. My mother is making me come here. Secrecy is life.” She says this last line to me and then looks away.

The others take their turns, and by the time we get all the way around, it’s clear I am the only one here who hasn’t tried to really and truly kill himself. It makes me feel superior, even though it shouldn’t, and I can’t help thinking, When I actually try, I’m not going to miss. Even Demetrius has a story. These people are here and trying to get help and they’re alive, after all.

But the whole thing is heartbreaking. Between thoughts of bone char, and stories of wrist cutting and hangings, and bitchy Amanda Monk with her little pointed chin jutted out, so exposed and scared, I want to put my head on the table and let the Long Drop just come. I want to get away from these kids who never did anything to anyone except be born with different brains and different wiring, and from the people who aren’t here to eat these bone char cookies and share their tales, and the ones who didn’t make it and never had a chance. I want to get away from the stigma they all clearly feel just because they have an illness of the mind as opposed to, say, an illness of the lungs or blood. I want to get away from all the labels. “I’m OCD,” “I’m depressed,” “I’m a cutter,” they say, like these are the things that define them. One poor bastard is ADHD, OCD, BPD, bipolar, and on top of it all has some sort of anxiety disorder. I don’t even know what BPD stands for. I’m the only one who is just Theodore Finch.

A girl with a fat black braid and glasses says, “My sister died of leukemia, and you should have seen the flowers and the sympathy.” She holds up her wrists, and even across the table I can see the scars. “But when I nearly died, no flowers were sent, no casseroles were baked. I was selfish and crazy for wasting my life when my sister had hers taken away.”

This makes me think of Eleanor Markey, and then Demetrius talks about medicines that are out there and helpful, and everyone volunteers the names of the drugs that are helping them get through. A boy at the other end of the table says the only thing he hates is feeling like everyone else. “Don’t get me wrong—I’d rather be here than dead—but sometimes I feel that everything that, like, makes me up has gone away.”

I stop listening after that.

When it’s over, Demetrius asks me what I thought, and I tell him it was eye-opening and enlightening and other things along those lines to make him feel good about the work he is doing, and then I chase down Amanda, as Rachel, in the parking lot before she can run away. “I’m not going to say anything to anyone.”

“You better not. I’m so serious.” Her eyes are wild, her face flushed.

“If I do, you can just tell them I’m a freak. They’ll believe you. They’ll think I’m just making shit up. Besides, I was expelled, remember?” She looks away. “So do you still think about it?”

“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here.” She looks up. “What about you? Were you really going to jump off the bell tower before Violet talked you down?”

“Yes and no.”

“Why do you do that? Don’t you get tired of people talking about you?”

“Including you?”

She goes quiet.

“I do it because it reminds me to be here, that I’m still here and I have a say in the matter.”

She puts one leg in the car and says, “I guess now you know you’re not the only freak.” It’s the nicest thing she’s ever said to me.

VIOLET

March 18

I don’t hear from Finch for a day, then two days, then three days. By the time I get home from school on Wednesday, it’s snowing. The roads are white, and I’ve wiped out a half dozen times on Leroy. I find my mom in her office and ask if I can borrow her car.

It takes her a moment to find her voice. “Where are you going?”

“To Shelby’s house.” Shelby Padgett lives on the other side of town. I’m amazed at how easily the words come out of my mouth. I act like the fact that I’m asking if I can drive her car, when I haven’t driven in a year, is no big deal, but my mom is staring at me. She continues to stare as she hands me her keys and follows me to the door and down the sidewalk. And then I can see that she’s not just staring, she’s crying.

“I’m sorry,” she says, wiping at her eyes. “We just weren’t sure … we didn’t know if we’d ever see you drive again. The accident changed a lot of things and it took a lot of things. Not that driving, in the great scheme of life, is so important, but you shouldn’t have to think twice about it at your age, except to be careful.…”

She’s kind of babbling, but she looks happy, which only makes me feel worse about lying to her. I hug her before climbing in behind the wheel. I wave and smile and start the engine and say out loud, “Okay.” I pull away slowly, still waving and smiling but wondering what in the hell I think I’m doing.

I’m shaky at first because it’s been so long and I wasn’t sure I’d ever drive again either. I jerk myself black and blue because I keep hitting the brakes. But then I think of Eleanor beside me, letting me drive home after I got my license. You can drive me everywhere now, little sister. You’ll be my chauffeur. I’ll sit in the back, put my feet up, and just enjoy the view.