Chapter 11

I always wonder if I knew something was going to be different about her. If that’s why I kind of shut off the first time I met stooph. Like it was genetically programmed for us to have to suffer together. Or for me to suffer because of her.

It was in the White House, on 200 E. She came in wearing a head wrap, with her nephew Ethan. She loves children. She loves people. To be honest, I don’t remember what her hair looked like at that point. I think it was auburn. Short.

You see, Stooph is one of those people who can get away with anything. She would wear a green polka dot shirt over a purple striped skirt and blue boots, with a camouflage bandana on her head. And no one questioned it. She was one of those people who swore casually, and did what she wanted. She did everything she wanted to do. For some reason, her car was significant; a ghetto old Volkswagen Cabriolet convertible that complained whenever you went over 15 miles an hour in it. We put the top down for the first time in march of that year. Went to sonic. Got slushies. We took pictures of everything we did. Somehow we knew it would be significant.

We met the Russians that summer; we were in our little white house, and they were outside, shirtless and smoking. So eastern European. As Grace stood in the window, I whistled. When they looked, it was her they saw and not me.

Stooph, I can to drive your car? Dima asked, slurring his words.

No.

Why not?

Because you don’t have an international driver’s license. And you’re drunk.

And?

They were so stereotypically eastern. They would drink more vodka than water, swear in Russian, and hit on anything that moved. Especially Adrian.

Leah, I want to be your boyfriend.

I know Adrian.

The only thing that got him away from me was Katie, another voluptuous American girl who captured his short attention span and held it for a few weeks.

Leah, you can to lift your skirt so I can see your legs a little, yes?

NO Adrian.

It was with them that Stooph started drinking again. One night, Adrian came to her window – on the back porch, by the swamp cooler. He was giving her a bottle of rum. Malibu. I accidentally walked in on it.

As it became more and more casual, I felt less and less in control. Every morning – get up, go to work, go to school, come home, sleep, homework, drink with the Russians (everyone except for me), go to bed while they’re still at it. I remember the day I came home at 3pm and Stooph was sitting alone on the couch with one of the big green cups. I could smell what it was as soon as I entered the room. I should have known at that point. I should have known what it all pointed to.

I never really payed attention to the many prescription bottles on her desk. Or that she had good days and bad days. That sometimes she would sleep for over 24 hours. I wonder if inside I knew, but I didn’t say anything. If part of me thought that ignoring it would make it go away.

I remember that weekend. Something felt different. Joey, Jason, Katie, Stooph and I were hanging out at the pool in Roman Gardens. Eric and Angela were there too. They’re married now. Have a baby. We ordered pizza from Nico Italiano. I payed for it. We were all swimming, having a good time. Provo was hot. So hot that our malfunctioning swamp cooler had to be filled up at least twice a night. It would electrocute you every time.

I remember I was wearing my underwear that had a plate pattern on it. I don’t know why.

Stooph went home early that night. She said she didn’t feel good. I wore Joey’s shirt as we chilled in his apartment. 103. I should have gone home with her.

I went home late. 2 or 3 in the morning. I stumbled in through the back door, which we never locked, and found my way to what used to be Grace’s bed. It was now my borrowed haven. I was late to church the next day; no one really noticed. No one ever did. It wasn’t strange or out of the ordinary that Stooph didn’t go. Sitting alone was not very fun, but I remember feeling edgy in the back of the room with my Auburn hair and dark eyeliner. I felt different. Like no one would understand me. But in a complex, good way.

It wasn’t even strange that she wasn’t awake when I came home. I did what I always did on Sundays; nap, food, and then down the street to will’s to play some Wii with the usual gang.

It was weird that she was still asleep that night when I came home. That she was on the ground instead of her bed. But I didn’t want to intrude on her personal life; she had made it clear over the months that she didn’t like to talk about herself.

Why didn’t you tell us?

I hate birthdays, she answered. Can we talk about something else?

Or what about the marks all up and down her arms? I remember coloring over them with permanent marker. Coloring over her tattoos so that her sister wouldn’t see them when she went swimming. Sometimes the marks were fresher. I wondered if they hurt. And if they did, how bad.

The next morning, I woke up late for work. I had 15 minutes to get ready and get there. I didn’t even check on her. It was Monday. It was hot. Work was mundane, I don’t actually remember anything about it. I remember going to Russian class afterward, and hearing someone give a presentation on Rasputin. I remember going home and taking a nap. I woke up at around 7; I went in to check on her.

This time, there was something different. The air was still, ominous. It wasn’t the still of a summer afternoon, or the still of midnight. It was the still of death. Of a life, slipping away. The kind of still that slows your heart and catches your attention at the same time. The kind of still I never want to feel again. I approached her. There was water spilled all over her bed- the empty cup was on the floor. The water I had brought her 2 days ago. She wasn’t moving at all. I called her name, shook her, and then opened her eye.

I will never forget what it looked like when all I saw staring back at me was a black void. No color. No soul. I think she was dying at that point. It makes my stomach lurch to think of those eyes, entirely pupil. Suffering silently, while I was a room away. Sleeping soundly as one of my best friend’s lives slipped away. Going about my daily routine with my daily poor attitude as she lay, quietly and slowly dying just a few feet from me.

It’s the only time in my life when I heard a voice tell me what to do. Probably a good thing, because at that point, I think I would have just stood there. As Gretchen wieners, our guinea pig with pink fur, squeaked in her own filth from behind me, I heard it. Clear as noon day. Loud as a siren.

Now.

There are only two times in my life when fight or flight took over to the point where I didn’t know what I was doing; this was the first.

And I ran.

I ran out the back door and down the steps. Through the parking lot and around the side of the house. When I rounded the corner and sprinted down the sidewalk, my rubber sandal caught on the pavement lifted up by the walnut tree in front of the house. I tripped, and hit the sidewalk chin first. My hand came slamming down, and the fingernail of my right pointer caught on something. It came ripping upward. I got up and took off, faster than before. Not even caring that blood was bubbling up and seeping out from underneath the fingernail. That I had ripped my sandal and it was flopping awkwardly to one side.

Our FHE brothers lived across the street in a small apartment building. I ran up the two flights of stairs and burst in without knocking.

Oh hey. They saluted my casually, as if life weren’t hanging by a thread. Chris was the one who noticed.

What’s wrong?

Help. It was a voice I didn’t recognize as my own. It was the voice of a scared child. Raspy and panicked.

What’s wrong? This time with more urgency.

Help. Then I started running again. 3 of them followed me.

They lifted her limp body into my car, and had to rearrange her arms three times so that they wouldn’t flop out. One of them was in the front seat with me; I don’t know which one. We pulled up to the emergency room. I don’t actually remember the drive there. I got out and ran to the front desk. Told them someone was unconscious in my car. When they came out, I thought it was all over. It’s always all over once the doctors are there, right?

Wrong.

They rubbed her sternum, hard. Just like they did to me when I fainted. It woke me up instantly.

But she didn’t wake up.

Then they started to yell out cryptic things that I didn’t understand. Next thing I knew I was sitting in a family consult room by myself. I called Jake. Kathryn. Jake again. Kathryn again. Katie. Joey. Jason. No one was picking up. So I just sat. After a while, Kathryn called back. I told her where I was. She and Jake came. Eventually they all came. And there we sat, the most haphazard looking family. Me, redheaded and dazed, bleeding from random places. Jake and Kathryn, married for less than 2 months. Joey, the artistic pianist with a birth defect that made his right hand smaller. Katie, with her new tattoos. Scabbing over on her ribs. Hair school. And Jason, 13, and way too young to be dealing with these kinds of things.

We should have known when a social worker came in. To be honest, there were a lot of moments in which we should have known. He asked us to go back to the apartment, and bring any bottles of medicine we could find. They needed to know what she had taken. I think Kathryn and I went. She was scooping the endless bottles of antidepressants, pain medications and anxiety pills into her oversize purse when I dropped to my knees and looked under the bed.

An empty bottle of vodka.

An empty bottle of Tylenol.

And a piece of construction paper, written on with crayon.

Dear mom and dad.

I folded it and put it in an envelope. Kathryn and I didn’t say anything. We just got back in the car and went back to the hospital. I didn’t cry.

They told us a mountain of things. They told us what was happening. I don’t remember any of it.

Just that they let us see her. She was attached to endless tubes, lines, needles. She had a breathing tube down her throat. But you know what I remember most? Her swatch watch was waving around as she unconsciously pulled at the apparati to which she was connected. She was on the verge of death and yet she was still fighting so that others wouldn’t control her.

None of us slept that night. We read scriptures. Katie had flashbacks. Jason cried. I went for walks. The news kept getting worse and worse. Life flighted to salt lake. Liver transplant. Pulling the plug. If they couldn’t find a liver, that would be the end of her. It felt so odd to pray for an organ so that stooph could live, knowing that getting it would mean that someone else died.

The next few days were a blur. I remember my phone dying because so many people were calling me to talk about it. It felt so unfair, knowing that I was the one who found her, and they were leaning on ME for support. I hated them all at that point.

But not nearly as much as I hated myself. Hated myself for not noticing that something For living within inches of her, and just completely overlooking what was going on right under the surface. My eyes as clear and sightless as spider’s eggs. She suffered alone, when I was right next to her.

I’ve been alone when I’m surrounded by friends

How can the darkness be so loud?

When he spoke next to me in group, I wondered if he was voicing all the silent pain she felt. Just hearing him talk would break my heart. Sometimes I can’t even get out of bed, he would say. Sometimes, he would just look at the ground. Too heartbroken to cry. To lonely to speak.

She seemed so okay, at times.

My dad came up to get me. I was supposed to be moving home, preparing to go on a mission. My mission call was due any day. He tried to pack my car all orderly, his inner mechanical engineer bursting forward as tightly packed crevices. Everything has its place, he said. As time went on, I started taking things and just shoving it anywhere it would go. He told me I was being haphazard. That a job worth doing was worth doing well. I told him that at least my trunk matched how I felt inside; torn apart. Disorganized. Like nothing had a place anymore. My brain where my spleen should be. My heart where my bladder should be. Lungs instead of kidneys.

To be honest, the next few weeks were like everything was back to normal. I went shopping with my mom. Went to Disneyland. Hung out as if one of my friends hadn’t just tried to end her life. As if I could forget the stare of her black eyes. As if she were conscious.

And then, I was gone. Shoved into a male dominated world where people cared little and listened less. Where they saw me as proud, strong, and independent. Where I stopped screaming and started whimpering. I was beaten, ripped, and forced into a tiny little box, where I stayed for months, until the end of Armenia.

All I ever thought of was her. I would have moments, with Anna, when I would forget the searing hot pain of guilt. Of almost letting her die. With Sister Smith it was constant. She kept reminding me. In the end, it was what drove me home. A need to take care of the trauma from which I never healed. My last morning in country, I dressed as usual. All black. I braided my hair and went to the airport with President Dunn. I remember walking away from him. Forcing one foot in front of the other, when all I wanted to do was turn on my heel and run back to him. Have him tell me it was going to be all right.

He would have been lying.