Try Not to Breathe by Jennifer R. Hubbard

room.
    “See, I would go outside if they had eggplants like that in my yard, but it’s just a bunch of boring GRASS that needs to be mowed,” Jake wrote. “I don’t know why the Magnificent One can’t mow it. Just a touch from his golden fingers and the grass would probably mow itself.”
    “Hey, if your brother doesn’t have an Einstein eggplant, he’s not that magnificent.”
    Jake went silent then, for so long I thought he might’ve dropped off. I was about to check when he typed, “What’s it like for you at school?”
    “Not bad,” I wrote, thinking of the way I floated through the halls like an iceberg, people steering around me. “Not great. Not bad.”
    “For me it’s bad.”
    “How’s that?”
    Silence, the cursor blinking on my screen. Then Jake came back on.
    “It was always bad last year. But now I hear EVERYONE knows I was at Patterson.”
    “Well, me too. They knew when I went back in May. So what?”
    “What did they do to you?” he asked.
    “Mostly they stayed away. Like I was carrying Suicide Plague.”
    “I wish they would stay away from me.”
    Before I could answer, he wrote: “The Mom’s yelling at me to get off the computer. See ya.”
    • • • • •

    I sat for a minute, wondering why Jake had asked me about school and what he meant by “bad.” I could imagine fifty thousand shades of bad, fifty thousand ways that school could go wrong. Maybe Patterson should’ve given us all a special course in reentering the world. Not that I knew what they could’ve taught there. They tried to prepare us; they made a “transition plan” for each of us. But maybe there was no way to escape the weirdness, no way around the rumors and stares and sneers—no way except to live through it.
    When my counselor at Patterson had told me I was leaving, the first thing I said was, “I’m not ready.” Even though I’d always said I couldn’t wait to get out of there.
    “You are ready.”
    “But I’m not—I mean, I’m still—” I gave up and started a whole new sentence. “I thought I would feel a lot better than this by the time I left.”
    “You’ll have to continue your medication, and I’m referring you to Elizabeth Briggs for therapy. But you don’t need hospital care anymore. At this point you’ll improve more when you’re back home, living your life again.”
    Now I wondered if they’d told the same thing to Jake. Because sometimes “living your life” was the whole problem.
    A message from Nicki popped up on my computer. Just what I needed.
    “in case you’re wondering i did NOT make it home before the rain. do you believe fake psychic called & said she’d received a message for me from my dad? i didn’t believe her but i had to know what it was. i’m such a sucker. it was some bull about making the most of life & being happy, blah, anyone could’ve made that up. you didn’t do much better when we were at her house & you were trying to channel my dad but at least i give you credit for trying.”
    I didn’t answer her. I thought of her alone, drenched by rain, calling that psychic. Calling, probably, before she’d even dried off. Holding her breath just in case Andrea had something meaningful to say—and the thunk in her stomach when she realized that it was another false alarm. But even thinking of all that, I couldn’t make myself reply to her. I couldn’t get past the burning in my throat, the wall that had come up between us.
    • • • • •

    “Ryan i guess you are still mad at me but i don’t care. go ahead be mad all you want. what do i care.”
    I didn’t answer that one, either.
    • • • • •

    “by the way i’m glad you didn’t kill yourself. now go ahead & go back to being mad at me, i’m kind of mad at you too now.”
    Or that one.
    • • • • •

    I opened the closet, took down the package, and unfolded the paper bag. The draw to touch this bundle was always there, but now it filled my brain, and I wouldn’t be