What time is it?  I rub my head as I sit up in bed, staring at my old alarm clock sitting on the floor next to my desk.  It says nothing; the screen is completely black.  Of course my alarm clock finally decided to die.  Well, it had a nice, full life, resurrected from the dead a few times by the apartment repairman, having sipped from the fountain of youth quite a bit by way of “enhancing parts” (Gerry Tomlin, the repairman).

Ms. Bakerfield suddenly springs into my room like an old, demented jack-in-the-box, scaring me completely out of my wits.  As my breathing slows, I can finally manage to say wearily, “My alarm clock broke again.” 

Ms. Bakerfield squats down next to my broken alarm clock, appearing to examine it closely.  “Yes, I see it has,” she says, standing back up.

“Can you get it fixed again?” I ask her.

“I’m sorry, honey, but didn’t Gerry say that last time was the last time he could fix it?  I’m afraid there’s no bringing it back this time.”

“But I need an alarm clock!” I protest, sending stinging glares at the broken alarm clock.

“Don’t you have a clock on your laptop?” Ms. Bakerfield asks me, pointing to my open computer sitting on its desk.

“It’s not the same,” I say, laying back down on my bed.

“Well, we all just have to make due with what we have,” Ms. Bakerfield says, walking out of my bedroom.  From in the kitchen she calls, “I can barely get by, having to support you and your mother on top of myself.  You’re lucky to have such a nice neighbor in this poor building.  If you can get a nice rich person across town to give you an alarm clock, be my guest, but until then, as I said before, we’ll just have to make do.”  That was quite the speech for old Ms. Bakerfield.

I hear the jangling of car keys, a tell-tale sign that Ms. Bakerfield is just about to leave and go somewhere in her little beat-up car.  Everything she has, and everything we have, is old and beat-up.

“I’ll be back in to check on you guys later on today,” she calls, slamming the door.  The slamming sound echoes throughout the apartment, and I stare at the ceiling.  Rotating my head sixty degrees, I look at my laptop, apparently still open from last night.  Remembering, I dive across my room from my bed and end up on the floor, swiping my finger along the touchpad to wake my laptop up.  I type in my password and log into my gmail account, practically biting my nails as it loads, tension building up in the pit of my stomach.  My inbox opens, and, lo and behold, there is an email. 

I click on it to open it, and I can see that it’s from someone named Jacob Conner.  It says: “Hi, my name is Jacob Conner.  This is my email address ([email protected]). I saw that you were looking for a friend on Friends Online, and I figured I could help.  You’re probably wondering who I am, so I’ll give you my basic information.
I’m a fourteen-year-old boy.  My birthday is on December 16.  I’m Catholic.  I run track and my favorite subject is science, and I always like making new friends.  Actually, I’m not that great at making new friends.  It’s not really a disorder or anything, but I’m just too shy to talk to someone face-to-face.  The only way I can make friends is by talking by email, so my dad made me this account.  I haven’t made any friends yet on here, so I hope you’ll be my first.  Please tell me about yourself, even though I’ve already read your profile.
I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to say next, so I guess I’ll use one of the suggested conversation starters.  How are you doing today?  I’m doing great.”

I lean back in shock, staring at my laptop.  I want it to tell me what’s going on, or if this is a hoax.  I pinch my arm, and tears well up in my eyes in pain.  Well, it’s not a dream.

I look at my inbox again, and make an easy decision.  Wiping my finger across the touchpad, I click “reply.”  Then I start to type.

“Hi Jacob, my name is Anna Hollinger.  As you can see, this is my email address.  I am a fourteen-year-old girl, and my birthday is October 16.  I’m not really an anything.  I don’t play sports anymore, and I’m homeschooled.  I made this account for myself.  To answer your question, I’m absolutely horrible today.”  Now it’s out there.  In writing.  The brutal truth.  I stare at it, and as I click “send,” I bow my head and sobs rack my body, giving me no relief.  I’m horrible.  I’m horrible and my day is horrible.  I don’t have an excuse for not having any friends; I’m just horrible.  A horrible nothing.  That should be on my profile.  I would add it, but my computer touchpad is getting soggy from my tears.  Horrible.

I pick my head up off my computer keyboard and rub the sleep out of my eyes.  The little tiny clock at the bottom of the screen says 3:59.  My inbox says it has one unread message, so I open it.  It’s another email from Jacob Conners.  “It’s nice to hear about you, Anna Hollinger.  But why do you say that you’re horrible?  I’ve had some pretty bad days myself, but they were never bad enough for me to say they were horrible.  Please explain.”

Without even thinking about it, I click to reply and simply type, “It’s none of your business.”  I send it, only realizing what I’ve done when it’s too late.  I just turned down my only friend in a long time.

At a loud crash, I look up, startled.  My mother is leaning against my bedroom door, tilting severely to the left.  I haven’t seen her in a long time, and she looks awful.

Her crusty green eyes bulge out of her sunken face, and the parts around her eyes that are supposed to be white are almost completely blood red.  The skin on her hands and feet is cracked and bleeding, and her flannel pajamas are covered in dirt and pizza crumbs.  I’m afraid of my own mother as she stands there, swaying, both of us taking each other in.  She stands there long after the silence has become awkward.  With a voice rusty and croaky with lack of use, she finally says to me, “You don’t look like my daughter.”

I say back, “You don’t look like my mother.”  She nods and walks out of my doorway in the direction of the bathroom, and I dive across my floor, plunging my hand under my bed and feeling around for cool metal.  I pull my arm back out with my silver hand-held mirror that I threw under my bed probably two months ago, because I couldn’t bear to see my father’s features standing out in my face, like he was right there in me.

The hideous creature looking at me from inside the mirror almost makes me scream; it’s not what I expected myself to look like.  I didn’t expect to see bulging, crusty blue eyes and a sunken face.  I didn’t expect to see the claw marks running from my temples to my hairline, marks of my own distress.  I didn’t expect to see dirt covering my face, and I didn’t expect the only place that I can see my skin to be where my tears have made their way down to my chin.  I didn’t expect a tangled knot of hair on the back of my neck, or swollen, red, infected ears where they were pierced.  I didn’t realize that my clothes were so dirty, or that my fingernails were caked with dirt.  The one thing I didn’t realize most of all was that looking at my own reflection could drive me to sit down at my desk on the cold metal chair, reply again to the email, and pour out my entire sob story to a person I barely know.  But apparently I don’t know much about reality.

I say to Jacob: “I’m sorry for saying it’s none of your business.  Two months and one day ago today, my father came into my bedroom right before I was going to go to sleep.  About a year before that, all three of my friends had moved away, spreading out across the country.  I tried to write to them, but they wouldn’t answer, so I stopped talking to kids my own age.  My parents and my teachers decided the best thing to do would be for my mother to homeschool me until I was more social.  So my parents pulled me from school. 
On my birthday about 5 months ago, my father gave me this laptop.  He never stole or anything, so I don’t know how he got such nice equipment when we’re so poor and live in a ratty apartment.  But he did.
Anyway, two months and one day ago today, my father came into my bedroom right before I was going to go to sleep.  He kissed me on the head like always, but instead of saying goodnight, he said goodbye.  I didn’t think anything of it at the time.
The morning after that, two months ago today, he was gone.  He didn’t leave a note or anything.  He just left.
After that, my mother was never really the same again.  She shut herself in her room and almost never came out, and our old neighbor started getting our groceries and taking care of our house.  Me, I cried so long after my father left, and when I ran out of tears, I shut myself here in my room.  Most of my day is spent laying on my bed, staring at the ceiling.  I haven’t gone outside my apartment for two months.”  That’s it.  I can’t cry anymore; I can just send it and hope for the best.  Lay down on my bed to sleep for hours, and just hope for the best.  I don’t know if the best will find me, but I really, really hope so.

“Anna, I am so, so sorry to hear about all of that.  I think this is our fate, though; we were destined to meet, and now we have, so something special or a bunch of something specials are going to happen.  The first something special I’m going to make happen is getting you to change your clothes, take a shower, and brush your teeth and your hair.”  I shake my head at Jacob’s letter in amazement.  How in the world did he know that I need to change my clothes, take a shower, and brush my teeth and my hair?

I write back, “I’ll do that right now.”  Once I send it, I stand up, and walk to my worn chest of drawers.  Pulling open a drawer with some difficulty, I see my one change of clothes that my parents could afford.  A pair of faded jeans, a light pink t-shirt, and a purple zip-up hoodie.

Gathering these clothes in my arms, I walk out my bedroom door.  I do that all the time.  I walk into our bathroom with the small shower and cracked sink.  I do that all the time, too.  I start the shower and throw my clothes on the floor.  I do not do that all the time.

Slowly, carefully, I throw all my dirty clothes into the laundry bag hanging up on the wall, shoving them deep into the bottom; I take my fresh clothes and set them on the floor.  Stepping into the hot shower, I let the water wash over me, taking all the dirt from two months off with it.  Brown water runs down the drain, and clear water sprays back onto me, in an endless cycle.  I lean my head back and let the water clean my face and take all the tears that have sat on it away.

I pick up the shampoo bottle and squirt about half of the bottle into my hair, not even bothering to rub it in.  I pick up the bottle of conditioner and pour out almost the entire bottle, massaging it into my scalp and letting it untangle my hair.  Lock by lock, my wavy hair falls onto my clean, bare shoulders, a place it hasn’t been in a long time.  The shampoo and conditioner feel so good I pour more shampoo into my hair, being careful not to use the entire bottle of either.  Ms. Bakerfield will get mad at me if she has to restock so soon.

The shower feels so good, I don’t know why I stopped taking them.  My whole body feels clean and refreshed, and when I turn the water off, I just stand there, letting the water drip off of me.  I look down at my clean body, my skin color the peach that it used to be.

When I’ve sufficiently drip-dried, I step out of the shower and onto the floor, gazing at the clean clothes I’m going to put on over my clean body.  When I get my underclothes on, I put first my right leg into my jeans, then my left leg, and pull them up.  When I get them on, I pull my pink shirt over my head and then try to wriggle into my sweatshirt.  When I succeed in putting my sweatshirt on, though, my sleeves are three inches too short on each side and the bottom of the zip-up hoodie rests about four inches above my waist.  I shake my head at it, as if doing so could either make me shorter or it longer.  When neither happens, I take it off and simply tie it around my waist.  Now I have the fashion of the purple zip-up hoodie, but I don’t have to wear something an average of three and a half inches too short.

Walking out of the bathroom, I glance at my mother’s bedroom door.  Still closed and locked up tight.  The kitchen looks the same as it always does, too; a deserted ghost town.  My bedroom door stands open, and anyone standing anywhere in the hall can see all the mess inside.  I don’t know how I can get it so messy when I don’t have that much stuff, but I have a unicorn pillow that I got when I was six years old shoved in one corner, and my metal chair next to my little wooden desk and my bed with my creaky mattress and worn blankets and a worn pillow.  Next to my beautiful laptop are buttons of all different shapes and sizes that I’ve had since I went on a button-collecting spree at eleven years old.  My wall is home to peeling cream-colored wallpaper and a volleyball poster from when I used to play with my friends.  My ceiling is home to peeling plaster.

When I sit in my metal chair, it gives a loud groan and threatens to collapse, but I stay in my seat.  I open my laptop and watch as it turns on and the blackness leaves the screen to reveal my inbox with a message in it from Jacob.  It says: “I’ll bet you think I’m really creepy, right?  But it sounded like you were suffering from depression, and my older sister who’s in college now used to suffer from it, too.  So I know all about it.  Are you feeling better now?”

I respond with: “A little bit better, thanks.  The shower’s starting to wear off now, though, so I’m not feeling quite as good as I was.  Any more suggestions?”

He responds almost as soon as I send it.  Shouldn’t he be in school?  I look at the clock in the corner of my screen; it says 4:00.  It’s later than I thought.

The email from Jacob says: “Wow, you’re actually asking for my help?”

Me: “I shouldn’t ask for your help?”

Jacob: “If you actually knew me personally, you would know not to ask for my advice.”

Me: “I’m pleased to inform you that I can ask anyone I want for help anytime I want.”  I stab at the send button ruefully, then sit still, waiting for a response.

Jacob: “Okay, okay, don’t get all huffy.  Sure, I’ll give you advice.  Just don’t expect it to be especially sound advice.  Uhhh, let’s see.  My sister was always happier when she went to Mass.”

I wrinkle my forehead.  “Mass?”  I ask.

Jacob: “You know, Mass.  Church.”

Me: “No, I obviously don’t know.  What’re you talking about?”  After I send it, there’s an extremely long pause on Jacob’s end.  When I start to think he’s left, I get another email from him.

Jacob: “I can’t do this.”

Me: “What can’t you do?”

Jacob: “Seriously, I’m too young to have to do this.”

Me: “Do what?”  I want to scream the question at my screen.

Jacob: “Ok, fine.  Whatever.  I’ll do it.”

Me: “Do what?!”

There’s another long pause before Jacob’s answer, though not quite as long as before.  Finally, he says: “Nothing, just…I have to ask you...what religion are you?  You should at least know what Church is.”

Me: “Religion?”

Jacob: “You know, like, are you Christian, or Jewish, or Muslim, or Hindu, or something like that?  For example, I’m Catholic, which is a type of Christian.  I told you that when I introduced myself.”

Now I get what he’s saying.  I reply: “Oh, that sort of stuff.  My parents only talked about that stuff when I was little, but then they never really had me brought up anything.  My mom calls herself a freelancer now.  Blazing her own trail.”

Jacob: “Do you want to be a freelancer blazing your own trail?”

Me: “ Well, not really.  It’s kind of boring.  Nothing really to do.”

Jacob: “Well then, you’re going to become a Catholic, and I’m going to help you do it.”

I shrug, and then write: “Ok.  Why not?”

Jacob: “Exactly.”

“So, how do we start?” I ask.

Jacob: “Well, I guess we’ll start with the basics.  Do you know what the Bible is?”

“I’ve never heard of it,” I say.

“Ok, we’ll have one lesson a day, like school.  Be on your email at 4:00 every day, and we’ll do the lesson for that day.  We’ll start today with a basic synopsis of the Bible,” Jacob says.

Me: “I have a quick question before we start.  Is this going to help my depression that I apparently have?”

Jacob replies: “Absolutely.”

I hesitate before replying, looking around my tiny room and all my dirty junk and the plaster that falls off the ceiling a little more every day. Right here and now, I make a decision. “Let’s get started.”

Jacob: “Now that’s what I want to hear.”

Jacob says, “Okay, now you’re going to have to listen patiently while I do my best to summarize the entire Bible.  It would help if you got your own copy to follow along with.”

“My family can’t afford it,” I reply.

Jacob: “Oh.  Sorry.  Anyway, I’ll begin.
“Just as a basic briefing, we believe in one God, creator of Heaven and earth.
“So, the Bible begins with God creating everything, including two people named Adam and Eve.  The devil, a fallen angel (angels, you know, the holy souls in Heaven--you know, the good part of the afterlife with God), appeared to Adam and Eve as a serpent.  There were two trees in the center of the Garden of Eden, the garden God created for Adam and Eve to live in.  One tree was the Tree of Life, and the other was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  The serpent convinced Eve that she would become like God if she ate the fruit, so she did, and she shared it with her husband, Adam.  When God went to them later, they hid from him, and he knew that they had eaten the fruit of the one tree he had told them they could not eat the fruit from.  Sin (basically, doing bad stuff) had entered the world, and God banished Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.
“A long, long, long, long time later, the world had become a terrible place, so God had a man named Noah take a large boat with only his family and animals of every kind while God sent a huge flood to wipe out all the terrible people.  When the flood was over, God gave the rainbow to Noah and his family as a promise that He would never flood the entire Earth at once like that again.
“Skipping many other stories (all important) for the sake of your first knowledge of the Bible, we come to the end of the Old Testament, and we start in at the New Testament.  The New Testament has 27 books, including 4 different (but with the same information) accounts of the life of Jesus Christ.
“I’ll summarize the life of Jesus as: he was born to a woman whom God had erased all possibilities of sin from, named Mary.  As the angel told her to do, she named the boy Jesus, who is (now this is the tricky part) both God’s son and God.  He is completely God and completely man; God and human. 
“So Jesus grew up and gathered disciples and performed many miracles.  God had sent Jesus because He loves us and He wanted us to be saved from our sins.  Jesus was crucified (tortured and nailed to an upright cross to die), and, 3 days later, he rose from the dead.  He then was raised up into Heaven and sent the Holy Spirit down to earth to us to guide us.
“You’re probably confused as to why Jesus died for us, so I’ll explain that.  I don’t know what you thought love was before, but real, true love is self-sacrifice.  Giving yourself for that person. God loves us so much He sacrificed His son, letting the people crucify Him, so that Jesus could open Heaven for us.”

I stare at the screen, open mouthed.  That was way more complex than I expected it to be.  It makes my head hurt trying to think about it, but, strangely, I have a hunger to know more.  The end of Jacob’s email says: “Do you have any questions?”

I write: “So this God you’re talking about...He loves us?”

Jacob responds quickly, as if he was sitting at his computer, just waiting for me to finish reading and ask a question.  “God loves you more than you can possibly imagine.  He created all of us to know, love, and serve Him so that we can one day get to Heaven to be with Him eternally in happiness.  He gave us Jesus and the Holy Spirit (both also God) because He loves us, and he gave us the Church because He loves us.  Part of being Catholic (which I’ll teach you), is going to Church, because that’s the closest we can be to Heaven while still on Earth.”

I ask, “So what exactly are Heaven and Hell?”

Jacob says: “You won’t know exactly until you die, but our understanding is that there are three places to go immediately after you die: Heaven, Purgatory, or Hell.  People that died for the faith or had no sin on their soul when they died go straight to Heaven, people with sin who will get to Heaven eventually go to Purgatory, and people that had major sins (called mortal sins) on their souls go to Hell, which is eternal punishment.  In Heaven, everyone is completely happy because they are with God, the people in Purgatory are torturously seperated from God while having their souls cleansed of sin and waiting to get itno Heaven, and the people in Hell are in torment.  In essence, you get what you love after you die.  If you love God here you get God and happiness (because God is happiness and joy) after you die, but if you just love, let’s say, money, you don’t get God but you get money.  Now, don’t take this the wrong way.  You get money, but it doesn’t make you happy at all, because God is not with you at all.  And you get the money in some unpleasant way.  Let’s say you loved eating; in Hell, you would eat and eat and eat and never stop eating.  It would be terrible.”  Jacob sounds like he’s going to go on in his explanations, but fortunately, he stops.  My body is wracked with chills, trying not to but still imagining what it would be like.  From my understanding, if I don’t love God, I’m going to torture for eternity.  Forever.  That’s it.  Nothing else.

But how do I know all of this is true?  Jacob could be making it up right now, just to trick me into doing something bad.  I reply with, “How do I know this is true?  If you really believe it, how do you know it is true?”

Jacob responds with, “That’s a very good point.  First of all, historical accounts from many many many different people make everyone positive to the point that you can’t deny Jesus was real.  Now you just have to believe Him when he tells us that He is God.
“A famous author named C.S. Lewis once said something to the effect of: either Jesus is God, a liar, or a lunatic.  If he was a liar, it would be impossible for Him to gain so many followers and convert so many people and convince them so completely.  If he was a lunatic, no one would even believe that He was a great prophet.”

I sit here, chewing on the inside of my cheek, debating, considering.  I email Jacob with: “Give me some time to think about this.”

He simply writes back: “Ok.”

I slide my chair backwards across the floor, and it makes a high-pitched squealing sound.  I get down on the floor on my hands and knees, groping around under my bed for my satchel.  When my hand touches rough fabric, I know I’ve found it.

Pulling it out, I examine it closely, brushing the layers of dust off of it.  I haven’t used it in a very long time, but then again, I haven’t needed it in a very long time.

Even though I know it isn’t true, it seems like my laptop’s grown since the last time I tried to shove it into this satchel.  I brace myself against my wooden desk with my foot.  One hand grips the laptop and the other holds the satchel open, both of them trying to put the one in the other.  With difficulty, I push the laptop in, inch by inch, the seams of the bag stretching.  When the last little bit of laptop has been shoved inside the bulging bag, I sling it over my shoulder, letting it bump into my side.

I close my bedroom door, being careful to leave the light on, just in case Ms. Bakerfield comes in while I’m gone.  Hopefully, when I don’t answer, she’ll just assume I’m asleep.

I walk through the kitchen to our apartment door, and open it slowly.  I cringe every time it gives a loud creak, expecting Ms. Bakerfield to hear it and come running to tell me not to leave, to get back in the apartment.  After stopping to tighten the strap on my satchel, I walk down the hall, passing three doors.  The dirty gray stairs that smell like decomposing sweat (if there was such a thing) take me down to the first floor, where the owner of the building has an antiques shop.  Everything down here is old and broken and dirty and all over the floor, and I have to wade through mismatched teacups and broken beaded curtains and dirty saltshakers to get to the front door.

It’s really hard to keep track of the seasons when all you do is lay on your bed and occasionally get up day in and day out.  Because this is so difficult, the warm wind that blows into my face when I step outside catches me completely off guard.

A bright sun and blue, cloudless sky accompany the warm wind as I walk down the street.  I pass shop after shop, with brightly colored awnings and beautifully decorated window displays.  A bookstore has a potted tree about as tall as me in the window with books hanging off of it like leaves.  A little store with a bright blue awning has pictures of flowers on the window, drawn with those special window markers.  A candy shop with it’s door standing wide open lets me get a whiff of freshly made chocolate fudge and fruity taffy.

As I near the end of the street, I look straight ahead,  into the blueness of the lake.  I walk off of the sidewalk and onto the nice green grass of the waterside park.  When I’m as close to the water as I’m allowed to be, I rest my arms on the sun-baked wood of the fence separating the park from the lake.  Like it always used to be, I’m the only one in the park; there is not another soul in sight.

The water sparkles a light blue in the sunlight shining directly on it.  Bordering the lake across from me are tall trees, wild and unchanging.  Tall like most trees are that never get gazed at by humans with thoughts of chopping them down for wood and paper. 

I used to come here all the time with my dad when I was little, and we would stand here, looking out across the water at the tall trees.  After he left, I never looked at these trees again until today, but I used to compare my life to them.  I grew slowly, just like them, but my life never changed.  I wished for change, like I’m sure the trees do, until the day I got it.  It took one chop of the axe to make me fall, to change my life.  When my father left, I was taken and ground up into little pieces, where they turned me into paper, ruining my life.

But looking at these trees right now, I’m thinking maybe they don’t want change--that’s not the best thing for them.  Change isn’t the best thing for me, either; change just opens me up to more ways of getting chopped back down.  I’m jealous of the trees; they can only be chopped down once.  I’m human, so I can keep getting chopped down for the rest of my life.

My life is fine the way it is.  I’m not happy, but at least I’m safe from getting chopped down again.

Who am I kidding?  If I got chopped down again I wouldn’t feel it; I’m chopping myself down every second, no matter what I do.  All because of a stupid decision my father made.

My eyes slide open, but I can’t see anything around myself.  Just blurriness and darkness.  My eyes tingle and sting, then start to burn.  Have I gone blind?  Is this what it feels like?

I try to grope around myself, figure out where I am, but I’m having major difficulty moving my limbs.  My arms are taking way too long to respond, and my legs won’t move through the air like they used to.  This is when I realize that I’m not even rightside up or laying on anything; my body is contorted, suspended in midair.

Dark.  I can’t move my limbs easily.  Suspended.

I’m underwater.

And I can’t breathe.

Suddenly aware of the fact that I am no longer surrounded by oxygen to take into my lungs, I consciously start to hold my breath.  I breathe out, releasing carbon dioxide.  My lungs burn, trying to make me fill them with air.  I resist, hoping my lungs can do this without collapsing, but I can’t hold my breath forever.

I suck water in through my mouth, gasping and choking, trying to take in real air to clear the water from my lungs.  More water fills my nose and continues to fill my mouth, and I start to panic.  Water keeps flowing in, and I can’t push it out.  I thrash, trying to find air, but I end up taking in more water.

My eyes flicker to what would seem to be up.  I have to make it there.  Bright spots appear in front of my eyes, and my lungs feel clogged, brought to a grinding halt.  As I start to sink, there’s one thing I need to say, at least in my head.  If I live to see another day, I will become a Catholic like Jacob wants.

My mind reels and spins and tries to gain control, but finally shuts down, water rushing in my ears, nose, and mouth, my wet clothes pulling me down through the darkness.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

“...the lake…?”

“Yes, that’s what I said, the lake…”

“When…?”

“Several…”

“Why...find out...now?”

“We...identifying…”

“Well..called me!”

“Miss, we...no idea...your daughter.  No need...upset.”

“Will...wake up?”

“...hope so.”

“What if...doesn’t?”

“We will cross...bridge when...come to it.”

Everything starts becoming clearer.

“Why don’t we cross that bridge now?!” She sounds like my mother, a voice shrill with worry and frustration.

“Well, see, most cases tend to vary.”

“I don’t care what most cases do!  I want my daughter out of this coma right this instant!”

“Miss, I know you’re upset, but let’s proceed calmly.  We’re doing the best we can with the medication and technology we have.  Alright?”

“Hmph.”

Beeeeeeeep.  Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.  Beep!  Beep!  Beep!  Beep!

I open my eyes, and a boy stands there in front of me.  He’s tall and lanky, with jet black hair, olive skin, and brown eyes.”Jacob Connor…” I whisper.  His eyes light up.

“I knew you would recognize me, Anna.  We have a lot to talk about.”

“Like what?” my voice sounds sleepy, but my head doesn’t feel the lethargic effects of drowsiness.

“Like what you do when I’m done talking to you.  Okay?  You can’t just give up like you did when your father first left.  I know it hurts, but you have to pull through and wear your scar like a proud flag.”

“Yeah,” my lazy tongue slurs.

“Look at me!” Jacob yells.  I realize that my gaze has drifted to the floor and I try to focus my eyes back on him.  “Wear your scar!  It’ll be okay, alright?”

“Mmm hmm…” I don’t even bother to unlock my jaw.

My father stands across the dirty kitchen from me.  He has the same sandy-colored hair as I do, the same blue eyes and sharp nose that I see every time I look in a mirror.  “Dad,” I whisper.  I take a tentative step toward him, gaining speed until I’m running to throw myself into his arms.  His eyes are full of joy, brimming with tears to see me after an excruciatingly long, painful work day.  As fast as a flash of lightning, though, they darken and narrow with suspicion.  Angered, he puts his hand up to stop me, and he backhands me across the face as I reach my arms out to wrap them around his waist and hug him.  In that brief moment, as his hand painfully meets the skin of my face, bright lights cross my vision and I hear my mother speaking on the phone, a memory that was stored in the back of my mind one day while I was merely ambling around our apartment. 

“Isn’t there anything you can do?” she sounded fearful.  At the time, I had no idea who she was talking to, but now I recognize her deeper voice as the voice she reserves for talking to doctors and other professionals trained in the way of medicine.  She always said her voice got deeper because she has an irrational fear of being misdiagnosed and dying and the world consequently ending.

“Back and forth like a switch,” she had answered the person on the phone.  “Don’t insult me, of course I know what ‘bipolar’ means.  Yes, I see...yes.  Yes.”

My mother, then my father, then my kitchen, all dissolve.  It seems to me that, quite possibly, my father’s switch got stuck on the wrong side, the side that wasn’t really him, only the monster that was inside him.  The monster that was eating out his reason, logic, and intelligence.

Jacob stands looking at me with tears in his eyes.  “Mmmm?” I grunt.

“Goodbye, Anna,” Jacob says.

“Where are you going?” the effort to speak these words comes from every fiber of my body and drains everything left in me.  I slump further into my hospital bed.

Jacob smiles a small smile, something like a smirk, but not mocking me.  “You’ll see me again, Anna,” Jacob says.

I raise my eyebrows to try to get Jacob to stay.  I want to say something, yell at him to come back, but my voice is gone and the pain in my throat is other-worldly.  Jacob gives me a small wave and walks out of my hospital room, shutting the door softly behind him as if trying not to wake a sleeping occupant.

Lots of people are crying with loud, racking sobs.  “Only a second...back...I think...don’t know…”

“You’re the doctors! ...supposed...how...fix her!”

“We’re not magicians.  Now...have...ask...calm down.  Please, we’re doing the best we can.”

“Bring...back!”

“If you cannot calm down, we will have to ask you to leave!  Now, I realize that your daughter is in a coma and you are very upset, but you need to hold it together, if not for our sakes then for your daughter’s sake when she wakes up!”

The woman who sounds like my mother says nothing more.  I squeeze my eyelids tight and wait for sleep, or some other form of unconsciousness, to engulf me.

“Why...jump?”

“I’m...figure...out why…”

“I want to know now!”

“I’m examining...possessions...clues...might...wait until she wakes up.”

“Can’t you...faster?!”

“Mrs. Hollinger, these things take time.  You’ll just have to be patient.”

“I don’t want to be patient!  I want to know why my daughter jumped into a lake!  I told you everything I knew, and now I want you to put it all together like you’re supposed to!”

“Please just be patient.”

“Your job is to put the pieces together, and I expect you to do it as soon as possible!”

“I’m not a detective, I’m just a psychologist.”

“Put the pieces together!”

“Alright, fine.  See, I’m looking at Anna’s laptop right now for any evidence.  See?  I’m working on it.  I’m pulling up her browsing history.  Mrs. Hollinger, do you know if Anna had an email account or any other social media?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Well you certainly aren’t very helpful.”

“Being helpful isn’t my job!  My job is to sit here while my daughter is in a stupid coma, and your job is to sit there and tell me why she is in a coma!”

“Alrighty, she had an email account...no, wait, possibly more than one.  Let me check.”

Brief silence.

“Oh my goodness.”

More silence.

“Oh…”

“What is it?!” my mother screams.

Silence.

“What is it?!” again.

“Did your daughter have an account on Friends Online?”

“Maybe, she was always kind of lonely--why do you ask?”

“Mrs. Hollinger, if you don’t mind me asking, did your family used to be Catholic?”

My mother is defensive.  “Yes.  But what does that have to do with anything?”

“Did you teach her any of the Catholic principles?”

Grudgingly, “Yes.”

“Exactly how lonely was your daughter?”

“I don’t know!  She was lonely, okay?  She was lonely ever since her father left!”

“Well, I think you should come over here and take a look at this.”

“I don’t see anything out of the ordinary.”

“Look here, and here.  And then right there.”

“So?”

“No, don’t just look with your eyes.  Think about it a second.”

“God.”

“Yes, your daughter is going to need a lot of prayers, Mrs. Hollinger.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know.”

“But that’s normal in some teenagers, right?”

“Mrs. Hollinger, I have never seen anything like this before.  I mean, some teenagers do have dialogue with themselves.  But this...making two email accounts and what seems like subconsciously conversing--I’m completely at a loss.”

“What do you mean, ‘subconsciously conversing’?”

“It sounds like your daughter had no idea that the entire time she was talking to ‘Jacob,’ she was really just talking to herself.  I mean, it seems like Anna actually believed that Jacob was a real person.  Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“But why would that make her try to drown herself?”

“Who can say, Mrs. Hollinger?  There are many mysteries in the world--some things are created to be known, but other things, the unknown, are meant to be well-kept secrets.  I may be a professional and an expert in my business, but there are an infinite number of things that I cannot explain now and may never really be able to explain.  Do you understand what I’m saying, Mrs. Hollinger?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Now, I suggest that you go home and get some rest, because from what I’ve heard, there is a strong possibility that your daughter will get better.  In special cases, you need to trust that mysteries will forever remain mysteries.  I believe this is one of those cases.”

“Yes.  Thank you for everything.”

“It was my pleasure, Mrs. Hollinger.  Until we meet again, if not at all.”