Okay Girl

Chapter 1

It’s been almost a year since I found my only uncle un­responsive in our backyard hammock. He wasn’t dead. I thought he was. He almost was, and probably on purpose, but nobody will admit it. Nobody wants to talk about that.

I found him on our huge double hammock that used to swing between the two giant oaks near the back fence. Everybody knew that was my favorite place to sit and knit for hours. I don’t know when they took it down. One day it was there, then it wasn’t. I still can’t bring myself to look toward those trees and the empty space between them. Not that it matters because, unfortunately, there’s no such thing as un­seeing the maybe-­dead, unblinking face of your dad’s twin. And once you’re the guy who discovers the maybe-­dead guy being maybe-­dead, there’s no such thing as being unseen.

After Uncle Tex’s accidental overdose, I became a spectacle. My parents hovered and touched me all the time, and my friends and teachers—­everyone constantly asked me if I was okay. Okay. Who decided such a small word should be so all-­encompassing?

Recently, I overheard my dad worrying that they hadn’t seen me cry. Everyone probably would have been relieved to see me crumble, but it doesn’t seem fair they should be comforted when there’s none for me. I begrudged them the satisfaction of my tears, and there were plenty. Fewer now, but they still come. And they aren’t cleansing, like people say. You’ll feel better after a good cry. Lies. There’s no such thing as a good cry. I cry and the tears soak right back into me, weighing me down like a sponge that’s impossible to wring out. Heavier and heavier.

Eventually I learned to fix my face with a Barbie grin—­the closed-­mouth one, which was easy enough. But saying the right things at the right time has been a little more challenging. Especially when everybody keeps asking if I’m okay. When people ask how you are, they don’t want the truth. Everybody knows it. We all just silently agree to participate in the performance.

One of my favorite quotes is from The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, which I’ve been rereading nonstop for almost a year now. The main character, nineteen-­year-­old Esther Greenwood, says she hates how people ask how you are when all they really want to hear is fine, even when they know otherwise. My parents were concerned that I was reading a book about a depressed, suicidal teenager written by a depressed, suicidal poet, but I told them it was summer reading for my AP English class, which it was. I bought a book of her poetry and her collection of journals, and would get caught reading those to throw them off my back. I’m a serial overachiever, and they love seeing me doing the most, so it worked.

I did read some of the other books. But the truth is I saw myself on the first pages of The Bell Jar and instantly felt less alone. Not that I’m so much like the girl in the book. We do both care about academics and are extremely observant of the people around us, but being an overachieving people-­watcher isn’t so unique. Esther Greenwood is seriously paranoid and pathologically unsatisfied. It’s like she’s at war with every aspect of the world and her existence in it. I, on the other hand, am very chill and have no interest in suicide whatsoever. Like, I don’t think about death the way she thinks about it all the time. We both had a kind of brush with it—death—­that impacted us altogether differently. When Esther describes how she saw the cadaver, then the disembodied head of it followed her around, floating up like a balloon everywhere she looked, I felt seen at a time when I guess I really needed to be. Before then, I couldn’t put that specific feeling into words. Seeing Uncle Tex limp in the hammock is the closest I’ve ever come to being near a cadaver, but instead of his head hovering around me on a string afterward, it’s my own. Some days . . . Most days, I’m floating somewhere above, just out of reach, watching myself exist. Present but not present.

It took a minute, but I’ve mastered what to do and say in most situations to get past people and keep putting one foot in front of the other, wading through quicksand.

My mom was obsessed with seeing evidence that I wasn’t depressed, so I started joining her on runs throughout the week, in addition to our long family runs on Sundays with our German shepherd, Queen. And I let them catch me doing my favorite things—­reading and making friendship bracelets. I’ve always loved making bracelets, to the point of even starting an online bracelet shop my freshman year. I used to knit, too, but I haven’t since I finished my prom dress. I put my friendship bracelet shop on hiatus, using school and grades as an excuse, but I made sure my mom saw me making the most recent ones for my best friends, Teak and Gigi. And I’m not doing extracurriculars this year, but that’s low-­hanging fruit, and something had to give. Anyway, there’s no school club for girls who’ve witnessed the attempted suicide of their uncles. How could there be? Even if it were a common enough occurrence to attract members, who wants to sit around and commiserate about such a thing? The goal is to forget.

Since Uncle Tex, I’ve felt like a marionette controlled by some great puppet master in the sky, acting the role in the life I had before that day. As much as I’d rather be in my bed, big-­spooning Queen at any given moment, I get up every single day and keep it moving.

I was released from therapy months ago, and my parents hover less. Everyone finally seems satisfied as I say I’m okay day after day. Shakespeare said Life is a stage, or something like that. And tonight of all nights, I have to give a Tony Award-worthy performance.

It’s junior prom and I might be crowned Southern Belle. I’d be out from under the shadow of what happened last year. I’d have a crown—­a title . . . a solid, quintessentially American high school identity to take with me into senior year.

I didn’t even want this until I started dating Malik. To me, he’s always just been Malik, my friend from way back. At Southern, he’s an all-­American sprinter—­state hundred champion—­and running back. A tiara seems essential for the girlfriend of a high school track and football star.

That’s why I’m crammed into my bathroom in front of the small mirror above the sink, getting ready for the dance with Teak and Gigi. Beyoncé’s blaring from the portable speaker on my dresser just outside the door.

Gigi, our mama bird, is beside me on her toes, arms stretched up to slide the clips off the giant rollers I put in my hair this morning. There’s no emotional spiraling on Regina Morris’s watch, but she has no clue how much I’m spinning these days.

Teak’s Betty Boop face, complete with ever-­present dimples, masks how ready she stays to knuck if anybody bucks toward us. She’s our ride or die.

I feel like a fake friend in moments like this. I wish I could go back to last spring and lean on them—­tell them what really happened when I found Uncle Tex and let them tell me that I am, in fact, not a useless coward. But I’m scared it’ll throw off our friend circle ecosystem. I’m the friend who has it all together. I’m the friend who has it all.

My mouth is a capital O, because how else will this mascara glide over my eyelashes? Teak tugs one of hers to make sure the glue is dry, then fishes edge gel and a tiny brush out of her Fenty pouch. My cell phone pings. We crane our necks to check the screen sitting face up on the vanity.

Malik: YK ILY?

Heads whip toward me, mouths jacked open. I close mine and stare at my boyfriend’s text.

Teak sucks her teeth.

“Nope. Highly suspicious, and just no,” she says, shaking her head and expertly shaping a swirl of hair at her temple.

“You think somebody’s pranking on Malik’s phone?” I ask.

“Oh, I don’t doubt it’s him. I just don’t trust the message,” she says.

“Teak, you don’t trust him anyway. I think it’s sweet,” Gigi says, then gives me her full attention. “What are you gonna say back, Skye?”

Before I can answer, Teak slams her brush down. “Facts,” she says to Gigi’s reflection. “I don’t trust any of these boys. Also facts: The boy pops up out the blue asking you to be his valentine after he barely broke up with Zoe.” She pauses to make another baby-­hair swirl near her forehead. “Now, a smooth three months later, he drops the L-word . . . on prom night? Correction, he literally only dropped the L. He can’t even call or video or wait to look you in the eye? Hey, Siri, play ‘That Thing’ by Lauryn Hill.” Siri obliges, rudely interrupting Beyoncé.