Chapter Thirty-Seven

I slept through the night. The door was open and everyone was scattered throughout the motor home, and I had closed my eyes around midnight without opening them again until almost eight the next morning. The nightmares that had been plaguing my sleep didn't come, and the fear that I couldn't trust anyone around me was gone with them. Maybe they'd come back, but maybe they wouldn't.

I pulled my notebook out of my bag and quietly began to write my story on its empty pages. I wasn't sure if I'd ever let anyone read it, but Dr. Crimm was right about how writing it out made me feel better somehow. This was going to be a difficult day, saying goodbye to everyone, and I wished I could stop time and spend more of it with them before going back to my old life.

The memory card with the video of the crime against me sat inside my bag. I would give myself the day to think about what I wanted to do with it. I had two choices: I could go back to my old life and just know in my heart what had happened to me, or I could give the video to the authorities and prepare for another wave of attention and salt in my wound. Every time I felt convinced it was better to just slip back into my old life and get through the final months of school, I remembered my brother at my bedside, begging me to fight.

"Are you hungry for breakfast?" Dr. Crimm asked quietly.

"Yes," I answered. I closed the notebook and tucked it back into my bag.

Shima was awake too, and she slipped out of bed and joined us outside in our folding chairs for a box of grocery-store donuts. The cold morning air felt sharp and clean with the scent of the tall trees beyond the campsite. A thick fog hung over their tips, making them look menacing and beautifully inviting all at once.

Shima stared into the dark spaces between the thick trunks. I knew that behind her eyes was a tangle of thoughts, and perhaps, as she believed, a genetically predisposed call to spend her last moments in a place like the forest before us.

"You know what I've always found most interesting about the ribbons and plastic tape in the Aokigahara Forest?" Dr. Crimm asked, perhaps having been thinking, like me, of Shima's struggle.

"What?" Shima asked, turning to look at Dr. Crimm. Her quiet, innocent voice reminded me of a young child seeking answers.

"They are a perfect example of perspective," Dr. Crimm answered, setting down the donut she'd been eating. "Those ribbons have a beginning and an end. They start somewhere and they end somewhere," she continued thoughtfully. "But where that 'somewhere' is depends on your perspective. If you are lost and alone, not seeking help but wanting to get away from the people and places that could save you, then the ribbons begin on the public trail and end in a desolate location in the forest. They lead you to the end of your life.

"If you are lost and alone and seeking help—searching for the people and places that can save you, then the ribbons begin in that desolate location and end at the public trail. They lead you back to life." She turned her head slowly and looked out at the forest again. "It's all in your perspective. It's in the work you choose to do to either get better or get gone." She turned back to Shima, her last words falling between them like a period at the end of a dramatic speech.

The day I met Dr. Crimm, I'd thought I would either outsmart her or outwait her, but she was so much more than I ever thought she could be. Dr. Crimm was an old soul who knew what she had control of and what she had to let go. Shima's choice, all of our choices, were out of her control. She could tie ribbon to trees all day long and it would still be up to us to decide where those ribbons began and where they ended.

The difference between Dr. Crimm and the other adults trying and failing to help was simple: When faced with a lost teen on a deserted trail, she didn't just point in a direction and say with authority it was the right way to go. Dr. Crimm had wandered those trails herself at one time, so she knew that all the directions in the world wouldn't help someone who had lost their inner compass. Instead, she offered to walk beside you until you found your own way out.

The door of the motor home creaked open and the rest of our group spilled out into the crisp mountain air, Aideen's beautiful red hair frizzy and tangled into a messy bun on top of her head. She took two donuts from the box, and Damien grabbed a few for himself, tossing two to Ken when he'd finally managed to get down the stairs and into his chair. Marco took one and moved a chair beside mine.

"So why the motor home and the day trips?" Damien asked. "I get the meds and the group therapy, but I don't get how this fits into the treatment plan."

Dr. Crimm smiled as she selected a powdered donut from the box. "There isn't one right way to treat anything. Sometimes finding what works for each person is a matter of being willing to think outside the box. You're all from very different backgrounds, different towns and different situations, but you had a few things in common. You were depressed, suicidal, and had experienced some sort of trauma in your lives." She took a bite of her donut and looked around at all of us. "You'd also withdrawn from your friends and isolated yourselves from the adults around you. You lost human connection."

"So putting us together in this thing—" Damien motioned to the RV behind us. "—was the treatment for that?"

Dr. Crimm shrugged. "My family used to raise rabbits. Do you know how they get rabbits to bond?"

Damien's brows drew together and he laughed as he shook his head. "I have no idea, but I can't wait to hear how this relates to us."

"You put them together in a stressful situation in a small container." She motioned to the motor home and smiled. "We used to take our bunnies for a car ride. They bond because under stress they learn to lean on each other for comfort."

"And the horseback riding and white-water rafting?" he asked with a smile.

"Sometimes therapy is sitting in a room with a therapist, talking about your problems." She looked at Ken and then back to Damien. "And sometimes it's meeting someone who sees you differently, doing something you haven't done before, or just getting outside your head long enough to see that the world is bigger than you've grown to believe it is. I wanted to show you that there are many tools you can use to treat your mental health. You just have to find the ones that work for you."

Damien finished his donut. "Do you think the medication will ever be available to everyone?"

"No," Dr. Crimm answered quickly. "It's not right for everyone. There are certain populations we are hoping to get it approved for, but it's not just about the medication. We've learned you need a partner and a good support system. We follow up with everyone who has ever taken it and have a database for information we've gathered about it. In fact, you will get to decide if you want your name to remain private or if you want to be added to the in-house list of alumni we give every graduate. You'll get your copy later today. It has the names and numbers of everyone who has ever gone through the program and is willing to let other alumni reach out to them. My name is on there, and you might be surprised to see a few others you'd recognize. We've helped some teens who have gone on to do amazing things as adults."

We finished our donuts and packed up the chairs. Before we got on the road, Dr. Crimm reached out to our parents and let them know we were on schedule to come home that day. She let them know what time to meet us at the airport. I felt both nervous and excited to be going home.

Unlike the other times when the boys had separated from the girls to play video games in the back, that day they stayed out in the main area. We spent our last hours in the RV together, sharing our hopes for what might become of our lives once we were home. By the time we arrived at the airport, we had all agreed to allow our names and numbers to be added to the R2L alumni list.

There was a plane waiting when we arrived at the hanger. Dr. Crimm gave each of us a long hug and told us how we had all made her proud. She wouldn't be accompanying us on our travels back to our families because another teen needed her help. The medication trial was complete, and our follow-ups would be the final data needed to possibly get the life-changing help into the hands of competent doctors and the teens who so desperately needed the treatment. She cleared her throat and told us, "I'm in control of my choices and my life, just as you are all in control of yours. Do what will make you proud of yourself, and when you can't, do what you can live with. I know you can all have long, happy lives and I look forward to hearing all about them."

The door to the plane opened and two armed police officers stepped out, followed by Braden Ertz, who was dressed in orange and shackled at his wrists and ankles. Looking at his face reminded me of the way we'd looked those first few hours as we gathered ourselves into a group, the night I'd tried to take my life. Braden wanted to be dead; it was written clearly in the way he carried himself and the dark circles beneath his swollen eyes. None of us said a word as he was lead to a waiting car.

"Who will be his partner?" Ken asked.

Dr. Crimm sighed, the weight of that breath so heavy it held a million unspoken thoughts. "Sometimes government, politics, money, and righteousness get in the way of rational thinking. They aren't doing right by him, but I'm going to make sure it stops with me."

She offered us a reassuring smile. "No one goes in alone. No one suffers through their trauma without someone beside them. I'll be his partner."

She walked away from us to go do what she clearly did so well. I didn't know if Braden Ertz had killed his girlfriend, or what secrets his brain had been keeping, but I knew that no matter what, he was in the best hands for when he found those answers.

We climbed aboard our plane. Marco sat beside me and there was something about the experience that made him feel safe and close. Saying goodbye to him was going to be difficult because while I felt close to all the other group members, my heart felt different when I was with him. His hand in mine felt like the answer to a lot of unanswered questions I'd had about whether or not I was still loveable, still desirable, still worthy of something more than friendship. Maybe that was why we spent those last few hours holding hands and planning when we'd get to see each other again.

Aideen's mother and grandmother met her at the airport. She cried as she hugged each of us goodbye and promised to keep in touch. Her plans for college would potentially put our paths close together in the future so I reminded myself of that a million times as I watched her walk down the steps of the plane and into the arms of the women who had tried so hard to protect her. Watching them embrace her and knowing that she had two women willing to be her "mother" made the parting sting a little less.

Marco was next. As we approached the runway, he squeezed my hand tightly. We promised we would talk as soon as I got home, and then again every chance we could get. He hugged me last but held me longest. I cried when he left, but it wasn't only because saying goodbye was hard, it was because he had helped me see there was a part of me that was still alive and ready to be loved. The tears that streamed down my face contained both sadness and hope.

I sat next to Ken for the last leg of his journey. He was looking forward to seeing his mom and his sister, but was still apprehensive about the reception he might get from his father. When the airplane door opened and two men stood at the bottom of the stairs, Ken couldn't hold back his tears. Leo moved quickly, climbing the stairs to help Damien bring Ken down. I'd find out later that Leo never gave up on Ken. He called and insisted he be allowed to see him, and with everything Ken had been through, his father gave in. Dr. Crimm had told us that fighting for your child's life could change the weight you gave things you'd thought weren't tolerable. Leo loved Ken, and that was enough for Ken's father.

Damien and Dr. Crimm had done some work together when the rest of us weren't paying attention those last few days. Together they'd determined he had a boundary that he needed to set in order to survive the next year. Armed with an official letter from Dr. Crimm, Damien said goodbye to Shima and I, and headed down the stairs to his mother. He would spend his senior year doing independent studies and attending classes at the local community college in the afternoons. Shima and I had made him promise he'd reach out to Keisha and get out of his own way when it came to making new friendships and relationships.

Then there were just two of us. It felt like a lifetime had passed since I'd first met her that day in the hospital. We spent our last stretch of time together crying about how much we were going to miss this whole experience and then laughing at how crazy it had been. She was a little loopy from the meds Dr. Crimm had given her for the flight, but she refused to close her eyes and waste any of our time. I didn't tell her that I still worried about her, more than I worried about any of the others. We hugged and exchanged numbers and a million promises to never lose touch. I gave her a little piece of my heart when she turned and waved at me from the bottom of the steps. Somehow, I knew she needed it more than I ever would.

When it was my turn to leave R2L behind and step back into my family, I was ready. I would never share with them any story but my own, because I felt protective of the secrets my new friends had allowed me to see. I hugged my father and thanked him for the decision he'd made at a time in my life when I wasn't making good ones for myself. Then I hugged my mother and told her I was sorry, so sorry for what I had put them through. Lastly, I hugged my brother. His body felt bony and his face looked worn from the demons he'd fought that I couldn't help but take responsibility for unleashing. Any hesitation I had about what I'd do with that memory card dissolved when I saw the price he'd paid for my silence. I was not willing to let my brother fade away trying to keep my secret.

I sat down that evening with my family and told the story of that night at the party, which now felt so long ago. I gave the card to my parents and told them what I wanted to do with it. I'd had my time to grieve and I wanted to give them theirs, so my brother and I got into my car, and I left the house feeling a hundred pounds lighter. Together we cried over ice cream, and then we drove along the coast as I told him every detail I could about Shima, Aideen, Damien, Ken, and Marco. Maybe it was me being home, or maybe it was how I spoke about my plans for the future that changed the way my brother's face looked by the time we pulled back into our driveway.

My parents were still awake, their attention glued to the television when we joined them on the couch. The expansive R2L building stood staunch and definitive in the background of the newscast. I didn't take a breath for the entire length of time it took the police officers to lead Dr. Crimm from its front doors to the cruiser where she was placed, her hands cuffed behind her back. It was when the door closed and the camera panned back to the building that I could finally pull in the oxygen I needed to watch the black body bag being loaded into the coroner's van.

Only two people ever knew what Braden Ertz saw after swallowing Abraxas and listening to the comforting voice of Dr. Crimm as she guided him into his hallucination. One of those people washed down his first pill with Repose7 shortly after the treatment, and the other kept her word to him, just like she had to us.

Her trial would make international news and was the catalyst for the mandatory waiting period and pre-established doctor-client relationship laws that lead to a dramatic decrease in suicides and a shift in the way medical professionals viewed their mentally ill patients. Dr. Crimm allowed Braden to take his life, which had already been set on a terminal path, so that millions of others could be saved. Ultimately she'd serve two years in prison and lose her license for the crime of prescribing Repose7 to a minor, but I hear today she's doing just fine, floating down a river with an old friend and a clear conscience.

That night I turned off all the lights in my room, but twisted open the blinds on my window so the streetlights and the glow from the moon could stream in. If I tried hard enough, I could imagine being in the back of the motor home with all of my friends sleeping near me, or on the path on the way to me. It's a trick I still use today when the darkness in my head creeps back in and I have trouble finding sleep again. I remind myself sometimes that for every dark thing that has a home in my head, I have a bright memory to shine on it. Damien, Ken, Aideen, Marco, Shima, and the time we spent together will always be brighter than the darkness. 

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