Hello, I Dislike You Intensely. Have a Nice Day.

Alex came back later, just like he said he would. I tried (and mostly failed) to explain things to him - "I don't know why I did it. I wasn't thinking. I never really can during these times." My mom had gone out to meet some friends and we were in my room. On my walls, the various movie posters and playbills and programs from choir and dance concerts I'd gone to fluttered in the breeze from the heating that he'd turned on when he felt my ice-cold hands. I'd just wanted to sit there and watch the bright slips of paper breathe, but Alex insisted on rationalizations.

"But it's very irrational," I sighed. "All I could think was that I despised my breathing. I wanted to be totally motionless. For every process in my body to just stop."

Beside me I could feel the muscles in his body stiffen like a kid surrounded by bigger kids who knows he's going to be beaten up. "Dani," he began cautiously. I sensed what was in his tone right away. For a long time, I'd been expecting and dreading this tone, and I'd assigned it to a hundred different mouths and a hundred different situations, never knowing exactly when it would come, but wary.

"No," I cut him short. "I don't want to. I'm not crazy."

"I know it's a pretty bad stigma, but, Dani, I'm so scared of losing you."

"You won't," I said obtusely.

"You don't know that. And you didn't even let me say what I was going to say."

"I know what you were going to say - you were going to tell me to get help."

"Well...why wouldn't I, Dani?"

I couldn't say anything to that.

"Did you think we were our own little...crypto-uptopian...anti-mainstream conclave? That the more life-threatening a deviation was from the norm, the more jubilantly it was celebrated?"

That actually sounded a lot like how I saw us in my head. But I couldn't admit it now. He'd exposed me and I lay bare and chagrined in his arms.

"Yeah. I wish," he said quietly.

"How - how would I ever explain - " I started, then I couldn't say more.

"It...happens. That's all."

"But what would I say? 'I've gone mental, oh no? Try not to have me committed, but if you have to...' I can't even think of a funny way to end that. My mom is going to blame herself, and none of it is her fault. I can't make her feel that. And how is she gonna explain to my dad? 'Our daughter's gone insane, what do you think of that?' I hardly ever see the man! How would that even go? And God, my friends. I just found them and they hate me already. How would that go over? Huh?"

"Dani, shhh...calm down. Why do your friends hate you?"

"Okay. Well, maybe Marina never said she hated me and she didn't seem mad when I saw her, but she probably does and hasn't realized it, or it'll come as a delayed reaction. I mean, she was depressed and I never realized, not until it was almost too late. If I were her, I'd be mad."

"Buuut, isn't what happened to Marina pretty much exactly what happened to you? And did any of your friends notice anything wrong?"

I almost hated him sometimes for how clever and perceptive he could be. "But...but...what I have comes and goes, it's not constant. Some days I'm fine. What if it's just angst?"

"I'll bet Marina had some days where she felt fine too. And geez, Dani - most teenagers exaggerate their problems. You are like the poster girl for litotes. Even angsty teenagers don't go as far as you did. They just blog about it."

"Alex?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I digress a little bit here?"

"Sure."

"Yesterday was May's birthday. I was gonna go to her party, but then I kind of accidentally stood her up. What do I do?"

"Ouch."

"Yeah. What do I say, Alex? How would I explain the truth? Should I just lie?"

"I'm guessing just plain bad memory wouldn't work here."

"I never forget birthdays. I usually don't forget much at all. But I just...forget a lot...around you."

Guilt flashed into his eyes, and I grabbed his arm. "No! It's not your fault. Don't go. It's my fault."

"I think...that I am going to put a filibuster on the phrase 'It's my fault' for, oh, maybe a week. Can you manage that, Dani?"

I probably turned red here.

"But, if you want to know what I'd do if I were you," he said, turning serious. "I would kinda, sorta lie. Emphasis on the 'kinda' and 'sorta' here. I would apologize profusely. And try to make her laugh. And do something that's just the two of you."

"Alex, you are saving my life right now." In a fit of gratitude, I boldly said, "I'll do it. I'll get help. Just, give me a week. I need to mentally prepare."

He smiled, put his face close to my neck and said, "Thank you, Daneeee."

Already, night has come, too fast, and I can hardly believe it - I'd fight it if I knew how. But at the same time, I feel something like an entire year slip away with the light. All I want to do is sleep, but I know there'll be nightmares. I wish my mind was like a crystal lamp, throwing light and flecks of rainbows, that I could just turn off when I need to. I'm so tired, I don't want to think or interact for the next thousand years. Ugh. Goodnight.