The Scattering. Kimberly McCreight
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the phone, talking about everything and nothing. And I lie on my bed, staring at the old photos that line my bedroom walls, thinking I should take them down because they remind me of my mom. Knowing that is the reason I never will.
Jasper and I try to keep our conversations light, to help blot out the darkness. Maybe that’s exactly why it doesn’t work. The “what-ifs” of the choices we made that night as we drove north—“what if” we’d told Cassie’s mom right away, “what if” we’d ignored Cassie and had gone to different police earlier—are way too loud and angry by comparison. But all the talking has made Jasper and me closer. Sometimes I wonder how long it will last or how real it can be, this friendship born out of so much awfulness. Other times, I don’t want to think about that. I don’t want to think too hard about anything. There are too many questions I don’t know how to answer.
In her usual therapist way, Dr. Shepard has said she doesn’t think it’s a good idea for us to rehash too much, and neither do I. Jasper can’t help himself, though. We both have our what-ifs, sure, but it was Jasper who straight-out blamed Cassie for getting us locked in the camp. I say the same thing every time he brings it up: No, it is not your fault, Jasper. Cassie is dead because of Quentin, not you. And that is what I think.
Jasper doesn’t believe me, though. Sometimes when I look in his eyes, I feel like I am watching someone slowly starve to death. And I am standing right there, my arms filled with food.
Not that I am totally fine now by comparison. I still have horrible nightmares, and every day I cry at least once. Normal signs of grief and trauma, Dr. Shepard says. My anxiety didn’t disappear the second I was told I was an Outlier, either.
But these days there is less oxygen fanning the flames. I am working on separating out other people’s emotions from my own anxiety. There are little differences, it turns out, in the way each feels. My own anxiety is colder, deeper in my gut, while other people’s feelings sit higher in my chest. And now Dr. Shepard’s breathing exercises and her mindfulness meditations and her positive self-talk—things she has always advised—are actually starting to work, probably because I am more willing to believe they will.
Finally, I lay my hands on my phone, almost knocking it to the ground before I answer.
“Hey,” comes out garbled. I clear my throat. “What’s up?”
“Shit, were you sleeping?” Jasper asks. He sounds almost hurt, betrayed by my lack of insomnia.
“Um, not really,” I lie. “I was just—what’s up?” Then I remember why he’s probably called so late. Because this is late, even for him. “Oh, wait, the dinner with your mom. How was it?”
Jasper was supposed to tell her that he’s having second thoughts about playing hockey for Boston College. And by second thoughts, I mean he’s totally changed his mind. The summer camp for incoming freshmen starts in a few days, and he doesn’t plan on going. And BC isn’t going to pay his way on an athletic scholarship if he isn’t playing hockey. No hockey, no Boston College.
But Jasper is totally okay with this. Completely. He isn’t even sure he wants to go to college anymore. In fact, talking about bagging Boston College is the only time Jasper sounds remotely happy these days. Though I am fairly sure that’s because never playing hockey again is his own punishment for what happened to Cassie. Because as much as Jasper’s mom pushed him into the sport, he also loves it. Turning his back on it is a way to make himself suffer.
“Dinner was okay,” Jasper says. But he sounds distracted, like this isn’t at all why he called.
“What did she say?” I push myself up in bed and turn on the light.
“Say? About what?”
“Um, the hockey?” I ask, hoping my tone will bring him back around. “Are you okay? You sound really out of it.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine.” It’s totally unconvincing. “The thing with my mom didn’t go well. But, I mean, it’s not like I thought it would.” He doesn’t sound upset either, just totally flat. I wait for him to get into details, but he stays quiet.
“Is she going to let you drop out?” I ask as my eyes settle on my photograph of the old woman and her plaid bag and all those crumbs. The one that Jasper called depressing that first time he was in my house, the day we raced off in search of Cassie. I wonder if he’d see it the same way now.
“Define ‘let,’” he says, and then tries to laugh, but it’s wheezy and hollow.
My body tightens. “Jasper, come on, what happened?”
“Oh, you know, kind of what I expected,” he says. He’s trying to rally, but I can hear the effort in his voice. I can feel it, too, even over the phone. “Except worse, I guess.”
“Worse how?” I ask, though maybe I should be distracting him instead of pressing for details. As usual with Jasper these days, I feel totally out of my depth.
“My mom said if I don’t play hockey—go to the camp and whatever—I can’t live under her roof.” He pauses and sighs. “Listen, it’s not like she was going to change into this totally different person because I almost died.” I’m not sure if he means this as a joke. But the weird tightness in his voice is pure sadness. It makes my own chest ache.
“I’m sorry.” I want there to be something else to say. But anything more would be a lie and I know what those feel like. Jasper deserves better.
“Maybe she’s got a point.”
“So you’re thinking of playing after all?” I sound too hopeful. I can’t help it. I don’t like Jasper’s mother, but I agree that he should go to Boston College and play hockey. He’s too lost right now to cut himself free from the one thing that still brings him joy.
“No way,” he says, like that’s the most absurd suggestion ever. “I’m definitely not playing.”
My heart has picked up speed. Yes, there is a line between me reading Jasper’s bad feelings and me being anxious, but it is still super blurry. All I can say for sure is that this conversation is making me really worried.
Whether that’s because of my feelings or Jasper’s feelings is still up for debate.
“SO I MADE it to your actual office,” I said to Dr. Shepard in our first face-to-face meeting a week after the camp. I was fishing for praise. All that trauma and there I was, getting myself out of the house.
She nodded at me and almost smiled, looking as pretty and petite as she always did in her big red chair. Still like Alice in Wonderland shrunk down to nothing. I was relieved that hadn’t changed.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Dr. Shepard said.
It wasn’t exactly the job-well-done parade I was hoping for. But that was Dr. Shepard’s style: don’t make too much out of anything. Not the good or the bad. She wanted me to have expectations for myself, but she wanted to be sure I knew she didn’t have any of her own.
We chatted then for a while: how was I spending my days, how were things at home? But there was only so much dancing around what had happened at the camp that we could do.
“You know, I felt less anxious while I was going after Cassie,” I said, finally diving into the middle, probably a little too aggressively. “Shouldn’t that have made me more anxious? I was having a hard time leaving the house. Wasn’t leaving the house actually.”
“Anxiety is variable, Wylie. No two people manifest it in exactly the same way. There are no ‘shoulds.’ Even for one person anxiety can change over time depending on life events—your mother’s accident certainly made your anxiety worse to the point that you were unable to go outside for a brief period. The adrenaline of being called upon to help Cassie likely camouflaged your own anxiety temporarily,” she said. “For once the alarm