Forgetting

"Memories: they don't die. Oh, wait: they only die when you don't want them to." Natalie reflects on her own memories after her mother loses hers, and they take her back to places she never wanted to visit.

A/n: I'm getting back to 'What Doesn't Kill Me', but this popped into my head. ;) I officially gave back my n2n CD to the library; I just left it on the counter then slowly walked away. And then, in my sudden reading binge, I came across a quote in the novel The Bell Jar and found it to be quite fitting; it's the exact opposite how Natalie feels! Also, I took some creative liberty in the part mentioning how Natalie found out Diana was in the hospital; my friend saw the show recently, and said that he didn't remember them mentioning this. I've penned this on the only working computer (when it works) at my house, and the town library. So this hasn't been that easy. Teehee.

I've always thought that Natalie is the angriest from the time that Di is admitted to the hospital, to the Maybe (Next to Normal). That's my interpretation, and it's reflected here. Perhaps it will change once I see the show. Sorry Kyle Dean Massey, dude I heard you're amazing and all, but I pledged to see it with the original cast, so I'm waiting until after September 7th. And then I will scheme.

Trivia: Past titles for this have included, 'This Glass and Wood', and 'Good as Gone'. Third time's a charm.

Dedication: To all pioneers of the Next to Normal fanfiction section. I may be kind of cocky here, but I think we all pwn.

Disclaimer: Unless I lost my memory and I'm really both Brian Yorkey and Tom Kitt trapped inside a teenage girl's body, I don't own Next to Normal. Insert Aaron Tveit pining note here.

Maybe forgetfulness, like a kind snow, should numb and cover them [the memories]. But they were a part of me. They were my landscape. –Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

This is just absolutely lovely. I was beginning to doubt that things couldn't go any farther downhill, but, well, I'm meeting the mole people! Among these mole people, I spy F. Scott Fitzgerald (drank himself to death), Sylvia Plath (who probably had the most ridiculous suicide attempt ever. This is coming from the girl with a mother who tried to take the clichéd way of the razor-in-the-tub method of taking her own life), and the United States economy (if you object to this, I highly suggest checking out one of the many 3 lettered news stations out there.) Now the Goodman family has earned themselves a little condo or something down there in the land called "Point of No Return". Population? 3… No, 4. How could I forget about the guy who fucked everything up!?

I guess, technically, it'd be Mom who fucked everything up, since she's imagining Gabe. No imagining Gabe, no mind-numbing treatment. Or Dad, since he's been dancing around the subject for so long that he puts the Rockettes to shame. Maybe even me; without me, Mom and Dad could just pretend that they couldn't have kids due to a medical problem, so they would never have to look at their daughter and wonder how different she'd be if she had her big brother beside her at the dinner table.

Scarily enough, when Mom was off at the nut house, I mean, "mental hospital", sometimes I'd look at random spots in the house and I'd relive everything. Did Mom do this before the massive mind meltdown?

For example, once, when I was heading off to the bus stop, I accidentally took the route that went through the garage down the driveway. In mid-step, I could hear the sharp screech and ph-thmp that ended Norman's life. I wasn't even a cat person, really, but I thought that it was a pretty lame-ass way to go. I could still feel the pleather of the steering wheel, slightly slippery on my sweaty, shaking hands. My mom's exclaimed "Batshit!" still rung in my ears. The cheap odor of a tree-car freshener could still be smelled.

After that one flashback, I began seeing them everywhere; the ghost of Goodmans past. Ghost Mom was holding the damned birthday cake beside the table, Dad looked like he'd just seen a ghost (haha, irony makes everything go 'round!), and Henry is sitting there not knowing what the hell is going on. I'm squeezing my eyes shut to the point where I start seeing kaleidoscopes of colors emerging from the inky darkness, and I'm trying to just phase out. I can also see myself sprinting up the stairs, my nails leaving indents in my palms, my ears being filled with the hollow noise that one only hears when charging up stairs with inhuman speed.

Suddenly the blotch of carpet that was accidentally bleached with Clearasil began projecting a vision of me, sitting on the floor with my knees to my chest, blabbing to Henry all about how my Mom still favors Gabe over me. I didn't even have to be standing in the spot; I still could feel how the carpet gave way under my weight.

The first time I saw my mom talking to herself (or Gabe-essentially the same thing) was when I was going down to the kitchen to make a grilled cheese sandwich. I could still feel my hands clenching the thin railing on the top of the staircase. The broken melody of my warbled hum of 'Ode to Joy' followed me back to my room, but it still wasn't enough to drown it out.

The first time she freaked out in front of me was when I was twelve. Her medication was in her bag, and of course, she points the biggest of her handbags and asks me to get her medicine for her. I keep zipping and unzipping pockets for what seemed like forever, going through half melted lipsticks and tissues and 'to-do' notes until I told her that I couldn't find it. She ran over, grabbed the bag, shook it and said "fuck" about ten times before bursting into tears.

"Mom?" I asked, shaking and not knowing what to hell to do.

"Everything is just so fucking wrong!" she sobbed, gripping my shoulders and shaking me once. My eyes widened to the size of a cartoon character's, and I recoiled.

"Mom, um, do you need anything…" I babbled, a full three steps away from her. She went through her bag, crying the whole time, until she found her little bottle of pills. As she went to fill a tiny paper cup with tap water, I didn't even look at her. My eyes were fixed on the spot where she just stood. Norman meowed somewhere in the distance, pissed off that we forgot to open a can of food for him 10 minutes ago. Once she gulped down the pills and water, she gripped the counter and turned back to me.

"Honey," she retreated toward me. "…I'm sorry." With perfect timing, Dad walked in the door at the perfect time to see me run up the stairs to my room. I don't know what Mom told him; I was too busy sitting in the fetal position on my bed, looking out the window and wondering if this was what most daughters went through.

For those people wondering if Dad ever asked me about what happened, here's your answer: he did. I told him that I was experiencing some "woman problems" and didn't feel like myself, but I was fine.

I was always "fine". Even though I could still picture how her face crumpled that day, and the feeling of being jolted back lingered, I was "fine".

So long, innocence.

I remember that on the day Mom was rushed to the hospital, Dad wasn't there to pick me up from the bus stop. While en route to the Goodman house I got a call on my cell from Dad; it was in front of the Vanderbilt house. The Vanderbilt kids (all 5 of them, ages ranging from 4 to 12) were piling out of the car, clad in soccer uniforms, and gathering to kick the ball around in the front yard.

"Natalie, sweetie, I'm at the hospital. It's your mother," he said in a monotone.

"She fucking tried to kill herself, didn't she?" I spat into the receiver. Mrs. Vanderbilt turned around, put her hands on her hips, and stood with her mouth agape.

"Language, Nat…"

"So basically you're more concerned with your use of profanity than Mom's suicide attempt." Mrs. Vanderbilt gathered the kids inside, but made it a point to shoot me a dirty look before doing so. Haha, I'm too real for her kids to see. Now I'm a bad influence just because I've been blessed with a lunatic for a mother. God forbid those kids learn what's on the other side of their white picket fence.

A long pause.

"Do you want me to pick you up and bring you here?"

"God no! What makes you think that I'd enjoy watching her lay still with fucking tubes coming out of her? Geez Dad."

End of call.

When I think about the moment I ran home, I can still smell the detergent off the pillowcase that was pressed against my face, and how unfairly rough it felt when I wiped the tears off with the sleeve of my sweatshirt. I remember nearly having a meltdown in the bathroom, when I saw the dirty footprints from the ER attendants' shoes on the previously white bathmat. Between the grooves of mud lay crimson stains. Suddenly, I felt like everything I had ever ingested was rising up, the acid burning at where my heart supposedly is, and I dove for the toilet. In the bowl, happily half-bobbing, was the razor. The fucking razor was in the toilet. Since I wasn't the one to find her, she still had to make sure I found part of it. Sputtering, I felt emptier as everything in me poured out into the trashcan.

Next thing I knew, my fingers were feeling the fabric of the outfit that Aunt Rhonda sent me for my birthday last year. Upon receiving it, I glanced at the black glitter tank top and wondered why the hell she'd send this to me. It reminded me of the girl in my study hall who used a cigarette lighter to set her failed assignments aflame. Until then, I'd never had a place to wear it. But, I suddenly found myself putting the itchy attire on, shoving twenty bucks into the pocket of my jeans, and heading out to the bus station. I knew there was a club nearby just by overhearing conversations on the bus ride home; I figured, "Oh, what the hell."

And then I was off…

On the bus ride there, every memory I'd ever had of Mom came flying at me. I didn't want to come home eventually and find my father picking out coffins or something. I didn't want to come home and have him tell me something along the lines of "even though Mom is seriously ill and in the hospital after trying to kill herself, she'll get better, don't worry, we'll be fine…" He'd be saying that more for himself.

I didn't want to come home… Home would mean remembering everything that just went on.

So here's Mom, her mind an empty abyss of absolutely nothing. She doesn't remember my allergy to shellfish. She doesn't remember when I got my head stuck under the coffee table (I was four and curious). She doesn't remember the call she got from my third grade teacher when I was reading the latest Harry Potter in class instead of doing 4x5=20- like math problems (I'd actually finished them.) She doesn't remember how Norman the cat met his maker (or ate one sock from every pair we owned.)

She doesn't even know that she gave birth to me on cold, drizzly morning of February 3.

At least she doesn't remember Gabe… for now.

He'll come back. He always comes back. She'll remember him more than me, and I've outlived him by over 16 years. And then life will plow on, as my Dad happily blocks everything out, my Mom only remembers what we tell her, and I remain memory keeper.

Memories: they don't die. Oh, wait: they only die when you don't want them to. And then they're gone forever and there's nothing you can do but cast a line into the selective memory pool.

Why is it that she gets to forget every mishap of her life, when everywhere I look I can just feel it? Anything and everything keeps coming back to me. She doesn't know anything, and Dad's only telling her the happier stuff. "It's an open book to write here!" he says.

What about me, Dad? Where's my open book? Can I get over everything? How? Every time I try, I wind up waking with a cartoon character pounding rocks in my head. It's not working, clearly. You seem so diligent in getting your wife help, then help…your…fucking…daughter. God, if you didn't want me, then you should've just kept your pants on! I'm sorry I'm not Gabe, Dad. It's not my fault and I'm sorry. Geez, give me something! Show me a sign, somebody! Anybody!

I could be falling down the fucking Grand Canyon, head first, and my parents would just stand over me, watching. When I hit the bottom, Gabe will cackle at me. With my luck, I probably wouldn't even die: I'd live to tell the fucking tale over and over again! Depressing, but true.

So, as I start to force-feed my Mother memory after memory, in an attempt to realize our former circus act, I can't help but think:

Some people have all the luck.