11th Grade, High School
Age: 16
October-November 2008
…
Halloween falls on a Friday and half the school shows up in costume. The freshmen, convinced that they're too old for Halloween and not wanting to step out of line, come dressed in their usual outfits. The seniors, completely over school and already counting the days to graduation, come as superheroes and television characters as if it's Spirit Week all over again. Teachers have candy bowls at the front of their classrooms and the cafeteria ladies hand out caramel apple slices.
TJ is unable to enjoy any of it. Halloween has been Spinelli's favorite holiday for as long as he has known her and all of the hubbub in the school just reminds him that she is still not okay.
It has been three weeks since she's been to school and two since her first appointment. On her way home from Little Rock that day, she had texted him about how awful it was – how stupid she felt answering some of the questions and how she had cried three times. By the time the Spinellis had arrived home that night, TJ had been home from the homecoming football game and was sitting on his stoop, waiting for their car to drive by. He could see her father carrying her out of the car because she had fallen asleep, exhausted from the day, and hadn't gone down to meet them.
He knows that deep down in his entirely too optimistic subconscious, he thought that Spinelli's first appointment with the psychiatry team would change everything. He imagined her having some sort of epiphany and that the next time he saw her the light would be back in her eyes. The more rational and practical part of him knew that wouldn't be the case, but it still didn't make him any less disappointed.
During that first appointment, Spinelli walked into the room and, before the doctor could even pose her first question, she had another panic attack. The doctor prescribed her a medication that she hoped would lessen Spinelli's anxiety and make it easier for her to engage in therapy sessions. The medication would take time to start working, as long as six weeks, and during that period of time Mr. and Mrs. Spinelli had warned both TJ and Gretchen to be aware of any changes in her behavior.
Because, as if it wasn't hard enough to hear Spinelli say negative things about herself, the medication the doctor prescribed came with risks. Scary risks. Specifically, a black box warning, something TJ had never heard of before but soon learned was the highest safety rating that the FDA can give. This medication came with the warning of increased risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors in pediatric and young adult patients.
Gretchen, of course, understood completely while they were discussing it with Mr. and Mrs. Spinelli, but TJ just nodded along, completely lost and had insisted on having Gretchen explain it again as soon as the two had left.
"Basically, what happens is that you put someone on this type of medication to make them better, but the lack of energy and motivation they have at the deepest part of a depression or anxiety episode can actually be protective against suicide," Gretchen had told him. "Once you give them the medication, it doesn't work immediately and there is a period in the beginning specially where they're still anxious, they're still depressed, but they have a lot more energy and motivation, and so someone who may not have had the energy to go through with that behavior before, now has the physical ability to act on it."
It was all extraordinarily terrifying.
That night, he woke up drenched in sweat, screaming and out of breath. His mother had run into the room and sat with him while he tried to calm himself down, but he couldn't get back to sleep. Over breakfast, his mother had gently expressed her concern and later at school, so had Gus. His friend had clearly seen how tired TJ looked and when TJ had told him about what had happened, Gus had suggested that TJ visit the school counselor, just to unload some of the fears on his chest.
"It is so important that you get help through this too," Gus had told him.
And so TJ met with the school counselor for a few minutes each day and it did make a difference. Over the last few weeks, she has helped him with some coping skills. Which has proved important because he feels overwhelmed between wanting to be there for Spinelli and not wanting to tear apart half the school for spreading rumors about her.
He knows that Vince, Gus, and Mikey have been working hard behind the scenes to keep the rumors away from TJ and Gretchen. However, TJ has heard a majority of them through Sam, Dave, and Phil, who he has insisted keep him updated on what is being said in hallways or locker rooms. There has been so much said about her now that it's a blurry mess. She had a mental breakdown. She has an eating disorder. She was pregnant and had a botched abortion. He had hoped that people would lose interest after a while, but it seems like the longer she is out of school, the more people talk and he is really concerned about when she does come back.
He passes his own house on his way home from school and stands on the sidewalk in front of Spinelli's for a moment. Mrs. Spinelli loves decorating their house for the holidays. Each year, she has a full nativity scene on display at Christmas and adorns their front porch with cornstalks and pumpkins for Thanksgiving. Because Halloween is Spinelli's favorite, her mother goes all out – fake tombstones in the front yard, cobwebs everywhere, and last year she bought a set of skeletons to sit in matching chairs in the front yard. She even made them hold hands. Mr. and Mrs. Bones.
This year no one would even know it's Halloween by looking at their house.
He sighs and walks to the front door, ringing the doorbell and waiting for someone to answer. Within moments, Mrs. Spinelli is at the door, waving him inside and telling him that Spinelli is upstairs in her room.
As he walks up the stairs, he can't help but think that not too long ago, Mrs. Spinelli would have never told TJ to go up to her daughter's room. Much too private and too much chance for them to get up to no good.
He tries to remember when the last time they kissed was and can't.
Her door is open and he wonders what state he'll find her in. Is she in bed, too tired to get up again? Is she crying? She did just have therapy yesterday in Little Rock and that trip always drains her. He never really knows what he'll find.
But he hadn't expected this.
He frowns when he walks into the room and stands in the doorway, watching her draw on the wall. Spinelli has moved her dresser, putting it in front of her window, in order to give herself a large swath of empty plaster. She has a pile of Sharpies on her floor in a variety of different colors and she occasionally bends down to grab a different one before returning to her masterpiece.
Her walls are a light lilac color, but this part between the window and the corner of her room has no lilac left. It looks more like a mural.
He takes a step inside and eyes her. Her back is to him as she frantically adds shadows and details to her creation. She has her hair in a messy bun with a pencil sticking through it and has one of his old baseball t-shirts on with leggings and mismatched ankle socks. She's muttering to herself under her breath, so softly he can't make out the words.
"Spin," he says before he approaches, not wanting to startle her. She does anyway, jumping as she turns to face him and then relaxes. He points to the wall behind her. "Does your mom know you're drawing on the wall?"
She nods her head and turns back to her wall, backing up slightly. He walks up to stand side-by-side with her.
"Yeah," she says. "My therapist suggested it."
"On the wall?"
She smirks. "Well, not the wall. But I was killing too many trees."
He turns to the wall and takes in her art. Right in the center is a life size drawing of herself from the back, as if she's walking away from them. She has her two Dutch braids she wears so often and her leather jacket and her boots. A very typical Spinelli outfit. Around her is an abstract collage. There is a pattern reminiscent of a soccer ball and a pink ribbon that appears to be floating in the breeze. Pointe shoes. Books. Pencils.
"You drew yourself."
She shakes her head. "I drew my body."
He glances at her, turning his head to look at her, but she continues to stare straight ahead. He raises an eyebrow in her direction as if she will sense his confusion and turn to him. When she doesn't, he prods a little more.
"What does that mean?"
"It means that I have no idea who I am," she states, as if it makes complete sense.
He frowns. "I don't understand."
She sidesteps him and goes to her bed, reaching for a black book. She hands it to him and he recognizes it as a sketchbook. When she gives him a little nod of permission, he flips open the cover and flips through the pages.
Spinelli has always been a talented artist. In fourth grade she turned the asphalt into her canvas for a recess, creating a masterpiece that had impressed all their classmates and she has only improved since then. But as he flips through this book, he realizes that these images are a lot rawer than that chalk mural or even the manic Sharpie collage on her wall. They're all in black and white, more sketches than finished products. But he recognizes so many of the elements in them – Muddy Bottom Pond, the playground at Third Street, Townsedge Mall, the high school, faces of their peers from school, her parents, her friends, him. She is not featured in any of these pictures unlike on the wall and as he opens his mouth to point it out, he realizes why.
She has drawn her memories.
"I had a hard time talking at therapy," she says. "So, the first session was a disaster. The second one though, my therapist gave me this book and told me to use it to draw my memories, my nightmares, anything that could help put some sense into why I think the way I do."
The book is full, every last page filled with line art. She has even scribbled small doodles on the inside covers.
"Did it help?" he asks.
She nods and steps forward, using her own fingers to flip through the pages. She settles on a page near the front.
"We talked about this one yesterday."
He glances down and takes in the page, line art of a few young children at desks. He studies the faces and sees four girls sitting together, each holding a similar shaped box, glancing across the page at a taller boy, holding a stuffed Bonky tightly to his chest.
"What memory is this?" he asks.
"The first day of kindergarten."
He looks up at her, shocked. "You remember the first day of kindergarten?"
"You don't?"
When he thinks back, he remembers small details. He sat next to Vince. Spinelli introduced herself to the class with Madame Fist. The five of them became friends at recess. But he couldn't pinpoint an entire scene like this.
"Vaguely," he tells her. "The most vivid part I remember is you standing on your chair and telling everyone to watch out for Madame Fist."
He looks down at the picture and takes in the scene. If this is the first day of kindergarten, the boy with the Bonky must be Mikey and the girls, all with identical boxes in their hands, must be the Ashleys.
"Clearly you remember more details than I do," he says, before turning to the wall with her current Sharpie art. "And I take it this conversation spawned your wall art."
She nods her head and opens her mouth, but then shuts it again. He can see the confidence she had in handing him the book start to drain from her face. He closes the book and tucks it under his arm, using his free hand to take one of hers. He leads her to her bed and rubs his thumb over the back of her hand as they both sit down.
"You don't have to tell me any more if you don't want to," he says.
"I want to."
She taps her toes on the carpet.
"Take your time."
In the quiet, he can hear her swallow. Then she takes a deep breath and, without looking at him, she begins.
"I desperately wanted to go to kindergarten. My cousin Nick was going and we were always kind of tag-teamed at family stuff because we were almost the same age, and so if he was going, I wanted to go too," she says. "My parents…my mom wanted to wait. Because I'm an October baby, they could have held me back and no one would have blinked an eye and I know she wanted to, but I begged and pleaded and they decided to let me go."
He watches her close her eyes as she continues the story, as if she's playing the scene in her head like a movie.
"I was so excited and my mom bawled like a baby. I sat at my desk and I had on my mom's favorite dress, it was red and it had little cap sleeves and a big sash. And I brought my baby doll as my special toy," she continues. "And then Mrs. Klemperer started having us introduce ourselves and Ashley A went first. All three of the rest of them just so happened to be sitting at the same table as her, all wearing purple and all bringing in their stupid pretty princess makeup kits as they're special toys. And by the time they were all introduced they were all best friends because they were all named Ashley and they all wore the same color and had the same toy. And here I was – also Ashley, but wearing red with no makeup kit, and I was bummed because there was my shot at making easy friends."
She opens her eyes and glances up at him, shaking her head with her eyes becoming glassy. He squeezes her hand.
"Take your time."
She blows out a breath.
"It feels so stupid now," she mumbles.
"It's not stupid," he whispers.
As she takes a few deep breaths to steady herself, he takes in what she had said. In her memory, she had wanted to be an Ashley. She had lamented the missed opportunity to join them. He fights back the shocked expression he knows is trying to show on his face. He never in a million years would have guessed this was her very first school memory.
"So, I sat there, feeling all left out, and the next thing I remember is Mikey going. He brought in Bonky and I remember because I was staring at the Ashleys and they started laughing." Her eyes narrow. "They were laughing because he brought in Bonky, which is such a little kids show, and then I can't remember which one it was but one of them called him fat. I just remember getting angry because it was mean. And I made a split-second decision when Mrs. Klemperer got to me that I didn't want anyone to know my name because what if I got lumped in with them?"
She shrugs. "And that split-second decision became my entire identity. I let it consume me until it broke me." She sniffles. "And now I have to pick up the pieces and figure out what's real and what's the illusion."
Suddenly, she leans her head back, like she's looking at the ceiling, and clenches her eyes shut. A tear sneaks out and runs down her cheek. TJ squeezes her hand, feeling completely helpless and unsure of what to do.
"My entire life has been a well-orchestrated lie," she says, turning her head to look back at TJ. "From what I wear to the way I laugh. I didn't even tell my parents your real names!"
"You were just embarrassed," he tells her. "Everyone is embarrassed about their parents a little bit."
She shakes her head.
"Or maybe I was embarrassed about myself?" She shrugs and blows out a breath before continuing. "Maybe I was afraid that by meeting my parents, everyone would see that at home I was…just Ashley, a girl who got into wrestling because she desperately wanted to join in with her dad and big brother. A girl who grew up playing with dolls and watching silly movies with her mom and loving on her dog a little too much to be the take-no-shit, leather jacket wearing Anti-Ashley she was on the playground."
She pauses her thoughts and TJ waits, not wanting to interrupt her. When she speaks again, her voice is soft and breathy.
"And I guess I'm just worried that…when I finally figure everything out…Just Ashley won't be good enough."
He hates how small her voice sounds. He wonders how long these thoughts have been circling around in her head. He looks down at the sketch from the first day of kindergarten. Although he can't pinpoint specific scenes, his memories of her are of confidence and bravery. A little girl with so much conviction as to right and wrong that she stood up to students twice her age and double her size to defend someone.
To see her like this breaks his heart.
"Just by existing, you are enough," he tells her.
…
Each day after, TJ knocks on the Spinellis' door and is allowed upstairs to join her. They sit side by side on her bed, her sketchbook in her lap, and slowly she begins to tell him the stories surrounding each of her sketches. Some are easier than others. On days when she looks exhausted, with dark circles under her bloodshot eyes and tear stains on her cheeks, they find lighthearted sketches in the corners of pages – her first solo at ballet, landing a particularly hard move at wrestling camp the summer after fourth grade.
On days when she has the strength, she flips to the hardest pages.
She shows him sketches of her image in the mirror, warped and surrounded by words like flat, short, and boxy.
There are multiple pages of children's faces laughing with pointed fingers with little word bubbles coming from the side.
"She called Ms. Grotke Mama!"
"Ashley S!"
"Spinelli's a fifth grade baby!"
There's a sketch of a wall of bikinis and she tells him stories about dragging Gretchen to the mall because she wants the boys to realize she's a girl. What better way to do that than to wear a bikini to Muddy Bottom Pond? Even though there's no sketch to go with it, she sheepishly tells him about the first homecoming and how she almost wore a pink dress just to make him realize she was in fact a girl.
"I thought for the longest time that after spending so much energy trying to convince everyone at Third Street that I was just as tough as the boys, that no one realized that I was a girl anymore," she tells him.
She tells him that one summer in middle school, Gretchen had to give her a science lesson after she ate an entire watermelon in one sitting while trying to kickstart her period because she had overheard the Ashleys making Ashley Q do the same thing.
"I was sick for days," she says. "My stomach hurt so much."
She flips to sketches of ballet and tells him about being teased and ridiculed for things outside of her control. He digs his fingers into her mattress when she tells him about being mocked for her body size, called a slut and a whore – "because the only reason why someone like TJ Detweiler would like someone like you is your flexibility" – and how her once safe haven has turned into such a toxic environment that she hasn't been in weeks.
Back in September, when TJ had finally gotten her to admit that she was struggling and convinced her to talk to her parents, she had told him that he didn't understand what she went through on a day-to-day basis. He hadn't truly believed her. Now he knows she is absolutely right. High school in general can be a cesspool and he has been on the lucky side of having a great experience for the most part. Looking at her sketches and hearing her stories, being a girl just adds an entirely different factor to the whole mess.
He had always realized that Spinelli was much more of an introvert than himself, despite the fact that people often lumped her in with him and Vince as being loud and outgoing. What he had never realized was how much she internalized and how all of it created an inner voice that has convinced her that nothing she can ever do is good enough. Her reputation, something he had always assumed had been a way for her to stand out in the crowd, had instead been a way for her to hide her insecurities.
As days turn into weeks, things begin to change. One day he comes to her house and she answers the door herself. She starts wearing jeans again rather than sweats and leggings. They start hanging out in the living room rather than her bedroom, and then later taking walks around the neighborhood with Scruffy. Toward the middle of November, she asks her mother to cut and style her hair and she actually wears it down. He almost doesn't recognize her.
And then she tells him that she is going back to school.
It was a mutual decision between her medical team and her parents that it might be a good idea to attempt a return on a week where there's already a day off. The week of Thanksgiving seemed like a great idea to everyone since there were only two and a half days. A nice, easy transition.
Sunday night she gets so nervous she makes herself sick. His phone rings on his nightstand around midnight and he quietly sneaks out of his house to walk down to hers, sitting on the front porch with his arms wrapped around her as she calms herself down. He tells her that he's sure her parents would be okay with her waiting another day, but she insists that it's just delaying the inevitable.
"I might as well just get it over with," she mumbles into his chest.
The next morning, back in his bed, he wakes up before his alarm, his stomach flipping into knots similarly to how Spinelli's had been the night before. His mother is startled by his presence in the kitchen, so used to him being late and rushing around.
He makes his way down to Spinelli's early enough that they have plenty of time to walk to school – and plenty of time to pause, or turn around, if need be.
Spinelli answers the door when he knocks, her coat on and her backpack already around her shoulders. He takes in her appearance. If he didn't know what had happened the night before, he might not even recognize her nervousness. She has a slight downturn to her lips and her brown eyes are wide despite their exhaustion, but otherwise she hides her nerves well. She wears her trusty boots with a pair of skinny jeans tucked into them, her North Face fleece is zipped up, but he can see the hood of a sweatshirt poking out around her neck. Half of her hair dangles around her shoulders, the rest tied back in a messy bun with her bangs framing her face.
"You ready?" he asks.
She lets out a breath. "No, but I don't think I'll ever be, so let's just go."
As they walk, she reaches for his hand and the closer they get to the school, the tighter she squeezes. When they're about halfway through their walk, he knows he has to distract her or his hand will be numb before they reach the school, so he turns and nudges her arm. He has been planning to tell her something for a while and now may be the time to do it.
"Did I ever tell you that my parents named me Theodore because they were planning on calling me Teddy?" he asks.
If she's thrown off by his seemingly random story, she doesn't show it.
"What? No," she says. "Really?"
"Yes. True story," he says, biting back a chuckle.
She raises an eyebrow. "How did you become TJ then?"
"So, my dad brought Becky to the hospital to meet me and she was already upset that she was getting a sibling in the first place, so when it wasn't a sister that she got, oh boy. Apparently, the tantrum she threw will go down in hospital history," he says.
"Okay, but that still doesn't explain TJ."
"I'm getting there. You're impatient," he jokes, poking her in the side where he knows she's ticklish. She giggles and he grins at the response. "Add that to your list of who you are: impatient."
She rolls her eyes.
"Okay, Teddy. Continue."
"Well, so Becky did not take well to me being a brother, threw a hissy fit, and then my parents told her my name was Teddy and she screamed so loud because that was way too close to her name. Not only was there a new baby taking her attention, but it had a similar sounding name and it was a boy? Oh, no, that would not do," he says. "So in true Becky fashion, she proceeded to call me anything but Teddy. She called me Theodore, Theo, Ted, she even tried Jasper, and then finally she went with TJ and I think my parents were just so tired of her BS that they just went with it. Which, you gotta admit, is pretty smart for a six-year-old."
His mother loves to bring this story up when describing Becky's persistence now, but he can only imagine how exhausting it must have been for his parents at the time. He chuckles a little under his breath. His parents sure knew how to nurture hellraisers.
"I mean, as much as we don't like to admit it, Becky is pretty smart," Spinelli says jokingly. Then she looks up at him with thoughtful eyes. "So, why'd you think of that story?"
She squeezes his hand and gives him a knowing look. "I know you too well, Teej, to know that wasn't a well-timed story for my first day back to school."
"You caught me."
"So, lay it on me. What's your first day of school speech?"
He chuckles and, when she giggles with him, he loses his entire train of thought. Instead he thinks about the last few weeks, watching her come to terms with her reality. It isn't so much that she's a completely different person – not even in the slightest, actually. When he's with her, he sees the Spinelli he once knew like the back of his hand peeking through in her mannerisms. There is still so much about her that is the same. Instead, it just seems like she is embracing certain aspects of herself more than she had before.
She had been so worried that she wouldn't be enough, but he is finding that as she shows him more of herself, more of what she had hidden from the outside, that he is falling in love with her all over again. He just hopes she can do the same with herself.
"I want you to know that I'm not going anywhere," he says. "When you walk through those doors today, this is a new start for you. You can be whoever you want to be and I hope that you're able to forget about everyone except yourself. I'll admit, these last few months haven't been easy, but you are worth it and seeing you today, even though I know you're nervous, you look more comfortable in your own skin than I have ever seen you before."
He squeezes her hand.
"And I told you that story because if you decide you want to go by Ashley, I'll be the first person trying to retrain my brain on what to call you."
He has never called her Ashley to her face. Around her parents, he calls her Ashley in reference, but using it directed at her feels foreign on his tongue.
She nods her head, but her eyes look distant, clearly deep in thought. Then finally, she turns and shakes her head.
"I like when you call me Spin," she says. "In another life, we might have been Ashley and Teddy. But in this one, let's stick to Teej and Spin."
He smiles and starts them moving again on their walk. After a beat, he nudges her shoulder again. "What about Ash and Ted?"
She bursts into laughter, a deep belly laugh that he hasn't heard out of her in months. It makes him laugh too and as they cross the street toward the school, he feels in the pit of his gut that despite whatever challenges are bound to come their way, they'll get through them. Together.
…
Notes
Sorry for the delay in updates. In real life, I work as a nurse and our hospital (like every healthcare system in the country) has been incredibly short staffed and I was taking advantage of the incentives to pick up extra shifts and make some extra money. Because of that, on my few days off this month, I just didn't have the time or mental energy to write/edit anything.
Spinelli's mental health journey could have been an entire full-length story on its own, but I've condensed the big revelatory parts to this chapter to move us along. My goal for this story isn't to completely change Spinelli's personality, which I hope was apparent in this chapter. She is just going to embrace some of the qualities that she had in the series that are in multiple episodes but sort of get lost in the characterization of "Girl Who Runs with Fists" – her artsiness, for example.
Gretchen's explanation of how antidepressants can increase the risk of suicide is based on how I remember my professor explaining it in my psychiatric nursing class in college.
Episodes References: Mama's Girl, Recess: Taking the Fifth Grade; First Name Ashley, Spinelli's Masterpiece, The Great Can Drive (Spinelli's cousin Nick from Fifth Street School is mentioned here).
Next chapter takes place in 2009 and we're back to Vince.