Several days of suggestions have borne fruit, and I am as excited about the results as Mary and Natalie will be with theirs. But I have gotten ahead of myself—let me start at the beginning.
Mary now regularly takes part in online conversations and chats with other teens who are going through the same struggles that she is. It hurts me that people should be bonded by something like depression and pain, but as Inca says, we may as well find the good in the darkness. She and I have successfully guided Mary toward a few other students at her school who live in shadows, and they in turn have introduced her to more. “Misery loves company” is a frightful phrase, often misused to indicate a certain pleasure in others’ pain, but taken literally it is true: we all want comfort and commiseration when we are unhappy.
Now Mary’s closest friends include Natalie, the older girl whose practical experience has been invaluable in keeping Mary away from self-harm; Aaron, a boy in Mary’s own grade who listens to harsh music to help himself through his worst moments; and Nadia, who wears bright colors and speaks cheerfully in between panic attacks. They have come together more than once to talk about the hard things that they all have to cope with, and it’s been healing for them all.
They were together today, gathering after school. Mary skipped band practice to join them, something that I would not have normally encouraged, but this was very important to her.
“It’s just crazy, you know?” Nadia said, as if she had been waiting hours to talk about this—and she has. “I’m supposed to be at the yearbook meeting, but basketball practice happens at the same time, and then tomorrow I have to work, but I also have this huge test on Friday—”
“Who gives tests on Friday?” Mary asked, horrified by this cruelty.
“It’s AP Calc and Mr. Mampe hates me, so he’s going to grade really hard and if I don’t do it the way he taught us then I’m going to fail, and if I fail then I’ll be grounded and I won’t be able to work—”
“Nadi,” Mary said, reaching for the girl. “Breathe.”
Nadia did, taking a deep breath. Mary watched her for a minute to see if she would need to put her head between her knees.
Aaron lit a cigarette and sat down with his back against a tree. There is a park behind the school, and they were sitting there on the very edge, enough in the trees to be invisible, but close enough to the nearest building that Natalie could still get wi-fi.
“Our lives are supposed to suck right now,” he said, blowing a stream of smoke in Nadia’s direction. “It’s a great big test to make sure we can survive being adults.”
“But doesn’t that mean that being an adult will be even harder?” Nadia looked close to tears at the thought.
“Can’t be,” Mary said. “Natalie says college is a lot more relaxed than high school, right Nat?”
Natalie wasn’t paying attention. She was scowling at her laptop screen, clicking down a page.
“What are you looking at?” Mary asked, coming to look over her shoulder.
Natalie shook her head and passed the laptop to Mary. “I had a forced meeting with the guidance counselor today. He gave me all these links for ‘resources’ online, but most of them are just embarrassing. I don’t need a beacon of hope, I need some help with financial aid and someone to tell me not to punch Holly Jane Perry the next time she smirks at me.”
“What is it with girls who have two names?” Nadia asked. “Ashley Ann Taylor in our grade is a stuck-up bitch, too.”
“Well, this one just looks like homework,” Mary said, flicking through websites. “Oh, and this one is no longer actively maintained. You’re right, these suck.”
“They don’t care about actually helping us, they just don’t want us to kill ourselves,” Aaron said dourly, taking another drag from his cigarette. “If you’re not suicidal, everybody assumes you’re fine.”
Nadia snorted at that.
Mary was frowning at the screen. I leaned down and whispered in her ear, as I have for the past few days.
She handed the computer back to Natalie. “If you could find the kind of stuff you were looking for,” she said, “what would it be? Like if there were the perfect website to help you, what would it have?”
“Financial aid workshops,” Natalie said immediately. “For dummies. And yoga tutorials for anger management.”
“Study tips,” Nadia added. “And time management. Plus just somewhere you could talk to someone and not have them think you’re overreacting.”
Mary looked at Aaron, who smirked. “A list of dealers and their prices.”
“Seriously,” Mary said as Natalie threw a ball of paper at his head.
Aaron picked up the paper and tossed it from hand to hand. “I could use some advice on how to come out to my parents,” he mumbled, but the girls heard him.
Nadia moved a bit closer to him.
“Give me that back, it’s my English assignment,” Natalie said.
He unrolled it and raised his brows. “You’ve got thirteen words,” he said.
Natalie snatched it. “It’s only supposed to be a couple paragraphs, leave me alone.”
Nadia noticed that Mary was still thoughtful. “Why do you ask, Mary?”
Mary looked back at her, then at Natalie. “Nat, you’re good with computers, right? Web design and that stuff?”
Natalie shrugged. “I don’t hate it. Why?”
Mary was starting to smile. “Since the perfect website isn’t out there, why don’t we make it?”
The others stared at her.
“I’m serious!” Mary said, leaning forward. “We could start it off as just a chat—somewhere you could go and talk anonymously with other people your age about anything. Then maybe we could add in some articles or videos that could help with the problems we run across. Help for teenagers, from teenagers.”
Nadia laughed. “Just what I need, something else to do.”
Aaron was leaning forward, though, interested. “Could I make it my Computer Science final project?”
“Sure,” Mary said, “why not? But it’s bigger than that. Don’t you see, guys? We could really make a difference for some people.” She looked at Natalie. “Sometimes all you need is someone who gets it.”
Natalie met her gaze, and a small smile crossed her face. She hid it quickly, but Mary had seen it. “We’d need some good sources,” she said, sighing as she opened up her computer again.
“If you go through Pinterest there are some that are not too bad,” Nadia said, scooting close to look over her shoulder. “Tumblr even has some.”
“I think we should make it location-specific, at least at first,” Mary said, sliding over to Natalie’s other side. “Like you have to go to this school to get on. But we’d make sure that everyone kept it anonymous so we don’t have to worry about sensitive stuff getting around.”
“How would we do that?”
“Well, you can set up alerts for certain key words—here, let me show you—”
And they were off, their plans and ideas coming one after another. Watching them, I could see a brightness beginning to grow in their auras.
“It is as I said,” I told Inca. “Everyone is better off when they have someone else to help.”
“No one likes to hear ‘I told you so’, Asa’el,” she replied, but she was smiling, too.