I sit on that train and ride it all the way to the end of the line, ride it like my sister did that morning when she was alone and cold and desperate and scared.

He’s right: I don’t know her. Not really. I thought I did. But I had to ask her what she wanted because I had no idea. And when I think about her now, the only adjective that comes to mind is broken. I don’t know when she stopped being the person who sang along to Hocus Pocus or the fun girl who worked at the coffee shop by our house. The one who went to bonfires with surfers and loved jumping into waves and making goofy playlists.

I guess I wasn’t looking.

Jean Cocteau—artist, writer, filmmaker—said of opium: I owe it my perfect hours. It makes me so sad, to imagine Nah’s perfect hours being ones that are all alone, hiding, filled with pills to help her forget the wave and whatever made her start taking the pills in the first place. Covered in vomit, her lips blue from cold. Skin breaking out in a rash. I want to help her see what Ben showed me about time, how it can be a gift. How a minute, if you really let yourself live it, can be everything.

The past few days, I’ve been kicking my research into high gear. Thinking I was working the problem. I thought maybe if I could figure out why the pills were so attractive, I could provide an alternative. As though it would be a simple bait and switch. What, exactly, are the pills giving her that life isn’t? And then how can I give her that thing in a healthier form?

But I don’t think it’s that simple. I’ve been trying to give Nah answers instead of asking her questions. It took a drug dealer, of all people, to point out my error. A drug dealer who is probably a lot smarter than I’ve been giving him credit for. Another error on my part.

I need to find a safe way to help my sister face whatever it is that got her started on pills in the first place. All that sadness she had even before the clinic and the wave. I think the answers might be at Dharma Bums, but I have to conduct more tests until I’m certain.

When the train stops at Kendall, I step off and walk toward the cushion that’s waiting for me. The silence. The something—or Something Else—that hides in there, waiting for all of us.

this is what dying looks like.

Mirror

Room 365

Boston Children’s Hospital

see what you are made of.

Toilet Seat

Room 365

Boston Children’s Hospital

sit in a circle
stay there until
the beginning has no end

Door

Group Therapy Room

Boston Children’s Hospital

the miracle can go fuck itself.