Then I would fake a laugh, pretending someone had said something funny. First, just a casual laugh with a slight tilt of the head. Then I would work myself up to a louder, more hysterical laughter. After a few minutes, the laughter sounded psychotic. At this point, I began to wonder who I was. My face would become that of the black-haired woman from the lake I had seen that night as a teenager, with her chapped lips and blueish skin, or my mother or father, swirling and contorted, red with agitation. I could no longer see myself; the thought that it was me behind those eyes became too much to comprehend. Frightened, I would break the stare and cover the mirror with a bedsheet.

I was told you can trick your brain into thinking you’re happy if you force yourself to smile. Activating those muscles in your face stimulates your amygdala, increasing levels of dopamine and serotonin. They say if you fake-laugh for long enough, it will become real.

I was beyond trickery.

Chapter 64

My insomnia was at its worst. I hadn’t slept for more than ten minutes in weeks. I was a carbon copy of myself, only the faded imprint of pressure remained on paper-thin skin. Locked in the past, time had become hollow, and everything seemed to exist at a distance. Unreachable, unattainable, unimportant.

I didn’t care when the towels weren’t folded the right way anymore. I didn’t care when Jack left his dirty socks lying on the living room floor for days. I didn’t care that the kitchen sink was piled with dishes caked in gunk. I didn’t care if I ate or starved or slept or drank water or washed my hair or hands. I didn’t have the strength to pretend.

Sipping a cup of coffee over the kitchen sink, I watched Jack through the window. The vines from the hanging plant had dried and were beginning to turn an orange-brown. I reached out and pinched a leaf between my thumb and forefinger, plucking it from its stem. Crumbling it to dust, I let it fall onto the counter.

Jack was digging a hole beneath the lilac tree. He was struggling to break the earth with the plastic toy shovel we had bought for the baby. I lifted my mug to my mouth and tipped it, letting the liquid linger on my tongue. It tasted particularly bitter, and I knew Jack had made it that way on purpose.

I hated him. His stupid crooked teeth and messy hair. His ripped shirts and jeans, stained with paint. His unclean fingernails and unclipped toenails. The thought of him ever touching me again made me sick.

He was clutching a white, plush bunny in his free hand. I remembered the day we bought that bunny. I was restless—I hadn’t had a drink or done drugs in months—so we walked downtown on an unseasonably chilly spring day. I was bundled in Jack’s mahogany scarf, cranky because I was constantly sick, and the air, rife with pollen, was making my eyes watery and itchy. “Let’s just go in here,” I said, motioning to the store ahead, rubbing my eyes with the end of his scarf.