Complications

CASSIE:

I wasn’t always like this, I used to be… I don’t want to say normal. Actually, I do. But normal isn’t the right word. I could start from the beginning, it’s not very interesting but I’ll do it anyway. It started when I was 8. My mother, she… We were living out in the country at the time, just the two of us, and a friend had just given me this poster, I really liked it, could stare at it for hours, that was why she’d given it to me. Anyway, I was standing on this little ladder that wasn’t quite a ladder trying to tape up my poster as high and as straight as I could when my mom came running into my room screaming. She just went crazy. I fell off the ladder and she didn’t even notice, just kept yelling and hitting me and kicking me. Then she dragged me to my feet and threw me into the ladder. Then she stormed out and left me just lying there. I’ve never told anyone this, any of this, ever. I guess it wasn’t just that but that was what changed me. Before I was all happy and brainless and then suddenly I woke up. Suddenly everything in the world could hurt me, it was awful. Four and a half years later I tried to kill myself for the first time. I guess I knew I was doing something wrong because I only slashed the inside of my elbows so I could hide it easily. I’ve always been so obsessed with appearance. I thought I was all alone, that I was stupid because I wanted to and a coward because I couldn’t bring myself to do it. So I stopped trying because I was terrified of the possibility that I would succeed. I wanted to know what was wrong with me. Wanted to know why I couldn’t go through with it. Wanted to know why one second I could be bubbly and naïve then, suddenly, the next, I’d be trying to keep from smashing my head through a window. I took psychology to try and fix myself. And in a way I guess I did. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Not much ahead, but ahead. During the second year, this year, my teacher assigned studies for us to read and mine was on self-mutilation. All the girls the writer talked to said the same thing, that they only cut themselves when they were feeling stressed or freaked out, when they can’t handle it. I thought it was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard! Couldn’t understand how anyone could do that to themselves. It was the first thing I’d ever read about that I really classified as a mental illness. I had to leave work early one day, I was panicking and I didn’t know why. I barely made it home without really freaking out. My mother wouldn’t be home for hours so I threw on a movie and tried to calm down, but I couldn’t. I started thinking about those girls, the ones who would cut themselves, and I wanted to know if I could do it. So I got my favorite knife, it’s black with a straight blade, most of the girls liked serrated edges. I drew it all over my arm and tried a couple slices, not hard, just hard enough to make little white lines pop up. It wasn’t sharp enough so I sharpened it and tried again, slicing a triangle into my arm until it was an angry red, but I still didn’t have the guts. So I got a safety pin, they’re sharper, and kept at that triangle. <She rolls up her sleeves to display many cuts, some in the shape of triangles.> I couldn’t make myself bleed until many tries later. Now I’m really good at it. Guess I’m the one who’s mentally ill.

JAMES:

We were going way too fast. I knew it at the time, but I didn’t care. Thought I knew the road well enough, thought nothing could get us. I was wearing my seatbelt, always did, always do, but I was the only one, everyone else felt… untouchable. Like I did. Sarah was sitting next to me, in the passenger seat; she was drinking but was getting really drunk yet. She’d wait until we got to the party and I didn’t have to play designated driver until she did. We were dating at the time and it was just like Sarah to think about me like that. Carl and John were in the back of the car trying to make me laugh. John was smoking some grass, good enough stuff that even me, who has a high tolerance, was getting a bit floaty. The guys were the only people I really knew who got high, then again they were the only people I actually liked being around, they were screwballs, didn’t care what anyone thought. If you ever wanted to find one of us, you just had to find one other three. We were inseparable. That night was no different; we were together and goofing off. I wasn’t drunk and I wasn’t high, that car really did come out of nowhere. I tried to swerve but there wasn’t enough room. I hit the guard rail and it sent our car spinning and the other guy, the one coming towards us, smashed right into the passenger side. They said we deserved what we got. People said it was about time that drunk drivers started killing each other off. That it was time a good, clear message was sent to our quiet community that we can’t take risks. A message? So what if we were being stupid? That doesn’t mean they deserved to die! They weren’t an example. I’m not an example. My three best friends, bloody and dead, thrown around in my $500 car is not something I decided one day would be a good message. I didn’t wake up and say “I think I’ll send a good, clear message to the community.” I wish I had died. I remember lifting my head from the steering wheel, feeling the world spin and blood pour down my forehead into my eyes. For a split second I remembered hearing something about the driver being the one who usually dies, I don’t know why since I don’t think I’ve ever heard it before. I grabbed my car phone and dialed 911. As soon as the operator picked up I started crying and could barely tell her what happened. She started telling my to get everyone out of the car just in case there was a leak of something but I was on a car phone and couldn’t take it out of the car. We hung up and I called to my friends that we had to get out. But not a one of them answered me. I turned around. Sarah’s seat was thrown back; crushing John’s legs and he lay, bent at the waist, over the top of her seat with blood on his right temple where he’d slammed into the window. Sarah lay all askew, not in her seat, not even entirely in front seat. Carl was the most peaceful looking, he just lay, reclined back, with the side of his face so bloody I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. I just started screaming, yelling all of their names over and over again in random order. I don’t remember anything after that until I was in the hospital. I had a mild concussion. A mild concussion! The only three people who mean anything to me die and I get a mild concussion, its funny really.

KAREN:

Not many people know, but those who do always ask the same thing, “How did you know?” I never knew. I still don’t know. Don’t think I’ll ever get to. Its part of me, but also this distant being that I can’t grasp, that I can’t understand. I want to understand, I really do, but I don’t think I ever will. I also wish I could stand here and tell you about some exact moment, when it clicked in my brain and I knew. But I can’t I can tell you about Morgan, that is probably the best way for you to understand. Morgan is breathtaking. She’s blond, which is bad because I always make fun of blondes. She dresses really original, I don’t think anyone could ever classify or copy her. I also don’t think she’d ever give me half a glance. I doubt she really ever gave anyone half a glance. She didn’t talk to anyone outside of her three or four friends. A guy, asked her out once and she just laughed in his face, asked him what gave him the idea that he even had the right to talk to her. It took my breath away when she said that. I was watching her obsessively at the time and when this gorgeous guy went up to her I was terrified that she would say yes. Just thinking about it made me want to cry. I really am pathetic. I’m so pathetic that I won’t let anyone tell anyone else. Just keep saying that I’m not sure, that it could just be a faze. Trust me, I’m sure; it’s not just a faze. I don’t any anyone to know because I’m pathetically afraid. How will people react? I don’t know of anyone, anyone at all, that’s told everyone. At least none that I know of. Certainly no one in my school will admit that they’re gay. <She covers her mouth in horror.> Gay. I’ve never actually said it before. Always “I think I like girls,” or “I’m not attracted to boys.” It never occurred to me that I was gay. People always talk about gays and faggots and dykes but it never dawned on me that that was me. I’m the one people talk about and sneer at. That’s me. If I admitted it to everyone would it open their eyes? Make them realize that gays aren’t just big city adults on TV? Would it make them accept people for who they are, make people less conscious of what people think of them? Of would I become even more of an outcast than I already am? Would people hate me more and treat me worse thus making other people refuse to be themselves? I guess I’ll never know.

WILL:

I had always wanted a little brother. Even a sister would do, as long as they were my little brother or sister. Technically I wanted a twin brother but, obviously, that wasn’t going to happen so I started pestering my mother and father for someone else to bother. And take care of, of course. I was going to name them Lucy or Matt, they seemed like good names for a little brother or sister. But as I got older I forgot about it, eventually you realize it isn’t going to happen. Last year my mother got pregnant, my dad is fixed but that was a family secret and we were all ecstatic none the less. Even Dad was skipping around the house, filling it with anything and everything my mother could possibly want. It was invigorating and quite contagious. When my little sister was born not a one of us knew what to name her. We struggled for weeks, well into a month, only ever calling her “the baby”. Finally I proposed Aurora and that became her name. Just like that. I wanted to take care of her all the time but after a month or so passed my mother started to flip out. She would scream that I was trying her hurt her baby girl. Then she started doing the same thing to me father and my grandmother until all my mother would do was sit in the living room playing with Aurora and not letting anyone come near her. I begged my father to get her help but he refused, kept saying that she’d get better. I woke up one night to a gunshot. It was impossibly loud and I jumped out of bed, running outside to try and find out where it came from. But there was nothing. The next morning my father woke me up frantic, he said I had to get up and get in the car because we were going to grandmother’s I wanted to get dressed and go to school but he kept yelling about visiting grandma. I finally gave in, decided mom’s psychosis was rubbing off on him but I managed to convince him to let me get dressed. I needed to go to bathroom so in my underwear I padded to the bathroom but the door was mostly closed and wouldn’t open. I slipped through the crack thinking someone had put something behind the door on accident. I tripped immediately, and found myself with my nose to the floor, blood filling my nostrils, waking me up in an instant. A body pressed into my ankles and the feeling is still so deep, so engrained in my memory, how cold it was. I sat up and screamed. I wanted out of there but I didn’t want to touch the body so I jumped into the bathtub so I could get out without touching her. I slipped when I landed in the bathtub full of water, still screaming I fell on my butt, fully immersed in the slightly warm water. A tiny body, like a baby doll bumped up against me in the water and I couldn’t move. Just sat there and screamed and cried until they came and got me. If I’d tried harder it wouldn’t have happened.

CASSIE:

My name is Cassie and I cut myself, it makes me feel better.

JAMES:

My name is James and I killed my friends, it wasn’t my fault.

KAREN:

My name is Karen and I’m gay, I can’t help it.

WILL:

My name is Will and I’m an only child, I always will me.

JAMES:

All of my teachers were very supportive of me.

KAREN:

<Walks up to JAMES and touches his shoulder> If there’s anything I can for you, anything at all, just let me know.

JAMES:

I wanted to be left alone.

KAREN:

I’m here if you want to talk.

JAMES:

They all acted like they could snap their fingers and make it better.

KAREN:

I know it doesn’t feel like it now but it’ll get better. Life isn’t over.

JAMES:

<Yelling at KAREN> Don’t you understand? They’re dead! Dead! Do you know what that means? I’m not being melodramatic, they’re all dead! Just leave me alone!

KAREN:

<Ignoring him> I know it’s hard, but just remember, I’m here.

JAMES:

All of my classmates were even worse.

JAMES:

They seemed to think it was funny.

WILL:

He did what?

CASSIE:

<Giggling> Isn’t it hilarious? <Centers herself and mocks serious> It’s so sad.

JAMES:

I didn’t want everyone to spontaneously become my friend, but they could at least care.

WILL:

There he is.

CASSIE:

He looks so pathetic.

WILL:

I heard he wasn’t paying attention.

CASSIE:

I heard he was drinking.

JAMES:

They were all hypocrites; whenever I was around they acted like they cared.

CASSIE:

We’re very sorry.

WILL:

Very sorry.

CASSIE:

We’re here if you need anything.

WILL:

Anything.

JAMES:

Oh, thank you.

CASSIE:

We’ve heard all the awful rumors.

WILL:

We have.

CASSIE:

And we want you to know.

WILL:

To know.

CASSIE:

We’re on your side.

WILL:

Your side.

JAMES:

Oh, thank you.

JAMES:

<Getting gradually more emotional throughout this> You want to help? You want to make me feel better? Bring them back! Turn back time! Warn me! Warn them! Kill that driver before I could kill him, before her could kill my friends. You can’t help me! You can’t help me so just leave me alone.

CASSIE:

I felt so alone, like no one understood what I was going through.

KAREN:

Oh my God! Did you hear about Emily? I could not believe it!

CASSIE:

Felt like no one could understand me.

KAREN:

I mean, I walked right up to her and told her how incredibly dumb I thought she was acting.

CASSIE:

Everything was so stupid and insignificant.

KAREN:

I mean, I didn’t actually say anything, but I wanted to.

CASSIE:

My whole world fell apart around me. My friends were all so impossibly unable to understand and I was terrified about what me boyfriend would say. Obsessed that he would find me disgusting and tell everyone.

CASSIE:

Stop it.

WILL:

C’mon, babe. <He tried to run his hands in her shirt.>

CASSIE:

Stop it! I mean it.

<Pause, they look at each other>

CASSIE:

Let’s just watch the movie.

<Pause>

WILL:

I think we should break up.

CASSIE:

I wasn’t happy in my life so I cut myself. I tried to change my life and couldn’t, all I did was fall apart more, so I cut myself more.

CASSIE:

My so called friends.

WILL:

After Aurora died I didn’t go to school for a long time. My father and I just stayed with my grandmother and never really went anywhere. A girl I’d never met came to my grandmother’s house one day and said…

KAREN:

I heard what happened to your mom.

WILL:

How did she hear about it?

KAREN:

Everyone in school is talking about it.

WILL:

I was shocked, everyone was talking about it? What were they saying?

KAREN:

Oh lots of stuff. <She starts giggling> About how your mom went absolutely crazy and slaughtered her poor innocent little baby before doing herself in to. <She walks away then stops and turns back> Everyone says it’s a real shame that she didn’t have the right of mind to do you in while she was at it. <She leaves>

WILL:

She obviously wasn’t the brightest person who could have shown up on my doorstep but the point is that she did. And that’s what matters. Some random girl feels she has the right to insult me when my mother has just been shot. It really made be consider not going back. I really didn’t want to go back to school if all everyone was doing was insulting me and making horrible jokes at my expense. But I had to. And the school board demanded I go talk with the school counselor.

WILL:

He was a young man and for some reason I expected him to understand what I was going through.

JAMES:

I know what you’re going through.

WILL:

Do you now?

JAMES:

My father died last year. He had Cancer.

WILL:

That’s nothing like what happened to me.

JAMES:

I know your circumstance is completely different but I can still relate better than most people.

WILL:

How on earth did his Dad dying from a completely natural phenomena relate in the slightest with my mother killing herself and my baby sister?

WILL:

Everyone thought they could relate to me in one way or another and in the end they were all wrong. Your pathetic pain is nothing compared to mine. I win. The money, the fabulous prizes are all mine.

KAREN:

I absolutely refused to deal with my problem all on my own. I went to the library, checked out ever book I could on homosexuality, especially ones that had real life accounts.

JAMES:

“I was scared, scared of myself, scared of my parents, scared of anyone who could possibly know. I hid everything about myself in an effort to keep people from knowing. I slept with an uncountable amount of girls in the hopes that maybe just maybe I could cure myself.”

KAREN:

But not even those gave me any hints. They were always rambling about hiding and denial.

JAMES:

“For a long time I wouldn’t admit it to anybody, let alone myself. I didn’t want to believe that something could possibly be so wrong with me. It was a trick of the light, a trick of the mind, it wasn’t me.” <He leaves.>

KAREN:

But I wasn’t any of that. I knew I was gay and I wanted people to know. I wasn’t going to get on the school loudspeaker and announce it to the whole school. Despite knowing I was gay I was still really shy, I couldn’t ever picture myself walking up to a girl, even one I liked, and asking them out. And not just because they would be a possibility that she would be straight and not appreciate it.

KAREN:

<Puts on a fake voice and walks over to CASSIE> Karen!

CASSIE:

Yes?

KAREN:

You sure look nice today.

KAREN:

I was kind of wondering…

CASSIE:

Yes?

KAREN:

What are you doing tonight?

CASSIE:

Nothing.

KAREN:

Have coffee with me.

CASSIE:

Absolutely!

KAREN:

Seriously, I’m not that pathetically shy. But I probably would react that way. Nothing in the world would make me happier than someone else having the guts to ask me out. <She sighs and steps forward> Morgan, I love you.

JAMES:

There was a girl in my school. Her name was Cassie. It seemed like nothing in the world could affect her. Like she was above all of that crazy shit that makes high school life hard to live through. She was a glowing light, a beacon in the darkness. She had everything, friends, boyfriends, popularity… She was beautiful and everyone in our school wanted to be like Cassie. I don’t know of a single guy that wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to take her out. All she every did was smile and laugh and be happy. She never got depressed. Bad things never happened to her like they did me. And if they ever did, it was obvious that she just waved her hand and everything was better again.

CASSIE:

I never get depressed?

CASSIE:

I felt awful when happened. Everyone was really cruel to him but I thought they were all being really stupid on top of ignorant. I can’t imagine loosing my mother; then again she’s all I have. Will, he dealt with everything so well. He never broke and he never believed all those people who tried to drag him down. I want to be like him. I don’t want to go through what he went through but I want as strong as he was. I would have wanted to curl up and die. I would have wanted to hide my face and never go out again. I would have wanted to throw my hands and give up. But he kept going.

WILL:

I never broke?

WILL:

She wasn’t my friend, but Karen caught my eye. She was one of those girls who never tries to be flashy. She never wanted to be more than she was, content with her life. She knew who she was and wasn’t afraid to let absolutely everyone now. Never hid anything about herself, she was very “Here I am! Take me or leave me!” People seemed to be afraid of her honesty. No one wants to show everyone who they are but she did, she didn’t hold back.

KAREN:

I’m not afraid?

KAREN:

He lost everything. He screwed up royally and took the beating. He accepted what people said about him. He didn’t talk back. James knew that he shouldn’t have been putting his friends at risk and yet he did and he was punished for it. He didn’t try and say that it wasn’t his fault; he didn’t try and push the blame off on someone else. Or anything else. Never tried to say that it wasn’t his fault because he was drunk or high. He took responsibility for his own actions.

JAMES:

I screwed up?

JAMES, KAREN, WILL, & CASSIE:

You don’t know me, how dare you say anything about me.

JAMES:

You’re wrong about me.

KAREN:

You’re wrong about me.

WILL:

You’re wrong about me.

CASSIE:

You’re wrong about me.

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