CHAPTER 15

LEVI

It's been a week.

I'm still manic, and, as a result, work has been epically productive. Daniel is keeping an eye on me, and Terri too. I'm grateful, but I tell them repeatedly to just chill the fuck out. Which they don't.

I text Sasha but it doesn't go through.

I clean out the backroom of the gallery and restock the place with cleaning supplies. Then I rearrange the bottles until all the labels are facing front. One of the labels is round, and the rest are square, and that annoys the fucking hell out of me. So, I turn them all back around until the barcodes are all facing the front. Nice and neat and in a straight line.

On Friday, I ask to work in the gallery. I talk a lot of shit to a lot of visitors, who are delighted to finally talk to someone who thinks Van Gogh's The Starry Night is too scary, too bright, the brush strokes too large and circular. It's the type of painting that made your head spin and called to your mania.

"It's like the noise inside his head was growing too fast. Faster than his brain could cope with," I tell the fifty-something philosopher-type guy who has already purchased three pieces from the gallery.

"He's my favorite, but he was not magnificent like people think," I say. "He was just a man trying to find all the pieces of himself so he can live a normal life."

"He didn't find all his pieces," Clifton Sutton, as he introduced himself, says. I do my best to ignore the gray and black nose hairs sticking out of his nose.

I almost told him maybe Van Gogh's quiet was in a place not found, but this thing about places that don't exist feels like a secret between me and Hayden Ashford. Instead, I say, "Van Gogh tried to tell us how much he wanted to live a normal life through his exquisite art, but he was still sick. He still killed himself. Maybe he found his pieces in the afterlife."

Clifton Sutton looks deep into my (unbeknownst to him) manic eyes and nods slowly, contemplating my words. "We do it all the time," he says. "We go looking for the pieces of ourselves, and, when we can't find the pieces and we feel like we're losing our minds, we try to tell people in different ways that we're not okay. He used art."

He smiles big after that and buys another painting, promising to come back for more conversation. "You are the most interesting, insightful person I've ever met," Clifton Sutton says.

My new friend – a college professor who had, only in the last few weeks, told his family that he was gay after two hetero-marriages and three children from each – doesn't know that his observations could not have been further from the truth. Mania will turn you into someone who does nothing but exhaust the other you, is what I wish I could say. It would be the truest truth. Like your mind is running a marathon, talking to a thousand people at the same time while also trying to locate the source of an itch that covers your whole body. There's no pause. No origin for the madness. Only . . . fucking chaos.

Later, at home, I'm in bed, staring at the red lights that make up the numbers of the time on my alarm clock. My body is dead, but my mind is going a hundred miles an hour. I'm sufficiently medicated. I should be settling into my in-between, but that small window of normalcy doesn't look like it's anywhere in sight.

I can't let myself panic. If I panic, I might do something I wouldn't be able to take back. Like end my life. It's the unpredictability causing me to feel this level of anxiety. It's been a terrible few months. I can't stay stable long enough.

My eyes move across my bedroom. I consider the effort it would take to place my phone on the dresser where the entire room can be captured in one shot, and set it to record. If I blank out and do something crazy, like hang myself, there'll be evidence of what got me to that point. I used to think about documenting my death like that when I was in high school so there'll be some kind of closure for my family – they'll see I tried. That I didn't want to die. I just didn't know how to live inside my skin, inside my mind.

It's a superhuman effort to pull myself away from my dark thoughts. I force positive thoughts into my brain – my meds will work, and I'll get to my in-between instead of straight to my low. I'll be fine. It'll be okay.

I distract myself by checking to make sure my phone charger is plugged into the socket next to me in case my low comes crashing too fast and looking for my charger becomes too much of a task. Maybe I should eat too. If I crash too hard, I may not have the energy to eat later.

I can't lie in my bed like this. I have to do something. Forgoing the food, I gather my art supplies. I'll paint in my bedroom. I've been putting this thing off all week, waiting for my meds to get me onto some solid ground. It feels important to give Hayden a version of me that's somewhat . . . I don"t know, normal. Even if I don't know what that is.

But my solid ground ain"t coming. So, I paint, riding the wave of mania with a surfboard made of rainbow-colored glitter and insanity.

What would I look like if I were normal? I thought I would start with my face, but a short while after my brush touches the canvas, it isn't my face that emerges.

Hayden's profile on the left side of the canvas takes my breath away. I've created him with perfect precision. From his straight, aristocratic nose, to the harsh slant of his cheekbone. His sad brown eyes and soft lips. He's magnificent.

With trembling hands and my brain not shutting off for one second, I begin to paint my face on the right side, facing Hayden.

When I'm done, it's nearly four a.m, and I have two paintings. One of me, gazing up at Hayden as if I've found my quiet. My eyes are soft – not large and wild, and also not dead. They're just right. Happy, you could say. Normal. No noise. No paralyzing anxiety. Just me. Normal me. The me I might be without a mental disorder. My eyes become misty, the longing inside of me for a single moment of stillness amplified by the creation of my own hand. Truly, my sense of normal is something that can never be found. Like Hayden's peace. I swipe at my tears. What's the use in crying? Tears won't change anything.

The other painting is the same as the first one but without Hayden's beautiful face, and the one I'll show him. He won't know what the object of my gaze had been. He'll just see me, the me that doesn't exist – one more thing neither he nor I can have.

I should get something to eat.

I can't. I'm so tired.

I climb into bed and pray for sleep, knowing it won't come.