1998-1999
The following is an excerpt, the first chapter, of Emily Costa’s Until It Feels Right, published by Autofocus Books on June 21, 2022.
This thing starts in sixth grade. A teenager working for my dad—a friend of the family, a one-time babysitter—bludgeons a kid my age. It’s like okay, sure, I’ve always thought of death death death, even as a toddler, ever since watching my grandfather wither from cancer and hallucinate in our TV room recliner, but it’s like bam, now every thought flips to murder, to quick death, bloody death, a sledgehammer to the head, and this little part of my brain, this tiny voice says but—and hear me out—what if you could predict death? What if you could predict murder? and the rest of my brain says I’m listening, so I stop feeling my body for tumors all the time and start becoming aware of shadows, of branch-snaps, of suspicious-looking men. I’m afraid of being alone outside. And then, inside. The little part of my brain, which is really the main part of my brain even though its voice starts out so weak, says well wouldn’t you want to do anything and everything in your power to avoid the murder then? To which the rest of my brain says duh, and the little part goes on saying so how do you know there’s no one hiding in your closet? And I realize I don’t know that, I have no clue, and it says so do you…maybe wanna check in there? Then my body checks, rushes over to push back clothes, to peek into the black spaces, and the little part of my brain says you know a person could fit under a bed too, and the rest of me says ah yes true, so I check, and the little part of my brain likes this and says well potentially a person could fit behind your door…and definitely behind your curtains, maybe balancing on the baseboard heater to hide their feet…and maybe a really small person could fold up and fit into your drawers, or they’ve carved out the inside of your dresser completely while you were at school and they’re living in there, waiting to pounce, and that tiny part loves it because the rest of me is pure fear. And fear beats reality every single time.
But all of this still makes some sense, even as the ritual crystallizes and forms an order. I walk clockwise around the room, door to dresser to closet to bed, back to door. I add in more precautions: I thumbtack an American flag over my closet doors as a kind of tamper-proof seal, since someone hiding in my closet wouldn’t be able to replace the tacks after hiding inside. It slowly morphs from do these things to make sure you are safe to do these things or else you will not be safe to do these things or else you will die.
Then come the offshoots. The rational part of my brain still doesn’t fully understand them, but luckily that other part tricks me into doing them anyway. It conjures horrifying bloody images played on loop. This is you dead, Emily. This is you dead. Sometimes the rest of me is feeling big, feeling brave, feeling tired, and I say well fine, kill me, get it over with. This is hell. And then the little part of my brain remembers the Columbine announcement on Total Request Live, the footage and interviews, the somber VJs. My brain flips through images, shows my mom shot at school while she’s teaching. Her form fuzzy on security cam footage. Blood pooling. So I listen.
I am stuck on multiples of four. I like the balance of four, like legs supporting a tabletop, so I repeat everything four times. If I mess up within those four times, if I accidentally think of any of those bloody images on the last little tap-touch-count bit on the last run-through of the ritual, I have to restart, do it four more times. Sometimes I’m only able to get in two times if it happens in public. It’s happening more in public.
The numbers, the counting—they’re some kind of add-on. The nighttime rituals don’t bring me enough comfort. It’s like a drug, a little bit’s good at first, but then it takes more and more just to feel normal, just to bring you back to yourself.
I wear the same pajamas to bed every night: white fleece dELiA*s pants with little blue stars on them that are probably my most prized possession because they were expensive, and a baby blue Paul Frank t-shirt with a turtle on it. During the day I hide them under my pillow, folded neatly, never washed.
Every part of my body holds meaning. My fingers are coded: pointer is pointing–everyone will point and laugh at me; middle is fuck you, fuck like sex, sex like rape, rape and murder; ring finger like wring your neck.
Thumb and pinkie are fine. Thumb and pinkie are safe.
But I wouldn’t, as I sit in bed in pajamas, comforter touching both of my hands with the same even pressure, describe the feeling as safe. It’s blank. Exhausted. Sometimes the numbers go on forever. Sometimes I lose count. Then I sink into this space of fast repetition, so many times until it feels right—just right. I can’t explain it any more than that. I never know when it’ll feel right. I want to stick a needle into my ear canal and end all of it, end the part of me that won’t quit.