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head of the afflicted woman—OBSESSIVE THOUGHTS, SUICIDAL IDEATION, INSOMNIA. Merissa never watched the advertisement beyond the first two or three seconds, quickly switching channels.
    She was sure: Her mother was taking some sort of prescription medication.
    But this was not new —was it?
    Even on lovely, sunny days the ghost-cloud hovers. It is not suggested that there is a reason for the ghost-cloud—depression—for the ghost-cloud just is .
    Merissa had not heard of SUICIDAL IDEATION before—she was sure. She supposed that Tink had.
    All this made Merissa feel so sick and sad—and sort of disgusted—with her mother.
    And with herself .

9.
    â€œNO ONE WILL EVER KNOW”
    It had begun by accident—almost.
    Distracted, coming down a flight of stairs at school the previous year—just after chemistry class, in which midterm tests had been handed back and Merissa’s grade was a disappointing 91—that is, an A-minus—though she’d studied hard and had expected she’d done better, and the thought came to her swift as a razor blade. Who’s “perfect” now? Who’s stupid and ugly and worthless now? Who gives a damn if you live or die?— and somehow she missed a step, fell hard, and struck her forehead on the railing, then fell several steps more to the floor; and there was blood on her face, on her hands—so quickly had it happened, Merissa felt more surprise than pain, and embarrassment—for people were staring at her, and several had stopped to help her—
    â€œHey—is it M’rissa? You okay?”
    â€œWow. You’re bleeding. . . .”
    Merissa insisted she was fine. She was deeply embarrassed to be dripping blood in the school corridor as people gawked.
    At a little distance, guys were watching. Merissa didn’t want to know who they were. A girl whom she scarcely knew, one of the popular seniors at Quaker Heights, was pressing a wad of tissue against the cut in Merissa’s forehead, saying in a concerned voice that they’d better take her to the school nurse, but Merissa stiffened—“No. No thank you. I’m r-really all right—I don’t want to miss my next class.”
    â€œC’mon, we’ll take you! You’re bleeding .”
    The girl, Molly O’Hagan, was taller than Merissa and known for being strong-willed; in fact, Molly was a senior class officer, but Merissa insisted that she was perfectly all right—she’d just missed a step and fallen.
    It was thrilling—in a strange, edgy way—to be pushing away from Molly O’Hagan, gently but firmly. To be the center of this sudden and unexpected attention, to see such sympathy in the eyes of Molly O’Hagan and others. To say, with a resolute little smile, even as she held the wadded tissue to her bruising face, “Thanks so much, but no .”
    The cut bled for a while but wasn’t deep at all—hardly more than scraped-away skin. In a field hockey game Merissa could expect to be more bruised, on another part of her body; but still, it was nice to be fussed over, and by a girl and her friends whom Merissa didn’t really know—nice to be touched .
    Otherwise, being touched made Merissa feel anxious.
    And how thrilling—to feel the blood-trickle down the side of her face that was so startling and unexpected, and drew the sympathy of others.
    And not long afterward, feeling a bump the size of a quail egg on her forehead, throbbing with pain.
    But a quick, sharp, visible pain. A pain that didn’t really hurt .
    Back in the junior corridor, Merissa got plenty of attention from her friends. By this time she was laughing lightly—“Oh, hey, guys, it’s nothing . C’mon!”
    It hadn’t been just the chemistry test that Merissa had been obsessing over but—oh, who knows what?—each day, each hour, it had begun to seem that there was more, more, more.