The whole school probably knew by now.

Annie put down her purse. She should turn on the light, she thought. She willed her hand to move toward the switch.

It had been like this in the hospital: Her mind, analyzing the situation and determining the appropriate response, instructing her body to act. Her body, lagging and reluctant, like a student who sprawls in a back-row chair and ignores the teacher’s direction the first time but eventually complies as slowly as possible. For example:

Mind: You need to eat. At least they served you something vegetarian. Pick up the spoon and put it in your mouth.

Body, a minute later: Moves arm upward. Settles hand on plastic spoon. Wraps fingers around it. Lifts rice and peas to mouth. Closes lips over it. Slides spoon back out. Swallows.

And sometimes her body didn’t comply at all:

Mind: Your mother is here to visit. Why is she acting like she cares all of a sudden? Tell the nurse you don’t want to see her.

Body, in slow motion: Clears throat. Breathes a few times. Speaks words that don’t convey anything to the nurse. Turns head away as mother enters room. Doesn’t speak again.

The globe of light startled her – the fact that her hand on the switch had actually caused illumination to appear, that she had the agency to make something happen in the world. She wasn’t looking at the lamp itself, but at its reflection in the window of her apartment, the round golden glow superimposed on the street outside. The reflection of her room made the rainy trees and people walking with umbrellas seem unreal, transparent, holographic. Her own shape in the window was dim, the outlines of her tall, lanky figure and her long brown hair shadowed and softened by the half-light.

She avoided turning her eyes back inside the apartment, where tall stacks of ungraded assignments loomed over the desk.

Mind: Take out the plan from your purse.

Body: Stares at purse. Unzips. Reaches hand into the gap between zippers.

The discharge social worker had helped her to make a plan for her first day home. The discharge social worker was okay. She was in her forties, always drinking coffee, unflappable. She had heavy bags under her eyes – had she never heard of concealer? – but her voice was quiet and low-key, and she didn’t rush things.

The social work intern who ran their groups, on the other hand – Julie, a young woman in her twenties like Annie – was too perky. She spoke in cheerful textbook phrases, slogans for recovery: Let’s untwist your thinking! Change your thoughts and your feelings will follow! In group, Annie couldn’t stop staring at the skillful blending of Julie’s perfect makeup, or, on a bad day, gazing down at Julie’s stylish flats and the cuffs of her skinny jeans.

Her eyes were on the list now. Step one read: Tell Leah you’re home.

Mind: Take out your phone and text her.

Body, at a sloth’s pace: Hand enters purse again. Draws out phone. Powers it on. Shudders with the vibration of texts coming in. Touches the screen. Enters letters that form words that make sense.

It wasn’t that Annie was close to Leah, or even liked her very much. Leah was the type of older, more experienced colleague who always gave you good advice in a tone that rubbed you the wrong way, or pointed out a problem that you couldn’t do anything about. But their doors faced each other directly across the hall, so there was no avoiding her. Whenever Annie was teaching with her door open, her neck prickled as if Leah were observing her, saving up suggestions to give her the next time they talked.

And Leah was a gossip. If the whole school knew by now, it would be Leah who had told them.

But the discharge social worker had figured out that Leah was someone who would show up (unlike her mom, who had gone back to Boston after one attempt at a visit). Also, Leah would want to help because she was (probably) traumatized from having been the one to find Annie. Which honestly was just a measure of how nosy she was. Who else would have come to Annie’s apartment in the evening just because Annie didn’t show up to work, and then actually tried the handle of the door when Annie didn’t answer?

It was embarrassing that she didn’t have an actual friend to call. Texts had come in from her Boston friends, who were probably worried they hadn’t heard from her in almost a week. They cared; she knew that at a distance, like it was someone else’s fact. But they weren’t physically here.

That was important, the discharge social worker had said: Not to be alone at first. The discharge social worker had been working on the ward for a long time; she knew what she was talking about.

Annie herself knew nothing. Why had anyone hired her to teach other people, even if only about numbers and what to do with them? Her students’ faces slid before her mind, her gaze running across the rows, their first and last names stacking up in the familiar alphabetical order. Then the faces of all those dads at Back to School Night. “Do you have a degree in math?” one had asked dubiously, while another was more direct: “I don’t mean to be rude, but you look so young. Are you sure you’re qualified to teach this?”

Probably not, she thought. She wasn’t qualified for anything.

Notice when those automatic negative thoughts come up! came the voice of the perky social work intern in her mind. Just observe them without judgement!

Without judgement: that was so California. If the automatic thoughts were negative, shouldn’t you judge them? Nobody on the East Coast thought observing things without judgement was a goal. You couldn’t make decisions without judging. Judgement was the whole point.

Then again, where had that gotten her?

Mind: Read your list.

Body: Lifts paper into the light.

Step Two was to make tea, in a thermos so it would stay hot even if she spaced out and forgot about it.

Her phone vibrated.

Leah: I’ll be over in a few!

Leah didn’t know anything either, she thought. Leah didn’t know where Annie was from (Boston, actually Waltham but she always said Boston out here unless she was talking to another East Coast transplant), or about Brandon or anything that had happened in the last year, let alone about her childhood.

By the time Leah tapped smartly on the door and then just opened it right up, Annie had put a teabag in the thermos but was hesitating in front of the electric teakettle. The outlet looked exposed, its double slits menacing. What could go in there? What could come out? How was it safe to have electricity so close to the surface?

“Knock knock,” said Leah unnecessarily. “Oh, you’re making tea, it’s great weather for that. Want me to put on the water?” She filled up the kettle and plugged it in.

Annie felt a brief spike of irritation, followed by a slow wash of fatigue.

“How are you feeling?” Leah looked intently at her face.

Annie could see the short hairs on Leah’s upper lip. She wished Leah would move back a step.

“Fine.”

Leah wrinkled her forehead, kindly skeptical.

No, Annie realized: Leah knew she wasn’t fine. She was supposed to be grateful and open, to share her feelings like a good psychiatric patient who is complying with treatment. Sharing her feelings would repay Leah for helping her.

“Where’s Chloe?” she asked instead, which was a stupid question because it wasn’t like Leah would bring her teenage daughter to visit someone who had just gotten out of a mental hospital, especially since Chloe was Annie’s student.

“She’s at her dad’s for the weekend.”

Apparently the water had boiled, because Leah was pouring some into a thermos and some into a mug for herself. Leah set them on the table and sat down comfortably, like it was her own kitchen.

Mind: Step Two said to breathe the steam.

Body: Leans over open thermos. Skin of face goes humid, soft on the exhale. Smells chamomile.

“…so this kid’s parents are trying to claim it’s ‘reverse racism’ and that Diamond is discriminating against their son. You just cannot believe the entitlement of these parents.”

Annie was too tired to wince sympathetically at the appropriate point in the story. “Are you from here?” she asked abruptly.

She had cut Leah off, but Leah didn’t seem fazed. “Yeah, I grew up in Berkeley,” she said. “I know, I’m the Berkeley type. Daughter of liberal Jewish hippies. You’re from the East Coast, right?”

Annie nodded. “Boston. My boyfriend and I moved here together last year. But we broke up. A few months ago.” Was it the depression or the meds that weighed her down – like a lead X-ray smock, or a plaster cast that immobilizes a leg – compressing all her emotions so that it didn’t even hurt to mention Brandon?

Leah shook her head sympathetically. “We always seem to end up arranging our lives around men, don’t we? When my ex and I got married, I gave up a totally great rent-controlled apartment in Berkeley to move in with him, just because…”

Annie, no longer listening, felt a flash of anger at being included in Leah’s generalization. Maybe arranging their lives around men was a thing older women did, but not Annie’s generation, not Annie.

In her mind, Julie the perky social work intern said, It’s a good sign that you’re feeling anger! Depression is just anger turned inward!

She hated that Julie’s stupid voice was in her head now. Julie was basically the same age as Annie and she was just an intern, a student – what did she know?

Anyway, Annie didn’t arrange her life around men. She’d always wanted to move to California, even before she met Brandon. They’d been dating for six months; there was nothing self-sacrificing about coming with him when he moved out here. Just because things hadn’t worked out…

She heard Brandon’s voice in her mind, saying he’d find a girlfriend who wasn’t so messed up in the head. Actually what he’d said was, too messed up in the head to have sex the regular way, by which he meant, the way he wanted it.

Now that she thought about it, Leah had a point: why had Annie moved across the country for a guy who would say something like that? But it wasn’t like he’d said it before they moved in together.

Annie guessed in a way she had built her life around her stepfather, too, by moving far away, by working so hard to forget, by avoiding saying the words sexual abuse out loud.

It galled her that Leah wasn’t completely wrong.

“…so being part of this women’s spirituality circle really helped me to realize it was time to leave my marriage. This one time – ”

“Have you ever been depressed?” Annie asked.

Leah still didn’t seem bothered at being interrupted. “Anxiety is usually more my speed. But I had some postpartum when Chloe was born. I felt like I was drowning. She just wanted to nurse all the time, and I mean ALL THE TIME.” She hit the table with the heel of her hand for emphasis. “You can’t imagine.”

It was true, Annie couldn’t imagine Chloe as a voracious nursing baby. Chloe was a poised, aloof eleventh grader who rarely asked Annie to explain anything. Her assignments were meticulous, numbers lined up neatly, always showing her work. Even when her boyfriend appeared in the doorway before lunch to wait for her, she spared him a brief smile and then turned her attention back to her work until the bell rang. Annie wondered how Chloe felt about having such a nosy, talkative mom.

But Leah would probably believe Chloe. If Chloe said something bad had happened to her. Not like Annie’s mom:

Your stepfather’s a good man and he keeps a roof over your head.

I don’t want to hear another word about your stepfather.

If you keep on making up stories about your stepfather, everyone will think you’re a liar – is that what you want?

Leah went on: “My ex did change all the diapers, that was one thing about him. He’s always been a good dad.”

There was something soothing about how generic Leah’s stories were – hippie parents, nursing baby, obnoxious ex-husband. Annie heard Julie’s voice in her mind: Distraction is a great way to get perspective! She let Leah’s stories wash over her: a relief, to merge into someone else’s life for a moment.

Then the wave was too strong, suffocating her. Any emotion was too much.

“I don’t know what to do now,” she said out loud, more to herself than to Leah. “Does everyone know?”

Annie could see Leah vacillating between her love of gossip and her desire to spare Annie’s feelings. She sidestepped: “Avery Williams asked me to tell you she’s thinking of you. She said to let you know she’s helping your students with questions about the group project.”

“Do the kids know?”

Leah leaned in toward her, placing a comforting hand on the table as if to cover Annie’s hand with her own. “Annie, the kids never have any clue. They barely even think of us as people. To them, we’re basically aliens who get in our spaceships and head back to our own planets after we hand out their grades.”

“Grades.” Annie’s eyes flicked to the stack on her desk. She could feel the meds holding down the anxiety that lay underneath the depression, preventing panic from springing up.

Leah’s eyes had followed hers. “You know, you’re not the first teacher to consider suicide as an alternative to grading.” Leah’s voice started out blustery and humorous, over-the-top joking, but over the course of the sentence it thinned out and lowered, uncomfortable.

Annie shook her head, a half-truth. The panic was still there, flexing its muscles underneath the meds. Of course that wasn’t the reason she had tried to kill herself.

It wasn’t the only reason, anyway.

Leah’s voice was back to normal now. “I’ll help you with all that grading. I’m crappy at math but I know how to use an answer key. Tomorrow, okay? I’ll come over and we’ll get through it. Worst case scenario, we’ll just give everyone an A and they’ll all be happy.”

Annie hated how Leah had an answer for everything. She felt an urge to blurt out one of the memories – the one that would be running through her head right now if the meds weren’t numbing her brain: her bedroom door creaking open and her stepfather’s feet padding over the threshold – just to see Leah at a loss for words. She felt a small, vicious satisfaction at the idea. Then she was exhausted from the satisfaction.

She had missed the sunset and now the sky outside was too dark to see through the lighted window. She felt uncovered, on display: anyone passing by on the street could see her inside the apartment.

“I’ll be okay. You can go now.” She didn’t care how rude it sounded.

“You sure?” Leah’s eyebrows went up.

“No, I’m fine.”

The discharge social worker’s voice now: It’s important not to be alone, especially that first night. She pushed it away. She didn’t need Leah. She didn’t even want to be fine. Darkness seemed to be rolling over her. As it always did eventually.

But Leah hadn’t left. She was hesitating, looking at Annie, not speaking for once.

Annie was surprised to find herself speaking: “I’m not going to do it again.”

“You mean overdose?”

“I mean try to kill myself.” She hesitated. “I’m sorry you had to be the one that found me.”

“You don’t have to be sorry. I’m just glad I found you in time.” Leah’s eyes were warm.

Annie wished for a moment that she were Chloe. That she were young again, young enough for someone to take over and tell her what to do. She had fought her own mother on everything when she was a teenager, but now she longed to say to Leah, Tell me what to eat for dinner, tell me how to make friends, tell me when I need to go to bed, tell me to put one foot in front of another. I’ll listen now.

Leah leaned forward. Too close again. “Can I make you some dinner?”

“There’s a couple boxes of mac and cheese.”

Leah got up, her compact figure bumping awkwardly around the corner of the kitchen table, and swung open a cabinet door.

Annie realized she had just invited Leah to stay. That meant she’d have to have a whole dinner conversation with her.

The stupid social work intern popped up in Annie’s head: Isolation is a symptom of depression! Connecting with other people is an important step!

Shut up, Julie. Annie pressed her palm against the thermos to see whether her tea might be cool enough to drink now. Her palm felt nothing.

She took a sip. It was still too hot, but she was able to taste the flavor.