He was born and he fell on his back. Eventually he began to walk, and he fell on his back. His father lost his job while his mother cooked fried rice for the last time, and they clung to each other, and he fell on his back. His first brother was born, and he fell on his back. They moved to an apartment in a new state, and then again to a townhouse in another state, and he fell on his back. His mom dropped him at kindergarten, surrounded by strangers, and he wailed and fell on his back. He got on the bus to go home, and he couldn’t remember the stop, and he felt himself fall on his back. He told a girl he liked her and everyone else laughed, and he didn’t know why, and he fell on his back. He read a book under his desk until the teacher called on him, and he shot out of his seat and fell on his back. He played on a soccer team but really he just knelt in the grass, picking dandelions, and when a ball sailed towards him he fell on his back. He auditioned for the school musical again, and tried to belt above a G, and he fell on his back. He went on his first date with his first girlfriend, and his best friend came as a buffer, and at the end she said I think we should just be friends, and his mom picked them up and he fell on his back. He looked at himself in the mirror, at how skinny he was, and he thought to himself, what’s wrong with me? Is it because my back is so bruised?
He got a B in Algebra and his father screamed at him, and he felt something harden inside and he screamed back. He tried not to fall. He glared at the French teacher while she berated him, while she called him a serpent, and everyone else stared, silent and unsure. He tried not to fall. He slowed to a powerwalk as the lead runners lapped him, as they crossed the finish line, but he kept on pushing and he didn’t stop and he didn’t fall. He asked her to prom and she said yes, and he hugged her waist while she held up his flowers, and in the picture they both were beaming. He watched her on the makeshift dance floor, grinding against his choir friend, his best bud, and he turned and went outside. He refused to let himself fall. He headed off to a two-week summer camp in Ohio where he got really good at foosball, and shyly serenaded a girl after Capture the Flag, and made it to the finals of Writer Fight Club, and played piano while he sang for their going-away ceremony, and made so, so many friends, and for the first time in his life felt like he belonged. He tried not to cry on the plane. He forgot about falling for a little while.
He waited until Christmas break to apply to colleges, and he spent too many late nights finishing too many applications. He snarled and his father roared and he stormed up to his room and slammed the door. He stacked boxes on the stoop as they closed down the garage, and they drove away from the house for the final time. He unloaded the rest of the pots and pans in their new kitchen, in an unfamiliar town, and he turned and got on a plane to North Carolina. He shook a dozen hands at orientation, went out to a pizza place with people who already knew each other, joined an a cappella group and had his first drink and carried a bleeding, sobbing girl in from the rain. He read poetry adaptations aloud in class, and people clapped politely, and he wondered whether he’d ever be successful. He had his heart broken again, and again, and he began to commiserate with the older students down the hall. He wanted to fit in. He made a bet and drank eight shots of Grey Goose in under five minutes. He threw up in the Wendy’s and everyone else laughed, and he didn’t know why. He staggered on the way back to the dorm, and somebody shouldered him and said I got him, I’ll get him to his room. He passed out. He woke up naked in an unfamiliar bed, feeling the older boy’s hand on him, the stranger’s hand on him, the man’s hand on him, and his mind went blank and he jerked away and he fell on his back.
He didn’t say anything, because what do you say?
He found a girlfriend who had her own issues with intimacy, and eventually he learned that his friends disliked her and he tried not to fall. When he told her about what happened, she held him close as he tried not to fall. His parents found him a therapist, one who said that he was traumatized but that it was more than that, it was about everything that had happened before, and he tried not to fall. He hiked a mountain over fall break, and he felt sicker than he’d ever been, and he tried not to fall. When he returned they diagnosed him with mono. He tried to get out of bed, to write, and he fell on his back. He stopped going to class. He plagiarized part of a paper—he was desperate, drowning—and the professor submitted him for an Honor Court violation and he fell on his back. His girlfriend cheated on him over the summer, and when she finally told him he drove his fist into the wall. He stopped going to therapy. He got an email from the university with the subject line Academic Ineligibility, and he fell.
He laid on his back. He laid on his back. No one knew. He laid on his back. He jerked off. He ordered food in or he went hungry or he didn’t leave the apartment. He laid on his back. He pretended to his family that everything was fine, that he was still a student, still graduating. He laid on his back. His best friend’s ex pulled him into an embrace and he laid on his back. His roommate knocked on his door and said, I’m worried about you man. He laid on his back. He called the hotline and said, tell me everything’s going to be okay. He weighed the fear of falling forever against the relief of never having to fall again. He returned to therapy.
It seemed like you didn’t want to be here last time, she said, as he laid on his back. He unloaded everything on her, everything that had happened. She asked if he was suicidal, and he told her the truth. She gave him a look and nodded and shook his hand on the way out. Later she called him and said I’m sorry, but your parents are coming down to get you. It’s going to be okay. They opened the door and he fell on his back and he broke, sobbing. Him and his mother and his father, all sobbing together.
He returned to a home he’d never lived in. He laid on his back. He jerked off in the room upstairs. He laid on his back. He started taking antidepressants. He started working to pay off his student loans. He started talking to his father about what had happened between them, the things they had said to each other before, how to forgive one another. He kept seeing his therapist over Facetime. He laid on his back and he thought about all his mistakes.
Eventually she asked him what he wanted for himself, whether he’d thought about going back to school. He said I don’t really hope for much. “If you don’t allow yourself to hope, then you’re not really living,” she said. He gestured to himself, lying on his back, and said look at where I am. Look at what I’ve done. “Belittling yourself is just an attempt to exert control over the outcome,” she said, “and it doesn’t work.” He shrugged and said so what’s the point then? My whole life all I’ve done is fall and lie and fail. “That’s the way you’ve chosen to perceive it,” she said. “The truth is we all have narratives we cling to. It’s a crutch, but it’s one you can set aside.” She smiled at him. “You get to decide what kind of story you want to tell.”
He closed the call. He thought about that for a while. He shivered. He stood up.