Turtles All the Way Down

Aza meets Davis as his house. As they walk around the grounds, Aza tells Davis that she read Daisy’s stories. Davis remarks that the stories are good, but Aza was distracted by how terrible Ayala is. Davis likes Ayala. Davis and Aza sit by the pool. Davis does not understand how Noah gets so stuck inside himself, when there is such a vast sky to fall into. Davis pulls his Iron Man out of his pocket, commenting that it has been a bad week.

Davis points out constellations and remarks that their galaxy is a spiral. Davis asks Aza about her spirals. Aza tells the story of a mathematician who was so afraid of being poisoned that he starved to death. Aza knows she has a problem, but she can never be sure that she is not really being “poisoned.” Davis invites Aza to swim, so they strip to their underwear and jump in the pool. After swimming, they run back to the house, into Davis’s bedroom. Aza wants to tell Davis that she loves him, though she is not sure that she does. She starts to leave, and Davis asks if they can hang out that weekend at Aza’s house. Aza agrees, and they hug goodbye.

Aza and her mother discuss Davis, and Aza’s mother wants to ensure that Davis treats Aza well. Aza checks Davis’s blog. He writes about her, how what is important is the feeling they have when they are together, not what they talk about. Aza decides to read more of Daisy’s stories. Ayala is self-centered, constantly annoying, and she ruins everyone’s fun.

Devastated, Aza starts reading about Star Wars on Wikipedia, which leads her to the same articles about the human microbiota that she compulsively reads. She reads about the connection between the “gut-brain informational axis,” which fills her with horror. Aza wonders if her intestinal bacteria is infecting her thoughts. Aza goes to the bathroom, washes her hands, and changes her Band-Aid. She drinks hand sanitizer. She tries to tell herself how dangerous this is, but she cannot help drinking more. She goes to bed, her thoughts shouting at each other.

Aza gets up late and hurries to school. Daisy greets her, saying that she has not seen enough of her best friend lately. She invites Aza to go to Applebee’s and Aza agrees. Aza waits in Harold after school, feeling tired and unable to think straight. She knows she should call Dr. Singh and tell her about drinking hand sanitizer, but does not want to leave a message with the answering service. Aza does not think talking will help anyway.

Daisy gets in the car. Aza confronts Daisy about how the Ayala character has all of Aza’s compulsions and personality traits. Daisy is hurt because she’s been writing the stories since she was 11 and Aza never bothered to read one, though Daisy asked her to many times. Daisy believes that Aza should take time from her own self-contemplation to think about the interests of others. It is not Aza’s fault, but Aza’s anxiety does invite disaster. Aza does not respond.

Daisy keeps defending herself: She should have killed off the Ayala character, but it has been her way of coping with the difficulty of being Aza’s friend. Aza angrily snaps that she is useless, as Daisy called Ayala, and a terrible person. Daisy insists that Ayala in not Aza, though Aza’s mental problems make her extremely self-centered and exhausting to be around.

Daisy apologizes but continues complaining about how self-absorbed Aza is. Aza does not know personal information about Daisy, such as Daisy’s parents’ names or occupations. Daisy rants that Aza has no clue what life is like for her, that she does not have all the privileges that Aza takes for granted, and that Aza does not think to ask about her life. Daisy had thought the money from Davis would make them closer, but it only accentuates how spoiled Aza is, as she judges Daisy for buying things.

Aza feels sick and asks if Daisy thinks life is easy for her. Daisy starts to respond and Aza yells at her to stop talking. Aza demands to know if Daisy can imagine being stuck in her head with no way out. Aza continues to rant, but Daisy shouts her name. Aza realizes that traffic ahead of them is stopped. She slams into the car in front of them and the car behind crashes into Harold. Harold is crushed, except for the passenger compartment. Though she is in pain, Aza staggers to the trunk. She manages to open the trunk and pull out her father’s phone, which has a shattered screen. Aza feels destroyed. As she cries, she passes out. Aza wakes in an ambulance, then again in the hospital, with her mother crying over her. Daisy quietly says she will stay with Aza.

Aza has a lacerated liver, though surgery is not necessary. Aza’s mother cries with relief that Aza will be all right. Aza will need to spend a few days in the hospital; Aza begins to panic and begs to go home. Aza’s logical thoughts try to reassure her that C. diff infections are only common in postsurgical patients, but the other thoughts howl.

Aza feels her thought spiral tighten, as her mother sleeps next to her hospital bed. Aza feels her mother’s breath and imagines her microbes floating in the air. Aza feels certain that C. diff is invading her body. She reads stories about infected patients on her phone. Aza’s head spins with terrible thoughts. She tries to pull herself out of it by screaming at herself to think of someone other than herself. Aza texts Daisy and apologizes for not being a good friend, for not showing that she cares about Daisy’s life.

Aza feels like she cannot escape herself, cannot function in the world. She thinks she will never live a life outside her mother’s house, go away to college, hold a job. Her thoughts feel like a different kind of bacteria, colonizing her gut and brain. Aza feels her sense of self slipping away. In a full-blown panic, Aza stands and struggles over to the hand sanitizer mounted on the wall. Her thoughts battle with each other, thoughts of how stupid it is to drink hand sanitizer, of how she hates being stuck inside herself, of how she wants to feel better, of how she must stay in bed so she does not need surgery, of how she does not want to die of C. diff, of how she will never be free of this. Aza shoves hand sanitizer into her mouth. Her mother wakes up and Aza desperately scoops more hand sanitizer into her mouth. She vomits and her mother grabs her arm before she falls. Aza thinks that she is not possessed by a demon. She is the demon.

This chapter is told in the second person. “You” wake up in a hospital bed. “Your mother” offers Cheerios and shows “you” the flowers Davis sent. “You” think about how to describe the hurt, to find language to give the pain a name, so that it can be understood and conquered. “You” think that perhaps metaphor was invented to deal with pain. “You” think that perhaps “you” are better, because this was a coherent train of thought. A wave of nausea hits and “you” think about “it” taking over inside and killing “you.” In a strangled voice, “you” tell “your mother” that “you” are in big trouble.