Chapter 31
On the morning drive to school, I’m squeezing all the muscles in my face to relieve the pressure.
When Tony offers to take the wheel, I say, “Yeah.” When Andi asks if I’m okay, I say, “Nah.” During the announcements, I intone the times and dates of club meetings like the pointless words they are.
Mrs.?Farmer says, “Maybe you should head home,” but I go to class.
And the classes all day go well. The only problem is I can’t think of a way to quiet my head that doesn’t involve smashing it open.
By the time I get to English, the speakers in my brain are blown out. My eyes squint. My lips twitch. Mazzei is absent and we have a sub. Elijah is seated beside me but he’s miles away.
I’m removed from the inside of my head by an unusual sound: my voice.
A small crowd has gathered around Jay in the back corner of the classroom. He’s playing a video of my set from Captain’s. I hear myself talk about doing three and a half push-ups, and I expect to hear the audience’s laughter in response—I remember them laughing then—but instead there’s silence.
I walk closer.
Jay has edited the set to remove all the laughs.
The flow is disrupted so even the moments of poignancy come across as uncomfortable.
The kids watching look confused and concerned.
Steph Rooney’s teeth are gritted like a smile that’s not a smile.
The video goes through the whole set, but it cuts out my final funny line about not prematurely ejaculating and keeps in the audience’s big burst of laughter, so it sounds like the audience is laughing at me.
The story, as Jay has edited it, is the raw emotion of how I felt—in need, desperate, panicked. It’s how I feel a lot of the time, apparently. And the reaction from the classroom makes it clear that this is not an acceptable way to be.
Worse than people laughing at me is people avoiding eye contact. When the video ends, even Jay doesn’t look my way. I have ceased to exist for everyone except Steph Rooney, who declares, “It was brave of Sean to share that story!” Which makes me burst out laughing.
I return to my seat, let out a shaky breath, and say quietly to myself, “I am about to lose my mind.”
Elijah messages from his desk, I don’t appreciate you ignoring me
Obviously I need to do some soul-searching about why I’m attracted to semi-closeted boys with repressed emotions
I don’t look over at him. I write, I’m sorry this is who I am
I like who you are, he says. I just wish you did too
I don’t know the right thing to say, so I write, Do you want to hang out after school?
No I don’t want to hang out, he writes. I don’t even want to talk to you
That’s valid, I write. I don’t want to talk to me either
Don’t turn this into a joke, he says.
It’s possible that telling truths onstage and with Elijah transformed me into who I really am, but what if who I really am is insane?
If who I really am doesn’t fit with the people in my life?
I would rather BS with Andi and Tony and Elijah than make them concerned.
I would rather chitchat with Mom than make her swing from too low to too high.
I would rather make my classmates laugh than make them avoid eye contact.
I would rather be with others as almost-me than be alone as myself.
A voice in my head says, You know you’ll never let yourself feel okay, right?
I whisper aloud, “Leave me alone.”
What’s fascinating is that you could easily do it , the voice says.
You could look around and see the people who love you.
You could see how lucky you are. You could allow yourself to become the person you’re capable of being, to become someone you love.
The voice pauses, then adds slowly, But you won’t.
Andi messages, Are you around after school today? I want to ask your opinion on this application
I don’t write back.
The voice in my head says, See?
I try to stay in the moment—this is my finger tracing the edge of my desk, this is the stale smell of my school—but who cares anyway? “I sure don’t,” I say, and let the noise build up until it’s so loud I wince from the pain.
I let my head drop and my forehead bangs on the desk. The class gasps. It hurts but it quiets the noise, and I lift my head and do it again and again, until Elijah rushes to hold me back and someone runs to get the nurse.
I’m looking down into the black hole inside me. Every good thing in my life, I kick them all in. Each bright feeling drops down and out of view, neither filling nor lighting the space. The hole is deeper than I am, big enough to fit all of me. I lean over the edge and admire the view.