Chapter Thirty
We make a pretty good team.
“Alright, kids. You’ve almost made it!” Mrs. Jacobs is always this enthusiastic, but I can tell that most of it’s fake at the moment. She’s as exhausted as we are. I know she’s had to calm at least several crying teenagers per day this week, besides actually teaching all of her classes.
I usually appreciate the way she calls us “kids.” I don’t think I have it in me to appreciate anything right now. My eyes won’t even focus, and I can’t tell if that’s an exhaustion thing or if I’m headed for a migraine. Probably both.
Sitting next to me, Piper starts talking.
She’s so much happier now; I can sense it beyond her bubbly words.
I’m glad she has the bandwidth to feel anything during midterms. I’m verging on a numbness that’s difficult to come back from.
Even my limbs feel heavy, like there are weights in my shoes and hanging from my fingertips.
Piper keeps talking, and others actually respond. Everyone loves this version of her, the one that’s bright and radiating joy. But when she was in the depths of social and romantic hell, only a few of us drew her close, the way she needed and deserved.
I want to be that kind of person. I’m glad I am.
Abruptly, everyone starts to shuffle around me. Maybe it wasn’t abrupt. Maybe I just didn’t pay attention to Mrs. Jacobs dismissing us. Everyone wishes everyone a happy fall break, and I try to do the same. My goodbye to Piper is half-hearted at best. My smile is robotic at worst.
Mrs. Jacobs catches my eye as I step toward the door. Damn it, she sees everything. I’ve been trying to hide the distance I feel toward everything right now, but it might as well be black ink seeping from my pores.
“Are you alright, Nova?” Her head lowers to meet my eyeline, and her arms cross over her chest.
“I’m okay.” I nod. That robotic smile comes back out. It’s not a lie, but it’s not the truth either.
As I hurry out of the classroom, I wait to feel that blissful rush of relief. It’s fall break, finally. The week I’ve been waiting for since this hellacious semester started. But the rush never comes.
I linger in the hallway. I’m trying to feel something. I’m trying to elicit some response from my nervous system.
The overfull hallway doesn’t do it. I even run my fingers over my favorite bulletin board. Nothing.
Maybe fresh air will cheer me up?
Outside, the wind is brisk and mixed with the smell of impending rain. It drifts over my face, but the sensation barely registers. I start to wonder what would happen if I tripped and busted my ass right now. Somehow, I doubt I’d even feel the pain.
I don’t feel anything right now. I don’t even feel like myself.
Somehow, without my permission, the numbness has already dug its way under my skin. It’s like those dissolvable stitches, woven into my tissue until they fade away and become just another part of me.
My feet thump down the stairs toward the parking lot, and it’s entirely possible that people are talking to me right now. I see their shoes passing mine. Cars moving in and out of spaces.
Once I get behind the wheel, my ears start to pick up the sound of raindrops pinging off the windshield. Hard, unyielding rain. The kind that hurts. I look down toward the ignition. Turn the key. My bare arms are covered in goosebumps and the dripping remains of the storm.
I hadn’t even noticed.