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“But I do…I do have it figured out. I know what I want…”
And I remember feeling a sort of sinking pit taking form inside me, when I realized my parents never give me crap about my lack of friends, or the fact I don’t really do anything outside of obsessing over comics and fandoms, and sketching. I barely leave the house enough as it is, unless it’s with them, though I’ve gotten a lot better in the last year and a half.
After the whole ulcer ordeal in elementary school, I started seeing a new therapist. Taking meds. It’s far from cured me, but at least I can bear to be around strangers again—my peers in particular. I’m here, hanging out, joining in on this stupid game after all.
Would you if it was boys from school instead?
Grimacing at the thought, I visualize balling it up and chucking it away, remembering what Dr. Stevens and I have been working on the last three months since I decided to try public school again.
If I go in expecting to fail, I will fail.
Again, I think of my parents, and how different they are with me. How less pushy they are about things like making friends and doing school sports and whatnot.
Is it because I’m a boy and my only friends are boys?
Are they really your friends though?
Is it because Mom and Dad know no one else would want to be my friend, because I’m…different, because they know I’d be no good at anything else outside of drawing?
You know what you are…
You know why…
My palms grow sweaty, and I curl my fingers into fists, focusing on breathing.
A familiar laugh has me pulling free of my troubling thoughts before I can spiral my way into an anxiety attack. I lift my head, finding the person that laugh belongs to sitting directly across from me in our makeshift circle on the floor.
I don’t know how I ended up over here, separated from all of them. But then again, where there’s a wall, there’s a Jeremy. Just call it the thirteenth law of the universe.
If I moved now, it would just draw unnecessary attention to me.
Mason’s turned toward Waylon, seated to his right. “Aw, are you afraid of cooties?” he says, and not for the first time, I’m shocked by how deep his voice has gotten, despite how it still cracks and squeaks at times.
He—we are only fourteen, but he seems so much older than me these days.
Of course, he hates it when his voice betrays him like that. He gets all red-faced and clears his throat a bunch of times, like he’s pretending something got caught there.
Lucky for him, it’s been doing that a lot less lately. Far less than mine, especially when I get really going about something. Which means it usually only happens when I’m with him, talking about the newest superhero movie or comic book I’ve read, and I’m too excited to worry about how lame I’m being.
Not that he finds it lame…
He’s probably the only one who is as lame as me about this stuff. And hopefully he always will be, even though we’re getting older, and loving comics and superheroes are even less cool in high school than they were when we were younger.
So I keep waiting for the day that changes too. When he grows out of superheroes and Pearl Jam and we no longer have anything left in common.
And when that happens…
I’m not really sure why I’ve kept track of our differences as we get older, other than the fact it feels like I’m losing something, but I don’t know what. I just know that every time I see him, every time we talk, I wait for his voice to crack—to show me the Mason I know is still in there—the one who’ll sneak away from Izzy and Waylon to come hang out with me; the one who saved me from bullies all those years ago; the one who feels like a secret that is mine and only mine…
I wait for that reassuring glimpse, even if everything else about him continues to change. Like his voice and his body and his laugh and his hair. Like the way he’s started looking at my sister, when he doesn’t think anyone else notices.
It’s a weird thought to have, so I keep it to myself like most things.
Like the way I sometimes focus on how long his hair has gotten, curling around his ears in wavy, ashy brown tufts.
He has to push it back a lot, but sometimes it falls over his eyes when we’re looking at comic books, or burning CDs, and I’ll feel this weird, twisting sensation low in my belly, that has me clenching my hands and feeling hot in the face, unable to tear my eyes away. Not until he catches me and asks what’s wrong, if he has something on his face, and I have to lie or make up some excuse about zoning out.
He’s taller now too. Tall and lanky in a way that should be awkward, and yet he carries himself like he’s always carried himself. Comfortable and easygoing, like he doesn’t have a care in the world.
