Page 17 of My Own Kind of Person

“I sit next to you.”

“Oh. I was pretty out of it.”

“You only talked to yourself as you were leaving.” Another small wave. “Take it easy.”

“I’m Sean.”

He stops. I hold out a hand and he puts his hand in mine. Instead of giving a firm up-and-down, I give a light squeeze.

“I’ve never shaken hands in a bathroom before,” he says.

“We are living life.”

“I’m Elijah. He/him.”

“I’m he/him too. Take it easy, Elijah.”

“I’ll try.”

He pushes the door open and goes.

I expect to return to feeling bad. I expect to lose whatever is left of my mind, curl up on this bathroom floor, beg Mom to let me homeschool myself, maybe go to an old-fashioned asylum where I can watch cartoons all day, etcetera.

But instead I blink. I blink again.

A smile sneaks up my face.

I’m sure it won’t last. My brain will find a way to outsmart my heart into feeling bad again. Why would I possibly feel good after having a breakdown in front of someone and then telling an embarrassing story?

Because it was okay.

I was the part of myself I’m ashamed of and someone saw and didn’t judge.

I said something hard and true, and someone heard and accepted it.

Weird.

Chapter 6

The feeling continues through the drive home, through cleaning my bedroom, and through dinner with Mom. Alone at night I lie on my bedroom’s carpeted floor with my head against the speakers of the record player. Cool air passes through the open window and falls across my arms and face.

It’s a new life, or I was wrong about what life really was. I didn’t realize how much I’d been running from feeling bad. Needing to make people laugh to help myself feel not-worthless. The veil of anxiety is lifted and the world is here in front of me and I am within it. It feels similar to talking with Andi. At least for a moment, nothing is wrong. But in this case the moment continues on to the next and the next.

I want to be like this all the time, be myself all the time. And I can be, I see now. There’s nothing required. No steps to follow. There was never anything to run from. Everything is already okay. I am already okay.

Chapter 7

In the morning I pick up Tony and he gets us three buttered rolls at 7-Eleven and chews my ear off about a theory that a small group of humans escaped to the Pokémon planet after Earth became uninhabitable, which would explain why there are so many new Pokémon being discovered and so few adult humans. When we get to the bottom of Andi’s driveway, Tony rolls down his window and blasts a song about tacos raining from the sky.

Andi stops on their stoop. “No thanks. I’ll skip today.”

“Come on in!” Tony shouts in an old lady voice. “The water’s fine!”

I turn the volume down. “We’ll get unhappy once you’re here!”

Andi sighs and continues down the driveway. “I have my own car, you know.”

“But do you have a parking spot?” I ask. The few at school are given out via a lottery system and everyone else has to park at the pharmacy down the street.