Page 29 of My Own Kind of Person

“I don’t feel like it right now.”

Why do I want to cry? “I wouldn’t mind hearing a story.”

“But I don’t want to tell one.”

“Unrelated to the assignment, like, I want to hear about the friend who saw you but didn’t see you. That was in New Jersey before you moved here?”

He brushes a finger across an eyebrow. “How did you feel after you left that girl’s house?”

It takes a second to realize he’s talking about my story. “Oh.” I push my lips together. “Stupid, I guess.” I listen for the inner voice that reprimands me when I let my guard down, but it doesn’t come. “Like I should’ve done something different. But that’s how I feel most of the time anyway. I probably sat in my room and made fun of myself for what happened. Then I told it to friends in a way that made them laugh, and that made me in on the joke.” I lean in and whisper, “That’s my secret.” He half smiles but doesn’t laugh. “Then that version of the story replaced the actual memory, which is mostly of me feeling confused during and stupid after.”

“So you did hear her air quotes?”

“I’m not even sure she was giving air quotes. She probably didn’t know what was happening either. Neither of us did. We were both trapped by expectations of what’s supposed to happen when a girl and a guy are alone.”

“You should tell that story.”

“It doesn’t sound very funny.”

“But it does sound true.”

His eyes are two magnets that don’t let go of mine. My breath catches and the muscle of my heart pounds in my chest. I don’t know if Elijah is angry or sad or determined, or which of those things I am. I think of him going into the city every week. I think of him cuffing the sleeves of his T-shirts every morning. Who is this guy who, without considering otherwise, is himself? What would I allow myself to say if I were more like Elijah, if I weren’t worried how it would sound to others? What would I allow myself to do?

“For your homework this weekend,” Mr. Mazzei says, “write down any other memories you might like to expand into stories. Give yourself permission to value your experiences.”

After class I go to the bathroom next to the main office and shut myself in a stall.

I open the draft of my stand-up set on my phone and I select all of it.

Without considering otherwise, I press delete.

Chapter 10

I feel proud after deleting my set. Brave! Fearless! Until a few hours later when I try to write something new.

“I cannot remember having said or thought a funny thing in my entire life,” I mutter to the blank document on my phone screen. I write NEW STAND-UP and tell myself that counts as progress.

Mom puts a bowl of bow tie pasta with butter—my favorite—on the couch beside me. “What’re you working on?”

“An existential crisis.”

She laughs and presses play on an episode of Roseanne. She’s been showing me her favorite old TV shows when we’re both home for dinner. Cat Cat sits on her lap and stares at her.

I open a new document and write ENGLISH HOMEWORK. I think of Elijah. I think of telling the emotional truth of a story, even if it isn’t funny.

Last year Mr. Mazzei assigned an essay about family history, and I had no idea what to write. My ancestors were Irish immigrants who came to New York City like a hundred fifty years ago. Each generation married other Irish Americans and moved about fifteen miles east until we got to me. I didn’t know what else to say about it and neither did Mom. What was our culture? We clicked on the links an algorithm suggested. We ate what was on sale. Mazzei said I should write about how capitalism strips workers of their identities. Mom said she was too tired to think about that.

I watch her as she watches TV. There’s a funny line but she doesn’t laugh.

I look at my phone and I write about the time Mom was zoning out on the couch and I did a dance to snap her out of it.

My thumbs keep moving. I write about a memory I’d entirely forgotten until this moment: the time I was getting a haircut at Mom’s friend’s house and the friend’s boyfriend was peeing loudly in the bathroom and Mom looked disgusted. I write how I want to be a little kid with Mom but I’m growing up and I can’t be a kid forever. What am I supposed to do, get a wife and start a family but keep living in my old bedroom with my stuffed animals carefully displayed? There are so many acceptable versions of a male that I’m trying to play for different people and it’s possible they cannot coexist with one another, let alone with who I might actually be.

I stare at the lines, shocked by these ideas that I’ve never thought consciously.

“Looks like you’re not having a crisis anymore,” she says as Roseanne ends.

I quickly close the app.