“God, it must be bloody awful to be that old. Imagine sitting on your shriveled man berries.” Basil spat out his muffin.
“Oy, Ru. Enough. That’s disgusting,” said Basil.
“Just listen to them,” Rupert said, his lips curling into a smile. “Knights of Columbus. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything more ridiculous. Do they even know who Columbus was? Not exactly a role model. And the subject of the essay is ‘the real message of the Catholic Church.’ ” He laughed, rolling off the desk and onto the floor. “What do you think they should write about?”
“How to not get caught raping little boys?” Basil offered.
“Or how to quietly sack a pope for his secret ring of pedo priests?” Rupert shouted, swinging from the overhead lights while Basil fished a bag of candy out of his pocket.
“Yoo-hoo! Adam!” Rupert called in a high, girlish voice. “Thoughts? We wouldn’t be here if you didn’t have any. In fact, you probably agree with us.”
This was always the worst part. The persistent hallucinations who want a reaction. Of course, you’d say that I was the one who wanted a reaction, since the visions belong to me. But they wouldn’t leave me alone. They juggled. Took swigs of something from a flask and sang “Danny Boy.” I hate that song. Rupert even dropped his pants and shook his bare ass in Sister Catherine’s face.
The old man up front never stopped talking. Phrases like “your duty as young Catholics” and “defending your faith against immorality” floated across the room. His cracked and wrinkled lips continued to flap up and down while I watched the two British gentlemen destroy the classroom without turning my head. The trick was pretending to pay attention to the old guys at the front instead. The problem with that is Rupert and Basil are not to be ignored.
“You were a lot more fun when you thought we were real,” said Basil, shaking his head sadly at me.
“Is that her?” Rupert whistled. He walked over to Maya’s desk. “The one you, you know—” He wriggled his finger into a hole he’d made with his index finger and thumb. Both of them laughed. “And your first time you were dressed as Jesus. I applaud you, sir.”
“A lovely creature, to be sure,” said Basil, his belly drooping over his belt.
That was when I stood up and left the classroom, taking the bathroom pass with me. Everyone’s head turned in my direction as I walked straight for the door. Maya’s eyes burned into the back of my head, and I saw Ian turn toward me with interest. The old man faltered a little in his speech but picked it back up pretty quickly. Sister Catherine didn’t try to stop me, but her blond eyebrows disappeared into her forehead in disapproval.
“She needs a good shag,” Basil whispered, shaking his head.
I walked straight to the bathroom and splashed water on my face. Naturally, they followed me. It was too much to ask that they would give me some privacy and let me clear my head.
Rebecca leaned against the bathroom wall and glared at them.
“It’s no good looking at us like that,” said Rupert, sticking his tongue out at her. “Adam is verbally constipated at this school. You know it. I know it. Basil knows—” He turned around to look for him. “Really, right now?” Basil was using the urinal closest to the door.
“Had to take a leak,” Basil groaned.
“Don’t you get tired of keeping quiet?” Rupert asked me.
“No,” I whispered.
“Ohhhh, he speaks!” Basil said. “About time.”
“Please go away,” I said.
“Why? So you can lie to yourself?”
“Please?” I asked again. I held on to the sides of the sink, trying to steady myself. The headaches rolled like waves against my temple. For a second, I thought I had it under control, but then I felt the acid rise in my throat as I turned and vomited all over the urinal. Rebecca leaped from where she’d been standing to put her hand on my back. Rupert rolled his eyes.
“Look,” Rupert said, running his fingers through his hair. “You’re too big to act like a timid mouse, my friend.”
“You’ve got big ideas and your opinions are valid. I don’t think you’ve said a word in class since you got here,” said Basil, pulling out his candy again. I hoped he’d washed his hands.
“Please,” I begged. “I can’t do this here. I shouldn’t be seeing you.” The room started to spin again, and I knew that I was losing control. I could feel the throbbing in my temple and the rise of the vomit in my throat again. Rupert looked hurt.
“You’re losing it,” he said. “You’d rather keep quiet and take your drugs until there’s nothing real left in you. Until everything that’s beautiful and creative and interesting about you is diluted. You’re pathetic.”
“GET OUT!” I screamed.
It was bad timing. Some third grader had wandered into the bathroom at the exact moment that I’d screamed. It might have been startling to walk into someone shouting in a bathroom, but I imagine my size coupled with the fact that my fists came crashing down against the sink just as he walked in made it even more terrifying. For a second, he looked like he wanted to cry; then he bolted.
The door didn’t even get the chance to slam shut behind him before I saw Ian staring at me blankly, then fumbling hurriedly with something in his pocket as he turned toward the puddle of puke on the urinal. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t even look smug. I was shaking, and his eyes were just opened wide in disgust. Maybe even fear.
Rebecca reached for my hand, and we walked out of the bathroom in silence, slamming into Ian’s shoulder as we left. We didn’t stop walking until we got home. It’s funny how sometimes your own hallucinations can hurt you without touching you or saying anything you didn’t already know. When I walked out into the hall, I could still see them both out of the corner of my eye, their suits like blurs in my vision.
Coward, they whispered.
DOSAGE: 2.5 mg. Tapering off. Monitoring Adam for negative reaction to decrease in drug.
MAY 15, 2013
Sometimes when you talk, I don’t actually process what you’ve said until I get home. Like last week, when you asked about the prom coming up and told me how nervous you were about your first high school formal, I sort of tuned you out because I haven’t had time to worry about stuff like that.
Don’t feel bad. I tuned Dwight out, too, when he said he was going to ask Clare. I mean, I think I nodded or something, but I didn’t actually offer anything insightful to the conversation. I might’ve told him that I’d see him there.
I pretended to listen to Maya talk about her dress. I think it was at that point that she told me it was going to be blue and strapless. It was the girliest conversation I’d ever had with her, but instead of appreciating it for the Loch Ness monster moment that it was, I’d ignored her, too. I nodded, kept up with the conversation, and let her believe that I was having one of my headaches, when, for the first time in months, I actually wasn’t. My head felt fine.
Maya never said those things that girls usually do when they think something is wrong. The barrage of questions or the inane Are you mad at me? Those kinds of things would never have occurred to her because (1) a barrage of questions is more annoying to her than it is to me and (2) she knew she’d done nothing wrong.