We actually like using the dock all year. It’s a really good place to go when you need some space. It’s just that now we avoid using it if the other one’s already out there. Sometimes when I see Nash on it, I want to go over and say hi or something, the way we used to do all those years ago. But then it’s like he got there first so I should respect his privacy. I know what it’s like when you just need to be alone for a while and block out the world.
It’s strange how you can live so close to someone and grow up with him without ever really knowing who he is. Or maybe you used to know him, but now you’re like strangers. It’s weird how time can change something you thought would always stay the same.
2
Can I just say that when you’re hoping things will get better but they don’t, it majorly sucks?
I really, really thought that today would be different. I imagined getting to school and everyone reacting to me like I’m not such a freak anymore. But that’s not how the first day of school is going. It’s bad. Like, desperately bad. Because when everyone expects you to be a certain way, it’s really hard to escape that image. It’s like once everyone decides who you are, you’re locked into their version of you and that’s it. And everyone decided I was crazy last year. But I’m determined to break out of that. I have to believe that there might be a possible escape route for me.
Sterling seems fine. But she’s always fine. She’s little and cute and people like her. We don’t have any classes together this year and I have no idea how I’ll survive lunch. I saw her in the hall when we got our locker assignments and she was talking to people and laughing like she wasn’t even nervous. I always have a knot in my stomach on the first day of school that doesn’t go away until I get home. Plus, I can never fall asleep the night before, so I’m trying to handle the disaster of my life on two hours’ sleep.
I was expecting people to realize that I’ve changed. I made an effort to smile at people and say hi in homeroom, but I was basically ignored.
Why doesn’t anyone want to talk to me? I mean, other than the same people I’ve been talking to for years. I was sort of hoping to make some new friends. I only have a few friends and I find that to be lame. Lots of kids go out in these big groups. That would be so fun.
Whatever. I can’t even deal with this now because we’re supposed to be doing a getting-to-know-you activity in chemistry. I hate it when teachers make you sit in a circle on the first day of school and do some activity where you have to introduce yourself. It’s like, every nerve in your body is already twanging, which is bad enough. The last thing you want to do is talk in front of people. How can teachers not know that?
So I guess it isn’t too heinous that Mrs. Hunter is making us do this activity in pairs. We already got assigned seats. I sit in front of Nash. Then we got this sheet of questions and we had to pick ten that we would most want to ask a potential friend. Which isn’t a bad idea if you think about it. Being able to interview your potential friends would rock. Because then you wouldn’t get so many nasty surprises later. It’s not like you can take back a friendship.
After we pick our ten questions, I turn my desk around to face Nash.
Nash goes first. “If you were a shape, which shape would you be and why?”
I smile at my paper. That was the weirdest question, which is why it was my favorite.
“What?” Nash goes.
“I picked the shape one, too.”
“So what shape would you be?”
“Hmm.”
I have to seriously think about that. Not only am I sitting in front of this boy for the rest of the year, but we’re also lab partners. Which means we have to do every lab report together, plus a few big projects. So if I make a sucky impression and he thinks I’m a reject, it’ll be really hard to prove him wrong after that.
Okay, so it’s not the first time he’s meeting me. But this is the first time we’ve said more than three words to each other since elementary school and I want to make a good impact on everyone today. I don’t just care about how I look (shoulder-length blonde hair with natural highlights, brown eyes that have these green flecks if the light hits them the right way, not fat or skinny, white T-shirt, jeans, black Converse). It’s also important to make sure my new personality is showing.
“I’d be . . . a circle,” I go. “Within a square.”
“I think you’re only supposed to pick one.”
“Well, I can’t be defined by just one shape.”
“I see.”
“I’m a very complex person,” I say, even though I’m not. But I feel daring and wild, saying it. Like I could be anybody and he wouldn’t even know the difference.
“I’m getting that,” Nash goes. He has this glint in his eyes and a smile where his mouth only turns up on one side.
Don’t let that fool you. He’s not potential boyfriend material.
Here’s why. Nash is totally geeked out. His hair is always messy, his shirts usually look like he slept in them, and he constantly has to correct people when they’re wrong, in this annoying know-it-ally way. His social skills are pathetic and I want more friends, so we don’t exactly have the same priorities. Plus, I’ve seen him lick his fingers at lunch when the napkin is like right there.
There’s just no way.
Nash does have some good qualities, though. I like how he’s really shy and sweet. He’s not like most other boys who are always acting all doofusy and fifth-grade about everything, where it’s like, Hello, we’re in tenth grade now, grow up already. Nash seems a lot more mature. He’s the type of person Aunt Katie would say has an “old soul.”
All those good things about him were enough when we were younger, catching fireflies in the summer and making snowmen in the winter. We could be friends without things getting weird. But everything has a different meaning now that we’re older. Now there are, like, implications.
3
It’s so weird that school started two weeks ago. It feels more like two months ago.
It’s also weird to think about how I used to be. Because I was nothing like I am now. Well. Maybe the core of me is the same. You know how there’s always a part of you that stays the same, no matter how many other things change or how drastically you try to reinvent yourself? But I’m different now in one major way.
The thing about having an anxiety disorder is that you never quite fit in with everyone else. Not like that’s a bad thing. But when all you want to do is function like a normal human being, not fitting in just makes your problems a million times bigger. Last year, I was antisocial and depressed and always thinking these negative things. Life kept moving all around me, but I wasn’t really involved in any of it. I watched everyone else doing all of the things I thought I was supposed to be doing. Those things looked so easy for them, like joining clubs and doing the school play. But it always felt like such an act if I tried to fit in the way normal kids did.
“How’s it going over there?” Dad says from his side of the table we’re sanding. My dad makes furniture. Everything he makes is solid wood, which is expensive but lasts a lifetime. Several lifetimes, actually. He has studio space in town, but he also works at home. That’s why there’s this whole carpenter’s setup in the garage. Sometimes I help him with things that won’t ruin whatever piece he’s working on, like sanding.
“Looking good,” I report.
“Like I knew it would.”
I love helping Dad. Whenever we’re working on a piece of furniture, I just focus on what we’re doing and my anxious thoughts calm down. It’s part of my Cognitive Behavioral Therapy I learned from my psychologist last year. If I’m having anxious thoughts, I’m supposed to do something to redirect my energy until I relax.
We’re using very fine sandpaper, and all you can hear is this soft fffft-ffft sound as we sand the table. Dad taught me how to use a very light touch and this special circular motion so the surface won’t get sanded down unevenly.
“How’s school going?” Dad asks.
<
br /> “Good.” Fffft-ffft. “We’re already practicing for the winter concert in orchestra.”
“Of which you’ll be the star. You’re concert mistress, right?”
“Dad.”
“What?”
“It takes years before that happens. Like maybe by the time I’m a senior I might get noticed.”
“But you’re so good already.”
That’s how my dad is. He’s always super supportive. No matter how badly I screw up, he’s always there to pick up the pieces of me. I think it hit him harder than my mom when they realized how messed up I was last year. I wasn’t bipolar or insane or plotting to blow up the school or anything. I was just, like, depressed. A lot of people with anxiety get that way sometimes. For me, I think my obsessive negative thinking and worrying about things like stupid stuff I did or what people think of me just naturally made me depressed, as if my mind was breaking down from the stress of it all. Mom is always more comfortable talking to me when I’m feeling normal, but Dad reaches out no matter what. Let’s just say Mom didn’t talk to me much when I was at my worst.
But I’m better now. And I want everyone at school to know that I’m not a freak anymore. Except I’m finding out how hard it is to revise the previous version of myself. All of that energy Sterling and I had before school started with our improvement pact and reinventing ourselves has kind of worn off.
Dad hands me a new piece of sandpaper. “Anything else going on I should know about?”
“We’re setting up an aquarium in chemistry.”
“How is chemistry related to fish?”
“We haven’t had that yet. I think it has something to do with pH.”
“Ah. Sounds fun.”
“I guess.”
“You were working on your chem lab yesterday, right? Over at Nash’s house?”
“Don’t remind me.”
“I thought you liked going over there.”
“I do, but . . .” Fffft-ffft. “It’s just, I’m totally lost in that class and Nash knows everything. His brain is like this industrial sponge that sucks everything in and keeps it trapped there forever. You can ask him anything and he’ll totally know.”
“Sounds like a smart guy.”
“He’s a freaking genius.”
Dad smirks at me in this way where he’s thinking that I like Nash.
“I know what you’re thinking,” I say, “and it’s not that.”
“It’s not?”
“No.”
“Then what is it?”
“He’s just . . . really interesting. Like . . . he collects bells? From all around the world?”
“Cool.”
Mom opens the garage door. Dinner smells waft in. “Hey, you two. Time to eat.”
“Be right there,” Dad says.
“Now,” Mom emphasizes.
“Gotcha.”
Mom knows how lost in his work Dad can get. One time she told him to come in for dinner and he was still out here an hour later. He said it felt like only five minutes had passed.
Mom’s job has always been being the mom, but over the summer she got a part-time job as a personal assistant. When I asked her what that was, she said some things about organizing travel itineraries and buying gifts, but I still don’t completely get what she does. All I know is she’s not around as much anymore and there are some nights when she has to work late. I’m already planning on going to Sterling’s for dinner on those nights. Dad making my sister Sandra and me frozen waffles isn’t the most appetizing.
Mom goes inside and I start cleaning up.
“Hey,” Dad says. “I’m really proud of you.”
“For what?”
“For this year. I know how hard it must have been to get better, and you did it.”
“Thanks.”
“You know I’m always here if you need anything, right?”
My throat feels really tight, so all I can do is nod.
4
“Don’t even think about it,” Nash warns me. “Just a little?”
“No.”
“Please?”
“That no part is nonnegotiable.”
This is the third time I’ve been over at Nash’s house. And it’s the third time he won’t let me open the window. He should know by now that I need air. But Nash has his room temperature perfectly regulated, and he hates when I threaten to mess it up.
“I’m just going to open it a crack,” I promise. “You won’t even notice.”
“Then why open it?”
“No, I mean . . . I’ll notice. But you won’t.”
“Are you implying that I don’t notice stuff?”
We have this thing where he teases me and I pretend that I don’t like to be teased.
“Why are you always trying to twist my words around?” I say.
“Why are you always trying to open the window when the air temperature is perfect in here?” he counters.
I give up. There’s no way to win with this boy. Nash is smarter than me and I have no problem admitting it.
“Moving on,” I announce. Then I notice that Nash has graph paper in all different colors. “Where’d you get that graph paper?”
“From the office.”
“Which office?”
“The main office.”
“The main office gives you graph paper?”
“No. I mean, yeah, but I do service credit there second period, so I get to take some.”
“What do you do for service credit?”
“Just help out. You know. Like with the attendance sheets and stuff.”
That’s so weird. I never thought Nash would be the type of person to work in the office for credit. But of course it makes sense. We’re only sophomores and he’s already building his college applications.
“Where are we with the data?” Nash goes.
“Um . . . kind of lost?”
Nash glares at me over a stack of handouts. “I thought you finished the calculations yesterday.”
“Yeah, see . . . the thing—I mean, that was the plan, to finish them. Yesterday. When I was making the data table. But . . . uh . . .” How can I explain what an idiot I am? I’m not what you would call math-and-science smart. I’m good at things like creative writing and art and music, and I like this psychology elective I’m taking, but math and science are just . . . not for me. No one told me there would be so much math in science. It’s a total and complete letdown.
If I wasn’t paired up with Nash for lab, I’d be toast. Right from the first lab report we did, he made it clear that everything had to be perfect or he wouldn’t let us hand it in. So we’ve met twice already to do one stupid lab report that everyone else is probably waiting until the night before it’s due to even start. Which is totally helping my chemistry grade, but that’s not the only reason I like coming over to Nash’s house. I admire how different and weird he is.
Nash harumphs. He flips through more handouts.
“I could try again tonight, but—”
“That’s okay. Let’s just get this over with.” He gets up off the floor, where he was sitting across the coffee table from me, and goes over to his desk. Nash is the only person I know with a coffee table in his room.
He yanks a drawer open. A cowbell next to his computer tips over with a dull clank.
Nash has bells. A lot of bells. They’re everywhere. Hanging from the ceiling and window frames, hanging on the walls, sitting on the bookshelves and desk, and jingling on a string tied to his dresser drawer handle. Nash collects bells from all over the world. He says he was inspired by his grandpa, who had a massive bell collection. Nash inherited his first bells from his grandpa after he died and he’s been collecting them ever since. I guess it’s a way for Nash to feel closer to him. He can pick up any bell and tell you exactly where it came from. And of course, there’s a whole story that goes along with each bell.
He comes back with a calculator. “Okay, let’s start with the first column. You have it?”
&n
bsp; “Yeah.” As I read out the data and Nash taps quickly on his calculator, I take peeks at his spider plant hanging in the window. It’s a friendly plant.
One weird thing about me is that I feel affectionate toward some inanimate objects. Like, I love this special stripy pencil I have. Actually, it’s not even that special. It came in a pack of five from Staples. It’s just that I love the colors and widths of the stripes, the way the eraser rubs so smoothly, the rich quality of the graphite gliding across the page.
I’m convinced that I’m the only person who notices these things.
Or maybe I’m not. Maybe my future boyfriend is the same way. And maybe he’s sitting in his room right now, wherever he is, wondering if he’s the only one who notices these things. And I’m here. Just waiting for him to find me. Waiting for him to find out that I’m real.
5
We have a guest over for dinner. He’s someone Mom knows from work. His name is Jack and his house is being painted, so I guess she felt bad for him and invited him over.
I bet Jack is wishing that someone had warned him about Sandra before he got here. He might have decided whiffing paint fumes in front of some lonely takeout was the better deal.
“But how can you say that?” Sandra asks Jack.
“That’s not the way we speak to guests,” Dad tells her.
Mom doesn’t say anything. Lately at dinner, she’s been getting into these zones where it seems like she’s somewhere far away while we all sort of talk around her. But tonight she’s agitated. She takes another bite of her salad. The iceberg lettuce crunches. If Sterling were here, she would be personally offended to be sitting at a table where the only lettuce in the salad is iceberg. Sterling is a fan of the tri-lettuce Parisian salad. But she never complains when she comes over to eat. She’s compassionate like that.
Sandra tries again. “But . . . why do you think that?”
“There’s no way this country’s ever going to run on nuclear energy,” Jack insists.
“Nuclear energy has the lowest impact on the environment—”