Chapter 1
I wasnt sure whether I was between dreams or if this was IT. Panic and paranoia tried to find their voice in my head. I felt at any given time I was going to drop to the floor. I was waiting for that one moment when you look deep into the forseeable future, but find nothing. Leaving you crippled to the thoughts that slay your basic instinct. Life looked really different and I felt like something could happen, but I couldnt figure out what that something was. I couldnt stop searching. I cant stop searching. I will never find it. THAT, I knew. The view from behind this lense was something I never experienced before. Maybe I have, but not this profound. Looking outside of this very moment scared the shit out of me. Why was I experiencing this at such a young age? My heart rate sky rocketed. I took one deep breath, but nothing. Therapists. How do they know know what is good for me when I dont even know what is good for me? Or, if what they think is good for me doesnt even work? I tried to relax. Slowly feeling like I was wallowing in the oxygen that I grew to know my whole life. Betraying me for seconds at a time. One foot in front of the other. I could do that. But a breath? I was having trouble with that one. Whats that joke about wrestlers? Cant chew gum and walk at the same time? Or was that about blondes? Here I am. Another existential crisis. Embattling myself about breathing, wrestlers and blondes.
Somehow I was able to gather myself and figured out what to do next. I dressed myself in the dark of my room. The sun was perfectly up, peaking through my window. My dad didnt even try to say bye or hand me a sac lunch. I was happy because I didnt have to stop and talk. I left my house in a scurry acting like I knew what I was doing. The bus stopped on the corner and I could hear my name being smattered on the interior of the windows. I didnt look. I didnt care to look. The bus driver opened the doors, but I didnt answer his attempt to luring me in. I was a block down when the bus zoomed by me. An apple flew over my head followed by a, "DOUCHE!" I continued on. I didnt care. I walked by a wall painted with figures and a graffitied face with window eyes. I stopped and admired the artists creative thinking that led him to this endpoint. The windows looked like windows to me, but to someone else, eyes that matched a yellow freckle faced teenager. I wish I could think of things like that. But i settled for sports. Expensive trips to play in tournaments, to listen and watch as parents fought the other teams parents because Billy was on-side, to play against guys two times my size, to play until i shattered my fibula and tibia for a fifty-fifty ball in front of the top college coaches in the country. I still have a limp. And that "accident" (what i call it rather than me getting bitched over by a future number 1 pick) was 3 yrs ago.
I walked into homeroom late that morning. My body was finally coming to ease after assessing what my day consisted of. Class, class and more mind numbing class. I was happy because the teachers words were morphine to my mind that was more inclined to madness than to what was really going on. Finding things that kept me occupied was the best thing for me. Unless you know my fried Tim. Tim is the King of Buzz Kills, Assassin of Daydreaming. He is what people talk about when they talk about unconsciousness. See, me, I suffer from being too aware of myself and overanalyzing what colored socks I should wear to Sunday Mass. Tim, well, he talks because the filter in his head doesnt exist. He is the master of keeping you in the moment to listen to his rambling on of nonsense. Tim wanted to know where I was, why it took me so long to get to school and how I missed a good breakfast at the school cafeteria with "the badgers". That is what my group of friends call themselves. Dont ask me why. They are a bunch of white, overweight stoners. Not even a black kid was in the group. But what i told him and what I wanted to tell him were two different things. I told him the easiest answer because well, he was too stoned to understand the real one. He kept going on and on about a phish song while I sat there and acted like I cared. "Run Like An Antelope is one of the greatest songs ever due to its endless melodic storytelling", said Tim. The stoner was fuming out its emotional desire to be heard. I couldnt stop thinking about that graffiti. Tim continued on. Now, I was looking just over tim's right ear to Jenny. Not because I was bored or what could I do next to stop myself from punching Tim in the face, but because Jenny sat right behind him. I have had a crush on Jenny for as long as I can remember. Dirty blonde hair, in decent shape. Perfect smile. Totally underrated. All of a sudden, her boyfriend, who I acted like I forgot existed, came and wrapped his arms around her. Kissed her. Then the bell rang. Jenny rubbed my head as she walked by and said, "Hey".
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