*
I move with newfound purpose. I’m heading to the school’s science library, located in the biology lab. There are books there I can check out. Ones that might help. And now’s a good time to go—morning classes have been canceled so students can “jointly process the emotional impact of the tragedy.” But as I hustle across campus toward the tight cluster of academic buildings, it’s clear this has been interpreted as a euphemism for “smoking weed together behind the gym.” Whatever. I just keep walking.
Maybe the callousness of using someone’s death as an excuse to get high should shock me, but it doesn’t. We’re reading A Clockwork Orange right now in English, and just last week Mrs. Villanova told us about the “moral holiday” period in adolescent brain development. I guess it’s the time nature sets aside for us to raise holy hell and not give a crap about anyone else. Only I’m not buying it, because I don’t think it’s a phase. Except maybe the holiday part, and that’s more about being too stupid to cover your tracks than true values. From what I can tell, morality is a word. Nothing more. There’re the things people do when others are watching and the things we do when they aren’t. I’d like to believe Anthony Burgess knew that, but then that dumb last chapter of his book went and ruined the whole thing. That made me mad, and so I think the movie version got it right: people don’t change. Their nature, that is. There are other kinds of change, of course.
Like physical change.
Stepping into the science building, I catch sight of Mr. Byles, the chemistry teacher, standing in the hallway. He’s talking to another student, but I know he sees me by the way he squares his shoulders, military sharp. Over the summer I grew taller than him, and apparently I’m not the only one who’s noticed.
“Win,” he says as the other student scampers off. “How are you doing?”
I’m not a great scholar by any stretch, but I excel in those subjects I find relevant and worthy of my consideration. Science, I devour. History, I have no use for. But I like Mr. Byles and I’ve done well in his class, so these are the reasons I hope his inquiry is merely an everyday how are you doing. Or an obligatory there’s-been-a-tragedy-in-our-midst how are you doing. Or even an I’m-not-comfortable-with-death-and-I-want-you-to-reassure-me how are you doing. But I absolutely do not want that honeyed hint of concern and condescension in his voice to be personal. I do not want it to be about me.
“I’m fine,” I say evenly.
“There are counselors available all day. You know, if you want to talk to someone.”
I’m sweating again. Why is he saying it like that, all hushed and serious? And why is he staring? He’s never looked at me like that before. Last year he practically worshipped the ground I walked on. Last year I was the best student he’d ever taught. The only thing I saw in his eyes back then was envy.
“I don’t need to talk to a counselor,” I say, a little louder than I intend. My head begins to buzz the way it does when I get overexcited. It’s not good for me to get upset.
“Okay,” he says.
I hate this. The buzzing grows louder. I am a living hive of dread. The memories, those images I don’t want, are swarming around inside me, looking for a way, any way, to get out.…
“I need to go,” I mumble. “To the biology lab.”
“You ever read that article I sent you? About—”
“Sea quarks,” I manage feebly. “Yeah, thanks for that.”
I know he wants me to stay and talk because that’s what we did last year. We talked. Not about my grief or my anger or my guilt over how my siblings died like martyrs cast against my wicked ways. Those are the things I never talk about. No, we talked about matter—most notably quarks, those tiniest possible components of everything. They come in six flavors, you know: up, down, top, bottom, charm, and strange. I’ll admit those talks helped me, and when I read about the sea quarks, I understood why. They contain particles of matter and antimatter, and where the two touch exists this constant stream of creation and annihilation. Scientists call this place “the sea,” and it’s what pitches inside of me as I hurry away from Mr. Byles, ignoring his furrowed brow, his worried frown.
I am of the sea.
I am of instability.
I am of harsh, choppy waves roiling with all the up-ness, down-ness, top-ness, bottom-ness contained within my being.
I am of charm and strange.
Annihilation.
Creation.
Annihilation.
chapter
eight
antimatter