After school, I walk down a flight of stairs off the main hall to the creepy basement, which is where the old basketball court is, the one they used years ago before they built a million-dollar sports complex that seats ten thousand people. Jack Masselin leans back on the bleachers, legs stretched in front of him, elbows propped on the riser behind him, chatting with Travis Kearns from driver’s ed, a smiling girl with long brown hair, and a boy with a smooth, shaved head who I think is Keshawn Price, basketball star. They’re hanging on Jack Masselin’s every word, and he looks up, sees me, and keeps right on talking.
Or maybe he doesn’t see me. Although I am the largest girl in here.
I sit apart from them, on the front row. This gym can fit probably six hundred, and there’s something about it that feels sad and neglected, which, of course, it is. With every laugh coming from the group above me, I feel more and more invisible. Two other kids wander in, but I don’t know their names. The girl sits next to me, about a foot away, and the boy takes a seat one row up. The girl leans over and goes, “I’m Maddy.”
“Libby.”
“Is this the Conversation Circle?”
But right then Mr. Levine moseys in. “Hello, hello. Thank you all for being here today.” He stops in front of the bleachers, hands on hips. He’s wearing an orange bow tie and matching orange sneakers, and except for the gray hair, he looks like he could be one of us.
He says, “Let’s get this out of the way. I’m not going to talk to you about the importance of tolerance, equality, and realizing that we’re all in this together because I don’t think you’re stupid and completely lacking moral fiber. I think you’re smart individuals who did really stupid things. Who wants to start?”
We all sit there. Even Jack Masselin goes silent. Mr. Levine keeps on. “How about ‘Why are you here?’ The real reason, not ‘Principal Wasserman made me do this.’ ”
I’m waiting for someone to say something. When no one does, I say, “I’m here because of him.” And point at Jack.
Mr. Levine shakes his head. “Actually, you’re here because you vandalized school property, and because you punched him.”
One of the guys goes, “Nice.”
Jack says, “Shut up.”
“Gentlemen. And I use that term loosely.” Mr. Levine says to me, “You could have walked away.”
“Would you have walked away?”
“I’m not the one he grabbed.”
“Okay.” I take a breath. “How about I’m here because I lost my temper. Because when someone grabs you out of the blue and won’t let go, you panic, especially when everyone’s watching you and no one’s doing anything to help you, and everybody but you seems to think it’s funny. I’m here because I didn’t know if it stopped there or if he was going to do something more than just hold on.”
Everyone is staring at Jack, at me. Mr. Levine is nodding. “Jack, buddy, feel free to jump in.”
“I’m good.”
That’s what he says. I’m good. Lounging there with his bored expression, and that giant explosion of hair, too full of himself to participate.
“If he doesn’t have anything to say, I’ll go again.” If there’s anything I’m good at in this world it’s being counseled. I’ve had years of it, and I know how to talk about myself and the Whys of things. Even in front of a room of strangers.
Mr. Levine says, “Great. The floor is apparently all yours, Libby.”
“After they cut me out of my house, I was in the hospital for a while, and even when I was strong enough to go home, the doctor kept me there because he said I couldn’t leave till I understood the Why. Why was I there. Why did I gain all that weight.”
Mr. Levine doesn’t interrupt, but you can tell he’s really, truly listening. So is everybody else, even Travis Kearns. I keep talking because I’ve been over this a hundred times, so much that it’s barely a part of me anymore. It’s just a truth that lives outside me in the world. Libby got too big. Libby was cut out of her house. Libby got help. Libby got better. If there’s anything I’ve learned from counseling and losing my mom, it’s that it’s best to just say what’s on your mind. If you try to carry everything around all the time, pretty soon you end up flat on your back in bed, too big to get up or even turn over.
“So the Why was a lot of things. It was inheriting my dad’s Hulk-size thighs and slow metabolism. It was being bullied on the playground. It was my mom dying and the way she died, and me being afraid and me feeling alone and worrying, always worrying, and Dad being sad, and Dad loving food and loving to cook, and me wanting him to feel better and also wanting me to feel better.”
I hear a “Damn, girl,” from Keshawn before Mr. Levine says, “Well done, Libby.”
A couple of the kids applaud.
“Thank you.” For some reason, this means something, not the applause, but Mr. Levine. What he thinks of me matters. “I was housebound for a while, so I had a lot of time to think about it. And I’ve had a lot of time to think about it since.”
We all look at Jack, but he says nothing.
Mr. Levine turns back to me. “So why did you punch him?”
I want to go Look at him. He’s perfect. He’s never had a bad day. Okay, he has this strange disorder that keeps him from recognizing people, but no one’s ever called him fat or ugly or disgusting. No one’s sent him hate mail or told him he would have been better off killing himself. His parents never received hate mail just for having him. Also, he has parents. I doubt he knows what it’s like to lose someone he loves. People like us, we can’t touch him because he’s too good for you and me and the rest of these kids and this punishment. Not to mention his friends utterly suck.
I want to say Why wouldn’t I punch him?
But I don’t really have an answer other than “I was mad.”
And I know it’s not enough because of the look on Mr. Levine’s face. I’ve seen it before. It’s the look counselors get when they analyze you, when they know the answer before you do, but they’re not going to tell you because you have to think of it yourself.
When it’s my turn, I say, “The real reason I’m here is because I’m king douchelord of the universe.”
The guy with the bow tie who must be Mr. Levine goes, “In English, please, Jack.”
I hunch forward and stare at the floor. I look like I’m trying to come up with just the right words, which I am. But the main reason is so I can avoid eye contact. Sometimes I want to close my eyes and forget that I can see. Because sometimes being face-blind feels a lot like being regular blind.
Mr. Levine says, “What’s your Why?”
“I don’t have a Why, only an Oh Shit and a What Was I Thinking.” I crack a grin at him, and then I catch Libby’s eye. I stare at her and she stares back. She’s read my letter. She can out me right here. I wait for her to say something. When she doesn’t, I clear my throat. “For what it’s worth, I wish I hadn’t done it.” It’s the first honest thing I’ve said all day.
Afterward, she finds me in the parking lot, half in the Land Rover, phone to my face.
“So when did you put it in there?”
“What?”
“The letter.”
I say into the phone, “I’m going to have to call you back,” and hang up on Caroline just as she goes, Who are you talking to? I say to Libby, “When I grabbed you.”
“Did you think a letter was going to magically make everything okay?”
“Did it?”
“What do you think?”
“You can’t blame a guy for trying.”
I flash her a smile, but she shakes her head and waves a finger at my face. “Don’t do that.”
“All right. Let’s be real, then. You said you’ve got questions. Ask me anything.” My phone buzzes in my pocket.
“How long have you known about the face blindness?”
“I figured it out around fourteen. It wasn’t this kind of overnight revelation, though. It was more like this process. I had to put the clues together, so it took a while.”
“So you can see my face, but you can’t remember it.”
“Something like that. It’s not like faces are a blank. I see eyes, noses, mouths. I just can’t associate them with specific people. Not like how you, as in Libby, can take a mental snapshot of someone and store it away in your mind for next time. I take a snapshot, and it immediately goes in the trash. If it takes you one or two meetings to be able to remember someone, it can take me a hundred. Or never. It’s kind of like amnesia or like trying to tell everyone apart by their hands.”