Monday is like all Mondays. Like I’m sitting at the bottom of a pool, listening underwater to people living up above.
On Tuesday I see Adam, and after so much silent drowning, I can breathe. But after a few laps around the school and a few minutes in the courtyard, it’s over.
Then there is a long invisible Wednesday and an even longer Thursday.
In the middle of the night between Thursday and Friday, I wake to a dark silhouette in my doorway. Sometimes when I’m afraid, I think I see things that aren’t really there.
I find my flashlight, shine it, and say, “Russell?”
No answer.
But it is Russell, his eyes full of some emotion I can’t name. We watch each other without speaking until he turns and walks away.
Now it’s Friday, and I’m hiking the halls with Adam again. He’s brimming with energy and smiling at sad teachers as my stomach clenches tighter with each step. I need this to keep going. I need to keep circling the school. I’m afraid for it to be over, and I’m embarrassed for being afraid.
Adam glances over at me and plucks the wrinkled paper from my hand. We both cringe when he sees the grade. I make a weak attempt at taking my essay back, but he just keeps walking, which doesn’t seem like the best idea, since he often trips even when he isn’t trying to read and walk at the same time.
“You write essays in Science?” he asks.
I nod.
“Weird.” He flips the paper over and halts. “Now this is just mean.” I guess he found Miss West’s comments at the end. “I thought they couldn’t take off points for spelling.”
“Why?”
“You have dyslexia. Aren’t you supposed to get—what are they called—accommodations?”
“No. I don’t think so. I don’t have dyslexia anymore.”
He gives my paper a suspicious look. “You don’t have Reading Improvement or anything?”
“No.”
“Maybe Dr. Whitlock could test you for it.”
“I don’t think I have it.” I’m just not smart.
“Well, if you did have it, it’s fixable. There are exercises, homeopathic drops….”
“Drops?”
“Yeah, there are remedies for everything. That’s how I got off my ADHD meds.”
I follow Adam as he flies into the courtyard. Once outside, he’s like a dog let off his leash. I sit on the bench while he kicks a pile of leaves, then swan-dives into them. He peels off his red hoodie and uses it as a pillow. Lying on his back, he lifts my essay over his face and reads it again.
“It’s good, you know,” he says after a couple of minutes. “You were always a good writer—stop shaking your head. It’s true. Sometimes people get too impatient. Your teacher can’t read your handwriting, and you can’t spell, so she just gave up. But it doesn’t mean you’re not good.”
I look at him closely, trying to read his face. He looks like he really means it. I think of my trunk full of stories, and my heart speeds up. Maybe someone could read them. Maybe someone could like them.
“People get so impatient, you know?”
I nod. I know.
“When I was younger, my ADHD was sort of out of control. It drove my teachers freakin crazy. I wasn’t trying to aggravate anyone, but it was like a physical impossibility to sit still and do work. In sixth grade I was failing every single class—seriously, every class—so Mom took me to a doctor and I got on meds.
“It worked, sort of. I mean I could sit in my chair without going insane, and I was quiet, so my teachers were happy. But then I got sick, like hospital sick. I was throwing up all the time. I couldn’t sleep. I was losing weight.”
I don’t want to picture Adam being sick.
“Finally my doctor said everything was a side effect of the medication. He told Mom he could switch me to something else, but she was like, hell no. That’s when she got really into nutrition and homeopathy. She’d do anything to make sure I’m well.”
“Are you well?”
“Yeah. I feel great.”
“So you’re passing your classes now?”
“A’s and B’s.”
“But don’t you…” He looks up, waiting for me to finish. “Don’t you still have ADHD?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I do. But I get good grades and I can function and I’m happy.”
“That’s good, Adam. I wouldn’t like it if you were unhappy.”
He lifts his shoulders off the ground, flashing a sort of smile I can’t decipher, then crawls out of the leaves and returns my essay to me. It’s even more crinkled now, and smudged with soil. “Next time you have to hand something in, just tell me. I can proofread it or whatever.”
I nod, but I know I won’t. If he’s being nice enough to offer, I should be nice enough to never do it. The wind picks up, but instead of putting his sweatshirt back on, he just fits the hood over his head. As he walks forward, it billows behind him like a cape.