The door hissed open at my stop. I shuffled out to the sidewalk and watched the bus leave. The street was empty. The edges of every yard were fortified with black and orange leaf bags, like sandbags with no flood to hold back. I put one foot in front of the other. The wind howled down the street, whipping my hair into my eyes. I let it fall where it wanted; if I wandered into the street and a car hit me, all it would do was save me some time.
Our yard was choked with leaves. Mom had broken her ankle at work a week ago, and most days I could barely manage the effort to get out of bed. My feet broke through the upper layer of new, dry leaves to the dark, mulchy layer beneath. Old rainwater soaked through to my socks, but it didn’t matter. I opened the door and entered silently.
Inside, the sound of daytime television drifted out of Mom’s room. I put my backpack on the couch and walked softly to her door, peeking in. Her head poked out of the covers while her chest rose and fell slowly. Soft snoring was just barely audible over Dr. Phil. Two white prescription bottles and a half-empty glass of water sat on the nightstand closest to the door. I took off my shoes and socks and tiptoed over to the nightstand. I picked up the first bottle slowly and read the label: Amoxicillin. I wasn’t looking for antibiotics. I set it down and took the other bottle, which I knew now was oxycodone. The bottle rattled as my hands began to shake. Mom mumbled something and I froze. A moment later she turned over and resumed snoring.
I went back to the living room and put the bottle down on the coffee table, then walked to the kitchen where I filled a tall glass with tap water. I sat next to my backpack and put the glass of water next to the pill bottle. I took my Health & Wellness textbook out of my backpack and put it in my lap. A running male body with muscles and veins and bones exposed stared out from beneath the title. I ran my hand down the cover and imagined the tendons beneath my skin, the bones they were attached to, the blood running through spider-webbed veins, the muscles made of a hundred thousand tiny cords. This body, this walking prison, had forced me to keep it alive for fifteen years.
I opened the textbook to the page that read, “What Boys Can Expect from Puberty.” Then I opened the pill bottle, removed three small white pills, and put them in my mouth. They tasted powdery and bitter. I swallowed them with a sip of water and kept reading. I read the text on the page and felt the things it described happening to my own body—I was a late bloomer at fifteen, tall but beardless and scrawny, with a high voice that still squeaked sometimes, but I could feel the changes coming like a swarm of insects skittering across my bones.
Testes will descend from the body and begin producing testosterone and sperm.
I swallowed three more pills. I wouldn’t be a friendless victim anymore.
Spontaneous erections and nocturnal emissions are normal and should not be cause for alarm.
I swallowed three more pills. No more caring that Dad didn’t care about me.
Thick, coarse hair will appear on the face, chest, and stomach, with leg and arm hair noticeably thicker than females’.
I swallowed three more pills. My limbs felt heavy and strange. No more future with no love, no kisses, no closeness.
The voice will drop by about an octave as the larynx enlarges and hardens.
I swallowed three more pills. It was difficult to focus. No more possibility of shaming Mom with the knowledge of the kind of life I actually wanted.
Bone density and muscle mass increase and shoulders widen disproportionately, giving males and females distinct skeletal shapes.
I swallowed three more pills. I was very sleepy. Everything felt okay though. I knew everything would be okay. The bottom of the page said something about acne and body odor but the words danced whenever I tried to move my eyes over them. I closed the book and set it aside. I took the remaining pills and the glass of water and moved to the bathroom. I removed my clothes and sat down in the tub because I didn’t want to leave a mess. Leaving a mess would have been rude. I realized that I forgot to write a note but it was too late for that now, and soon nothing would matter at all. My eyes slid shut.
Everything was going to be okay.
31
The bus smelled of body odor and dry heating-vent air and urine. It was just after noon when we left; Dad had at least let me sleep in and fed me breakfast in silence. The man in the aisle seat was snoring loudly, but I didn’t care. I wanted to sleep, was tired enough to sleep, but couldn’t. I felt dead inside. I felt nothing.
I tried putting headphones in but by the time we reached Chattanooga and switched from I-24 to I-75, I had tried all my favorite songs and they all sounded like musical Styrofoam. I read articles on the Internet but they were all trivial. I wanted to be home, but I didn’t know what home was anymore. I pressed my cheek to the glass, the road slipping by like a black ribbon thrown across the hills. I watched the changing scenery of this place where I was born that had been telling me it hated me for as long as I could remember and gave in to the static behind my eyes.
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