We start every team meeting with a prayer, which shouldn’t bother me, but it does because there’s no reason to pray before we answer useless trivia questions. If God is real, he doesn’t care. He’s busy with other stuff that actually matters.
I could feel Maya’s eyes on me during the prayer and realized that by now she probably has some sense of what I’m thinking by my expressions. Aside from the fear that everyone will discover my secret. We talk a lot. And besides my mom and now Dwight, she’s probably the person I spend most of my time with. Well, real person.
So anyway, she looked at me like she knew I thought the prayer was stupid. And she gave me a look that clearly said Shut up. I almost wanted to say, I didn’t say anything! But neither had she. I’d just had the whole conversation in my head. So I kept it to myself.
And actually, I’d really wanted to say, But I would be proud to partake of your pecan pie, in the stupid voice Billy Crystal uses in When Harry Met Sally because I wanted to make her laugh. You can YouTube it if you have no idea what I’m talking about. I love making her laugh. But actually, I’m glad I didn’t say that out loud. It’s pretty stupid. Rebecca nodded in agreement from the front of the room.
Practices are Tuesdays and Thursdays. After we pray, we split into two teams, and then Sister Helen asks the questions. We have buzzers that light up when the first person rings in and an electronic scoreboard that keeps track of points. As a group, we tally up all the points we get per category.
Speaking of the group, I’m pleased to say I am definitely not the most awkward member. The two girls Maya eats lunch with (who now also eat lunch with us), Clare and Rosa, sat down next to Maya on the other team. They both have noticeably bushy eyebrows and unmanageable hair pulled back into tight ponytails. Rosa is a question talker whose voice rises at the end of every sentence, while Clare talks so softly she’s almost always asked to repeat her answers. And of course Dwight was there, too. It’s unlikely that I will ever have another experience at this school without Dwight.
Five minutes into practice, it was clear that this had nothing to do with Dwight wanting to be there because I was there. He’d been on the team for years. He basically knows everything. I probably could’ve buzzed in on a few questions, but Dwight was so fast it was impossible to match him. I just watched his finger bounce up and down on the buzzer for a while, before it started feeling too intimate and I had to look away. I should’ve asked if he and the buzzer wanted to be alone.
Sister Helen fired endless streams of questions that the rest of the pale kids raced to answer. Maya was the brains behind every chemistry and physics question for their side while Dwight methodically doodled math proofs on his scratch paper like a heroin addict getting his fix.
I won’t lie. In those few instances when I can actually buzz in and answer something, it feels pretty good. The questions I answer are almost always the useless memorized trivia crap that I study with Maya, but still, I serve a purpose.
—
Dwight’s mom and Maya’s dad were both waiting for them when practice was over, so I had to wait a few minutes on my own before my mom got there to pick me up. I could’ve walked home, but it was dark out already.
It’s weird being at school after hours. There’s something eerie about the way the empty halls look sad when they’re not filled with kids. I blinked that thought out of my mind pretty quickly because the last thing my mind needs is a terrifying image of a living, breathing school building.
I’m not afraid of the dark. There can’t be any hallucinations if I can’t see anything. But that’s when the voices take over.
The drug helps. I don’t believe them anymore. The voices just kind of flicker in my head, telling me to do things. If I believed them like I used to…they would be terrifying.
Usually it’s a woman’s voice, but that night after practice, it was a man’s.
She deserves a normal kid, doesn’t she, Adam? Someone who doesn’t hear voices. Someone who doesn’t make her new husband want to hide all the knives in the kitchen. What happens when your mother is dead and the drug stops working? What happens if Paul doesn’t want you around anymore, and your mom has to choose between him or you? Do you think she’s going to side with the kid who screams at nothing and closes all the blinds in the house like a vampire? You are a selfish, spoiled asshole, Adam. You don’t deserve the love your mother gives you. You don’t deserve the fancy new school your stepfather pays for. And someday soon, everyone at your new school is going to see there’s something wrong with you. They’re going to see what you’re hiding. You won’t be able to live a normal life anymore. You won’t be able to run away.
You’ll be doing everyone a favor if you just swallow the whole bottle of pills in your mom’s locked cupboard and end it all. You know where she keeps the key. No one wants you around.
I closed my eyes and clenched my fists and did exactly what you tell me to do when I hear the voices. I took deep breaths and said the same thing over and over again. Not Real Not Real Not Real Not Real Not Real Not Real Not Real Not Real. Eventually, the voice went away and I saw the headlights of my mom’s car as she rounded the corner into the parking lot.
It’s the drug that makes the voices go away. Not the mantra. I know that. There’s no reason to think that saying something over and over again is going to make a difference. It doesn’t.
—
When we got home, Mom asked if I wanted to pull the car into the driveway.
I didn’t want to.
I know that’s weird and I get that I have enough weird things about me as it is without adding normal teenage weirdness to it, but I don’t want to get my license. Dwight and Maya don’t really care. They don’t mind driving me around if I need a lift, and I have my permit because my mom insisted. But I don’t drive if I can help it. And I actually don’t get what the big deal is. It’s not like I’m trapped if I don’t drive. I can walk almost everywhere in this town without breaking a sweat. It’s not exactly a sprawling metropolis.
I like being able to look out the window without worrying if I’m going to accidentally hit a hobo if I take my eyes off the road.
I don’t actually think I’d hit a hobo, but I might hit a squirrel or someone’s dog, and to be honest, I think I might feel worse about that. Running over a dog would suck because they’re kind of like babies. Someone else is responsible for them, and I’d feel sad about killing something so helpless. Then I’d immediately be mad at the dumbass who let it get out of their yard.
—
Maya sent me a text that night.
Maya: Remember when you jumped into the pool and saved my life?
Me: Vaguely.
Maya: What went through your mind?
Me: That it would be nice if you didn’t drown. What were you thinking?
Maya: How grateful I was that you showed up.
Me: Glad to be of service, ma’am. hat tilt
Maya: Was that all you were thinking?