It’s probably really strange that I’m telling you this. I don’t know anyone else who would share details of their first time, but honestly, it doesn’t feel that weird. Okay, it’s weird, but maybe that’s one of the nice things about not actually vocalizing these things. I’m not sure I would have ever been able to say any of this aloud to anyone. Writing it down makes it feel more remote, like I can crumple this entry up and destroy it before anyone has the chance to read it. Once words tumble out of your mouth, there’s no room for editing. It’s out there.
Maybe telling you this proves I can have a normal life.
DOSAGE: 4 mg. Decreased dosage.
APRIL 3, 2013
When my grandma was alive, she was the one who made my Easter basket. It always had Peeps, which I’ve never liked, and those big, fat supermarket jelly beans that no one likes. But she also filled it with Cadbury eggs and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. I used to eat them Easter morning before my mom woke up.
After Grandma died, we didn’t celebrate Easter anymore. It was weird enough being an only child in an Italian family, but now we’re the only Italian family in the world that doesn’t do anything for Easter.
This year, though, my mom forced us all to go to church. I think the thought of a heathen child suddenly makes her nervous. Limbo is supposed to be lined with the skulls of unbaptized babies.
Easter Sunday is one of the days people pretend they’re full-time Catholics even when they’re not. It’s the only time we’ve ever put on the big show, gotten dolled up, and acted like we actually agree with what’s going on. It was probably better when the whole thing was in Latin.
Mass seemed longer than usual, more uncomfortable, too, since it was standing room only by the time we got there with the rest of the people who only show up on holidays. Someone stood up for my mom because she’s pregnant, but Paul and I had to lean against the back wall of the church for an hour. I started getting fidgety before the homily, and I spent most of my time avoiding the stained glass. Rebecca sat off to the side of the priest where the deacon normally sits. For some reason, there was no deacon for this mass, so she had the whole bench to herself. She met my eyes and smiled.
I saw Maya there with her whole family, even her mom. Who was basically the Maya of the future. When Maya noticed me standing in the back of the church, she blushed and turned back to face the altar. I couldn’t stop grinning when she did that. I couldn’t help it. It wasn’t the fact that she got all red and embarrassed. It was that I had made her blush in church. She’d been reminded of what we did in the storage room, and I knew she was just thinking about it in church. On Easter Sunday. In front of God and everyone. And I had been dressed as Jesus.
It’s hard not to feel a little smug about that.
DOSAGE: 4 mg. Same dosage.
APRIL 10, 2013
The weird thing about yesterday is that I don’t remember getting out of bed. I remember standing in my bedroom for a while, watching Rebecca sleep, and then walking out into the hall to stretch my legs. I was feeling twitchy.
The other weird thing is that I didn’t take my phone. I realized this even before I saw the mob boss in my family room lounging on my couch with a cannoli and a cappuccino. He didn’t have the same manic look on his face that he did when he opened fire at school. He actually looked pretty calm, just watching while the two boulder-sized men behind him browsed our bookshelves.
“It’s late. You should be sleeping,” he said.
“I also shouldn’t be seeing you.” I was in no mood to be lectured.
“Cannoli?” he asked, raising it to my face. It smelled delicious. That’s how crazy I still am. I could smell the cappuccino and the cannoli as if I’d just bought them at a bakery or, you know, made them myself. The powdered sugar disappeared into a puff of dusty air when he took a bite, little bits falling on the rug.
“No thanks,” I said.
“Your loss, kid.” He stuffed the rest of it into his mouth and wiped the sugar on my great-grandmother’s crocheted blanket. That irritated me for a second, and it must have shown on my face because his mouth split into a wide grin.
“You really want to yell at me for that, don’t you?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You don’t have to. I’ve never met anyone so tightly wound. How did you get that stick up your ass, kid?” When I didn’t answer, he took a fistful of cookies and crushed them into tiny crumbs, dropping them deliberately onto the ground in front of him. This is the part where you would interrupt me and say, But, Adam, at this point, didn’t you know he was a hallucination? Why, yes, Professor, I did. The same way I know that there are no monsters under my bed. But that doesn’t mean I let my feet dangle over the edge, either. It’s difficult to know anything with absolute certainty, especially with a very real hallucination staring back at me.
“How long do you think you’ll be able to keep this up? Do you think your little Flip girlfriend is still gonna wanna touch your junk when she finds out you’re a schizo?” I couldn’t remember if “Flip” was a slur or not, but I winced.
“It didn’t bother your mom,” I said.
The men behind him flexed their muscles warningly, but the boss actually laughed.
“That’s more like it!” he roared, wiping sugar from his lips. “We’re a part of you, paisano. Every single one of us is a piece of you, and you hide us like we’re trash.”
“You’re not real.”
“Bullshit,” he said. “To them maybe not. But we’ve always been real to you.”
I didn’t say anything.
“And what about her?” He tilted his head toward my bedroom, where Rebecca was sleeping. “Are you casting her out, too?”
“She doesn’t make me crazy,” I said.
“None of us made you crazy.” He laughed.
“If I can’t see you, I can move on with my life.”
“So if you can’t see us, we don’t exist? I don’t think that’s how it works.”
“I’m going to bed.”
“You do that, kid. Just remember what I said. You can’t keep this up forever. The drugs can only do so much.”
I walked back to my room and climbed into bed. Rebecca was still sleeping. Her hand found mine, and I squeezed. She squeezed back.
DOSAGE: 3.5 mg. Decreased dosage.
APRIL 17, 2013
I feel fine. For most of this week, it was just Rebecca and the choir. The rest of them haven’t been seen for days.
How’s my mom’s pregnancy going? I’m a terrible son. I know I’m supposed to say that Mom is glowing. That she’s never looked more beautiful. But the fact is that I saw her eat an entire Costco bag of Doritos by herself and then burst into tears, which without any context is pretty terrifying. She’s also left the remote in the fridge twice in the past week. Paul says it’s called “pregnancy brain,” but he never says that above a whisper. Also I’m pretty sure she used to have ankles. Now her leg just shoots directly into her foot. I mentioned this to Paul, who gave me a warning look but didn’t disagree.