It was short and pretty. Just like her.
I ran my mile in ten minutes, thirty seconds and was grateful I wasn’t last and didn’t wheeze. Still, Coach looked disappointed. You can’t possibly imagine how little I cared. Screw that guy. His entire job is watch us run while he does NOTHING. His disappointment is supposed to matter to me?
No, I don’t think the kids at this school are actually different. Just a little richer. Obviously, there are no designer clothes to set them apart. It’s the subtle accessories that do it. The guys with their designer watches and name-brand backpacks. Even their haircuts look more expensive.
With the girls, it’s a little more challenging. If you know expensive shoe brands, then you can probably tell from that, but for me you can actually smell the difference. Their perfumes fluctuate from fruity nonsense to clean-smelling tonics you might find at expensive hotel spas. And none of them use them sparingly. It’s like walking through a noxious cloud. It makes me want to fart just to clear the air.
And I guess they’re different because they all know each other already. Even the parents seem to know each other. I say parents, but really it’s just the moms. It doesn’t look like any of them have jobs, so they all have time to catch up with each other. Their broods of three or four have been going to school together for years. They’ve been on the same soccer teams. In the same school plays. Everybody knows everybody. So I think that’s mostly why it’s weird. Parents just kept to themselves at my old school because none of them had time to chat in the morning. They had to shove their kids out the door and get to work.
Oh, and we have assigned seats in all our classes at this school, which I think is hilarious. At my old school, you just sat wherever you wanted. By high school they expected you to be able to control yourself, but here they like their rules. And I guess it’s for good reason, since a lot of kids here like to rebel. Two girls already got sent to the nurse’s office to change into longer skirts and wipe off their makeup. Get this: they were both named Mary.
Near the end of the first day, I saw Ian again. He was walking with a group of guys who, even without the uniforms, looked just like him. Well, their expressions were the same, anyway. When the bell rang, the group split and all the guys walked off toward their last class, but Ian trailed behind, watching a group of girls talking in the hallway. There was something ominous about his expression. One of the girls, a redhead with a long ponytail, maybe twelve years old, had an open backpack and a purple notebook hanging out of it.
I was the only one who saw Ian grab the notebook and toss it into a nearby trash can before turning down a hallway with a satisfied look on his face. He hadn’t been grinning. He just looked like someone who’d gotten his fix. The girl, on the other hand, kept walking, completely unaware that anything had happened, so I thrust my hand into the garbage and ran the notebook over to her.
“You dropped this,” I said.
“Oh, thanks!” She beamed, clearly relieved. “It has my summer assignment in it. That would’ve sucked.”
The rest of the hallway cleared out, and when I turned to head back to my locker, I met Ian’s eyes. He’d seen me fish the notebook out of the trash, and he knew that I’d seen him toss it there. It was a strange moment because I could tell by the way he was staring that he was clearly pissed that I’d caught him, but his face was impassive. It made me wonder what information he was collecting in that moment. What was he thinking about me?
I decided to help him with that by flipping him off.
A wide smile spread across his face, and he was gone again, for real this time, leaving me to wonder why anyone would do anything so deliberately mean and annoying. Just to see if he could get away with it, I guess.
Nobody aside from Assface Ian Stone has been unfriendly, but I do get a few looks every once in a while since the school is fairly small and I’m new as a junior. It’s at moments like that when Rebecca normally shows up. She doesn’t like me to be alone. She’ll stay within my line of sight and only tries to distract me when something unpleasant creeps up. Like doubt or fear or nervous energy. That’s when she’ll do a cartwheel or walk on her hands or juggle fruit.
Rebecca taught me to juggle. Is that even possible? To learn to juggle from someone who’s not real? Seems like that actually could have happened subconsciously by watching it on YouTube. But I remember learning from her. I remember watching the way the apples left her hands and following the movement. She was patient and showed me how to do it over and over again until I got it on my own. But I suppose I’m unreliable because I’m crazy.
Anyway, on Friday we start the religious churchy stuff.
Yeah, I’ve been briefed. I went to church as a little kid, and my mom has explained the main religious concepts, so I understand that the whole thing is going to be an act on my part. By now, training myself to behave a certain way no matter how I’m feeling is second nature. Church is for people who believe in things they can’t see. Life for me is about seeing things I probably shouldn’t believe in. So there’s a nice symmetry there.
Anyway, yeah, this drug is pretty incredible. The distance from the visions is really all I needed. Just a little bit of space away from it to watch everything happen. It’s not all bad stuff, actually. Sometimes it’s okay. Really. I’m not complaining about all of it.
No other hallucinations to report at this point. They’ll show up when they feel like it. They always do.
DOSAGE: 1 mg. Response to increased dosage is mild. Adam is cognizant of his surroundings. Hallucinations do not appear to be overwhelming at this stage. Will continue to monitor his attachment to them.
SEPTEMBER 5, 2012
I guess it doesn’t really matter that I don’t believe in God. Catholics are really more about attendance anyway. Every day at eleven o’clock the bells go off in the church tower, and we all have to stand and recite the prayer of Saint Augustine. In one booming, emotionless voice. Together.
Not sure I’ll ever get used to that.
According to the brochure on the fridge, St. Agatha’s is the oldest private school in the state, named for a woman who supposedly “refused a man’s amorous advances and subsequently had her breasts cut off as penance,” or something like that. Catholics celebrate weird shit.