I lied to everyone and went.
I had Maya pick me up while my mom was taking a nap. She didn’t ask why my mom wasn’t begging us to take a million pictures inside the house, which is what she would have done normally. I guess she was distracted.
We weren’t exactly the epitome of cool rolling up to school in a green Odyssey, but Maya doesn’t care about that stuff. She had no interest in getting a limo. Fancy crap that doesn’t mean anything makes her uncomfortable, and the van was good enough. Dwight and Clare were meeting us there. Maya said we were all going to get dessert somewhere afterward.
Let’s pause here to address the fact that I hadn’t noticed what she was wearing or even taken the time to make sure that my tie was straight. I was busy trying not to throw up. My amazingly perceptive girlfriend didn’t notice because she had concerns of her own that night. You can’t blame her. Dances take a lot more effort for girls than they do for guys. Her entire day had probably been spent getting ready. I was out the door in twenty minutes while my mom had been passed out on the couch.
When we got out of the car, I walked over to put on her corsage (the one I’d hid in the back of the fridge so Mom and Paul wouldn’t see) and was about to say something pointless about getting in line for pictures or putting the tickets in her purse when I stopped midsentence.
A lot of women look good in formal dresses, so it isn’t really fair to say that Maya was the most beautiful girl ever in existence, but that was basically the truth. She looked like an angel.
I’ll describe her for you in case you’ve never seen an angel and because I’m really high, and talking about angels is oddly comforting.
Somehow she’d gotten her normally bone-straight hair to fall in soft curls around her face. Her dress was pale blue and didn’t have any of that gaudy sparkly crap. It was elegant and fell just off her shoulders. There was a band of shiny fabric under her breasts that tied in a bow behind her, and at the right angle, it really did look like folded wings.
And I clearly wasn’t the only one who thought so. Plenty of people were turning their heads in our direction. Granted, some of them were probably muttering something about Maya needing to be saved from the giant ogre behind her, but mostly they were gasps of awe.
Did the doctors tell you that this is the first time in two days that I haven’t been strapped down and sedated?
Anyway, I was okay with the fact that I’d lied to get there. I didn’t know how long it would be until my mom woke up or Paul got home and realized I was gone. But I knew they wouldn’t embarrass me when they got there. They’d just show up, wait in the back of the gym, and throw daggers at me with their eyes. That would be the worst of their wrath. I just didn’t realize that it was my reaction I needed to worry about.
Maya pretended that she didn’t care about dances and dresses and girlie stuff, but she had a death grip on my hand. She was happy.
Can that be where the story ends?
I feel like since these are my entries and I clearly have problems that this should be the point when the story ends because we were both happy and everything was fine, even though it actually wasn’t. If I’m good enough, do you think we could make it so that everything that happened after that moment was a hallucination? Maybe we could all pretend that prom hadn’t happened yet, right? If everyone pretends together, that makes it real.
I can almost see your face. The sad smile that you’ve adopted whenever you read something that clearly provides evidence to have me locked up forever. You should work on keeping your expression neutral. I would be happier if you didn’t care at all. I’d like a lot more people to provide neutral expressions, actually. I think they would be closer to what they’re actually feeling. No one can possibly care that much.
I am crazy, but even I know that can’t be where the story ends. I started feeling the effects of the drugs a few minutes after I took them. It had been too much all at once. Maya thought I was just nervous because I don’t like crowds, but I was sweating and having a difficult time breathing. That was a warning. I should have already been heading to a hospital, but then a slow dance came on, and the part of me that wanted to be a normal guy pulled Maya onto the dance floor. We waved at Dwight and Clare, who were swaying awkwardly nearby.
Catholic school dances are pretty tame. There were streamers and glow-in-the-dark stars hanging from the ceiling, and the DJ they’d hired had a strobe light flashing against the wall and monitors projecting neon images around the dance floor. Once in a while a nun would push two kids apart and whisper something about leaving space between them for the Holy Spirit. Still, Maya leaned into me and I tried to forget that I wasn’t normal. She almost made it happen, but they found me eventually.
All of my imaginary friends were there. That feels nicer than calling them hallucinations, doesn’t it? I could see them all lined up against the wall while I was dancing with Maya. They all wore somber expressions on their faces, and I realized that they were sad for me. None of them wanted to be what I was afraid of. They didn’t even want to be there.
It was the voices.
I heard something break while I was dancing with Maya. A glass, maybe, but I couldn’t see where it was. I jerked my head in the direction of the sound and must have accidentally tugged Maya along with me, because she asked me if I was okay.
“I’m fine.”
“C’mon. Let’s sit down. You’re not fine,” she said.
“No, I want to keep dancing.”
“You have a headache. We should sit for a minute.”
“I’m fine.”
I let her drag me to a table at the back of the auditorium as a roar that sounded like crashing waves at the beach filled my ears and knocked the wind out of me. I fell into the closest chair.
“We’re leaving. Something is wrong. You’re sweating.”
“I’m fine. Nothing is wrong.” But even as I said this, I knew she would never believe me. It’s one thing for her to not know exactly what was wrong with me and another thing entirely for her to be oblivious to a problem. And my hands were already shaking when I noticed Ian standing at the other end of the dance floor, staring at us.
Just then, the monitors that lined the dance floor stopped flashing, and an entirely different visual began playing on all ten screens as the music stopped playing. It was a video of me.
I was illuminated on the screens, vomiting onto a urinal, slamming my hands against the sink, screaming “GET OUT” at the third grader, my eyes unfocused and my hands shaking. Someone had recorded the whole thing.
And suddenly I couldn’t breathe.
“Adam?” Maya whispered, trying to put her hand on my back. “What’s going on?”
Then the voices started.