The October days leading up to Halloween all feel gloomy, clouded, damp, and messy. I’m a fallen leaf stuck under a rut in the mud that’s been driven over one too many times. Perhaps my English teacher might like that line, but I don’t because it’s too true and too tiring.
Lily tries to talk to me, but I refuse. She tries three different times but then seems to say Okay, fine, I’m done with trying. Which is fine by me because I’m done wondering what is going on with Lily. Obviously she has other things going on in her life. Other people in her life. Other guys.
Make that one other guy.
I just wake up and get out of the house without too much drama, then go through the motions of school.
I do my best at trying to avoid everything and everyone.
Lunch periods I walk around listening to my iPod. I have lunch sometimes with Newt, as long as he’s not trying to make me do something I don’t want to do. I hang around with Harris and others. I avoid Lily. And I’m still being avoided by Kelsey.
An advisor comes out of nowhere to meet with me and ask what I want to do with my life.
“Get out of here,” I say, which he laughs at until he sees my expression.
My English teacher makes us read Moby Dick, and I come to see the whale as a symbol of the hope I’m looking for in this town. The hope I can’t seem to ever find because everybody just keeps lying to me.
The Halloween dance is coming up with a special spooky theme, but I know I’m not about to go to a stupid dance. I’m not going to any dumb party afterward. Or then again, maybe I will, and maybe I’ll get so drunk I’ll climb up on the roof and try to use the so-called magical powers Marsh says I have to zap some idiot with lightning.
Dad tries to make a point of having dinner. He’s stressed and worried and at one point he said it has to do with finances but that I shouldn’t have to worry about it so I don’t.
Once I see the big SUV driven by Staunch coming my way on the street while I’m riding my bike, and I just pass it by as it slows to a stop. Maybe he wants to talk to me, but I sure don’t want to talk to him.
I know I can’t keep this up forever, this whole avoiding and going through the motions thing. But for a few weeks it seems to work pretty good.
And then I get friend request from Kelsey.
I never go on Facebook and I never update anything, but still she wants to be friends.
For a while I debate doing it, but I’m curious. I thought she hated me, and besides, I’ve seen her hanging around with some dark-haired guy, so why now?
Eventually I click accept.
Such a simple, stupid thing to say I “accept her friendship.”
I thought we were friends, right, after all that last year?
Then what about the summer you stupid moron?
The voices in my head are getting meaner. I wish they had a volume knob.
I go on Kelsey’s page and then, suddenly, the past few weeks and the endless dreary days seem gone.
She doesn’t have many friends, and her settings are set to private. But she’s inviting me in to see her little life.
I find myself on the beach with her. Bright-eyed and happy and glowing Kelsey. I’m on a city sidewalk with her, toasting to something. I’m with a group of girls all laughing and posing. I’m standing at the edge of some cliff looking over.
I don’t know what it is about looking at those pictures and seeing all the things that Kelsey “likes.” But it makes me feel better. It makes me feel normal. It brings me back to a place when I didn’t have all of THIS! shrieking in my ears all day long.
I’m sad, and I don’t want to be sad anymore. I want that smile on Kelsey’s face. I want a family that seems as secure as hers. I want a future that seems as optimistic as hers.
And then, after looking at her life on display for a long time—so long I lose track of time—I see a message pop up on my screen. Not an instant message—I’ve got my settings so I can’t get those. This just shows up in the inbox.
I click to find a message from the very same girl I’m looking at.
It’s eleven o’clock, and dark and stormy outside, yet it’s kinda comforting to find her still awake.
Thanks for accepting my friend request. Chris—I hope we’re still friends. You’ve seemed quite blue lately. Yeah, I’ve noticed. But then again, I’ve always noticed.
I don’t reply. But that night, all through the night, I think of Kelsey’s words.
It seems like nobody, and I mean nobody—from my mother and father to my missing uncle and crazy great-aunt to the teachers to the students to the hot girl I fell for this summer to the mean man up the street and the freaky pastor—can be trusted.
Yet I trust Kelsey.
I’ve always noticed.
This is the first time I’m actually glad someone is paying attention.
I’m thinking of her cute, sweet face when I finally close my eyes.