Weeks blended together. I’d smile and nod at Alex at school because I didn’t want her to think I was mad at her or anything, but I limited myself to the kind of direct responses I gave my parents: “Yeah, everything’s great!” “All good!” “Excellent, how about you?” If I let myself off my short leash, there was too big a chance I’d say something dumb and regret every word and hate myself for making the effort. It was better to stay safe and comfortable and out of everyone’s way.

I wasn’t bothered anymore that Sam and Patrick were in our group. I just didn’t really care. The time it took for me to check out of conversations with the guys dwindled. It used to take ten minutes of uninteresting discussion of a football game I hadn’t watched before I’d zone out and stop listening. Then it took five minutes, then three, then one. When I needed to, I could talk to the guys and make them laugh without thinking. Sam and Patrick cracked up at any dry, sarcastic reference to a teacher’s testicles. That was all it took with them. It was like Mad Libs — [teacher’s name] has [number that isn’t two] testicles and an [adjective to describe burnt meat] penis.

I knew the routine, the dance moves and repetitive lyrics that made up the Kevin show: smile, nod, laugh when everyone else does. I could do it without thinking. It was easy.

My friends seemed to enjoy having me in their circle even though I didn’t really care about their conversations. At home, my eyeballs bounced from my computer screen to my TV screen. I spent nights watching movies by myself in my room, working through a list I’d found online. But I wasn’t taking any of them in. I’d put them on and stare at them until they ended. Sometimes I’d catch myself ten minutes into a Korean movie and realize I hadn’t been reading any of the subtitles, but I wouldn’t care enough to go back and start over.

Days fused into each other and I’d have no memory of them when I looked back in my agenda. My life became an endless white noise loop with nothing to mark one part from the next, this uninteresting run-on sentence, an awful, formless jazz performance every bit as bad as that handyman had said jazz always was.

Todd Lancaster, noted dumb-ass, swung by our lunch table one day and cryptically said, “Microcock.” The guys laughed and told a story about some idiot getting his pants pulled down at Lauren Gordon’s sweet sixteen party. Then they joked about how much vodka some older kid named Ivan would bring to Katie Lipton’s sweet sixteen party. And apparently there had been a bonfire at Todd Lancaster’s house. I had no idea what they were talking about. I hadn’t heard about any of those parties. I certainly hadn’t been invited to a bonfire at Todd Lancaster’s house. I wished I could have gone. It sounded like it would have been an excellent opportunity to push Todd Lancaster into a bonfire.

Luke mentioned that the guys, Alex, and Emma had been talking about going to White Water, the water park, over spring break. It was the first I was hearing about that plan, too. Where were those conversations happening? Some online thread I wasn’t looped in on? A meeting in some rich kid’s massive tree house?

Events were happening without my knowledge. Things I’d never be able to be a part of. Those parties might as well have been the premiere of Romeo and Juliet or the day Weird Al’s parents decided to have unprotected sex — monumental historical events that happened regardless of my being alive or dead. If I was there, nothing would change. If I wasn’t, no one would miss me.

One Friday in March, Luke, Will, Sam, and Patrick decided to go to a movie. They said the girls would probably meet them there. They never explicitly invited me, but just in case they assumed I’d go, I texted Luke that I had some family stuff to do that night.

What stuff? You never do anything with your family, he responded.

Yeah, I know. That’s why it’s weird, I texted back.

There was just no way I could have gone with them. It would be too complicated. I had to take my pill at exactly ten every night. They were seeing a 7:45 movie, so if you factored in twenty minutes of trailers, ten would be during the climax of the movie. I’d have to walk out of the theater in the middle of the most important part, and on the ride home they wouldn’t stop asking me why I’d left when I had. I’d have to lie about taking a dump, but the problem was we’d thoroughly discussed our defecating habits several times at our lunch table, and on more than one occasion I’d aggressively argued that the morning was the only logical time to shit, so my story wouldn’t check out. I’d called Luke “one of the strangest people to ever live” because he pooped in the evening. If I didn’t walk out of the theater, I’d have to dig through my pockets for my pill in my seat, pop it out of the plastic pack — since I couldn’t put a loose pill in my pocket and risk losing it — then try to secretly swallow it. But I’d get caught. I’d push it out of the pack during the one second of absolute silence in the movie, and it’d snap as loud as a firecracker. They’d turn to stare at me, one head at a time, and demand to know what drug I was taking and what was wrong with me.

I had to stay home. It was calm in my room. There was no risk of embarrassing myself.

After I went through my face-washing routine and took my pill, I got in bed and wondered if the guys were having fun at the movie theater. I wondered what they were joking about. I wondered if they’d all be talking about the movie at school next week. On weeknights, I knew that at ten everyone else from school was just as bored and alone as I was, all of us stranded in our bedrooms. But when everyone except me was out on a Friday, I started to worry. I probably should have gone. I was stressed out lying there in my bed, kicking the sheets away and rolling from one side to the other.

But I knew that if I had gone, I’d be stressing out at the movies, too, wishing I was alone in my room.

No matter what path I chose, it always led to me being stressed out and anxious. I started to doubt that the solution to my problems was a clear face. I think what I really wanted was to be one of those guys who just doesn’t care about anything. I fantasize about being a teenage guy from a Doritos commercial, the kind of dude who wakes up at two p.m. lying upside down with his head dangling off the foot of the bed. The kind of guy whose room is wrecked with guitar picks, video games, and dirty clothes all over the place — jeans draped across his drum set. He’s got a big TV just sitting on the carpet and as soon as he wakes up, he pulls a Mountain Dew out of his band-sticker-covered minifridge, doesn’t give any thought to its nutritional content, and chugs it while firing up his PlayStation. He finds a bag of Doritos under his skateboard and eats what’s left of it just before his phone rings. It’s his buddy Dirty Tom and he’s on his way to the mall and he’ll swing by the Doritos Dude’s house. The Doritos Dude pauses his video game, leaves his TV on, pulls on one of his dozens of pairs of shoes, and leaps down the staircase. He hops into Dirty Tom’s Jeep and they cruise down the highway in hot pursuit of more spontaneity.

At no point does the Doritos Dude wonder why he’s going to the mall, if he really needs anything, or even what he’ll do when they get there. At no point does he wash the Doritos dust off his hands, take a shower, brush his teeth, or wash his face. He doesn’t think about wasting electricity by leaving his TV on. He doesn’t consider what he’s wearing or why. He doesn’t rehearse conversations in his head with every person he might run into at the mall. And yet, despite all his insane inconsistency, he nails his guitar solo when his pop-punk band plays that night and he winds up talking to a midriff-revealing girl at a bonfire, casually making her laugh while taking a bite of the only constant in his life — a spicy, crunchy, cheesy Dorito.

I had to see my dermatologist for a checkup after my blood test at the end of March. She inspected my face like produce at the grocery store, turning it around to let the light shine on every side. The redness on my cheeks was fading to pink, but I still looked like I’d been stepped on by someone wearing lawn-aerating shoes.

She read through that same massive list of possible side effects she’d given me last summer and sat at her computer, clicking in my answers: Itching? No. Dry skin? Nothing out of the ordinary. Any rashes? No. Joint pain? No. Back pain? No. Dizziness? No. Dry eyes? No. Feeling depressed?

What? What a big question to throw at someone. No. Well. I mean — god, no. What was I thinking? If I told Dr. Sharp I was depressed, she’d make me stop taking the pills and my face would get worse again. Not to mention, I wasn’t depressed. Maybe I was bummed out sometimes, sure. But it wasn’t a big deal. I was a kid from a crime-free suburb with no legitimate problems. I was on medicine that I knew might make me feel weird, so if anything was off, it was just temporary. Any sadness or whatever would get flushed out of my system along with the pus from my zits. I just had to ride it out until my face cleared up and it’d be fine.

“Nope.”

She didn’t even turn her head to look at me. She just clicked and kept going down the list.

Nosebleeds? No. Changes in your vision? No. Hair loss? Nope.

“Great,” she said, turning to me. “So we’re at the end of the standard course of treatment. I think there’s been a gradual — ”

“Wait, what?” I still had red lumps all over my face. I wasn’t even close to the clear skin I’d been promised. “I mean . . . I don’t think I should stop. Right?”

She tilted her head at me. “Well, you can’t be on this forever. Normally I’d recommend taking a break for a few months before starting a second treatment.”

And just like that, my dreams of having good skin by the end of tenth grade vaporized. I stared blankly at the floor and saw my bumpy reflection on the shiny tiles.

“But your blood work has always come back fine, so I’d be open to extending you for a little while, at a lower dose. What do you think? Or do you want to go off it? Up to you.”

Obviously I wanted to stay on it. I told her so and she wrote me a prescription for another three months. Even though technically I’d won, I left that appointment feeling even shittier about my face, which I hadn’t thought possible.