Chapter Text
"When I was a kid, I had this naive idea that the universe always somehow eventually compensates you. Like, if somebody grew up privileged, it would be harder for them to be generous and they'd be judged more harshly in heaven, or if somebody was born dirt-poor in east Africa, they'd have nothing to be greedy over, and in turn they'd be more likely to get into heaven. So to me, everything happened for a reason, and everyone and their existences were equal sooner or later. Then I saw this documentary about pirates in Somalia. The guy being interviewed- he said he killed his brother for a loaf of bread. I remember watching, and just thinking,
"How is he more likely to get into heaven now?"
"I've spent a good part of my life doing remedial to horrible rituals for a voice inside my head that wasn't even real, and then years afterwards completely obsessed with how I was obsessive, and all the things I'd done, and all the things I'd thought, and all the things I'd heard, and all the things that I could have done, and all the things I should have done, and all the time that I had lost, all for jack-fucking-shit.
"People act like illness is supposed to build character, or change you for the better, or make you wiser, or smarter, or stronger, or at the very least give you a good story, but the truth is that it fucks up everything you are, and everything you were going to be, and it holds you back in time and it hurts your friends, and it hurts your family, and it sure-as-hell hurts you.
"Before the worst of everything, my average in math was a 110. A 110, Craig. I barely even have any of the problems I used to have anymore, but I'll be damned if I have any idea if I passed or failed math last semester.
"But I had an all-knowing voice that may or may not have been God, but I had to do what it said because I just could never really be sure - inside of my head that threatened me with my worst nightmares, that used all of my weaknesses and secrets to blackmail me every hour, every minute, every second for years.
"And it kind of just messed me up.
"I used to think that somehow, all of my lost time would be worth something. Now I know that it won't. And sure, in some ways, I'm smarter because of everything that went down.
"But in most ways I'm not.
"Craig.
"You're never going to get back the time that you're losing."
He's fiddling with the string of his blue chullo hat, looking anywhere but my eyes. And honestly, I'm relieved. After spending night after night for years, lying awake, staring at my ceiling, crafting and developing my grand-OCD-anxiety-monologue, years of dreaming and imagining delivering it to anybody - to my mother, to my father, to Clyde, to Token, to Jimmy, to Craig - it's fallen flat and short like it does every time I can muster enough guts to give it. I can never say what I mean. Maybe I don't really know what I mean. My stuttering, tripping over words, and cracking voice made it hardly what I had imagined. Also, I'm pretty sure that I might be crying.
He didn't interrupt me, even once. I think he knew, but he didn't actually know. I mean he still doesn't, because no matter how hard or how many times I try, I'll never be able to explain it to it's full extent. I just don't have it in me.
Deep down, I think I always knew that Craig was the person I was supposed to tell. I gave the speech under his situation's pretense, but half-way through, the comparison got lost on me. Maybe I should feel bad, making this all about me. But I'm just so tired of feeling bad about things all the time.
I thought, after I finally gave my speech, I would feel relieved. People talk about a big weight coming off your shoulders after admitting something, about how much shame people with secrets don't realize they're even carrying. But all I feel now is stupid and overdramatic. Clyde's mom died when he was ten. I'm just a whiny, privileged teen with no real problems.
I'm picking at my fingernails like I always do when I get nervous. My hands are trembling, hard. Trying to get them still, I press them onto the straps of my backpack, but they only end up shaking the straps, making everything more painfully obvious.
So Craig stands there in the snow, the dark of his blue jacket like a void in the middle all of the bright, pure white. And I stand there across from him, shaking from the cold or from the anxiety, or probably a mixture of both.
We're around at the back of our high school at 7:30 am, huddled under the small metal awning where the emo kids cut class to smoke, developing colds in the cold. Right about now the snow is beginning to fall particularly hard, and the wind carries it diagonally onto the pavilion, onto us. School doesn't start until 8:30, so save a few teachers and custodians, Craig and I are the only ones here. I'm already soaked to the bone.
Bored, uncomfortable, and wanting something to occupy myself, I nudge the ice of a frozen discarded cigarette into the concrete of the school with the toe of my boot. Craig's eyes follow it, but in the sort of way where I can tell he's not actually seeing it.
When I manage to crack the last of the ice, the entire thing crumbles, and I'm left with nothing but grey snow and a wet boot. I attempt to clean my them in the uncontaminated snow, but it kind of just spreads the mess. Ever the neat-freak, Craig makes a face, and then he finally speaks, and I'm so relieved I want to cry.
"Do you want to skip today?" he asks.
But I will always skip for him and he knows it.