Chapter Text
2015
13,114 hours before
the fluorescent locker room lighting is like a hot poker to the eyes as they stumble in, sweaty bodies, jubilant faces. there’s a chant, echoing dimly outside the sphere of his hearing. some guys clap him on the back, they say, “good game, michaels!” or, if they’re being creative, “fucken’ awesome, bro!” he peels off his uniform and wonders about forced euphoria. he can feel it pumping through his blood, but the dull throbbing of a headache forming makes it hard to concentrate on either.
his wardrobe is a regular disaster on the best of nights, and everything he has in a hastily packed sports back is just not proper to go out in. this is what he tells himself, as one of the guys proposes in’n’out, and they all agree. “not tonight,” he says, to be accosted with protests.
“come on michaels, it’s your sixteenth! we took home the win and you might as well come,” one of the guys, jake, says. it’s not a real game, caleb wants to respond.
“hey, you turned sixteen today? did you get a car? fucken’ lit—you can drive us!”
“of course i didn’t get a car, are you kidding me?” he says with a short laugh. “listen, i’ll go with you guys next time—” but he’s drowned in protest.
the headache is splitting his forehead now, but if he says no again they’ll just leave without him, and he’ll feel worse sitting at home alone.
probably.
9,020 hours before
“what, are you a pansy? weak-ass bitch,” the other guy sneers, even though he’s a junior and the kid looks like, well, that. a freshman, definitely.
“hey, don’t talk like that,” caleb interrupts. the junior turns around and takes a long look at caleb. they may both be in the same grade, but this guy must’ve been held back. he feels the contempt like a punch to the gut, and almost physically doubles over. the fear at the sudden stab of a foreign feeling must’ve shown on his face, because the other guy laughs suddenly, a short bark.
“who’re you, his boyfriend?” he taunts. there’s anger washing through caleb, stronger with each wave. it feels like his own, but also invasive, foreign, like it’s hitting him from at least two different people, and this has been happening for the first three months of school, first three months he’s been back with people. sometimes it just hurts, and sometimes it’s like this: like a bottle of coke that’s been tossed around in the sun and manufactured with mentos glued under the lid, but the cap is stuck--
and the cap pops.
8,900 hours before
he doesn’t know how his parents found this special therapist’s office, or why, or what’s going on, just that he’s been suspended, and what he thinks are his dad’s feelings are lodged in his chest. frustration, a little tipsiness from bourbon (a byproduct of writer’s block) and eventually some sort of full on drunken euphoria from getting something right. even now that alice and his mom have been home all saturday morning, there’s something residual there, and it’s a horrific sticky feeling. still better than all of the millions of shades of emotions he’s hit with every day.
he hadn’t even begun to think of it like that until he realized he was feeling the same edges of that swirliness he gets at parties, drunken or not (he’s always thought maybe there’s weed in the air, or the body heat, or some sort of placebo drunkenness) but then he goes to ask his dad something and sees the bourbon and feels a sort of dread settle in his stomach.
every time he thinks of it in these terms, he feels tears pressing at the back of his eyes: he is clinically insane and he knows it. sooner or later, they’ll put him in an asylum, where he can’t tease alice or play football.
no matter what his dad says, he’s not going to cry. this is not how caleb michaels goes out: crying about his impending insanity.
he’s not going to cry in public, in any case. it’s only half embarrassing if you’re the only one to see yourself cry.
right as his eyes begin to burn in that painfully damning way, he feels a sudden jolt of fear, and caleb stands up slowly. hoping the receptionist (sarah, by the placard on her desk) will ignore him. he paces over to the door and cups an ear, but all he can hear is a low murmur and the hum of a noise machine.
but the fear ebbs, and he feels a dull sense of relief, and he doesn’t know if that’s his parents or his insanity whispering “listen to me, it is all alright”.