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Derek was always ready.
It didn’t matter what for – whether it was his parents dropping him off at a school he already knew he wouldn’t fit in at, or his first time with his first girlfriend during the after-party of his first win on the hockey team, or even going off to a smaller-scale ivy college to do a degree in English against his parents’ wishes.
Derek was always ready, would never say no to a new experience. It made his heart beat a little bit faster, made his ribs feel like they were tightening up around his lungs, made his palms a little uncomfortably slippery around his yellow prescription bottle, but he would never say no. He wanted to like new things, wanted to breathe outside his parents’ careful gaze, wanted to experience everything even if it scared him. Why not embrace the things he couldn’t avoid?
“It doesn’t matter, just be chill,” Leila had advised, when he asked her if she had liked Andover. “The kids there are kind of awful,” she had shrugged, placing the last of her boxes in her brand new car before driving it across the country, “so just be chill. It doesn’t matter anyways, you’ll be heading to Caltech too in a few years.” And after a few suggested classes to aim for – computer coding with Gierson in 10th grade, economics with Fuller in 11th, and definitely AP Calc&Vec in his grad year – she’d gone. So Derek put his boxes in the back of his mom’s Mercedez Benz, got in the passenger seat, and plugged into his iphone the second they started driving. He could handle being chill. He would learn.
As Leila had predicted, Derek’s first year at Andover was a hard lesson in Visibly Not Giving A Shit. He’d always been that naturally-good-at-school kind of person, but never cared much for it. Now, he was painfully aware of the shadow his sister’s honors-with-distinction reputation cast on him here. Derek hadn’t been ready for that – for his straight As to not be good enough anymore, not with Leila’s straight A+s hanging over him like an unspoken expectation. So he studied harder.
What’s worse was the older students who stopped him in the hall his first few weeks in the dorms, doing a quick once over before asking if he was Leila’s brother. It wasn’t that they looked similar, though they did enough that you could tell if they were standing right next to each other. But Derek stood out like a beacon of ethnic ambiguity in a sea of pink and white skin, somehow even more painfully aware of it than he had been in New York. The obvious assessment grated on his nerves, but he shrugged and nodded and grinned and Didn’t Care, and texted Leila about it later, wondering if anyone had ever made it so clear she was different just from one look. “Get used to it,” she had replied, and Derek could almost hear her rolling her eyes from 3,000 miles away.
He didn’t get used to it. But he got very good at pretending like he didn’t notice it, especially when he realized how easily his teachers grew disappointed if he lost his cool in class talking about American History or Civics. So Derek quickly learned to reign in his opinions, and give a careless shrug at questions he knew he wouldn’t answer the right way. If Leila had managed to stay chill through four years at this whack academy that hardly wanted to admit to slavery in a country built on its back, at least Derek could benefit from her legacy.
Behind the closed door of Derek’s single dorm was his one place to breathe, even if breathing meant popping a recently-prescribed Xanax after losing 2% on a dumb question he should have known on yesterday’s quiz. Anxiety under control, he could prepare himself for the next day, feel ready for more of the same. Leila’s most recent text suggested he join a club. “To get some friends,” she had explained, like breaking down a math problem into steps, “or just have people to be chill with once in a while.” Lucky for Derek, there was only one thing he was better than Leila at doing, and that was building superficial relationships.
The hockey team became Derek’s greatest source of pleasure outside of voluntary solitary confinement. Mostly because it was predictable, and didn’t involve much talking. The sound of blades on ice, the single-minded focus without having to play it cool, the way he could throw his anxious energy into knocking other guys into the boards. He would never admit to enjoying the opportunity to check people, but the idea lingered in the back of his head, frightening him into silence after games and rough practices. There was only one guy on his team Derek couldn’t bring himself to check. He had welcomed Derek to the team after try-outs his first year with a smack on the ass and a cheerful, “Welcome to the team, Nursey!” From his self-imposed nickname, to his patchy, scraggly facial hair, to his overly-large personality, Shitty Knight’s unashamed confidence made Derek envious, curious, and a little wary.
But as with all things, Derek got himself used to Shitty’s attitude, and was therefore almost unsurprised when one day he opened his dorm room door to find Shitty in his after-hours outfit – a bathrobe and boxers – leaning against the frame, and completely unsubtly gesturing to a joint he had tucked behind his ear. “Wanna share, Nurse?” he asked, inviting himself into Derek’s room and throwing himself down onto the XL twin, head close to the open window. “Uh, brah, isn’t that like… super not allowed?” Derek certainly wasn’t surprised – had smelled weed on Shitty long before tonight – but could feel his chill slipping a little at the thought of participating, fingers clenching and unclenching nervously as he watched Shitty light up. “Ch’yeah, but so is like, climbing onto the roof and getting plastered off of Natty Lights on the quad after dark.” Derek had a brief flashback to the hockey team’s initiation. He had intentionally avoided taking a Xanax, knowing that beer would be involved, and his hands had shook through the entire affair until enough alcohol had been pumped into him that he didn’t care anymore. It had been a nice feeling, a relief from emotionally bracing himself. Like all the other things on Derek’s rapidly growing laundry list of ways he was avoiding dealing with things in what his psych called “the right way”, he didn’t want to admit to liking it as much as he did. So he shrugged, climbed up next to Shitty, and snatched the joint from between his fingers. “Fine, but if we get busted, you’re taking the blame.”
Shitty graduated that year, leaving Derek with one last smack on the ass, a jaunty salute and a “good luck, you beautiful motherfucker!” shouted from across the quad. It would be another three years before Derek would see Shitty again, and in that time so much would change.
Derek would grow another couple of inches up, and several inches across. Lanky muscle would turn solid under hours burnt away in the student athletics center to avoid his friends. Anger burnt away to exhaustion in a personality tailor-made to seem lazy and unconcerned, and then caring about experiences burnt into genuine apathy, a taste for weed, and a disregard for safety. 17-year-old Derek was ready in the worst way possible. But he was still ready.