Fowler

Chapter 2

I counted my intrusive thoughts everyday. Sometimes they were few and far between, and sometimes they crossed over into the double digits.

    I had my first obvious one in sixth grade.

    I was sitting at my desk listening to my teacher gush about Algebra like an elusive lover when I saw myself on top of hers. In my mind, I'd stood up and climbed on top of her desk in the middle of her lecture. I imagined the shocked looks on the other kids' faces, and her yelling at me to get off as papers, books, and picture frames clattered to the ground.

    At the time, I didn't know what intrusive thoughts were, but since then they'd become constant companions.

    Not many people knew what they were or that they most likely experienced them from time to time. That quick flash of you jumping out a window when you're sitting through something boring or stealing something even though you're a morally upright citizen— all intrusive thoughts. They weren't always violent or extreme though. They ranged from mundane— like climbing on a teacher's desk— to disturbing— like yeeting a baby down a flight of stairs. They could even be spicy— like grabbing an attractive stranger and kissing them.

    My intrusive thoughts were a mixed bag, and jarring at first, but now I was used to them. I laughed at the funny, disruptive ones and tried not to indulge the others. Too much.

    Besides, according to everything I'd read having them didn't make you crazy or a bad person. You just had loud thoughts. Impolite thoughts that didn't bother to knock before entering.

    After my staring contest with Eric Fowler at lunch, he was seared into my brain. A thought that not only refused to knock, but refused to leave. The whole day I wondered why he'd been staring at me, and why he'd gone along with such a bizarre interaction. I'd done it because it was a distraction. A disruption of endless duplicate days. What was his reason?

    A small part of me wanted to be a contrarian like Steph, and say he wasn't all that just because everyone thought he was. But even she couldn't deny he was fun to look at. If you covered the side of his face with the hazel eye, and just saw the blue one, he'd look earnest, maybe a little shy. Throw in the freckles, and he was the perfect boy next door. But when you covered that side, the hazel eye gave him a completely different look. With his dark hair and deep Cupid's bow, that side was mysterious, beguiling. He was half sun and half moon, and you looked at the entire picture and wondered which side he belonged to.

    But it wasn't just his face I couldn't stop thinking about. I thought about that little smile and head tilt too. What did they mean? I couldn't believe how curious I was when I'd probably passed him in the halls, and my brain still failed to register his existence.

    Steph was obviously curious too, because on the bus ride home she said, "I still don't get why Eric was staring at you."

    I fluttered my eyelashes. "Maybe he thought I was pretty."

    She gave me a look that said, "Yeah, okay" but didn't comment.

    It probably should've hurt my feelings, but it didn't. I wore enormous hoodies to school, and my curly hair was always piled high in a fluffy, misshapen ponytail. I knew what I looked like, and I thought I was kind of cute. Like a lazy pineapple.

    At the end of the day, I didn't really value what Steph thought. And if I didn't value what someone thought, their words mattered even less.

    I dug through my back pack to see if I had any snacks. "Honestly, I wish I knew too. That was very...interesting."

    To say the least.

    "Winter's coming!" Someone at the front of the bus shouted.

    Everyone lurched forward to grab the seat in front of them or anchor themselves in some way before the bus flew over a gigantic speed bump. The seat and my butt were rudely separated as I hovered several inches in the air, my ponytail lightly grazing the roof of the bus.