Love & Monsters

&&&&&&

I hesitate. "Penn can still deny me admission if I don't perform well in my last semester."

She laughs, and the young woman behind her age breaks through the surface like a cracked mask. She writes an A on my test and hands it back. "You're gonna be fine." She stands up and offers me her hand. After a moment, I take it. "Keep kicking ass." She says. 

--

I'm driving home when I see him walking. His crooked smile infuriates me. Before I can talk myself out of it, I pull over to let him in. He glides into the seat like he belongs there. Like he's always been there. 

"Thanks Bateman." he says. 

"Stop calling me by my last name."

"Lila, then?" 

My head snaps towards him. "And stop doing that." 

"What?"

"Showing off how much you know about me." 

He laughs. "Alright then." 

We drive in silence. 

"Well?" I ask. 

"Well?" 

"Are you going to tell me why you ditched me yesterday or what?" 

"Oh." Is all he says. Just, "Oh." 

I stare at him, but he looks out the window, the usual confidence gone. A vulnerability takes its place. "Here, pull over here," he says, but we're nowhere near our houses. We're at a park. Nex tells me to get out of the car and join him. Before I can say anything, he's out and heading towards the swings. 

I'm tempted to drive away, to prove something unspoken between us wrong. He won't even tell me why he stood me up? He just expects me to follow him wherever he goes and do whatever he says? I want to show him he doesn't control me. 

But even as I tell my hands to put the car in drive, they move on their own, unbuckling my seat belt and opening the door. 

Damn it. 

He sits on the swing set, his backpack in the sand beside him. I sit in the adjacent swing and we rock together, staring at the clear sky, breathing in the crisp air. The only sound is the creaking of the metal chains. 

"I like you, Bateman," he says. 

"What? Why? You don't even know me."

He stares up at the sky. "Last year, I was cutting through the theater to ditch class.  You were in there all by yourself, standing on stage, just staring out at the empty seats." My heart flutters, a hummingbird in summer. "You didn't say anything, but you... you smiled. You took a small bow. You had envisioned something. Yeah. There was something going on in your imagination. Like you were visualizing... I felt something. Without even speaking a word, you made me feel something." 

I stop swinging, the chains creaking until they come to a slow halt. "But did you see the play?" 

The Incident. The event that started the lifetime of therapy and treatment and medication. The catalyst to the horror show that is now my existence. The moment that created a Before and After. 

"Yeah," he says. "Yeah, I saw the play." 

Nodding, I rest my head on the chain of the swing. The metal's cold stings my cheek. 

"Schizophrenia." It's the first time I've said it out loud. It feels weird on my tongue. Like someone calling you by the wrong name. 

He whistles low. 

"Please don't say anything to anyone."

"I wouldn't."

We sit in silence. 

"Still like me now?" I laugh, half afraid of his answer. 

He throws me a grin. "Depends. Do you have hallucinations?" 

"Sometimes."

"Are you hallucinating right now?"

I laugh. "I hope not."

"I'm sorry I stood you up," he says. "I didn't mean to, I swear. It's just..." He trails off, looking away.

"What?" 

"I had a family emergency." I stare at him. He shakes his head. "I know. It sounds like the lamest excuse ever, but I did. I swear."

I slowly nod. I believe him. 

"How about I make it up to you?" He says. "Let's go see a movie. Are you free, say.... now?" 

The biological basis of what we call love actually lies in neurochemistry. When someone says they're in love, what they're really feeling is dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin. A chemical reaction to someone you find sexually attractive. Serotonin affects you in a way similar to obsessive compulsive disorder, which is why you can't seemingly think of anyone or anything else. 

I tell myself that this is all I'm feeling. This flurry of emotion surging through me is nothing more than active neuroscience.

Liar. 

"Sure," I say. We walk back to the car, much closer than before. His hand slightly brushes against mine, and every cell in my body sings. 

I can feel every single individual moving part: the blood pumping, the heart pushing, the lungs collapsing and refilling, the skin stretching and detecting. Even better than that, I can feel the anxiousness, excitement, nerves, butterflies, flutters, lips, desire. 

I am no longer a split atom. 

I am everything.

My body sings.