The words are melting. They're leaking down onto the floor and falling in piles of indecipherable black ink. The clock laughs, in on the conspiracy. Five minutes left until class is over, it says. You'll fail the exam. You haven't written a single answer.
I can't. The questions won't show themselves. They're hiding.
The silence of the classroom hangs above the soft scratching of pencils and the occasional whispered insult from the voice in my head. I blink hard, but the test won't come into focus. The paper lies drenched, all splotches and spots.
Answer one question, just one damn question! But it's no use. The words are one dark puddle of ink. I survey the room's concentrated faces. At the door, peeking through the class's window, is Nex. He grins, like he totally didn't ditch me yesterday.
"Eyes on your own paper, please." Mrs. Stanton says. I startle.
When I look back, Nex is gone.
T minus five minutes.
Four.
Three.
Two.
One.
Zero.
Failure.
Everyone hands in their papers as they file out of the room, sighs of relief and chatter of less mundane. I wait for class to empty before approaching Mrs. Stanton. She's in her fifties, and despite the strands of gray hair and lines in her face, she's still very beautiful. A massive heartbreaker still lives beneath those wrinkles. She's always reading some classic book or another in class. I remember once, I picked one up out of curiosity and found an erotica romance novel in its place. She'd switched out the covers. She's been my favorite teacher ever since.
"Mrs. Stanton?" She looks up and sees the blank test in my hands. She frowns. "I'm having some trouble..." but how do I finish? Trouble reading? Trouble concentrating? Trouble making my brain work when I'm going through withdrawals? "Would you be able to deliver the test questions to me orally?"
If I were anyone else, I know Mrs. Stanton's eyes would squint in suspicion. But I always raise my hand when there's a question I can answer. I turn homework in on time with no excuses. I express interest in the books we read in class.
"Would you like to come in during break?" She asks.
"I can take it now. If you don't mind, that is."
Her eyes glance at the clock, who is still laughing at me. "You've only got ten minutes before next period starts."
"I can do it."
She raises an eyebrow. "Alright then." I hand her my test and she begins. "'Assess symbolism and its usage in one of the novels on the list for this semester.' Feel free to take a second to think-"
"In Mysterious Skin by Scott Heim, jewels are a recurring symbol." I say. "Heim uses descriptions such as 'sapphire arteries' to describe lakes, 'crushed rubies' to portray blood, and 'a jewel surfacing out of a black lake' when referring to the moon in the night sky. Heim also makes constant reference to diamonds, which is significantly connected to the coach of the Little League baseball team who sexually abuses children. Heim uses jewels - something considered expensive, rare, pure and sought for - as a stark contrast to the horrific lives affected by the molestation in the novel. He ultimately asserts that despite stolen innocence and tainted purity, a jewel remains valuable. A diamond in the dirt is still a diamond. No matter how-"
Mrs. Stanton puts her hand up. "You can go." She says.
"But there's four questions left."
"Yes, and you can answer them." She nods towards the door.
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.