Consider (10 page)

“No,” I peel a layer of nail polish off my pinkie.

We end our conversation as the principal, Mr. Wilson, takes the microphone. After testing and adjusting the volume of the mic and straightening his tie, he addresses the class.

“Welcome to your senior year,” Mr. Wilson announces, and the audience hoots and applauds.

My armpits and underneath my breasts pool with sweat, and my heart performs an Irish jig in my chest.
What would happen if the building was suddenly attacked by a lone shooter or a terrorist? Or a rogue hologram? I’d be trapped in the sixth seat in the middle of a crowd. I’d have to climb over people and cross half the room to make it to the closest exit. That’s if the shooter isn’t blocking the exit.
My brains would splatter across the stage.

The room blurs and softens at the edges. I have no idea what Mr. Wilson is saying or why people are clapping. I fan the bottom of my T-shirt up and down for air, pull the neck area down a few inches. My rapid heartbeat whacks against my skin so hard I swear I’ve lost the ability to filter oxygen.

My parents would find out I died in a bloody pile. Dad would lose it, get his gun, blow his brains out. Dominick would hate me since my death would trigger memories of his father. Rita would become depressed and suicidal. Or the two of them would get together and have sex on my grave, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it ‘cause I’d be stuck as a virgin ghost.

“Are you okay?” Rita asks. Her voice is soft and soothing, but the last thing I want is attention.

Ten to twenty minutes. I’m not dying. Ten to twenty minutes.

According to my old counselor, the longest it takes a panic attack to peak is twenty minutes. It’s 8:04. I have to convince myself that I’m not having a heart attack or losing my mind for up to twenty minutes.

Easier said than done.

Are they all staring at me? No, they can’t be. They can’t be. Can they hear what I’m thinking? They must think I’m a freak. Am I saying this out loud? They’re watching me like they know. I can’t lose it in front of them. I’ll never live it down.

I grab my bag and try to squeeze back out of the row. One girl yelps when I step on her foot. I try to apologize, but by the look on the girl’s face, I must have muttered something incoherent and asinine.

A guy in the last seat asks, “What’s your problem?”

Mr. Wilson stops talking, and everyone turns around. I can feel myself cringing in heat. I run up the main aisle.
It’s like I’m in a clear plastic tunnel where everyone is watching and pointing at me, and there’s only one narrow exit at the end of the tunnel that may collapse at any second.

I hide in the nearest bathroom. My skin’s burning up and my heart feels like it’s going to jump out of my chest like in
Alien
. I collapse at a sink and splash water on my face to cool off. When that doesn’t help, I enter a stall, tear off my clothes, and sit on the toilet in my bra. Small red hives cover my chest and stomach. How could I forget about refilling my pills?

I check my phone. 8:12. I really hope I don’t pass out and some custodian finds me naked on the gross tile floor.
Probably crawling with foot fungus. E. coli. Ebola.

A painful numbing sensation spreads through my fingers. I shake my hands to stop them from hurting.
Deep breath. Hold it. Let it out slowly. Again.
I haven’t had an attack this bad at school since middle school when Rita had to run and get the school nurse as I sat on the cafeteria floor gasping for air.

Why can’t I get through two days of senior year?

I grab my phone and almost call Rita. My shaking fingers can’t navigate my phone quickly. On my screen I stare at the background picture of the three of us around a fire. Rita winking at the camera. Dominick smiling behind his glasses, those dimples casting shadows on my heart.

My best friends. Rita helped me through middle school, Dominick helped me through high school. I never minded Rita seeing me weak, but Dominick . . .

Why does it bother me so much?

I play a game on my phone to try to distract myself from the symptoms of death. Any sane person would be screaming for medical help, but I have to sit half-naked on a public toilet and play electronic mind games to trick myself into believing that I’m not about to croak.

But what if I’m in real danger? What if this time it’s real?

Waiting is the worst.

I hear the girls’ bathroom door swing open and shut. I lift my feet off the floor and balance fetal position on the toilet seat rim.

“Alex?” Rita asks, “Are you in here?”

“No.” I put my feet down.

Her black floral canvas sneakers appear under my door.

“Is it a bad one?”

“As opposed to a good one?”

She doesn’t respond. The fluorescent lights buzz at me.

“You don’t have to wait,” I mutter.

“Not missing anything good anyway. Typical Mr. Wilson speech: ‘It’s your senior year, blah, blah, blah, respect and responsibility, blah, blah, blah.’”

“You sound just like him,” I say, giggling. It feels so good to laugh.

“You would think he would’ve talked directly about the holograms and the vertexes. Nope. All he mentioned was something like ‘in these trying times, character matters.’ Please, character isn’t going to matter if a comet shows up.”

The heat in my body begins to subside, and while my heart still feels sore, the rhythm stabilizes. Reality settles back into my mind. False alarm. Not dying.

“And then the class president talked about the prom and fundraisers to offset the price of tickets. Did you know that hologram gray is the hot trend this year for dresses and tuxes?”

I listen to Rita’s voice and get dressed. My insides still feel shaken up and queasy. I exit the stall and rinse my face with more cold water.

“Thanks,” I say.

“De nada.
Ready to go back? We can sit near the doors.”

“I’m never setting foot in that auditorium again. I need to go home and sleep.”
And get access to my pills.

“I’ll walk you to the nurse.”

My 504 plan legally allows me to skip class and head to the nurse’s office or my guidance counselor when my anxiety flares. From the nurse’s office, I call my mom. She brings more Ativan, signs the parental authorization form, and gets me dismissed me for the day. She doesn’t ask questions. Part of me is grateful. Part of me needs her to shake me until I scream and get it all out of my system.

That night, Dominick
still hasn’t called or texted once. I tell myself not to do it, to just leave it alone, but can’t stop myself. I text him:

How are you
?

As the minutes tick by, my insides burn with embarrassment and regret for pushing him out of my life. I don’t know what’s going on with me. I check my phone over and over and over throughout the night, making sure the volume is on, the battery didn’t die, and I still have a signal. He never responds.

I wish I had my own vertex or TARDIS so I could time travel back to the moment on the porch when my mouth uttered “I don’t love you.” I need to take it all back. If I could rewrite the script, Dominick and I would have sex at his house and promise to stay together throughout college and go to the same graduate school and get married and have kids.

Where’s a good space-time-paradox-anomaly when you need one? Even the Enterprise got a few do-overs. Instead, we have these stupid vertexes blinking at us for no clear reason.

Humans are remarkable in the way they adapt to change, even change that makes them uncomfortable. They block out what they can’t accept and simply move on with their daily lives, even if that thing stares them in the face. They stop seeing it. Their brains are magical like that. Problems become part of the backdrop, and they just keep going. Maybe that’s why I have anxiety. I am bad at adapting. I must not have this gene. I cannot stop seeing the problems. I cannot ignore.

I need to learn to forget.

If I could stay away from media, it would be easy to pretend nothing has changed in the world other than adjusting to senior year without Dominick. Problem is I can’t stay away from the news. Dominick was right: I am a Scully. I need to know every bit of information I can get my hands on. Countries that don’t have access to media must live in a safe, little, ignorant bubble.

So I watch the news and take notes instead of sleep. A small but growing number of people have emigrated from the planet each day from various locations across the globe. Sometimes the same people leave several times on recorded, looped news feeds. It’s odd to see the same goodbyes over and over again. Kind of like the goodbye between me and Dominick that I can’t stop replaying in my head.

During the first
week of school I develop some nasty habits. I set two alarms so there are no repeat performances at school. Problem is I’m having trouble focusing in classes. Probably from the lack of sleep. I watch teachers’ mouths move, but my brain has developed a mute feature that switches on and off without my consent.

Homework is another problem. Not listening in class means I have no idea how to do the work. With due dates approaching, I finally crack open a textbook, grab paper, and settle into bed. An hour later, a text on my phone jolts me awake.

Please be Dominick
. It’s Rita:

Hey, Nathan just texted me about a party tonight. Wanna come? Might be good to get you outta that funk. Live a little.

No. Absolutely not,
the voices of my parents command in my head. I visualize Dad standing with his arms crossed over his puffed-up chest.
I wish I could hear Dominick’s opinion instead—I think his silent treatment even extends telepathically to my thoughts.

Then Rita’s voice takes over.
Live a little.

I consider my options. I have a ton of homework to finish, but I have the rest of the weekend. And she’s right; I am in a funk. The unmatching yoga pant number I’m sporting is something that my mom would wear when she’s not expecting company. Including the tea stains on my leg. I can’t fade into her.

Sure. Need to change first.

I need to change, in more ways than one. Time to force myself out of my comfort zone. After taking a quick shower, I search through my closet for something party-worthy. The dress I wore the night of the first vertex sighting.
For my date.
With Dominick.
Might as well.

Looking in the mirror, my wet hair reminds me of poodle roadkill.
I grab my blow dryer and flat iron and set to work. By the time I’m done, my hair looks three inches longer. Not sure if it’s better, just different.

Rita knocks on my bedroom door as I pin one side of my hair back with a bobby pin and leave the rest free.

“Your mom let me in.”

“Yeah, just give me a sec.” I spray my hair with anti-humidity hairspray and hope for the best.

Rita borrows the spray. “I told my mom I was sleeping over here.”

Even though we have a standing agreement that she can sleep over whenever, I’m not sure I want her here since I haven’t been sleeping well.

“That’s fine,” I lie. I’ve been lying to her a lot lately. I still haven’t told her that Dominick and I are fighting over me wanting to live at home for college.

“Tonight should be good for us. Get you out and about, flirting with other guys. And I get to finally see Nathan outside of school.”

Flirting with other guys
. I take out lip gloss and apply it, then take a pill so I don’t embarrass myself.

The two of us hop in her car and drive to a Friday night house party. She has to park a block away with all the traffic. As we cross the street toward a huge white colonial, I double check my reflection in a parked car’s window.

As we approach the front steps, thumping music takes over. The vibrations make my chest hurt.

Inside, Rita yells into my ear, “Let’s mingle.”

She leads me through the crowd and into a living room area cleared for dancing. She sways her head, arms, and hips to the music. I dance like a pigeon in a park as I try to coordinate my awkward limbs and copy her movements. Nathan asks her to dance and she agrees, leaving me stranded.

A slow song begins, and I dash to sit on an empty love seat in a dark corner. I watch as Rita dances, spooning with Nathan, pushing her butt into his crotch, and slowly rocking in a back and forth motion. I wish I could be that daring with Dominick.

Dominick.
The thought of him aches somewhere deep inside me that I didn’t know existed. A place of escape. A place of solace.
Why did I ever think my future would be better without him?
Nathan’s teammate from my gym class plops down next to me. His red face and shiny eyes either means he’s flirting with me or he’s a little drunk. Maybe both.

“Hey, why’s a girl like you sitting here all alone? Let’s get that body moving.”

I hesitate. He’s definitely not my type. I could probably ignite his breath with a match. Rita winks at me from the dance area, and I roll my eyes. Time to live it up, I guess. Take a risk. Besides, my body needs to learn how to navigate and react to situations, even drunk ones. At least he won’t care how bad I am at dancing. Good practice. Learning how to relax, fit in, act my age.

I step onto the dance floor, and the guy places his hands loosely around my neck.

“My name’s Dan,” he says.

“Alex. Alexandra,” I yell over the music.

“Nice to meet you, Alex Alexandra.” His eyes have a needy look, as if he wants to ask something more but can’t find the words. He also cannot stop staring at my chest. “Where have I seen you before?”

I can’t tell if he means me or my boobs. “We were in the same gym class. Freshmen year.”

“Oh. Right.”

He has no clue. I stare at the floor, over his shoulder, anywhere other than at him until the song ends, then smile as kindly as I can fake it.

“Maybe I’ll see you again sometime,” he adds as we leave the floor.

“Sure,” I say.
Why did I tell him that? Now he’ll stalk me.