And I guess they’re different because they all know each other already. Even the parents seem to know each other. I say parents, but really it’s just the moms. It doesn’t look like any of them have jobs, so they all have time to catch up with each other. Their broods of three or four have been going to school together for years. They’ve been on the same soccer teams. In the same school plays. Everybody knows everybody. So I think that’s mostly why it’s weird. Parents just kept to themselves at my old school because none of them had time to chat in the morning. They had to shove their kids out the door and get to work.
Oh, and we have assigned seats in all our classes at this school, which I think is hilarious. At my old school, you just sat wherever you wanted. By high school they expected you to be able to control yourself, but here they like their rules. And I guess it’s for good reason, since a lot of kids here like to rebel. Two girls already got sent to the nurse’s office to change into longer skirts and wipe off their makeup. Get this: they were both named Mary.
Near the end of the first day, I saw Ian again. He was walking with a group of guys who, even without the uniforms, looked just like him. Well, their expressions were the same, anyway. When the bell rang, the group split and all the guys walked off toward their last class, but Ian trailed behind, watching a group of girls talking in the hallway. There was something ominous about his expression. One of the girls, a redhead with a long ponytail, maybe twelve years old, had an open backpack and a purple notebook hanging out of it.
I was the only one who saw Ian grab the notebook and toss it into a nearby trash can before turning down a hallway with a satisfied look on his face. He hadn’t been grinning. He just looked like someone who’d gotten his fix. The girl, on the other hand, kept walking, completely unaware that anything had happened, so I thrust my hand into the garbage and ran the notebook over to her.
“You dropped this,” I said.
“Oh, thanks!” She beamed, clearly relieved. “It has my summer assignment in it. That would’ve sucked.”
The rest of the hallway cleared out, and when I turned to head back to my locker, I met Ian’s eyes. He’d seen me fish the notebook out of the trash, and he knew that I’d seen him toss it there. It was a strange moment because I could tell by the way he was staring that he was clearly pissed that I’d caught him, but his face was impassive. It made me wonder what information he was collecting in that moment. What was he thinking about me?
I decided to help him with that by flipping him off.
A wide smile spread across his face, and he was gone again, for real this time, leaving me to wonder why anyone would do anything so deliberately mean and annoying. Just to see if he could get away with it, I guess.
Nobody aside from Assface Ian Stone has been unfriendly, but I do get a few looks every once in a while since the school is fairly small and I’m new as a junior. It’s at moments like that when Rebecca normally shows up. She doesn’t like me to be alone. She’ll stay within my line of sight and only tries to distract me when something unpleasant creeps up. Like doubt or fear or nervous energy. That’s when she’ll do a cartwheel or walk on her hands or juggle fruit.
Rebecca taught me to juggle. Is that even possible? To learn to juggle from someone who’s not real? Seems like that actually could have happened subconsciously by watching it on YouTube. But I remember learning from her. I remember watching the way the apples left her hands and following the movement. She was patient and showed me how to do it over and over again until I got it on my own. But I suppose I’m unreliable because I’m crazy.
Anyway, on Friday we start the religious churchy stuff.
Yeah, I’ve been briefed. I went to church as a little kid, and my mom has explained the main religious concepts, so I understand that the whole thing is going to be an act on my part. By now, training myself to behave a certain way no matter how I’m feeling is second nature. Church is for people who believe in things they can’t see. Life for me is about seeing things I probably shouldn’t believe in. So there’s a nice symmetry there.
Anyway, yeah, this drug is pretty incredible. The distance from the visions is really all I needed. Just a little bit of space away from it to watch everything happen. It’s not all bad stuff, actually. Sometimes it’s okay. Really. I’m not complaining about all of it.
No other hallucinations to report at this point. They’ll show up when they feel like it. They always do.
DOSAGE: 1 mg. Response to increased dosage is mild. Adam is cognizant of his surroundings. Hallucinations do not appear to be overwhelming at this stage. Will continue to monitor his attachment to them.
SEPTEMBER 5, 2012
I guess it doesn’t really matter that I don’t believe in God. Catholics are really more about attendance anyway. Every day at eleven o’clock the bells go off in the church tower, and we all have to stand and recite the prayer of Saint Augustine. In one booming, emotionless voice. Together.
Not sure I’ll ever get used to that.
According to the brochure on the fridge, St. Agatha’s is the oldest private school in the state, named for a woman who supposedly “refused a man’s amorous advances and subsequently had her breasts cut off as penance,” or something like that. Catholics celebrate weird shit.
The church itself is always featured in Architectural Digest for its impressive brick facade and original four-story bell tower. And, as if this is a selling point for my attendance, the stained-glass windows were flown in from Italy in the early 1900s and blessed by Pope Leo XIII shortly before his death.
Mom and Paul had a choice of private schools in the area. The other option was an all-boys school about twenty minutes away, but my mom thought it was too “he-man.” Her words, not mine. We got back from the tour, and all she said was how she couldn’t get over the military look of the uniforms. Paul just shrugged. He was always going to follow her lead on this.
The funny thing is that St. Agatha’s is Paul’s alma mater. And even though I have no interest in religion and my mom has always been more inclined to buy healing crystals than set foot in a church, it made her feel better to send me to a school with beautiful, old brick buildings. I wasn’t going to argue with her, because it doesn’t matter where I go. It’s just a place to be.
But it’s basically like every other old church you’ve ever seen in your life. Half-naked angels. Uncomfortable wooden pews. And burning incense that smells like someone cooking dirty laundry. Oh, and shame. It reeks of shame.
Speaking of shame, I realize that the appealing image of a Catholic schoolgirl is cliché, but there is something distracting about the pleated skirt and vest. Within minutes of walking through the hall on Friday, I witnessed two nuns with rulers pulling girls aside and measuring the length of exposed leg from knee to skirt. Before starting school, I’d had no idea nuns still did this. It was a while before I realized I was staring and another while until I realized we were all being ushered into the church for mass. Rebecca was following me in, her lavender dress shining against the sea of navy blue and red.
She’s not mad about me not talking to her anymore. Pretty sure she resented it in the beginning, when I first started taking the drug, but now she seems okay with it. If she were real, I’d point out that she’s never spoken to me, but that’s not really an argument I can win, you know? Every so often I still throw a head nod or an eye roll her way. I don’t want to be a complete jerk.