Mrs. Fletcher(32)

Julian Fucking Spitzer


When you walk into the dining hall with someone else, you kinda melt into the scenery. Nobody even knows you’re there. Walking in by yourself is a totally different experience. It’s like you’re radioactive, like your skin is giving off this sick greenish glow. You can feel everybody staring.

I have friends, you want to tell them. They’re just busy right now.

Usually I ate my meals with Zack, but he’d slipped out after receiving a booty text at three in the morning and still hadn’t returned, the first time that had ever happened. He wouldn’t tell me who he was hooking up with, but he usually rushed out and came back an hour or two later, tired but happy, like a volunteer fireman who’d done his duty for the town and needed to rest up for a bit. I texted him—dude where r u—but he didn’t respond. I tried Will and Rico, too, but those guys were probably still asleep.

The Higg that morning was an ocean of strangers, so I headed past the crowded tables to the less-populated section in back. It was a reject convention back there. I guess I could have taken a book from my backpack and pretended to study—that’s what the other losers were doing—but it seemed like an asshole move, like, Hey look at me reading a textbook! At least my breakfast was pretty good, though it was common knowledge that the Higg omelettes weren’t made with real eggs—it was some kind of sludgy yellow liquid that came in a can.

One thing you realize when you’re on your own is how happy the people who aren’t alone look. There were a bunch of couples eating together, and most of them were pretty smiley, probably because they’d just woken up and fucked. Other people were laughing with their friends. A professor with crazy-clown hair was lecturing a bearded grad student who kept nodding like his head was on a spring.

There were two groups I couldn’t stop looking at. One of them was a bunch of girls who reminded me of Becca. Super-skinny, straight hair, lots of makeup. They were all wearing short skirts and sneakers, like they were still in middle school and thought it would be fun to coordinate their outfits. They kept erupting in laughter that sounded fake and a little too loud, like they wanted everyone to look at them and wonder what the hot girls thought was so funny.

Next to them was a table of football players, seriously big guys chowing down on plates piled high with ridiculous amounts of food. Unlike the girls, they were quiet and serious, maybe discussing the upcoming game, or wondering why coach had been so pissed off at yesterday’s practice. I had this weird urge to pick up my tray and join them, just so I could feel like I was part of the team again. I really missed that feeling.

There I was, people-watching and eating my omelette, and the next thing I knew my throat swelled up. And then my eyes started to water. I realized I was two seconds away from bursting into tears like a little bitch, right there in the Higg. I actually had to squeeze my eyes shut and take a few deep breaths to get a hold of myself.

Little by little I could feel the pressure letting up, the rubber ball dissolving in my throat. It was a huge relief. But when I finally opened my eyes, that douchebag Sanjay was standing right in front of me, watching me like I was a science experiment. There was nothing on his tray but an apple and a tiny container of yogurt.

“Hey, Brendan,” he said. “You okay?”

I hadn’t seen him for a couple of weeks—he wasn’t hanging out with Dylan anymore—but it seemed to me that he was slightly less nerdy than before. New glasses maybe, or a different haircut. Cooler clothes. Something.

“Fine,” I said. “Just a little hungover.”

He nodded, but it was annoying the way he did it, like it served me right for getting drunk on a Monday night. Fuck him. I wiped my mouth and stood up, even though there were still a few bites left of my omelette.

“Gotta run,” I said. “Catch you later.”

I carried my tray over to the dish line and put it on the belt. I glanced back at Sanjay as I headed for the exit. He was sitting at my table, all by himself, reading a book and munching on his apple. He seemed totally fine, like he didn’t even know I’d ditched him.

*

Losing my shit in public like that was a wake-up call. I mean, I knew I was drinking too much and fucking up in my classes. I’d flunked a unit test in Math and gotten a D on my first writing assignment for Comp—What Does White Privilege Mean to Me?—a grade the instructor claimed was “an act of charity” on her part. I was having trouble in Econ, too, but that was mainly because I couldn’t understand the prof’s heavy Chinese accent. That afternoon, he was droning on about “sooply sigh” and “deeman sigh” when I started zoning out. But instead of checking Facebook or texting Wade, I decided to be constructive for once and make a to-do list, which my dad claimed was one of the Eleven Habits of Highly Successful People or whatever. It went like this: ? Homework!

? Pay Attention in Class!!

? No Drinking on Weekdays (if poss.)

? Call Mom

? Laundry!!!

? Way Less Super Smash (vid games in gen.)

? Bday Card for Becca!

? Return Dad’s Email

? Hang w ppl Besides Zack

? Break Up w Becca?

? Shave Chest & Balls

? Extra-Currics?

It had a calming effect to write it all down, to take my sense of impending doom and divide it into a dozen problems that could actually be solved, some more easily than others. I decided to start small, heading straight to the laundry room after class and washing every item of clothing I owned, plus the sheets and towels, which were pretty disgusting. It was a real morale booster, except that some of the white stuff came out pink.