When My Heart Joins the Thousand(13)

There’s a pause. “That’s not really what I do, sweetie. You can always talk to the principal or teachers—”

“I do. They won’t stop it, either.”

“For now, let’s talk about what happened with that boy. I know he started it, but you can’t control what other people do. You can only control what you do. So, tell me—what could you have done, besides hitting him?”

“Kick him,” I muttered.

“That’s not what I mean.”

Why did everyone act like it was my fault when the other kids bullied me? Why was I always the one who had to change?

For the rest of the session, I refused to talk, and she sent me home early. When it came time for my next appointment with the rosy-cheeked counselor, I hid in my room. I had decided that if grown-ups weren’t going to help me, I’d rather they just left me alone.

I surface from the haze of memories, turn on the sink, and wash the sour taste of vomit out of my mouth.

When I check my email, there are several new messages from Stanley.

I run my finger over the touchpad, dragging the cursor to the first message to open it—then stop. I’m not ready; I need to clear my mind, to reestablish my center of control.

I close my laptop.

My stomach is rumbling—I haven’t eaten since breakfast—so I heat up a bowl of instant ramen and flip through channels until I find a nature documentary.

Polar bears amble through the snow. As I watch them, I feel my muscles untensing, my heart rate slowing. Animals’ lives are simple. Eat, play, mate, survive. They don’t have to worry about rent, or work, or strange, complicated, confusing feelings. I slurp up some noodles.

On the screen, two polar bears are mating. The female’s eyes are narrowed to slits, her teeth bared, her tongue poking out—in discomfort or pleasure, or maybe both—as the male mounts her from behind.

I realize I have stopped chewing and the noodles are sitting in my mouth, a soggy lump.

The male polar bear finishes, withdraws, and wanders away. The female lounges on the snow and yawns, pink tongue curling. My mind flashes back to the couple I saw at the zoo two weeks ago—the easy, natural physical contact between them, the way they looked at each other, as if nothing else existed. I wonder if they have sex.

That’s not something I’ll ever be able to do. How could I? I don’t even like being touched.

But all animals—including humans—are hardwired to reproduce. It’s basic instinct, along with eating and defecating.

I’m still human. Aren’t I?

The thought triggers a memory of the overheard conversation between Toby and Unibrow—Toby’s leering comments, his companion’s shocked reaction—Gross. You’re sick.

Of course, I would never mate with Toby. He’s an idiot and a bully who treats animals like things. In fact, it is hard to imagine a less appealing person. But it irritates me that Unibrow seemed to find his attraction to me so repulsive. Does he assume that just because I’m different, I’m incapable of having a sexual relationship with anyone? That I’m unable even to feel desire?

Is he right?

The thought is like a flea burrowing into the back of my brain, itching, refusing to be ignored.





CHAPTER SIX


When I finally open my email, the next day, there’s another new message from Stanley: If you don’t want to meet, we don’t have to. We can just keep talking online. I don’t want to lose this. Just let me know you’re okay.

For several minutes, I sit, staring at the message. He’s offering me an escape route, a way to retreat back into our safe, text-based relationship. I should take this opportunity—should tell him that there’s no possibility of us meeting. We can go back to our long, late-night conversations about existence.

But now that the sense of panic has faded, I allow myself—cautiously—to contemplate the possibility. What if I did meet him?

I run the various scenarios through my head, like computer simulations of battle strategies, but it all comes down to two major possibilities. Number one: I panic or say something stupid. Humiliation ensues. I slink home and resume my monotonous but safe life of solitude. Number two: somehow, incomprehensively, it goes well, and he wants to meet me again.

The second possibility scares me far more than the first. But what unnerves me most of all is that—in spite of my fear—a part of me still wants to meet him. Now that the idea has been planted, it won’t leave me alone.

I pick up my Rubik’s Cube and fiddle with it, twisting the rows of color, turning it over and over in my hands as my thoughts turn along with it. I empty my mind of emotion, transforming myself into a cool, efficient computer, and pour in all the data.

Something clicks.

I email Stanley: Meet me tomorrow in the park at six o’clock. I close the laptop without waiting for a response.

That night, I lie awake, staring at the ceiling, my mind cycling through everything that could possibly go wrong.

But I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to do this.

I take an over-the-counter sleeping pill, and a dull fog settles over me, but still, I don’t drift off. Instead, images begin to creep through my head, things I haven’t thought about for years.

People say that the past can’t hurt you. They’re wrong.

Humans experience time as a linear progression of cause and effect, as if we are all ants walking along an endless string, always moving forward, never back or sideways. We think that the past disappears as soon as we leave it. But that’s not necessarily true. Some theoretical physicists believe that space-time is more like an infinite sea with all points existing simultaneously.