Darius the Great Is Not Okay(9)

That was before Dr. Howell switched me off Prozac, which gave me mood swings so extreme, they were more like Mood Slingshot Maneuvers, powerful enough to fling me around the sun and accelerate me into a time warp.

I was only on Prozac for three months before Dr. Howell switched me, but it was pretty much the worst three months in the Search for the Right Medication.



* * *





Dad never really talked about his own diagnosis for depression. It was lost to the histories of a prior age of this world. All he ever said was that it happened when he was in college, and that his medication had kept him healthy for years, and that I shouldn’t worry about it. It wasn’t a big deal.

By the time I was diagnosed, and Dr. Howell was trying to find some combination of medications to treat me properly, Stephen Kellner had been managing his depression so long that he couldn’t remember what it was like. Or maybe he’d never had Mood Slingshot Maneuvers in the first place. Maybe his medication had recalibrated his brain right away, and he was back to being a high-functioning übermensch in no time.

My own brain was much harder to recalibrate. Prozac was the third medication Dr. Howell tried me on, back when I was in eighth grade. And I was on it for six weeks before I experienced my first Slingshot Maneuver, when I freaked out at a kid in my Boy Scouts troop named Vance Henderson, who had made a joke about Mom’s accent.

I’d been dealing with jokes like that my entire life—well, ever since I started school, anyway—so it was nothing new. But that time it set me off like a high-yield quantum torpedo.

It was the only time in my life I have ever hit anyone.

I felt very sorry for myself afterward.

And then I felt angry. I really hated Boy Scouts. I hated camping and I hated the other boys, who were all on their way to becoming Soulless Minions of Orthodoxy.

And then I felt ashamed.

I made a lot of Mood Slingshot Maneuvers that afternoon.

But I wasn’t ashamed of standing up for Mom, even if it did mean hitting Vance Henderson. Even if it did mean leaving a perfect red palm-print on his face.

Dad was so disappointed.





A NON-PASSIVE FAILURE



Chapel Hill High School had two gymnasiums, supposedly called the Main Gym and the Little Gym, but most of us called them the Boys’ Gym and the Girls’ Gym, because the boys were always in the larger Main Gym.

This, despite Chapel Hill High School’s Zero Tolerance Policy toward sexism.

I was halfway down the stairs to gym when I heard him: Chip Cusumano.

I kept my head down and took the stairs faster, swinging myself around the rail as I reached the landing.

“Hey,” he called from behind. “Hey! Darius!”

I ignored him and went faster.

“Wait!” Chip shouted again, his voice echoing off the concrete walls of the stairwell. I had just hit the last landing when he tugged on my backpack.

“Let go.”

“Just—”

“Leave me alone, Chip.” I jerked forward to loosen his grip.

Instead, my backpack experienced a non-passive failure, splitting across the seam holding the main pocket together. My books and papers spilled down the stairs, but at least my tablet stayed Velcroed in.

“Oh.”

“Really, Chip?” I knelt and grabbed for my papers before someone could kick them away. “Thanks. Thanks a lot.”

“Sorry.” Chip handed me a book from a few steps down. He had this goofy grin on his face as he shook the hair out of his eyes. “I was just gonna tell you your backpack was open.”

“Wasn’t my bike enough?”

“Hey. That was just a joke.”

“Me not having a bike anymore is a joke to you?”

“What are you talking about? Your tires were right in the bushes.”

I glared at him.

How was I supposed to know that?

“You never found them?”

“Leave me alone, Chip.”

The warning bell rang: One minute to make it to class.

“Come on, man. Let me help.”

“Go away.” There was no way I was going to trust Cyprian Cusumano to help me.

He shrugged and stood. “Okay. I’ll tell Coach Fortes you’ll be late.”

I got all my papers into a mostly straight pile and sandwiched them between my econ and geometry books.

My backpack was totally unsalvageable: With the seam blown out, the straps had failed as well. The only usable part was the pouch in front holding my pencils.

The tardy bell rang. I knotted the two loose straps together so I could sling the derelict hulk of my backpack over my shoulder like a satchel, gathered my stuff up, and hurried to gym.



* * *





Coach Fortes shook his head when he saw my pile of books and the remains of my backpack. “Cusumano told me,” he said.

Why do gym teachers always call guys by their last names?

“Sorry, Coach.”

Why do guys always call their gym teachers Coach and leave off their name?

“It’s fine. Go get dressed.”

We were doing our Net Sports Unit, which meant two weeks of Badminton, two weeks of Ping-Pong/Table Tennis, and the grande finale: two weeks of Volleyball.

I was terrible at Net Sports. I wasn’t that good at any form of sportsball, really, although I used to play soccer when I was a kid. I did better at the ones where I could at least run around, because I was not bad at running. I had a lot of stamina and I was pretty fast, which surprised people since I was kind of overweight.