Memory...All Alone in the Library

Troubled Teen Benjamin Wood Loitering Around Carnival with Mysterious Group of Defiant Young Adolescents.

I crumbled the newspaper and tossed it into the trash can. Then I tipped it over. No one reads the news anymore. Not one person recognized me in the hallway. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that I had a bag on my head.

When my parents realized that grounding me wasn't a productive form of punishment, they let me go back to therapy. It's not like I did anything else.

I took a detour through the halls, waiting for everybody to find the freedom of the outside world before I showed my face. I chucked off the lunch bag and scampered to the classroom. Would anyone care? Would she be here? This was going to be one of those moments where I improvised through everything.

So, nothing abnormal.

"Hey!" Austin flagged a bright red smartphone in front of my face. "Have you heard from Julia lately?" At the J-word, I had to slouch. He swiped his phone. "She won't answer any of my texts, and Dr. White is all hush-hush about it all, and…well, look around!"

He was right. No Julia. Somehow, I wasn't surprised. Why would he care what Julia was doing anyway?

As he rambled on, I fell into the closest chair and dumped my jacket on the floor. I took in the usual crowd. Stuart looked like he'd soaked his muscles in acid. Kim's peachy bun was extra bulky that day. Her lips moved in small shapes. Willie was sitting with her again.

These were the people I was expected to associate with. Spending time with friends like Julia's? That was a fantasy for another lifetime. I felt like a zebra in a cage. I had the key to get out any time I wanted, but I couldn't operate it.

I needed to be careful. I had to convince my parents I was making progress so I could get out. I had to undo the events of last weekend.

Life is complicated.

"...going to continue our study of fears…"

My heart jumped towards my throat. Dr. White's speech concluded. I hadn't known it started. I watched his mouth move with a hummingbird in my ear.

I rubbed my eyes. Dr. White had dismissed himself from the room, something about quick paperwork. Austin sat beside Kim and Willie, who were smearing their pens across their notepads as if they wanted to kill the paper.

I glanced to my side to find Stuart. His eyebrows were arched at an angle that mirrored his cropped hair. It was less wavy now, more like the grass in my yard.

A thumb surged against my forehead.

"Ow." I jumped in my seat and it tipped to the floor.

Stuart didn't react. "Give me my paper."

"What paper?"

"Were you planning some sort of attack on the school while Dr. White was talking? You were supposed to be brainstorming causes behind your partner's greatest fear. Or at least get a little more specific."

A pen and pad of paper sat in my hand. "Oh…right."

"I have yours. Because I was paying attention."

Fiddling with the idea that only one thing was wrong with Stuart, I nodded. But I didn't write anything down.

Stuart pulled the skin on his face with his fists. "Sometimes you can be so…I don't even know. It's like you're not even here, but you don't know where you are. And then you get this weird look on your face like the one you're making right now where your desire to live is in the negatives, but everyone's oblivious to it but me because you have the Elder's wand."

My hand wavered above the paper. "Um…what?"

"Nothing."

Scribbling the first thing that popped into my head, I flipped the paper over and slid it to his side of the table.

"You were supposed to fold it."

My eyebrow bridged.

"Screw it." Stuart tossed me my paper and snatched his.

Suddenly, I was unfolding a fortune teller. I scanned my eyes on the blank space below Stuart's writing. By pretending, I feared nothing. I slipped it in my pocket. No way was I going through this again.

Stuart turned the paper in a full three-sixty. "You think I'm afraid of…the unknown…I can't read this!"

"You just did read it."

Stuart slapped his forehead. His eyes widened.

"What?" I asked.

He said, "I know for a fact that you did not read that card."

"Did too."

"Read it out loud then."

I tossed him the slip.

"Just read it!" He chucked it back.

My head spinning, I slid it back across the desk.

Sometimes, stuff happens. I didn't see it happen, but I think it did.

One minute, I was staring at the table waiting for therapy to end. The next, the air was knocked out of my lungs and my shoulders were nailed against the floor. Stuart's fists gripped mine. I glared up but found the white slip blocking my vision. Loud thumps smashed against the floor as the other members leaped into action. I would have beat Stuart with a flick of my thumb. But I couldn't move.

I'd read the card.

You're afraid that you will no longer be able to use your labels as an excuse for your abnormality.

I struggled to crane my neck, but the words were an endless echo.

You're afraid that you will no longer be able to use your labels as an excuse for your abnormality.

Stuart's face went blank as he released my wrists. My mouth snapped like a Venus flytrap. I refused the hands around me and pushed to my feet. But I felt like a board nailed to a wall.

Austin shoved Stuart towards the desk. "What's wrong with you?"

"He wasn't cooperating!"

"So, you body-checked him?"

I've heard that term before. Kyle used to say it a lot, back when he'd come home with a recurring purple spot on his eye. He used to knock a lot of stuff over. My parents would find his room, call it a pigsty, and demand he "get his crap together." He did. When all his stuff was broken and he didn't replace it, the room stayed clean.

Stuart shrugged Austin off and snagged three white pills out of his backpack. He gulped them down with one swig of his Fear Nothing water bottle and grabbed the ends of a desk.

"Ben." His irises had flattened. "I'm sorry. Okay?"

When I didn't respond, he snapped. "Can I address the elephant in the room?"

Yes, you can, Tiny Person said. But may you?

"We all know about the whole situation at the carnival. What actually happened down there? Why isn't Julia here?"

Austin didn't jump him this time, although he still had Stuart in a death grip. Kim and Willie froze to look at me.

I picked up my jacket.

Dr. White appeared in the doorway. "What's going on in here?" When he saw Stuart and Austin, something sparked in his eyes. I didn't know Dr. White was part cop. "Austin, let Stuart go. Right now. All of you sit down." They went towards the desks. I couldn't move. Dr. White looked at me for the first time since the carnival incident. His voice was as monotoned as mine always sounds to my tiny person. "What happened?"

You're afraid that you will no longer be able to use your labels as an excuse for your abnormality.

Shoving myself off the wall, I slammed the door and didn't stop walking until I found the first floor. Empty. I tried to focus on something else. Lots of things bother me. Untied shoes.

I looked down. Dang it. Velcro.

Open flies.

Nope.

My hair flopped around like a mop. Yes. Unkempt hair. Something about me that will never change. Abnormal without a label: mislabeled black when it's so clearly dark brown.

I paused at a familiar door. Would the school library even be open? It seemed like centuries since I'd hidden from therapy in here. I flapped my hair out of my face. Here goes nothing.

The door was unlocked.

My hand wrapped around the first book it touched. Big Book of Fears.

Whelp.

I tried again. Something with a red binder, blue swirls on the ring. I gave the next one a shot. Life as a Teenage Moron. Next. Signs of Loverhood and Denial. Next. So, you're going to die. I hope so.

The next one felt like a magnet.

A White Heart in a World of Grey Solutions.

My tiny person told me to stop reading. I wish I would've listened to him. Instead, I peeked inside the binding.

By Richard S. White.

A rich tapestry of the human experience, this New York Times Bestseller offers a first-hand glimmer of human psychology. Mental health has never been captured so perfectly with a pen. White delves into these difficult topics with a curse so few live through to talk about: experience.

No help there. I slouched. Maybe, if I pretended to read it, Dr. White would give me extra credit or something. Then I could leave.

I shook my head. We were studying beliefs. Would a school library have religious books? My tiny person agreed to check.

Religious Texts.

One book. There was one book buried in dust and termite bites. It looked about five-hundred pages thick, single-spaced. I dared slide it from its holder.

An Unbiased Guide to World Religions, written by world-renowned Atheist, Christian Young.

Seems legit.

I checked out both books.

I was ready to call Ed and make a run for it when I heard a muffle. It reminded me of when Kyle's engine wouldn't start after he spent all his allowance on that motorcycle. I froze. The sound died.

Still, I knew it had come from the window. Like the idiot I am, I followed my ears.

Her long brown hair was pulled out of her face for once. Her eyes were shielded closed. When she opened them, she didn't move. Her hands stayed folded on her lap. She stared at the wall as if she were asking it to close in on her. I would know. If my walls had listened to me, I would've been buried at twelve.

I coughed. Why did I have to cough?

"Ben? What are you doing here?"

"Uh…"

Julia unraveled her fingers. Her throat pulsed as she dropped her head against a bookshelf. She looked out the window towards the pink part of the sky.

She wasn't doing this communication thing right. It wasn't my job to start the conversations: it was hers. But she acted like someone had fired her. So, I did the only thing I could think of. I asked her yet another question I wanted to know the answer to.

"Are you okay?"

She shifted. "I'm fine."

"Oh, okay."

"You?"

"Me what?"

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah."

This conversation was going well. We were really starting to open up like Dr. White wanted.

Julia slumped. Her breath was subtle, like she was afraid hearing it would set off a bomb. She closed her eyes. "So…what are you doing here, again?"

I shrugged.

Her face made the shape of an upside-down semicircle. "I swear there's no point to this. We all try to be heard. But the only voice out there isn't the one I want to answer." She fiddled with her silky sleeve. Her laugh had a sharp edge to it, like a paper cut. "I must sound like an idiot."

The social cues clicked into place. I knew what she was doing. I knew why she was doing it.

I shook my head.

"Ben, is it okay if I'm alone right now?"

I stared at her hands. They were folded again. Not like a Nun, it was a death grip. If she let go, she'd fall off a cliff and go splat on the pavement.

Look, I want to beat around the bush with this. But I don't know how.

When you're young, praying is like a wishing well. Some people grow out of that phase, others don't. A five-year-old kid praying to be normal? That kid is used to no one listening, and no one ever tells that kid who he's praying to. That kid turns to his tiny person and calls it quits. He likes watching other people do it. They always look like they've got a secret.

Julia's neck tensed.

"Yeah," I said. "See you later."

I walked home that day. No one chased after me. My parents weren't home during my battle plan, so there was nothing to stop my train wreck of thoughts, my eating chocolate chip waffles for dinner, or my writing this down. I didn't work on my school assignment, and I didn't read the books I checked out from the library.

Instead, I sat on my bedroom floor and thought about my next plan of action.

Julia was upset. I didn't want her to be. I saw it as a domino effect. One thing happened; her emotions resulted. Religion, politics, history? That's hard to navigate with nothing but your own head. At that moment, I only knew one thing.

If there was a God out there, I was going to beat him to it.

I was going to answer Julia's prayer.

I was going to find that bracelet.