Not a Bestseller

Epiphany

They say you shouldn't use dating apps. But they didn't say anything about Buzzfeed quizzes.

I decided to walk home. I stormed down the sidewalk. If a forecast could predict me, there'd be a bunch of tornadoes and hail and crap.

I felt like I was in one of those movie scenes where a bunch of voices play over an echoing filter. These voices could be altered versions of previous ones or direct quotes from other characters. The point: they're powerful.

Austin had called me...likable. Me. Likable? Okay, Austin, I think we're going overboard here. (Although I'm not sure what throwing a person off a ship would have to do with a far-fetched comment.)

Shut up, I told my tiny person. I needed to focus. What else...

Are you okay? Three words to my parents led to an array of shock: a dropped object and a therapy session with the worst therapist known to man. I was showing a spark of normality that was too much for the balance of the universe.

Me. Normal?

That's not possible.

I'm sorry. I'd made her spill hot coffee all over her legs for corn's sake. But Julia...she had snapped too. Julia was reacting like my parents now. Except, she didn't think there was something wrong with me. That's got to mean something.

Whispers. Behind my back. Every day.

Dr. White no longer attempted extra communication. If I wanted to leave early, he let me. He wasn't supposed to let me leave. He was supposed to tell me things I didn't care about and trick me into listening. Now, I almost did care.

ARE you high?

I'm not on drugs, I assured Tiny Person.

Yet...

Everyone around me seemed persuaded I had changed in some way. Not like a change of clothes by a group of mean girls so the local high school thinks you're cool. No. This was a vampire-demigod-post-war-games-causing-hunger change that you can't go back from.

I didn't see it. Why do they all see me differently? What was up with Julia's reaction to one decent, humanizing question:

How are you?

What could be so "drop a cup" worthy about that? I can be nice and mean it.

My feet stuttered against the crosswalk as my tiny person firmed on another question: Is that something I would have done a month...a week...even a few days ago?

I shook my head. My hair bounced on a breeze. Of course, I would have apologized, if I was motivated. But I wasn't being encouraged towards politeness by anyone I knew six months ago. Not my therapist. Not Ed. Not Kyle. Certainly not my parents. Yet, since therapy...

BEEP!!! BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP.

Pro-tip: DON'T stop in the middle of a crosswalk. I leapt for the concrete.

Ben's got a crush.

Willie's such a weed. (It grows without use and you can't cut it down and other metaphor stuff.)

It's so obvious that Ben's got a crush.

That didn't make any sense. My brother had plenty of girls locked in his room at night, and he swore he'd never loved any one of them. My parents said they were just starting to understand love, thirty (or whatever) years into marriage. How could I sit here (well, walk here) and claim that after a few personal conversations and a saved life...

Give me a witty comment and I'll bury a hole and die in it.

I was starting to regret my decision not to wait for Ed. He was supposed to take me home, right?