The Cascading Waves of Caden Lee

04

CADEN LEE

The next day, as bad as it sounds, I found myself hoping to find Ash and Joseph sprawled across the floor, eyes red-rimmed, in hopes I could get high, too. I feel like it's only natural to want to return to the state of forgetting I was in only the day before, and I mean, who wouldn't?

But it's after-school, and I'm sitting on the moistened bleachers of the basketball court. Ashton sits to my right, Joseph to my left, and I chew the inside of my cheeks as the repetitive sound of basketballs dribbling onto the hardwood echo.

"I feel like shit." Joseph mutters, and it causes the ache in my ears to blare painfully, but me and Ash nod along anyways. Coach whistles aggressively, nodding at us to get up off the bleachers and dribble along the sidelines. Around and around, feeling the weight of the ball smacking in your palms as you jog along the circle, one, two, three times. Eventually, he calls us for another drill, and before I know it we're lining up and throwing the orange ball into the net. Most of us making it, the occasional ball swirling around the rim or smacking the backboard, ricocheting off.

Moments later we're grouped off into pairs, bouncing the ball off to each other and shooting it into the hoop only moments later. I am on autopilot, the motions are automatic, my mind is blank. My mind is not here. I am not here.

I don't know when, but I'm gulping down my water greedily and can feel the condensation of the bottle coating my fingertips. It grounds me somewhat, but not enough to rid the fog coating my head and the static filling my hearing, it's not enough to stop the feeling of floating, and it's not enough to stop the feeling of being an unwanted passenger to my own body.

It's a feeling halfway between watching myself empty the water down in gulps, and this whole thing being a dream.

Coach signals us to head out, and I gather up with Ash and Joseph, pat my teammate Blake's shoulder, he nods at me, I feel an arm land around my shoulder, I look to my left, it's Matt. I grin at him, he raises his eyebrow back, and we're walking outside the gym doors, the door slams behind us with an echo. The car door clicks open, it clicks shut, and the whirring of the AC fills the car. I'm home soon enough, and not too long after I can feel the weight of my blankets rest upon my weighted body.

_._._._._._._._._._._

I'm called down to dinner 3 hours later. It's 7 PM, I avoid all mirrors on my way down, instead I slump down on the wooden dinner chair and stare aimlessly at the food on my plate. My fork pokes the broccoli, lightly salted—I can tell—and I hear my mom and Jessie make baseless chatter. 'How was your day?' 'Decent, I almost fell asleep in Math. My teacher sucks.' 'Jessie! You need to stay awake in order to get good grades!' And whatnot. I stay silent.

Two forks of pasta get shoved into my mouth, it's weirdly tasteless, but I still grind my teeth down in order to swallow the food. But it feels like the food is beeswax, sticking to all the nooks and crannies of my mouth, trapping itself into my throat. I cough to get it lodged out, moms eyes glance upwards at me before flickering back onto her own plate.

"You've been oddly silent," she murmurs, and it takes me a minute to realize she's talking to me. "Anything on your mind Caden?"

Silence envelops us. I take a moment to chew on the bland mush in my mouth before roughly swallowing and replying, "Just tired. Coach had us do drills today." It's halfway true, I feel a merge of tired and not here. But the two realize how much I dread those drills, so they, tight-lipped, nod in understanding. They talk again, but by now I've tuned them out, and I only come back to reality enough to wash my plate in the sink and trudge upstairs. I'm out before I even remember hitting my bed.

_._._._._._._._._

The next morning I feel the same. Numb. Cold. Hot. Everything yet Nothing. A headache pounds my senses roughly, and the second I enter the kitchen I down two Advils from the medicine cabinet. Jessie, as always, raises her eyebrows over her glass of water and I raise mine back. Today we have cereal, not my favorite, but I still spoon mouthfuls of Fruity Pebbles into my mouth. I head back upstairs, throw on a blue gas-station hoodie I got 2 years ago, and run my hands through my brunette hair.

I make the mistake of gazing into the full-length mirror set against my wall, my brown eyes stare back at me. But those brown eyes are unfamiliar, a new me almost, it looks like me, and I know it is, but I've grown used to not feeling like me. I am me. I am real, the sight staring back at me is my own, I control my body, I control me.

It's useless telling myself that. I know it's not true. I can never have full-control when I feel like this, I can only cling onto what I can control. And right now, I can control me.

I smile, the person in the mirror does too, I let my lips droop down, so does he. It's not enough to convince me, it never is, I sigh, and I leave my room with the thud of my door. It's Thursday, a day where all you have to look forward to is Friday, and I spot Jessie leaving with Mom. I wave, they do too, I grab my keys, they're gone now, and I drive off in my jeep. The car is silent, the suffocating kind, but the kind that I welcome. The kind that lets me feel my thoughts, see them, hear them, know them.

The ache in my chest deepens, but as much as it makes my throat constrict and my fingers tighten on the steering wheel, it's also relieving. Even for the pain, it's still emotion, it's still feeling, and I can feel this deep in my bones. And feeling feels so good.

I enter Psychology class, 3rd period and the class that I only took to cover all my credits. But today, I see a new seating chart up on the SmartBoard, and I can almost hear everyone's complaints right now. The groaning that's sure to fill the classroom soon, and sure enough, it does. I expect a random dude to sit next to me, But this girl, the girl from the hallway—Scarlett—sits next to me instead.

She nods at me, and I can almost see the halfway recognition in her eyes. The look of someone that knows you but doesn't know how, lucky for her, I remember how just fine.

"Scarlett, Hi."

She stares at me, a few seconds pass, she squints her eyes. She doesn't remember my name. I mean, most people know my name, not that I'm super mega-popular or anything, but I'm enough of the popular that ensures you always have someone to walk to the next class with.

"Cade." I answer for her.

"Cade! Right, did your friends go permanently insane after you dragged them to the abyss?"

"The what?"

"I didn't see where you dragged them."

"Oh."

We sit in silence for a few seconds more.

"I think we all go insane a little more every day at this place," I murmur. I don't know why I said it, just felt right in the moment.

"I contemplate running out of the building and starting a bullshit fortune-telling business every time I hear Mr.Jones talk."

There! A shared hatred, and if there's one thing I know about friends, it's that hate can be a strong thing when it comes to making friends.

"I swear I don't register a word he says, like I'm hearing but I'm not listening."

"Oh my god I don't think I've ever gotten a good grade in that class."

And it's this moment, right here, where I realized that Scarlett Parker was the perfect acquaintance. Someone I could tolerate enough, understand their humor and sympathize with until the class ends, someone who hates the same things I hate.

The bell rings, and we fall silent. Class is starting.

I couldn't be any less excited.