It's Cold Upstairs | ✔

(4) Downcast

There's something I need to tell you. Please don't tell anyone. But I need to write it here, so I know I'm not going crazy.

Or maybe I am going crazy, and this is just the first sign.

People are changing. I mean, people are always changing, but this is different. This is people I've known since kindergarten, and maybe that's only been seven or eight years, but I just... I don't know. I don't know how to explain it. It's like one moment everything is okay, and the next, we come back to school and everyone's shared a secret that I'm not in on, and nobody is telling me. When I ask, they pretend not to know what I'm talking about. But everyone knows.

They all look at me that particular way.

It's worst in certain times and places. Lunchtime. Study group. Math class. I like math class, but for some reason, the looks get worse there, and I don't know why. Maybe because everyone's bored and they've got nothing else to do, but they can't all be bored, and it's too consistent. I've stopped looking so dedicated in math class, just to see if the looks stop.

I'm also glad we don't have recess anymore, because after school is also bad, but lunchtime is worse. Anytime we have free time. I've started to slip away alone at lunchtime, and hide in the park next door, or the corner of the library. It feels safer. "Safer" is the first word that comes to mind. I don't think I'm in danger, but it's like my body thinks I am, and that's not M's doing. M's never scared. But I am. And unsettled, and... it's hard to put words to it. Something's wrong, that's all I know. I don't know why.

When did it start, even? I keep going over and over things that have happened, looking for the breakpoint. Looking for the moment everything went sour. Things were already kind of like this last year, but it wasn't bad, or maybe I just didn't notice. I didn't notice a lot of things back then. But I notice them now, and this is definitely different, which means at some point, something changed. See? Going in circles. Maybe it was over the summer. But I didn't do much over the summer. I think it was before.

There's a part of me that wonders if I let down my guard during that party at the end of last year, and M got out. That makes me shudder to think about. I'm not M, not just M, but people don't know that. And M... M doesn't care about people. Doesn't respect most of them or their social customs or any of that. M wants the world to end. And that's this deep, dark, ugly secret I'm hiding, unless it got out, and someone found out, and that's why people won't look me in the eye or talk to me anymore. Like I've suddenly gone invisible.

Or maybe I have gone invisible. Maybe something else happened at that party, and I'm not who I think I am anymore.

What happened, M? What do people whisper to each other when I'm not there?

I'd ask you what you did at that party, but I know you wouldn't tell me, and only one of us remembers. I try, but all I get are fragments.

I guess it's just us, now.

Silence. Silence silence silence. Silence becomes a habit when I can't open my mouth without M slipping out, or without saying something that will make people look at me, but in a bad way. Out of the corners of their eyes. I know what that look means now, and I almost wish I didn't, because I see it everywhere and I don't know how to fix it. Can you fix people? Everyone in books says you can, but everyone in real life says it's impossible. And if everyone needs fixing, then maybe they're not broken, and I'm the one who's wrong. I'm not trying to be wrong. Which means there's something wrong with me.

Which is better: always, always, always being true to yourself, or being able to adopt any character you choose? The world is a book, after all. Just a long, winding story whose author lost the way. Characters change. I want to do that. I think it's harder for me than most people, but maybe I can frame those pitfalls in a new way? Make them part of who I am, but a little to the left, so I can still be them without having to fight them, but still be a different person, in a way. That way, I'm not quite lying to people.

Or is it better to be the most true, most honest version of myself all the time, for consistency? That's what M would say. Or maybe I could merge the two. Turn that person who's a little-to-the-left into something and someone with nothing to hide, and somehow... somehow make that fit. I don't know how these things work. I pretend to, but I don't really.

M's telling me that sounds like a lot of work.

Shut up, M. I didn't ask you.

... Now M's saying, "But you listened."

It's hard not to. We share a head. And I'm going to shut M out for a moment, because I want to say that they scare me. Not just because they're scary. Because they're right, and even when they're wrong, I sometimes can't help but listen to them. I read their journal entries. They're so dark, but I can't stop reading.

I don't like to admit this, but sometimes I'm jealous of them. But I'm scared they're going to take over someday. If I don't watch myself, and get jealous enough that I let them.

I'm going to scratch that out in a moment. I don't want M to know.

M doesn't see a problem with people treating us differently. They say it's all the better: that people don't mess with you when they're scared of you, and that it's better to be different than fake. I don't want to be fake. But I don't want to be this, either.

Hold on. M's trying to come back again.

***

Leave me alone. Go back upstairs. It's my turn with the journal.

***

Okay, they're gone again. Crazy fucker.

That's how you know someone's crazy, when they'd rather live in an attic where it's dark and musty and uninsulated and full of spiders than down here. It's not even a real house. I just think of it that way. This mind. This brain. Wherever it is that we both live. I get the downstairs, and M gets the upstairs, and it's good they wanted it, because there's no way you'd catch me up there. There's a door at the top of the staircase, for when one or both of us wants to be left alone. Sometimes M doesn't want to go upstairs, but I lock them up there anyway. They usually deserve it.

I think they locked the door on their own this time.

Good. I want to be alone.