Road Trip Across the U.S. of Gay (gxg)

Chapter 2: Near State College, Pennsylvania

I scroll through my phone like I do every night at 3 am when I have trouble sleeping, not finding anything worth my time. I've noticed that watching conspiracy videos on YouTube is bad for you in a silent dark room at night, but it's one of the only things I can do since apparently everyone on social media has a normal sleep schedule. Fuck them.

Holding in my sigh, I roll onto my side and look at the wall. Doing this is even worse than watching creepy videos, though, because it gives me time to think and evaluate. That's never good.

I mean...I don't even know what I mean. I don't know anything. Sure, I know how to find the fucking area of a circle, or what a cell is made of, but where does that get me in the scheme of things? How does that help me survive?

Yeah, knowing that stuff helps me get into college. I get that. But what about when I'm there and I have to make the biggest decision in life, one that will put me into so much debt that it will decide my life for me? Everyone makes me seem stupid for having a panic attack through it all, my parents turn their backs to me when I even hint at a gap year, as though it isn't a choice that can make me miserable.

What the fuck do I even do?

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"Saylor, wake up," my mom wakes me as she opens my curtains. I feel my dog Bosco, the one good thing in my life, lick my face as I open my eyes. I smile and coo at him, petting his head as he leans into me, and laugh. He really does make me happy when he can.

"Sign into school and do what you need to get done, sweetie. I need to head to work and won't be home until later so you are on your own for food. Make sure you walk the dogs but don't stress, Say. Have a good day." She kisses my head and then walks out, not giving me a chance to even say a word of greeting. Bosco, the pit-mix that he is, continues to look at me as if waiting for me to either let him on the bed or get up so that he can follow, but to his dismay I choose the latter, knowing that I'll never finish my work if I don't. Stretching, I basically fall out onto my feet and use the toilet before grabbing my laptop and sitting on the couch. I turn on Ellen for the background noise, and because she is one of the things able to distract me from things, and get to work. I complete the simple act of signing into school so that I am not counted as absent, and then log onto my actual school work site. It shows that all of my classes are complete but one, English, and I cringe slightly at the 97% grade next to it. I know that that's a fine grade to be my lowest, but the fact that I let things get that low bothers me. My parents say that it's fine and say that they are only joking when they say I need to do better, but how can I trust them? They could be emailing my teacher as I do this trying to get me extra credit.

Clicking on my final task for my sophomore year, I read my ten page paper, on President Lincoln of all things, to make sure that it will meet the standards needed for a 100%. The teacher probably won't even read it, but my anxiety makes me go over it more than twenty times, trying to find mistakes. My dad will be annoyed if he thinks that I am using "stupid language".

After I know that I can't change anything else, and that each comma is in the perfect place, I turn the paper in and feel like crying. This is what anxiety and depression combined are like. Worrying about things that you feel are pointless. At least I am done with the school year, though. The fact that I finished a few weeks before the kids in the building, however, means that my parents will be on my case even more. God, I need to find a way to get away. Especially before I explode on them.

I know that I can get away with not getting a job for now- my sister didn't get a job until the summer after her junior year, why should I have to have one after the summer of my sophomore one? It's just that I know that they are going to push me to my breaking point. Make sure that I don't have the ability to relax, the ability to discover, to experience. I won't be able to know what it is like to live if I stay around here. I need to get away, and I only have the slightest idea how.

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