Catch Me

chapter one: i

I think I went crazy back when I was fourteen, when I first learned about imaginary numbers. Immediately after that math class, I went home and started to work things out for myself. This is what I took from all the Khan Academy videos and online lessons I found. If you had something like x² = -25, there's no solution, right? At least that's what they told us until ninth grade, when suddenly there was one. 

It doesn't make sense, at first. You can't multiply a number, negative or positive, by itself and expect it to be negative. But if you add an imaginary unit, if you replace x with i or tack it onto five, -25 is possible. 

I became obsessed with these imaginary numbers, with i. Because if there were imaginary numbers, in math, a world of precise calculation and proof, then what else was there?

It was overwhelming, especially since I was fourteen and was still figuring out the most basic stuff, like how to use a tampon and get to class on time, to think that even though something wasn't real didn't mean it didn't exist. And those thoughts, not just about the numbers but about other things too, started to take their toll pretty quickly.

In a room full of people, I stopped thinking about what was out in the open, but instead about what was inside everyone's heads. I guess it scared me, that all of the billions of people on the Earth could all be thinking different things at the same time, and that all of them had been through something completely different than the last. 

And then I started to think of all those people, looking at me, judging me, thinking about me. And I started to slip into the background, maybe because then there would be less to look at, maybe because it made me start to panic when the sound of everyone else's thoughts – or at least, what I assumed their thoughts were – grew too loud.

I stayed like that, trapped in the outside world and everyone else's lives instead of my own, all the way through freshman and sophomore years of high school. That's when my parents noticed something was going on. They sent me to a doctor, who told me I could call him Dr. Clarence.

"Mila," Dr. Clarence would say as I stared at my lap. "How often do you meet up with friends?"

I bet you don't have any friends, I could practically hear him thinking.

"How much exercise are you getting?"

Probably none, given that you're in this bad of shape.

"What are you looking forward to in the next few years?"

Let me guess, leaving my office in half an hour.

After a while, though, it was like someone had grabbed my hand and was pulling me back into shore. I closed in on my own life. I tried not to spread myself too thin, just like Dr. Clarence told me. I started sleeping more often and for longer. I joined the soccer team. Imaginary numbers faded in my mind until they joined the rest of the math I had learned in ninth grade algebra. I was okay.

Flash forward to the car ride to UCLA, the day before school officially started. I bit my lip, twisting a strand of my hair until it hurt my scalp. I went over my classes again, thinking through each one. There was English Composition and Language, and Differential Calculus, and Medieval Art (my parents had decided that art history classes would be good for me, channeling my thoughts into something beautiful instead of whatever I had been thinking about sophomore year.) 

I had no idea what my roommate would be like, no idea what college was like in general, since my older sister opted out and my brother was only sixteen. My parents had met in college. Whenever they introduced me to someone new, it was their friend from their college years. I had high expectations, I guess.

But whatever I had even begun to expect about college was totally and completely wrong, starting with the moment I walked into my room.

A girl with short, dark hair was sitting on the floor, sunglasses still on, a pack of cigarettes resting on the ground next to her, leaning against the bed on the left side of the room. A Prada purse was slung over her desk chair. She didn't smile, just looked me up and down. "Hey," she said, pulling off her sunglasses and dropping them to the floor. One of the first things I noticed about her was her eyeliner. She had that classic look, cat-eye, long eyelashes, one that I could never dream of pulling off, but she did, and not just because she could have easily been a model. "I'm Sterling."

"I'm Mila." I immediately felt that frantic feeling from high school, like she was judging me. She was too much like those girls, the ones I had purposefully avoided making contact with my entire life. It was all there, except dialed up. The Prada purse, the makeup, not to mention the cigarettes.

I think Sterling could sense it, because she smiled, the clean-cut, crisp perfection giving way. "Were you actually smoking in here?" I blurted out, not knowing what I should have said but sensing that this was wrong. "I mean..."

"No!" she said brightly, easily. "I don't want to get kicked out on my first day. It's just that I can't have them at home, but here I can really do whatever I want." Her nose wrinkled as she grinned again. "Well, not smoking in my room. But you know. Where are you from?"

"Imperial Beach. A couple hours away. You?"

"Manhattan," she said, glancing back at her purse. Prada. Probably thousands of dollars. I could practically feel the value radiating off of it. "I took the bus here. I... I'm just trying to start my own life. Away from New York and my parents and all of that." She gestured at the bag. "I mean, it's me, but it's not. I wouldn't expect you to get it, I know it makes no sense."

"Why do you keep it, then? If it's not you?"

"I'm not sure," Sterling said. "Maybe to remind me of why I left. Or maybe because it's probably the most expensive thing I'll ever own." She laughed, and so did I.

Looking back, this was the first sign of what was to come.