Within/Without

chapter forty-four.

Simon - December 2007

To put it simply, it was the worst Christmas ever.

    It wasn't bad because I hadn't gotten what I wanted (I had, in fact—it was a shiny new Spider-Man action figure, web-shooting pose and all, and it was currently sitting on top of my bookshelf ). It wasn't bad because there was a storm or the food was bad or someone had gotten stuck in traffic, any of the common misfortunes. In fact, it had been a great Christmas. A perfect Christmas, even, until I'd reached for my orange juice at brunch and spilled it all over the table because my entire body had started to shake.

    I'd been on the floor for twenty minutes, changing rapidly from skin to skin, seizing uncontrollably, while my parents and Noah and Abbie and Grandma and Grandpa all craned over me, trying to get me to stop. Calm down, they said. I'm right here, they said. Can you hear me? they asked. Simon, Simon, Simon. I could reply to nothing.

    It had been two hours since then and instead of going outside and sledding with Abbie and Noah and some of their friends I was instead shut in my room. Though my parents had recommended I stay out of sight while the guests were over, I probably would have sentenced myself to incarceration via bedroom on my own. I didn't want to scare anyone. It was bad enough that everyone at school already thought I was weird because I didn't talk to anyone but Noah. If they found out the real reason, there'd be no coming back from that.

    So I huddled on my bed, rolled up in a thick, blue plaid blanket I'd stolen from the downstairs living room. I stayed there, paging through a book but not exactly reading it, trying to ignore the somewhat constant skipping of my pulse. My bones and muscles were achey, and though I'd finally changed back into myself an hour ago, my skin still didn't exactly feel like it belonged to me. In a way, it didn't.

    So, yes.

    It was the worst Christmas ever.

    Rose knocked and brought me tea. She pat my head and said, "Are you sure you don't wanna come down and hang out with me in the kitchen? I won't make you do dishes, I promise."

    I shook my head. "It's safer here."

    Rose gave me a piteous look. "Simon, precious, nothing's going to happen."

    "We don't know that," I said. "We don't know that for sure."

    Rose continued looking at me piteously for a moment, then sighed and turned for the door. I thanked her for the tea, and she was gone, the door shut behind her.

    Outside, in the hall, I could hear my parents talking. Though a door was between us, I could see them nonetheless: Mom sitting in one of the arbitrary hallway chairs, her head in her hands, Dad standing next to her, his face probably red and a vein probably showing up in his neck. He always looked like that when he was frustrated, and I knew he was frustrated, because I could hear him.

    "It's obvious it's not medical," he was saying, his voice gruff. "All the doctors look at us like we're crazy. Maybe it's supernatural, somehow?"

    There was a pause. Then, I heard my mom laugh bitterly. I shuddered because I'd never heard her laugh like that. "Are you kidding? Simon practically just had a seizure in front of us and you're saying it's not medical?"

    "What kind of seizure looks like that, huh?" Dad fired back. "What kind of seizure shakes you into a different person? It wasn't a seizure, Mary. That's what I'm trying to tell you. It's something else."

    "Simon's...condition...is not a fairytale."

    "I'm not saying it is!" Dad exclaimed, loud enough to make me jolt. I curled my knees further into my chest, drawing my blanket over my head until I could see nothing but blue-tinted darkness. I wanted to disappear. Right then, I did. Maybe then they wouldn't fight so much. If most of the times they fought, they fought over me, then if I ceased to exist, all problems would be solved.