A Chance to Reappear

Chapter 11

The next morning, I drop a stack of DVDs onto Evan's desk. The boy jumps in surprise, looking up at me. I know I probably look crazy, carrying around the DVDs with a crazed smile on my face, but Evan's consistently anxious expression melts away into excitement. He starts to sift through the movies, being thorough enough to open the cases and check the inside pamphlets.

"I picked five," I explain. "I didn't know if I wanted to go with a variety of moves in different genres, so I went ahead and just grabbed some of my favorite movies. They aren't super fancy 'cinema,' but I think you'll enjoy them. And there's no horror!"

Evan lays out the movies:

1. Waitress

2. Juno

3. Napoleon Dynamite

4. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

5. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

"I know it's an odd assortment," I stammer, a wave of insecurity washing over me. It would be nice to just unashamedly enjoy my interests for once. "Are you free to watch one tonight?"

"I mean I have some, um, homework to do," he says, stashing the movies in his backpack, "but sure. Was there one you wanted to start with?"

"Well, have you seen any of them already?"

"I vaguely remember Napoleon Dynamite, I watched it with Jared once, but no not really."

"Then let's start there."

"Murphy, Hansen," Mrs. Freeman interrupts. She's standing at the front of the class, clipboard in hand as she takes attendance. She has to be the only teacher who still records attendance on paper. "Class is starting."

"There's six minutes left," I reply, no control over my tongue. She gives me a stern look, marks her board, then continues to call names. I turn back to Evan, but he's buried himself in his textbook, reviewing his homework from last night. I press my lips into a thin line, remembering the uncompleted review questions. I pull out what I have anyway. Might as well try to pay attention to class.

The lesson drones on after a quick lecture from Mrs. Freeman about productivity and the importance of completing work (aimed at me). As much as I hate to admit it, I just don't really care about school. I enjoy subjects like art and English, but besides that, I really don't have any motivation to keep up. It's hard to tell if it's just me being completely lazy or my brain sabotaging my everyday life. I glance back at Evan as he fervently takes notes. My own notebook is just full of abstract patterns that I don't even remember drawing, but the pen is in my hand and the ink on the page is fresh.

I just manage to float my way through the system, just another invisible kid.

/\/\/\

Lunchtime is usually a moment a peace for me. Hiding in the art room with shitty cafeteria food, Evan now a companion, it's a quick 30 minutes to just decompress. That is, it's a place to decompress until Alana shows up.

She immediately locks eyes with me, and a big, bright smile spread across her face. She confidently strides over to me, a white binder in her hand. She pulls up a stool to sit across from me and slams the binder on the table. Now I know how Evan felt with the movies this morning. The front of the binder holds a piece of copy paper with a black and white image on it.

It's my face.

The picture is old—from freshman year. I'm wearing a black beanie. My hair is short, but still shaggy and curly as it pokes out from the hat. My lips curl in sad, weak smirk. My eyes are tired, puffy, and it looks like I was crying before the picture was taken. I don't take many photos of myself, or look at the ones that others take, but I just know I always look terrible. I remember this photo, though. This was taken at Zoe's final middle school jazz band performance. I didn't want to go, but Mom and Larry dragged me along. They always made me go to Zoe's events, but rarely went to any thing I did, none of my art shows, none of my plays or musicals, not even the short run I was in speech and debate. So, I just stopped being involved.