That Feeling - 1. I'm Dead

I was already dead when I met Knox. Okay, so not literally dead. I was still alive enough to go to school and eat and breath and do crap like that, but I didn’t feel alive. I don’t know why I’m talking like anything’s changed...I am still dead, really. Even when I’m playing football, because if anything should make a blue-blooded American boy feel alive, it’s football, right? Only, I don’t even like football. I actually hate it. But I still go to practice every day and throw my body around and hope to feel something when I get plowed over by 250 pound guys who want to crush every bone in my body. Sometimes I wish they would crush every bone in my body, then I could lay in bed all the time and never move and people would come and feel sorry for me, but never really talk to me because honestly who wants to talk to the cripple boy in a bed who can’t even move. That’s depressing and people hate depressing things, but they also don’t want to be rude. So I’d like that, not being able to move and have everyone ignore me and I would just be there, thinking about how hopeless it all is. So I mostly play football to feel something, but it doesn’t even work half the time. I get bruises and jammed fingers and it doesn’t even hurt anymore. And I play to please my dad, because he likes that I play football. But like I said, it doesn’t matter, because I’m really dead and I can’t feel anything anymore and it doesn’t even matter what I do because it’s all shit anyway.

I just got finished reading The Catcher in the Rye for school, even though I read it already like three years ago, and I thought Holden was a real jackass, but I think I am just like him most of the time, only I’m the phony one too. But I don’t really want to be. I mean, I at least have friends and a girlfriend and a real life. That’s a lie and I know it, but I still like to tell myself that. Sometimes I make up a whole life for myself that is kind of like my life now but better and I pretend it’s the real one. In that life I’m Caleb Abernathy, Star Football Player at Greenbrier High School, Devoted Boyfriend of the Gorgeous Avery McCleland, Valedictorian and Student Council President Who Volunteers At Animal Shelters In His Spare Time, President of the FCA, Best Friend To Jake Holley (or whoever), Founder Of Five Non-Profit Organizations, and Beloved Son and Brother That Is Basically Perfect In Every Way. So yeah, I fantasize about that kind of stuff. But like I said, I’m really dead, and that is stuff alive people do. But I really am Caleb Abernathy, not that it’s anything to brag about because I’m not even real. I do play football, and I’m an okay player, but like I said, I hate it. And I do go to Greenbrier High School, but it’s crap (aren’t all high schools?). And Avery McCleland is my girlfriend, but that’s another story. Or maybe another part of this story. Or maybe the cause of this story. I don’t know, but it’s something important. I’m not valedictorian and while I’m in student council, I’m not president. But I am president of FCA. Yeah, Fellowship of Christian Freaking Athletes. I hate athletes. I especially hate Christian athletes. I have no idea why I’m even president of it. I think it was Avery’s idea. Just, I don’t know. But anyways, Jake Holley isn’t my best friend. I don’t have a best friend. Sure, I have “friends” and Jake Holley is one of them, or at least I pretend like he is. Everything I do is pretend because it has to be. I actually hate Jake Holley and want to punch his face on almost a daily basis because he smiles too much and sometimes I just want to kiss him because he has nice lips and sometimes I look at him in the showers after football practice and want to touch him. I don’t know why I just said that. Actually, I do, it’s because I have problems. Major problems that I don’t even know how to express. How can I? I’m not even completely sure of them myself.

I’m at school right now. High school. High school in America. Specifically the 11th Grade at Greenbrier High School in freaking Georgia. Yeah, Georgia. I think this is half my problem. Not that anything in Georgia is really bad or anything, but for some reason it just grates me the wrong way. Everything grates me the wrong way. But apparently this is an angsty teenage problem because everyone talks about it like it’s just the way it is and that gets on my nerves because everyone else seems so fine while I constantly feel like shit and it feels like there is nothing I can do about it. And it isn’t like I live in some boondocks backwoods nothing town either where people wear coveralls and spit into dirt driveways from the back of a rusty Chevy pick-up. No, I live in the suburbs. Yeah, the freaking suburbs. Aren’t I just the walking cliché? Not only am I an angsty, self-loathing teenager, but I’m doing it all in the stinking suburbs. And not just any suburbs...freaking Evans, outside of Augusta. The most pretentious, stuck-up place anyone could live in Georgia besides Buckhead in Atlanta or maybe Savannah, but it doesn’t matter anyways, not to me. So that’s me. Except it really isn’t, because I’m no one. Or at least I feel like no one most of the time. Maybe If I felt like someone it would all be so much easier and I wouldn’t be dead, but that isn’t the way it is.

But like I said, I’m just pretend most of the time and no one even knows because I’m so good at it. Everything about me is pretend. Or fake. I’m fake. But I like to say pretend because it makes it seem better. Or like a game, or a movie. I always hear people saying “Be the real you” and crap like that but how can I when I don’t even know who the real me is because it’s buried underneath so much fake stuff. Sometimes I wish all the fake stuff was just the real stuff so I wouldn’t have to be so freaking worried about everything all the time. Like right now, I’m in freaking English class and all I can think about is how fake I am and how that means I’m actually dead and how nothing can even fix it because how do you even come back to life after you know you’re dead. And I’m thinking all of this because of freaking Knox Brashier. What kind of name is that, anyway?

But I really didn’t mean to talk about all this. I just really wanted to say all that to let you know that I’m dead and pretend to be alive and crap because it’s important. It’s all important because it has to be. Everything has to be important or why am I even here? So even crap like how I stepped in gum on the sidewalk this morning has to mean something or else my life is even worse than I thought because I have to hold on to something, even if it is gum on the bottom of my shoe. But these thoughts all have to do with Knox and Avery and maybe even Jake and Sara and Carson if I’m really honest because it’s all just a big game that I’m losing because I have no idea how to play it. And right now Knox is sitting right over there, doing his work, and all I can think about is how much I want him. But I can’t have him. It won’t work. It just can’t. I’m dead and he is so alive it almost hurts me to even look at him because everything about him is just so alive and as much as I want him, I hate him too because I’m not gay. But that’s a lie too; I know it. Because it’s just I don’t want to be gay. But sometimes I can’t help it when I see Knox or sometimes Jake and maybe even the quarterback Joey Newman who has the biggest dick I’ve ever seen and then I know it’s just there and what can I even do about it, so I kill it. That’s why I’m dead, because every time I try to even be alive a little, I kill it. And then I have to pretend to be alive because if I don’t they’ll all know the truth and everything will fall apart and it’ll be the end...of everything.

The teacher is talking now, about the work we were supposed to be doing, but I don’t really care. I don’t care about critical perspectives on Holden Caulfield because I am fucking Holden Caulfield so I understand him perfectly. All I care about is how Knox chews on the barrel of his pen and how his blond curls move when he turns his head to take a note from Sara sitting next to him and how he bumps his leg up and down underneath the desk. Part of me wants to explode with everything I’m feeling because I’ve never felt like this about anyone before, except maybe a little for Jake Holley in like the 7th grade but then I taught myself to hate his smile and his voice and all so that it wouldn’t even matter, but this is way worse because I can feel it even worse than then.

And then the bell rings and I have to stop thinking about this stuff and pretend like Knox is the kind-of-new-friend-that-we’re-test-driving because that’s what he’s supposed to be, even though Sara and Avery and Carson have already bought him and got the vanity license plate and all. And Jake can’t actually dislike anyone, so he just smiles and laughs and hangs out with him every afternoon instead of me, so that’s why I have to pretend to be this hard ass guy who is allowing this nobody a chance because of whatever macho reason when all I want to do is lay in bed with him on Saturday mornings reading Allen Ginsberg poems and laughing at how stupid the people on Jersey Shore are and maybe kiss him a little.

But now he’s here next to me with Sara and I have to scowl because it’s just the way things are.

“Hey Caleb.”

“Hello Knox.”

“So did either of you even read this book because it sounds really dumb.” Sara. I just can’t even hear her voice right now without wanting to rip her throat out and feed it to wolves.

“I read it, and it’s pretty good once you get past how big of a douchebag Holden is.” I cringed internally because I am Holden and Knox called him a douchebag and I know it’s true and I just want to go away and die in a hole somewhere as Sara says something that I don’t even notice. And now there’s an awkward silence because Sara has left, probably to go suck off some guy in a bathroom, and now it’s just me and Knox and he knows I have this attitude with him and I think I scare him. I hate that, but it has to be that way.

“So, um, Avery said you’re riding with us...to Carson’s party at the lake this weekend.” I had to say something, but it came out all wrong and now he probably thinks I don’t want him to come even though I do more than anything right now.

“Oh, yeah. I haven’t been to a party in forever. I hope you don’t mind. It’s just, I have no idea where to go and since I live next door to Avery... I just thought it would be easier than be getting lost up there. It’s okay, right?”

“It’s cool. Whatever, dude.” We had stopped in the Mall Hall, the big main area of the school, and now I could look at his face and I wanted to hug him because he was so...so...something and I didn’t think I could hold it back much longer because now I was looking at the curve of his neck as it turned into his shoulder and I wanted to touch his skin because it looked soft and I loved the way his hair kind of touched his collar. I could even smell him and he smelled like fruity shampoo and toothpaste and some kind of cologne. Crap!…I’m getting an erection in the middle of fucking school because of stupid Knox, who I’m supposed to hate because he hangs out with my girlfriend and my friends, but of course I don’t because I think I love him. Whoa, did I really just say that? I’ve never loved anyone… except for maybe Avery, but in a totally different kind of sisterly way, so what the hell is wrong with me now?

“Are you okay Caleb?”

“Um...oh, yeah...I was just thinking about...um, nothing...uh, I should go. I need to, um...pee... before I go to class.”

“Okay...I’ll tell Avery you needed to hurry...to talk to the teacher or something.” Crap, Avery said for us to meet her here after 5th period. But I can’t just stand here in the middle of Mall Hall with a hard-on talking to the guy who gave it to me. Ugh, why does he give me an erection, but the most I can muster for Avery is a small twitch, and only if I picture her as Ryan Gosling circa Remember the Titans? Not that I’ve even done anything more than casually kiss her because she’s into the whole abstinence thing and I’m supposed to be too, which is fine because I don’t think I could have sex with her anyways. Because how am I supposed to keep it hard when I know she’s right there with her pretty blue innocent eyes and that scar on her left shoulder from where Katie Shoemaker threw a block at her face in kindergarten because Katie was jealous of her pink ballerina skirt? It would just be too much, you know. Because I’d feel bad about it, knowing I was doing something so important with her just to pretend. I might be dead but I’m not heartless. I love Avery. I love her and I know she thinks virginity is like this little treasure chest full of lace and pearls and diamonds that has to be opened carefully, preferably on her wedding night, with the right guy by her side and maybe a glass of champagne. I think she thinks that right guy is me, and I thought at one time it could be, too, if I could just pretend a little harder.

But then Knox showed up one day at our lunch table with Avery and they acted as if they had known each other forever even though they’d only met that weekend and he laughed at all Jake’s corny jokes and Sara eyed him like he was some kind of special deli cut salami that she couldn’t wait to slap on a piece of bread and devour. And even Carson was there talking about some trendy restaurant in New York she had eaten in last summer, and he knew about it and then she was putty because she is the biggest braggart of anyone and she loves to talk about how all her clothes come from boutiques and about her trips all around the world. But it was me across the table who was really putty, more like a puddle, as he sat right across from me with those blond curls and the way his lips kind of moved sideways as he talked and the green shirt he was wearing that I think I had too. It was bad enough Jake was already sitting next to me and that night I’d had a particularly arousing dream involving unspeakable sex acts between James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender after seeing X-Men: First Class over the weekend. So needless to say sex was on the mind. And then right there was Knox. But I was scared as usual and already dead to everything, so the more he smiled and laughed, the more I sat there silently listening to all their voices become increasingly dissonant until I couldn’t take it anymore and I got up and went to the bathroom. Which Avery asked me about later, because she thought I was mad about her bringing Knox, so I went along with that and ever since have pretended to have something against him because everything has to make sense or else it will all fall apart. Even if all I want to do is kiss him right on the lips every time I see him.

And standing in the bathroom looking in the mirror, I feel just a little bit sick because I see a reflection looking back at me but I don’t even know if it’s me. It’s like it’s just some random guy staring at me face-to-face because dead people don’t have reflections so it can’t really be me. Plus I don’t even recognize myself anymore. I’m just a generic guy with brown hair and brown eyes and a nondescript face that could belong to any random white guy walking down the street. And for some reason this makes me feel something because not being different is all that really matters right now anyways. I just want to blend in and fit in and not get erections when I smell Knox Brashier or sneak peeks at Jake Holley in the showers after football practice or have to picture Ryan Gosling when I make out with my girlfriend. But I know it’s what I’m stuck with, so for now I’m just going to have to deal with it the best way I know how: keep pretending.