Page 63 of How to Hide in Plain Sight
Karma glances down the table.
I hide my phone.
“What is it?” Manuel leans over to look at my screen. “Oh. Yikes.”
The tiny screen glows in my hands. I try to type, but my thumbs won’t move.
“Well, do you?” he asks.
My fingers hover over the keyboard—planes above water, searching for a life raft.
—
I WANT TO LOVE LEO.Really, I do. I doodle his name at the top of my biology notes. Write love notes in return. Let no sentiment go unmirrored. I wonder why, as my pencil sprints over lined paper, as I echo back all the things Leo says, none of the words sound like they were written by me.
I even attempt to fantasize about him before bed. Halfway into the fantasy, unfortunately, I remember Thanksgiving, remember that I found Taz handsome, which meant I’m sexually attracted to my brother, which meant if I’m not careful, Taz’s face will appear in my fantasy instead of Leo’s, and then it does appear, because of course it does, because I told it not to, so now I’m no longer making out with Leo, I’m making out with my brother, and maybe it’s because I willed it into existence, but maybe it’s because I was never attracted to Leo in the first place, maybe it was all a cover, a socially acceptable outlet for my deeper, darker, truer impulses. And even ifI wipe the image away as soon as it appears, that doesn’t change the fact that it was there. It entered my head. I pictured my brother while sexually aroused—and if I didn’t already have enough evidence to put myself away for life, that would be it.
So.
Better to avoid sexual fantasies altogether.
—
CHRISTMAS. WITH MY SISTER INthe throes of opening her first bakery and my half brothers long grown up, it’s our first meal together in a while. Karma tells us about blowing up a pot full of chocolate. Caleb does a spot-on impersonation of Speedy telling one of his long, rambling stories. Clarence rags on his coworkers at Beck Pharma, telling stories that make me laugh so hard I almost spit up my barbecued chicken.
And me—well, I never have much to say at family dinner. It’s because of Henry, I think. He was my life vest, the buoy that gave me the confidence to entertain our family with self-produced musicals and long, rambling monologues. But ever since he died, I’ve spent most of these meals in silence, legs folded beneath me, elbows on the table. I have stuff to say, too. But at a table full of the people I admire most—and with Manuel at his own house for Christmas—I forget what it is.
“Karma, did you have a good session with Dr.Scherman yesterday?” asks Mom.
“Mom.” The word comes out round and heavy, Karma’s humiliation obvious.
“You’re seeing Dr.Scherman?” asks Clarence.
She shrugs.
“Oh, don’t be embarrassed, Karma.” Clarence claps her on the shoulder. “A little mental illness ain’t nothin’ to be afraid of. Myself, I got the Big D.”
Karma’s eyes light up. “Depression? Really?”
“Full-on, kid.”
“No shit. Me too.”
I watch Karma’s face change. I watch it open, slowly, like a flower in the sun.
—
FROM THAT MOMENT ON, CLARENCEand Karma are inseparable. A bubble of cheerful nihilism, inaccessible to the rest of the family. Filled with inside jokes and antidepressants. I’m not invited to the mental illness party. Too young, I guess. Or maybe I have the wrong disease. Maybe they won’t invite what they can’t understand.
Between the two of them, Karma and Clarence are on every antidepressant on the shelf. “Wait,” I say to Speedy. “I thought we weren’t allowed to take drugs.”
Karma laughs. “Clarence and I are adults. We can take whatever we want.”
They compare notes on dosage, side effects. Swap stories about weight gain and vertigo. Their mental illnesses become a sort of game. Before breakfast, they toss pills into each other’s mouths like little grapes, cheering when they catch them, laughing when they don’t. More often than not, they miss, and the meds fly over their heads, falling to the ground somewhere they’ll never be found. Disguised by bugs and dust.
I come across the stray pills from time to time. Between cracks in the floorboard, nestled among couch cushions. Innocent and unsuspecting. Like loose change. I bend over. Pick them up. Study them. Wonder how they work. Wonder if it’s just like Advil, just one tiny circle to make the pain go away.
From:Memory & Other Executive Functions
