Charm & Strange (4 page)

In the slowly dispersing crowd of three hundred or so other students, I can’t see where the dark-haired girl has gone. I don’t go out of my way to find her, but it kind of bothers me that she was staring like that.

What was she looking for?

And more important, what did she see?

I trot beneath a line of weary birch trees over to Hudson House, the third-year dorm. My dorm. Once inside, I make a beeline for the communal bathroom. It’s deserted, so after I use the toilet and wash my hands, I peer at myself in the mirror for a long time, examining things like the size of my eyes and the size of my teeth and the way my ribs show through my skin. I’m looking for answers, I guess, but I don’t find them. I do find I need a haircut. My hair falls across my eyes in a way that’s rakish when I squint but sloppy when I don’t. Once, when I was a freshman, a senior girl called me cute, but people usually say I look intense. A lot of times they ask why I don’t smile, which I hate. No one wants to answer that question.

Ever.

Trust me on that.

Leaving the bathroom, I run smack into Donnie Lipman. I literally run into him. Good thing I’m tall or I’d have a face full of chest hair and polo shirt. Instead it’s shoulder against shoulder, like two bucks in rut, and Donnie and I jump back at the same time. He’s got the single next to mine, and he listens to dubstep and trance music all day and all night, which means I do, too. Donnie doesn’t like me. The feeling’s mutual, of course, but I stop him anyway.

“Hey, what’s the name of that new girl?” I ask. “The junior transfer.”

I get a tight nod in return as Donnie pointedly avoids eye contact. “That the chick Channer’s trying to bang?”

Blake Channer plays goalie for the ice hockey team, which can’t be right, so I shake my head.

He shrugs. “That’s the only junior transfer I know. Redhead. Cute ass, kind of a butterface.”

Definitely not her. I turn and walk away from Donnie, straight down the hall, straight into my room. I’m lucky. I have a corner single with lots of windows. It should feel like an aerie in the trees, but today I’m reminded of gallows. Today I’m reminded of impending doom. My hands shake as I close the door.

Breathe,
I tell myself, but it’s not that easy. I’m filled too tight with this sharp sting-stab of guilt.

Or is it shame?

I don’t always know the difference.

The thin white curtains are pulled wide open. I spy other students walking on the path below. They are out there. I am in here. Even though it’s what I wanted, it feels wrong not having a roommate this year. I’m used to having a second nervous system in my living space. Something to distract me when my mind rockets off on a tangent like it is now. Someone to keep me grounded.

Inhale through the nose,
I tell myself.
Exhale through the mouth.

As usual, I don’t want to think about Lex or why I live alone these days, and I really don’t want to think about
her,
so I pace the hardwood floor once, twice. I pass a bed, a desk, a chair, a dresser, a shelf full of books, a pile of dirty clothes, a pile of clean ones. It takes eighteen steps a lap. It takes 4.2 seconds. I think I could die in 4.2 seconds if I jumped from the proper height or used the proper weapon.

In fact, I know I could.

Damn
. I turn and fumble for my backpack. I need to get out of here. Like
now
. This breathing thing is going nowhere fast, like world peace and those predictions of the Rapture. Besides, I’ve got things to do. Information to find.

I need to understand what’s happening to my own body.

And it’s not like I’ve got all the time in the world.

*   *   *

I move with newfound purpose. I’m heading to the school’s science library, located in the biology lab. There are books there I can check out. Ones that might help. And now’s a good time to go—morning classes have been canceled so students can “jointly process the emotional impact of the tragedy.” But as I hustle across campus toward the tight cluster of academic buildings, it’s clear this has been interpreted as a euphemism for “smoking weed together behind the gym.” Whatever. I just keep walking.

Maybe the callousness of using someone’s death as an excuse to get high should shock me, but it doesn’t. We’re reading
A Clockwork Orange
right now in English, and just last week Mrs. Villanova told us about the “moral holiday” period in adolescent brain development. I guess it’s the time nature sets aside for us to raise holy hell and not give a crap about anyone else. Only I’m not buying it, because I don’t think it’s a phase. Except maybe the holiday part, and that’s more about being too stupid to cover your tracks than true values. From what I can tell, morality is a word. Nothing more. There’re the things people do when others are watching and the things we do when they aren’t. I’d like to believe Anthony Burgess knew that, but then that dumb last chapter of his book went and ruined the whole thing. That made me mad, and so I think the movie version got it right: people don’t change. Their nature, that is. There are other kinds of change, of course.

Like physical change.

Stepping into the science building, I catch sight of Mr. Byles, the chemistry teacher, standing in the hallway. He’s talking to another student, but I know he sees me by the way he squares his shoulders, military sharp. Over the summer I grew taller than him, and apparently I’m not the only one who’s noticed.

“Win,” he says as the other student scampers off. “How are you doing?”

I’m not a great scholar by any stretch, but I excel in those subjects I find relevant and worthy of my consideration. Science, I devour. History, I have no use for. But I like Mr. Byles and I’ve done well in his class, so these are the reasons I hope his inquiry is merely an everyday
how are you doing
. Or an obligatory there’s-been-a-tragedy-in-our-midst
how are you doing
. Or even an I’m-not-comfortable-with-death-and-I-want-you-to-reassure-me
how are you doing
. But I absolutely do not want that honeyed hint of concern and condescension in his voice to be personal. I do not want it to be about
me
.

“I’m fine,” I say evenly.

“There are counselors available all day. You know, if you want to talk to someone.”

I’m sweating again. Why is he saying it like that, all hushed and serious? And why is he staring? He’s never looked at me like that before. Last year he practically worshipped the ground I walked on. Last year I was the best student he’d ever taught. The only thing I saw in his eyes back then was envy.

“I don’t need to talk to a counselor,” I say, a little louder than I intend. My head begins to buzz the way it does when I get overexcited. It’s not good for me to get upset.

“Okay,” he says.

I hate this. The buzzing grows louder. I am a living hive of dread. The memories, those images I don’t want, are swarming around inside me, looking for a way, any way, to get out.…

“I need to go,” I mumble. “To the biology lab.”

“You ever read that article I sent you? About—”

“Sea quarks,” I manage feebly. “Yeah, thanks for that.”

I know he wants me to stay and talk because that’s what we did last year. We talked. Not about my grief or my anger or my guilt over how my siblings died like martyrs cast against my wicked ways. Those are the things I never talk about. No, we talked about matter—most notably quarks, those tiniest possible components of everything. They come in six flavors, you know: up, down, top, bottom, charm, and strange. I’ll admit those talks helped me, and when I read about the sea quarks, I understood why. They contain particles of matter and antimatter, and where the two touch exists this constant stream of creation and annihilation. Scientists call this place “the sea,” and it’s what pitches inside of me as I hurry away from Mr. Byles, ignoring his furrowed brow, his worried frown.

I am of the sea.

I am of instability.

I am of harsh, choppy waves roiling with all the up-ness, down-ness, top-ness, bottom-ness contained within my being.

I am of charm and strange.

Annihilation.

Creation.

Annihilation.

chapter

eight

antimatter

With April came my tenth birthday, and in May Keith turned fourteen. School ended and we all watched Keith graduate from middle school. The small private academy we attended had its own high school right next door, so the transition was more symbolic than anything else. Just another beat in the dark rhythm of our family.

Summer vacation stretched before me. Ten weeks I planned to fill with tennis and the sweet rush of victory. I had no more qualms about playing again. The previous summer’s drama with Soren only added to my toolbox of mental strengths; I was scary. This fact filled me with a crawling sort of anticipation, both thrilling and repulsive. I’d run into Soren only once since breaking his jaw. This occurred during a spring clinic at my own club when he’d shown up with his coach. I took one look at the jittery hitch in his serve, the way he bit at his lower lip until it bled, the way he missed every single ball because he was so freaking nervous to run into
me,
and I promptly dropped my racket.

I marched right home, up to my room, and stayed there. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t sleep. My mind drifted, teased with morbid images I knew better than to tell anyone about. On the third day, when the sun rose to the sound of chickadees tapping at my window, my dark mood had miraculously vanished. My voice returned.

My killer instinct was back.

But my season of triumph wasn’t meant to be. The day after graduation, my parents broke the news: Keith and I were being shipped off, on a train, no less, to spend eight weeks in Concord, Massachusetts—home to Emerson, Thoreau, and my father’s parents. Siobhan was too young, so she would stay behind.

I was understandably anxious. My impression of my grandparents was blurry and undefined. I hardly knew them. Plus traveling was a huge deal; I was informed that one wasn’t allowed to eat or drink in my grandfather’s leather-trimmed Audi, much less barf in it. Tennis was another issue. The fall season was the most competitive, and if I didn’t play every day, I would be in no position to maintain my number one ranking. But my biggest concern was homesickness. I couldn’t imagine not sleeping in my own bed, with Pilot curled at my feet. I couldn’t imagine not being home with Siobhan, who made me feel brave because she so wasn’t. Keith understood, though. He’d gone last summer and went out of his way to tell me how much fun we were going to have.

“Why do I have to go?” I sniffled.

“Because Dad’ll be gone at that fellowship all summer in New York, and Mom … can’t.”

“Why not?” I asked, although even I knew our mother was prone to her own bouts of blackness, ones where she struggled to eat. Or get out of bed. Or open her eyes.

“She’ll have her hands full taking care of Siobhan,” Keith said.

“I can take care of myself!”

“You need to get out of here,” he said firmly. “We both do, okay? It’ll be good for us. A real adventure. Swimming, hiking … cousins.” Our cousins, we’d see them, too. They lived in nearby Lexington, three of them. All girls.

I appreciated Keith’s attitude but remained distraught. Still, there was nothing to be done about it, so on June 24, starved and drugged close to comatose, I boarded an Amtrak heading north with my brother.

From the platform, Siobhan waved and blew kisses at us as we pulled away.

I lifted my head and waved back.

chapter

nine

matter

Common trust. It’s the school’s one rule.

The only one necessary.

It’s the reason there are no locks on the dorm room doors.

It’s the reason there are no lockers for our crap.

It’s the reason we can borrow books from the library on our own.

It’s the reason I can enter the deserted biology lab on a Tuesday morning in October and not feel like a criminal.

I keep the lights off as I go in. The windows are huge, and plenty of sun leaks in to pool around the bookshelves that line the far wall. I pass the massive steel refrigerator that hums and shakes. It holds the fetal pigs from our most recent class, and I’m tempted to peek at mine. The AP section is small enough and the science budget is large enough that we don’t have to partner up, so I’ve got my very own piglet. It’s pink and black. I guess I should say
she’s
pink and black, since the first thing we did was record the gender. Then I opened the abdominal cavity, but I still haven’t finished with the mouth and neck or removed the heart, so that’ll have to happen tomorrow. Thank God for preservatives.

Ouch. Both knees crack as I squat to read the titles on the textbooks, but I quickly find what I’m looking for. Or at least I find the right
kind
of book, because none of them are going to give me the answers I need. Too much of me is a mystery. But maybe I’ll find the right questions to ask.
Neuroscience. Biopsychology. Origin of the Species
. There’s a book by Ludwig Wittgenstein, too. It’s called
Philosophical Investigations
. That doesn’t sound like it has anything to do with biology. But I’ve heard of the guy. I know I have.

I grab it.

My hands tremble as I flip through the pages. The book is made up of short quotes and ideas. The ones my eyes flit across have something to do with rule-following and paradoxes and trying to understand how the hell anyone can ever make sense of someone else’s words. That’s when I remember what it is I know about Wittgenstein. It has nothing to do with his philosophy. Lex once e-mailed me a link to his Wikipedia page, and idiot that I am, I read it. So this is what I know: Three of Wittgenstein’s brothers committed suicide.

Now I really feel ill. I want to lie down for, like, the rest of the decade. But I can’t. I put
Philosophical Investigations
back and take the other books over to a desk. There are a few things I need to know. Like how stress can affect the body. Last year in health class, I learned girls sometimes get their periods late when they’re under stress. That type of thing doesn’t make me squeamish the way it does other guys, so I’m glad I paid attention when they told us that. Lex sat next to me in class that day and he couldn’t even look at the teacher. Said blood made him woozy. So instead of listening to the lecture, he put in those orange foam earplugs, the kind they give you on the airplane when you want to sleep. Then he stole my notebook and drew cartoon penises all over the cover in Sharpie along with the sage message
VAGINAS ARE GROCE
, which made no sense at all considering the amount of time he spends online looking at the things.