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Things did not get better. On Monday Roger came to school showered and shaved, and he even smiled. And I thought, It�s better now, and I grinned to myself. Warm relief coated my innards, and I had a very good day. Then he was absent on Tuesday, and by Wednesday he was back to being deliriously tired and gloomy-eyed. He barely spoke to me, and that coating on my insides that had been so warm on Monday turned cold and tight. He didn�t eat much at lunch anymore. Mostly, he tried to sleep. The rest of our traditional table crowd laughed and joked and went about their merry lives, barely noticing the near-comatose Roger with his head down amid the brown bags and soda cans. Was I the only one who noticed how tired he always was, how quiet, how he never smiled anymore? �Are you sick?� I asked, spotting a small Ziploc bag of pills his mother had put into his lunch. ROGER was written on a piece of paper inside of it, and it was underlined three times, apparently important. I figured they were antibiotics. If he had a bug or cold, that would explain why he felt so miserable. I hadn�t meant to be nosy, but he bristled. �I�m fine,� he murmured defensively. He tossed the bag of pills into the trash. I shrugged and went back to my turkey sandwich. I can�t believe how stupid I was.
Next week. Took my driver�s test. It turns out I�m a much better pilot than driver, but I passed. Got my permit. Roger grinned when I told him, said he would teach me how to drive Dolores. He never did. I started noticing strange red marks on his hands, small, uncoordinated red dots and splotches. In Spanish, where I sat a row over and diagonally behind him, I found out where they came from. Halfway through the class, he pulled a compass from his backpack and began poking himself with the sharp metal end. I watched him the entire class. Stab, stab, stab, stab, stab. Usually not hard enough to draw blood, but enough to leave tiny round indents across his wrists, palm, and the back of his hand. Why do you do that? I asked him later. He shrugged. Spanish is boring, he said. I tried it in my next class, but I couldn�t figure out how bleeding was more fun than sitting through a boring class. He always wore long-sleeves now and several layers. He said he was always cold. It was December, so I believed him. Maybe I believed him because I wanted to believe him.
Another week, another week, time rolled on, nothing got better, and the worry ate away at my insides like cancer. He stopped coming to school. I guess he didn�t see a reason to anymore. He was failing everything. It was to be expected, I guess, as he spent all his classes pricking himself with a compass and scribbling large black splotches on his papers. He never did any homework anymore, never studied, never bothered to do anything. The teachers were always talking to him, stopping him in the hallways and holding him after class. They kept calling him to guidance and the nurse�s office. Sometimes he went, and he�d feign normalcy for the length of the meeting, but other times he completely skipped the appointments. At least I wasn�t the only one noticing it anymore. �Man,� muttered McKellen at lunch one day when Roger had gotten up to get a soda. �What�s is with that kid?� �I don�t know,� I admitted. He didn�t talk to me anymore. I don�t think he ever spoke to anyone anymore. Sometimes I made him drive me home so that I could try to get him to say something, to open up. Usually he wouldn�t, though. He�d put on music to discourage talking; to set a wall between his seat and mine. I hated his music. It was nothing but screams, tortured young men like himself who screeched their unhappy vocal cords raw. For me, who heard so many screams inside my own mind as it was, it was physically painful to listen to. Had he always listened to this kind of music and I�d just never noticed? He seemed to know every word; he softly sang along in the car, his lips moving to the words�somehow he distinguished words from the screams�and at school he hummed them under his breath. My mother noticed it in me. �Why don�t you ever smile anymore, honey?� she asked, her round face creased in concern. �Is something bothering you?� �And that struck me strangely, for I hadn�t realized that my internal suffering showed on the outside. I didn�t sleep much either nowadays, and she was right�I didn�t smile much anymore, for I found little to smile about. Perhaps I looked as morose as Roger. Could it be that others thought I was acting oddly, too? I smiled at my mother. �I dunno, I�m a teenager: It happens,� I joked, and her face relaxed. �Everything�s fine.� I�d never told my parents any of my dark secrets before, and I wasn�t going to start now. I made a mental note to up the happiness on the mask I wore at home, and I smiled at my mother every day before I went upstairs and tore at my hair in frustration. She never knew how lonely I felt at school, how scared�how sick Roger�s current state made me. She stopped worrying about me.
He didn�t come to school the next Monday, nor Tuesday. I biked to his house as soon as I got home, through the slush and snow, to see why. I rang the doorbell five times, knowing he was there even if he didn�t answer it. He finally came at the sixth ring, sliding to the door with a strange smile on his face. He looked clean�shaven and in a long-sleeved button-down shirt and khakis. His hair was wet. �Sorry,� he said, opening the door. �I was in the shower.� I was so glad to see him smiling that I didn�t question this. �I didn�t know you showered anymore,� I teased lightly, grinning back. �Oh, you don�t like my Indie look?� He went to the fridge. �You want a drink?�Soda, I mean.� I told him no. He took a Coke for himself and leaned against the counter. �So what brings you here?� �Just checking up on you, man. Why weren�t you in school today?� He took a meaningful slug. �Gave up on school,� he explained briefly. �There�s no point to it, really.� �W-what do you mean? Are you ever going to come back?� I asked, hoping my voice didn�t sound as high and nervous as I thought it did. He shrugged, unconcerned. �I want to drop out. If my mother knew, though, she�d go ballistic.� I gaped. �R-Roger, don�t even say that! You can�t drop out! That�s the stupidest thing you could possibly do! How do you ever expect to get a job without a high school diploma? That-that�s suicide to your future!� He snorted, mid-drink, and laughed. He laughed, a long, dry, low laugh that sent a tickle down my spine. �You can�t be serious!� I continued, unnerved. �Come on, man, I know school sucks, but it�s your senior year! A few more months and you�re free!� He rolled his eyes. �Whatever. It�s not like anyone would miss me, anyway.� �I would!� �That�s only because you don�t have any other friends,� he replied dryly, boredly looking at a tear in the wallpaper. I blinked, hurt. �I recommend you find more soon.� I swallowed hard, choosing to ignore these last comments. �Does your mom realize how much school you�ve been missing?� He smirked. �She�s gone so often, she has no clue. If I shower and get dressed before she�s home in the afternoon, she has no idea that I didn�t go to school. She�s always so tired she�s barely spoken to me for weeks.� I dared, �So she doesn�t know how strange you�ve been acting, then?� He looked at me hard over the rim of the Coke can. �Have I really been that different?� �Totally!� I said. �You���I debated between �were� and �are���you have been really scaring me, actually. So�sad all the time, so miserable and�depressed.� I sounded stupid. �I dunno�it�s creepy.� �That�s too bad,� he said, his eyes hooded with thick, heavily-lashed lids. �I think you need to leave now.� I jumped up from my seat. �Why?� I asked indignantly. He looked right at me, his face blank, his eyes reminding me of a shark I once saw at the aquarium: with dark, senseless, staring eyes. �Because you do. Now get out of here. Please.� �Promise me you�ll come to school tomorrow?� �Promise me, Roger! Then I�ll leave you alone, I swear.� �Why would you make me go through that? Do you have any idea how much I hate school?� �You idiot! Everyone hates school! You not liking it doesn�t excuse you from going!� �Stop yelling at me,� he murmured softly, suddenly demure. I clenched my teeth. When I was kind, he mocked me. When I was forceful, he whimpered. �Come to school tomorrow.� He sighed. �Fine.�
He never came back to school. |