Chapter 1
Some days are better than others. Some days are just horrible. Looking back, today was one of the better days. It was the first day of junior year and I was sitting at my desk in homeroom, minding my own business, my classmates talking excitedly around me. I had to fight the urge to cover my ears and block them out, because they were likely to notice that, and I couldn’t have anyone asking questions.
I decided to get up and join a conversation, just because the fear of getting found out was far greater than any social anxiety I might have had.
“Hey, Georgia!” The girl who spoke was Selena, who was the epitome of everything we were expected to be: happy, relaxed, and level headed. She also happened to be blonde and really tall, taller than some of the boys even. “How was your summer?”
“It was really great! I spent a month by a lake upstate.” My parents and I spent a month every summer by that lake. It was the highlight of my year. It was impossible to worry about anything when the fresh smell of lake and grass drifted on the breeze, the sun warmed my face, and the cool water lapped at my feet. “How was your summer?”
“Oh, my summer was amazing! I spent the whole time traveling around the country with my boyfriend.” She indicated a boy sitting in the corner reading a book. He wore a black sweatshirt, gray pants, and black shoes. His black hair was full, but not shaggy, and he sat all slouched down.
“Greyson, come here!” Selena called to Greyson, who reluctantly closed his book and walked over to us. Whenever I meet a new person, I look into their eyes. That saying that eyes are the window to the soul? It’s true. But you have to know how to look, and what you’re looking for. I always look for any sign that the person is like me. And when I looked at Greyson’s eyes, I saw a black pit and storm clouds. Endless, bottomless sadness. I could tell he had tried to cover up the dark circles under his eyes with concealer, but I could see them. It looked as though he had never gotten a goodnight’s sleep in his life. I felt my throat starting to close up. The first sign I was going to have a panic attack. In all of my searching, I had never found someone. Not because they are uncommon, but because most people like me are found out and banished. But now I had found Greyson, and I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. I had only ever had myself to deal with, and now I potentially had another person but I wasn’t totally sure and figured he would probably hate me anyway so why did it matter and I couldn’t breathe.
I could tell I was going to start hyperventilating, and it was only my natural instinct for survival that allowed me to see through the gray fog in my brain long enough to say: “It’s nice to meet you, Greyson. I hate to cut this short, but I actually have to use the bathroom.” And with that I left the classroom, taking care that my movements didn’t expose what was happening, and made my way to the bathroom. Once in there, I went into a stall and locked the door. I sat down in the fetal position and let the panic wash over me.
It was crippling. It still is. When I have a panic attack, I can’t see or think. It feels like my heart is stomping around and jumping into my throat at the same time, my hands sweat, sometimes I even feel nauseated. But worse than all of that is the pool of uncontrollable thoughts that swim around my head. And most of them have nothing to do with what triggered the attack in the first place.
That day, in the bathroom, it was a fairly mild one; at least, it was mild for me. My thoughts were jumping around from Greyson to school to all the ways my life was going to be a failure to the fact that one day I was probably going to get caught. And my heart was pounding and my hands were clammy. After a few minutes my thoughts settled enough for me to realize that I had to get back to class. I took a deep and shaky breath, one that did not seem to reach my lungs, stood up on shaky legs, and made my way back to class.
Don’t let that fool you though. I still felt horrible. But I knew that if I didn’t get back someone would notice and come find me, and then I would be in serious trouble. When I settled in my seat, I felt as though someone was staring at me. I looked to my side, and there were Greyson’s black eyes, staring right back at me.
That afternoon, as I was getting ready to leave school, I felt a tap on my shoulder. Physical contact of any kind makes me jump, but I am usually good at keeping it invisible to the outside. But this touch was so sudden that my body jerked and I whirled around with my hand in the air, prepared to slap the person.
“Whoa, hey, relax, it’s just me.” Greyson had his hands up in defense, a small smirk on his face. I put my fist down and glared at him, all the while trying to fight another panic attack.
“Hi,” I said, trying so hard to keep the shakiness out of my voice.
“Hi.” He just stood there, staring at me. My hands began to sweat. I had to get out of there, but in a way that didn’t make it obvious why I had to leave.
“Look, I would love to stay and chat, but I have to go home. My mother needs me to help her with…” I couldn’t think of anything to complete the lie. That fog was returning to my brain, sweeping out all thoughts except one: Run. So I said “to help her with...something,” turned around, and walked swiftly out the door. I could only hope nobody else noticed my nerves. But I found that I almost wanted Greyson to see. Almost.
Over the course of the next couple of weeks, I caught Greyson staring at me in every class we had together, and as the days passed the knowing look in his eyes got more and more confident. It occured to me that Selena must have noticed him staring at me, and I couldn’t imagine she was happy about it. In fact, I noticed that she now spoke to me in clipped tones, laced with the pain of betrayal.
If I am going to be completely honest, I stared at him too. I was looking for more signs that he was like me, and I guessed that he stared at me for the same reason. Over those couple of weeks I noticed that he read a lot, but not too much that it would be suspicious. The circles under his eyes never lightened, and his shoulders were always slightly slouched, but tense at the same time. He made sure to have periodic conversations to seem as though he was “normal,” but his eyes always remained trenches of blackness. I ate lunch with him and Selena every day, but it was never natural. Greyson and I treated each other like glass, and Selena always glared at us with fire-and-ice eyes. She spoke, but her voice constantly seemed to be on the verge of breaking.
