Obsessed

by Allison Britz

  Before searching out a pencil, I pray three times, making sure to hit my chest extra hard with my hand signal and blast my arm into the air, pointing at the ceiling.

  “Yes, Allison?” Ms. Griffin’s voice pulls me from my closed eyes and amens.

  Still hunched over, curled into myself like a turtle, I raise my head to her. “Huh?”

  “Do you have a question?”

  “What?” Twenty-five teenage heads swivel toward me. I make the mistake of looking out into the crowd and see Sara’s wild hair and my breath catches in my chest. I almost choke on it. “Uh . . . no.”

  “Your hand’s up?”

  I look up at my hand pointed toward the tiled ceiling. “Oh, sorry. Uh. Just, uh, stretching.” Yanking it downward, I slump even farther into my desk, trying to make myself as small as possible. “Sorry.”

  I melt into my seat, heat boiling in my cheeks. Awesome. Great. Well done, me. I keep my eyes closed until I’m sure that no one could still be looking in my direction.

  It takes another ten minutes before I’m recovered, and by now I’m angry. This is stupid. Making a fool of myself is stupid. Listening to these thoughts, letting them ruin my life and my grades and my friendships, is stupid. I need to stop this. And the only way to do it, it seems, is to keep working. Keep seeking out things I’m scared of, keep staring them down. Even though I know it’s a risk, I pray three more times and pump my hand in the air. I’m going to need it for this.

  I roll my neck slowly. You can do it. Just like in Dr. Nelson’s office. Just like in Dr. Nelson’s office. With my head hovering inches above my notebook in an effort to appear like I’m paying attention to Ms. Griffin’s lesson, I slide my eyes as far as they will go to the right. Looking through chunks of tangles, I see a hand with blue nails gripping tightly on a pencil. Megan Perkins. Her hand and pencil are streaming across the paper, unaware of my gaze. It’s a six. And then quickly a five. Chipped nail polish, a turquoise ring. Four. I’m breathing freely, no buzzing, no tension. Three. Two.

  A whoosh of joy blows through me, and I shift forward in my seat, my arms against my desk, and lift myself up slightly so I can see over Lauren Madison’s shoulder. She’s got a mechanical pencil, and even though I’m staring at it, there’s nothing. No spike in my number, not even an itch. To my left is Dan Bennett. He’s on the wrestling team and insists that chewing sunflower seeds in class helps him burn calories before Wednesday weigh-ins. Through his slurping and crunching, his pencil lies slack in his hand, his notebook paper blank. Five! Five. Five. Five. Aaand now it’s a four. The wood around the metal eraser has deep teeth marks. Still a four. He moves forward, blocking my view, to spit out a glob of seeds into a plastic bottle. Ugh. When he sits back I see his pencil again. Three, two.

  By the time I’m walking to sixth-period chemistry, my head is buzzing, but not with fear or cancer. With energy. And happiness and pride. Tiptoeing through the frigid air, I forget that I’m shivering in worn pajamas and that I still haven’t taken my precal final and that my danger list is three pages long. The only thing on my mind, the thing filling me to the brim with glowing light, is the fact that I can now look at pencils without holding my breath, without even any real discomfort. It’s a miracle.

  And it’s with the sun gazing down on me, tiptoeing and counting down the sidewalk, that I know I’ve crossed a bridge. I don’t know when exactly I made the transition, whether it was the last appointment with Dr. Nelson, when I was finally able to see real progress, or just today in English, making eye contact with multiple pencils and still living to tell the story. Gradually, or maybe all at once like a lightning strike, I’m here. The thoughts are from God, obviously. He’s still watching over me. But they’re also something much more local. Much more controllable. Divine but also a product of my own mind. Or something like that.

  I walk straight to one of the lab tables in the back of the chemistry room, avoiding eye contact with the desk that was so angry at me during exams. Ms. Matthews is scribbling on the chalkboard as I perch my feet carefully in two tiles. I plop my binder on top of the cool surface, and as I open it, I notice a long pencil lying coyly about two feet away from me on the table. It’s almost too much of a coincidence. It’s like the world is testing me. You’re so smug, but can you handle this?

  I scoff out loud. Can I handle this? I stare at the pencil and barely hit a four. I look away at the wall for a few seconds, letting my memory clear, and then dart my eyes back to it on the table. I get a small spike that quickly disappears, like the tiny waves that spread from a rock plopped in the water. This is kind of lame, I tell myself. I don’t think this is helping.

  And then I feel the edge of an idea and it’s accompanied with the new feeling of buzzing adrenaline and happiness. Watch this, I say to myself, and also to the universe, as if I’m about to do some sort of amazing trick. With a straightened back, and after two quick prayers, I lean toward the pencil, stretch out my pointer finger, and poke it gently. It sizzles like a droplet of water on a hot pan. Poke. Poke. I wait for it to quit moving and come to a stop. Poke. And then I press down on it like a piano key. Press. Pressss. It’s burning my fingertip, but my heart is pounding and a flood of joy drives me forward. Press. I hold it for two seconds. There’s a sharp pain in my brain, but it almost feels good. Like the ache in your muscles when you’ve done ten too many squats. Press. Five seconds. My nail is turning white, and the ridge of the pencil leaves a small indentation on my skin.

  This is amazing! Press. Press. Hold. Press. Press. Hold. And then suddenly, before I can stop myself, before I can calm the wave of ambition that rams me forward, I’ve swept my arm across the table and I’ve got it in my hand. The pencil. Is. In. My. Hand. It’s in my hand. It’s in my hand. The thought is running circles in my mind, and I’m trying to catch up. What do I do? Pencil in my hand. Help. Help. Help.

  This is a nine. We are at a nine. Man your battle stations. Incominnnggggg!

  My arm is thrust out away from me to the side, and waves of cancer are pulsing up it toward my torso. I feel its germs spreading to my blood cells, convincing them to turn into leukemia. My mind is in a trash compactor, and my eyes are being forced forward in their sockets, about to pop out and roll onto the table. Nine. Nine. It’s a signal, a code, a secret message: I have nine months to live. I won’t make it to junior year. I won’t make it to a driver’s license. The cancer is moving from my blood to my bones now. Bone-marrow transplant, radiation, morphine. My knuckles are white, screaming in pain against my rabid grip on the pencil. I look at its tip sticking out of my diseased skin, and it’s just like the ones Megan and Dan were using in English. It’s the same No. 2 Ticonderoga that Dr. Nelson spread across her lap in her office last week. Now I’m an eight and my head is lying sideways on my shoulder. The tumor is too heavy to lift. Pencil in my hand. Pencil touching my skin. Pencil in my hand. Pencil touching my skin. I don’t want to die! Crap, why did I do this? Why did I do this!

  You’re doing so well—where are you now? I groan out loud, one eye closed against the pain in my head. The calmness of her voice guides me toward the surface. An eight. Maybe. Or a seven. Keep going. I’m able to straighten up now, no longer needing support for what seems to be a shrinking tumor. Bringing my fist with the pencil down to rest on the lab table, I’m able to get a closer look. It’s dull, and I can tell it was last sharpened on a cheap manual pencil sharpener. The kind mounted on the walls above the trash cans (trash cans!) in every classroom. Those green letters (green!), the yellow paint. I’ve seen this pencil a thousand times. And I sink to a five. It’s wood, and lead, and nothing much else. It has no special power. It doesn’t cause cancer. It’s a pencil. And I’m a three.

  The storm suddenly over, the menacing clouds parting, a ray of sun shines from the ceiling directly down onto me like a spotlight. I throw the pencil to the floor and then swing my arms up into the air in celebration. A pop star after a dramatic mic drop. Take that, pencil. Take that, brain. I lift my head to the ceili
ng, my arms all the way out to the side now, basking in my success. I think of Dr. Nelson and I feel her beside me, my eyes closed as we both take in the moment. We did it.

  When I bring my head up, the three kids in the back row have all turned around to look at me. Probably because I threw a pencil across the room. I’m radiating happiness and I give them a small wave, beaming.

  • • •

  It’s the next day. Dr. Nelson lifts up one of the pencils she has had resting on her lap and spins it between her fingers. “So, tell me about your homework.”

  I’ve been waiting for this. I extend my arm toward her, palm up, like I’m asking for money and wiggle my fingers.

  “This?” she asks, confused, gesturing to the pencil in her hand. I only continue to wiggle my fingers in response, a smirk spreading across my cheeks. After a few seconds, she leans forward slowly, placing the pencil in my palm.

  A knife slices through my brain when it touches my skin and I almost drop it. My head falls to the side, resting on my shoulder, and I close my right eye, scrunching my face up. It burns, it burns, it burns. Part of my brain is sizzling into nothing, wrinkling up like a raisin. But after about ten seconds it begins to dissipate, and I’m sitting up straight, and soon I’m able to look across the carpet and make eye contact with Dr. Nelson. Her eyebrows are raised halfway up her forehead and her mouth is hanging open dramatically.

  “Oh. My. Goodness,” she whispers. “Well, isn’t that something.”

  CHAPTER 26

  I’m counting my steps intensely. Walking alone, staring at the cracks ahead, my eyes zooming around the pavement for obstacles. I forcefully count each step aloud. The more careful I am, the more I’ll have left to eat at lunch. But also, and probably more important right now, it’s comforting. I’m battling pencils, with a massive danger list waiting in the wings. It’s nice to count and tiptoe and wrap myself up in my own world, just for a few minutes. As much as I want to be the old me, current me has its benefits. I just need a break. Then I’ll get back to work.

  “Whoa! Watch where you’re going!” I find my face crunched into something damp and warm. When I look up, I realize it’s an armpit. Mica Smith’s armpit.

  Mica and I grew up together. He lives down the street, and we were friends before it mattered that he was a boy and I was a girl. For about two years we spent our summers doing tricks off the diving board and splitting microwave pizzas from the neighborhood pool snack bar. But then we hit middle school and he grew a foot, his voice changed, and he started hanging out with his older brother’s upperclassmen friends. That was the end of that friendship.

  I pry my face from his body, equally disoriented and embarrassed. He smells like Sam.

  “Oh.” He lowers his voice when he sees it’s me. “Hey, Allison. Sorry, didn’t mean to yell. I didn’t know it was . . .” He stops midsentence as his eyes scan over me, then launches in a different direction. “Whoa! Rough night? You look like me with a bad hangover.”

  “Huh?” I’m still thinking about Sam, but the questioning look on Mica’s face drags me back to the hallway. “Yeah, oh.” I glance down at myself, my hand automatically rising up to smooth my ragged hair. “I was just up late. Studying. All-nighter. That’s why I’m dressed like this.” I swing my pointer finger from my head to my toe, shaking my head. “Just didn’t have time to get ready this morning.”

  He raises one eyebrow at me. “You must be in some intense classes. Studying that hard in the first week of the semester.” Although he’s a member of the popular crowd, Mica and I have almost the same course load. He’s a closet smart kid. “Maybe I need to up my game?”

  I feel a thick lump in my throat and open my mouth with no idea of what might come out. “Ha . . . ha . . . yeah. You know. Gotta be prepared.” I’m awkward.

  “Well, just don’t go off to Harvard without me.” He smiles brightly with his perfectly straight white teeth. “Us Blakely Farms kids have to stick together, right?” A small nudge against my shoulder. “Just like old times.” He obviously sees my dreadlocks and pimples. He can probably smell my breath. He knows the rumors. Everyone does. Is he trying to comfort me? Is he trying to be nice?

  I’m so taken aback that I don’t react when he slaps me on the back and throws a “Catch ya later, neighbor” over his shoulder as he walks away.

  Yeah, he commented on my appearance. He saw the obvious. But he also talked to me like I’m a real human. I see him round the corner with a knot of friends and finally feel myself unglue from the pavement. Walking to Civics and Ethics, back to counting and tiptoeing, I realize he is the only person I’ve actually talked to, besides Dr. Nelson, in weeks.

  And suddenly I’m feeling a wave of motivation. One day, every conversation could be like this. At some point, with Dr. Nelson and after a few more appointments, I could talk to Sara, or Jenny. Or Sam. Maybe I’ll find a way to start eating real meals again. Maybe one day I’ll pick out an outfit from my closet and not worry that it’s going to kill me and all those I care about.

  Or maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. Maybe these are unrealistic goals to shoot for. But imagine! The possibilities!

  I’m settled into my desk in Civics and Ethics, these radical ideas still speeding through my mind. Brushing my teeth, wearing makeup. Doing my homework, making A’s on tests. Talking with my friends, complaining about Coach Millings between breaths during cross-country practice. All the things that the former Allison used to do. It feels like I could get some of them back.

  And it’s then, as Mr. Roberts squeaks off the top of his whiteboard marker, that I know what I need to do. It’s time. And I’m ready.

  I slowly unzip the front pouch of my book bag with the care of an archaeologist dislodging a piece of pottery from the arid ground. Although I know pencils are safe, I feel like I should try to keep my plan a secret from the universe, if possible. Just in case.

  With a sizzle and a violent jump to a six, which quickly fades to a five, four, three, I’ve got a pencil in my hand and I carefully inch it up toward the desk. And there is the notebook paper. Blue horizontal lines daring me, staring at me like they know I won’t do it. They’re saying I’m too weak. Too far gone.

  But I’m holding the pencil. And it’s poised over the paper. My head is pounding. As much from excitement and adrenaline as anxiety. Pencil, paper. Pencil, paper. They go together. For my whole life, they’ve been partners. It makes sense. It’s natural.

  And I’m writing. I see the black lines spell out Civics and Ethics: January 10. Instantly, I’m a student, just like everyone else around me. Despite my clothes and face and thoughts, I’m just a girl taking notes in class. Nothing to see here, nothing strange about this situation. A high school sophomore trying to get through another day. I look around the room, half expecting a standing ovation. Can anyone else see what’s happening? Does anyone else understand the importance of this?

  At least for these few seconds, I’m normal. And it’s amazing.

  Although Mr. Roberts says nothing of real importance during the class, I write down his every syllable. My pencil whips across the paper, and with it a tension deep inside me unspools like a ball of tightly wound yarn. The lead smears across the side of my hand, and a wide smile smears across my face. I can smell the sharp edge of the graphite. Smells like hope.

  What an incredible day! I exclaim to myself, over and over, as I take notes through the day in Spanish, precal, and chemistry. I run out of paper in all three classes (only two sheets of notebook paper allowed per class), but it doesn’t even matter. I’m writing. I’m taking notes. I’m . . . functioning.

  • • •

  By the time I get home from school, I’m almost exhausted with happiness. I’ve spent the whole afternoon grinning to myself. And thinking about the future and all the things I might be able to do. I’m padding up the stairs, leaning forward to use my hands against the carpet, when I feel a lump underneath my foot. It’s not hard like a rock or stick but soft and forgiving. Almost squis
hy.

  My mind still consumed with my plans to eventually use blue pens and eat apples, I’ve almost forgotten there’s danger in the world. Danger that just weeks ago was the sole focus of my life. Until I look down and watch my naked foot slowly rise from the stair. And there, lying flat, looking almost innocent, is a sock. A gray-toed, Hanes brand, cotton sock.

  We stare at each other for a few moments as I feel my body preparing to react. It must have fallen out of the laundry hamper last night when my mom was doing laundry. Mom, my brain screams, you ruin everything. This day was perfect. This day was progress. This day was hope until now. Until you doomed me to cancer and death and hospital beds . . .

  My brain shoots forward into a tirade. All my work with pencils, all those appointments with Dr. Nelson. They’re done. Over. Pointless. Now I have cancer. And after all I’ve done for my mom, this is how she repays me? After all my sacrifices? This is what I get? This is how I’ll die? A lone sock on the stairwell?

  But when I stop to take a breath, I realize that the world is silent. No alarms, no bees. No dark clouds on the horizon, no pounding in my head. It’s just me and my foot and a crumpled sock lying on the carpet. Huh. I stand there for twenty more seconds, my eyes scanning the walls around me, waiting for an attack. I mean, it’s a sock. I still remember the afternoon when my monster seized it in the kitchen. It’s definitely dangerous. It definitely causes cancer. Except, it seems, it doesn’t.

  Huh. I stare at it for another five seconds and look around, giving the storm one last chance to appear over the horizon. But it’s quiet. This sock is safe. And, looking at it, I somehow know that, from now on, all socks are safe.