18 Things by Jamie Ayres

my hair and skin.
    “If it’s any consolation, I think a bird pooping on your head symbolizes good luck.” Nate handed me a towel.
    I ran a hand through my tangled hair. “I’m pretty sure people just tell you it’s lucky so you’ll feel better.”
    Nate shrugged. “Hey, I’m not the one full of crap.”
    I splashed water on his face. “Whatever. I’ll take seagull poop over the human variety any day.”
    “You need a ride home?” Nicole asked, arriving at the shore with everyone, and every
thing
in tow.
    “Yeah, we’re starting to cut things close, so I don’t think walking is an option. I’ll have to crawl through my window as it is.”

    When we were a few streets down from mine, we caught sight of Dad too late. He drove his Ford, on the way to get his Sunday morning paper before church, and spotted me passing by in Nicole’s car.
    Busted.



“Never take cues from the crowd.”
―Unknown
    o, I guess I’ll be ungrounded soon,” I told Dr. Judy. Repeat anxiety attacks over going back to school on Tuesday landed me in her office for an emergency visit… the Saturday before Labor Day!
    Dr. Judy’s eyes grew bright as she leaned forward. “How do you feel about that?”
    I shrugged. Since Dad busted me for sneaking out, I spent the rest of my summer, a whole two months, grounded from everything except work.
    “Being grounded wasn’t so bad. I still got to work at The Bookman and on newspaper stuff with Nicole, and come here. And the list wasn’t on total hiatus since I was able to watch a lot,
a lot
, of the hundred greatest movies of all time, read
The Lord of the Ring
series, and start my own blog. The only people who read it are Nicole and Nate, but that’s still two more followers than I thought I’d have. Truth is being around Nate is like an escape from my unhappiness, so not being able to see him much was like the only thing that majorly sucked about being grounded. But maybe I don’t deserve him anyways.”
    Leaning across her desk, Dr. Judy asked, “Do you really believe that?”
    I shrugged again and changed the subject, something she allowed me to do most of the time when I didn’t want to answer a question. “Do you want to hear something weird?” I pulled out my journal. “I never remembered my dreams until now. I mean until after I took that bottle of pills. It’s like the whole experience of almost dying altered my state of mind or something.”
    Dr. Judy crossed her arms and gave me a knowing smirk. “In my experience, many patients return to their near-death experiences through their dreams. Maybe it’s your brain’s way of trying to make sense of your memories, or maybe like you said, almost dying altered your state of mind. It could’ve awakened some muscle memory you never used before.”
    “But these dreams don’t contain my memories. Well, they kind of do, but they’re altered.” My breath tucked itself away in my chest, refusing to come out until Dr. Judy told me I wasn’t crazy.
    She nodded to my journal, then closed her eyes and sat back in her seat. “I assume you wrote it down. Will you read it to me?”
    I gripped the black leather-bound book tight enough to cause bruising, but I loosened my fingers and then turned to the last page I’d written on.
    Mom tiptoed into my bedroom. The only light came from the setting sun, through a slit in my curtains. She crept closer, nose turning up at the funky smell. She untwisted the zebra blanket clinging to my body and reached out to touch my face. Her hand froze as she muttered, “Oh, God.”
    She put her ear to my mouth to listen for breathing. She checked the pulse on my wrist and gasped. I could tell she wanted to scream, but the sound curdled into nothing as she realized I was dead. Finally, she looked around the room, sucked in a deep breath, then let the sound loose.
    Dad came running in, then pushed past her. He was the one to dial 9-1-1, tears in his eyes as he reported the empty pill bottle on my