exist.
This has got to stop.
the sixteenth
It was 4:20A.M. and I was buzzing as usual. It was really warm out. Practically 50 degrees. I started thinking about how stupid it was that I was stuck in my room, 100 percent awake, waiting for the sun to come up to start my day. Why can’t I start my day when it’s still dark out?
I decided to listen to the message my twitchy muscles were trying to tell me:Let’s go running. Right then. My dad was guaranteed not to follow me. I threw on shorts and a T-shirt and laced up my shoes. I crept to the kitchen and wrote a note:I Couldn’t Sleep. I Went Running. 4 A.M. Don’t Get Mad. Jess.
I tiptoed out the back door and stretched on the patio. The air smelled like wet grass. Crickets chirped. Leaves rustled in the breeze. The moon was a sliver short of being full, so I didn’t have to worry about lunatics.
I ran.
Everything was different in the dark. My neighborhood’s bi-level, split-level, bi-level, split-level scheme seemed so safe and predictable in daylight. But at night, these same houses were secret and mysterious. Especially the ones that had a single light on. All the nights that I’ve been alone and awake in my bedroom, I never stopped to think about all the other people who might be tossing and turning too.
After I don’t know how many miles, I stopped thinking. I know this sounds all Oprah–Chopra, but everything got in synch: the beat of my breath, the flow of my feet, the rhythm of the road, the bursts of color blurring by. I was running so effortlessly that I didn’t stop when I finished my loop. I kept right on running, as though my body made the decision before my brain had a chance to shoot it down.
By the time I got back to the house, the sun was coming up all pink and orange over the horizon. It was a little past5:45 A.M . I had run for a little over an hour, and for some strange reason, I wasn’t the least bit tired. More important, my mind had kept quiet for the first time in a long while. For more than an hour, I didn’t think about prom, or Paul Parlipiano, or my non-period, or anything.
And that includes Marcus Flutie.
My heart was pumping and I was intensely aware of being alive. Amazing. I wish life could be like that all the time, or that I could will it that way whenever I wanted. When my worries shut up, everything just feels right.
I was feeling so optimistic that I made a vow to myself then and there:I will be normal. I will accept that Hope is gone. I will not be afraid of being friends with Hy. I will face up to the fact that Paul Parlipiano will not devirginize me. I will stop thinking that Marcus Flutie is trying to corrupt me.I will be normal.
The first logical step in becoming a normal high school sophomore?
Asking Scotty to my sister’s wedding.
It made perfect sense. Scotty is normal. Scotty has fun. Scotty can sleep at night. I’ve been in public school too long to totally buy into Hy’s theory of revolution, but maybe she’s partly right. If I hang with him, some of his positive vibes might rub off on me. Maybe I can be normal—perhaps evenpopular —without losing myself in the process. I’ll never know unless I try.
Just so I wouldn’t lose my nerve, I biked to Scotty’s house to ask him in person, as soon as I cleaned myself up after my cathartic run.
When I arrived, there was an unfamiliar car parked in the driveway. By the time I figured out who it belonged to and had the impulse to hop on my bike and ride home, it was already too late. I’d been spotted by Scotty and his cradle-robbing prom date.
"Oh hey, Jess," called Scotty from the screened-in porch. "You know Kelsey Barney, right?"
I said "yes" and smiled and she said "hi" and smiled and all three of us stood there and smiled and everything was swell.
"She drove me home from this morning’s crack-of-dawn practice," he explained.
"It’s on my way home," she
This has got to stop.
the sixteenth
It was 4:20A.M. and I was buzzing as usual. It was really warm out. Practically 50 degrees. I started thinking about how stupid it was that I was stuck in my room, 100 percent awake, waiting for the sun to come up to start my day. Why can’t I start my day when it’s still dark out?
I decided to listen to the message my twitchy muscles were trying to tell me:Let’s go running. Right then. My dad was guaranteed not to follow me. I threw on shorts and a T-shirt and laced up my shoes. I crept to the kitchen and wrote a note:I Couldn’t Sleep. I Went Running. 4 A.M. Don’t Get Mad. Jess.
I tiptoed out the back door and stretched on the patio. The air smelled like wet grass. Crickets chirped. Leaves rustled in the breeze. The moon was a sliver short of being full, so I didn’t have to worry about lunatics.
I ran.
Everything was different in the dark. My neighborhood’s bi-level, split-level, bi-level, split-level scheme seemed so safe and predictable in daylight. But at night, these same houses were secret and mysterious. Especially the ones that had a single light on. All the nights that I’ve been alone and awake in my bedroom, I never stopped to think about all the other people who might be tossing and turning too.
After I don’t know how many miles, I stopped thinking. I know this sounds all Oprah–Chopra, but everything got in synch: the beat of my breath, the flow of my feet, the rhythm of the road, the bursts of color blurring by. I was running so effortlessly that I didn’t stop when I finished my loop. I kept right on running, as though my body made the decision before my brain had a chance to shoot it down.
By the time I got back to the house, the sun was coming up all pink and orange over the horizon. It was a little past5:45 A.M . I had run for a little over an hour, and for some strange reason, I wasn’t the least bit tired. More important, my mind had kept quiet for the first time in a long while. For more than an hour, I didn’t think about prom, or Paul Parlipiano, or my non-period, or anything.
And that includes Marcus Flutie.
My heart was pumping and I was intensely aware of being alive. Amazing. I wish life could be like that all the time, or that I could will it that way whenever I wanted. When my worries shut up, everything just feels right.
I was feeling so optimistic that I made a vow to myself then and there:I will be normal. I will accept that Hope is gone. I will not be afraid of being friends with Hy. I will face up to the fact that Paul Parlipiano will not devirginize me. I will stop thinking that Marcus Flutie is trying to corrupt me.I will be normal.
The first logical step in becoming a normal high school sophomore?
Asking Scotty to my sister’s wedding.
It made perfect sense. Scotty is normal. Scotty has fun. Scotty can sleep at night. I’ve been in public school too long to totally buy into Hy’s theory of revolution, but maybe she’s partly right. If I hang with him, some of his positive vibes might rub off on me. Maybe I can be normal—perhaps evenpopular —without losing myself in the process. I’ll never know unless I try.
Just so I wouldn’t lose my nerve, I biked to Scotty’s house to ask him in person, as soon as I cleaned myself up after my cathartic run.
When I arrived, there was an unfamiliar car parked in the driveway. By the time I figured out who it belonged to and had the impulse to hop on my bike and ride home, it was already too late. I’d been spotted by Scotty and his cradle-robbing prom date.
"Oh hey, Jess," called Scotty from the screened-in porch. "You know Kelsey Barney, right?"
I said "yes" and smiled and she said "hi" and smiled and all three of us stood there and smiled and everything was swell.
"She drove me home from this morning’s crack-of-dawn practice," he explained.
"It’s on my way home," she
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