#i take off the first and it’s autism under it…second one under there’s adhd. Third there’s bpd | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

aggressive-positivity-network · 3 years ago

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Do you have any autistic Scout headcanons? :P

Hell yeah!

I’ve actually thought about this a lot. A lot of people might think that Scout has ADHD, but I think he either has both ADHD and autism or just autism.

This is both because labeling Scout as having just ADHD is kind of a low-hanging fruit, and I also want to explore his symptoms a little more. So, in a word, I do, and thank you for asking about them!

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Scout’s Spectrum:

So, where exactly does Scout fall on the autism spectrum?

First of all, he probably has both ADHD and autism, but wasn’t diagnosed with the latter until much later. This means that some of his symptoms were taken into account, but not all.

The ones that were paid attention to ramped up out of control, and the ones he didn’t hear about were stuffed away.

His ADHD symptoms include impulsiveness, need for stimulation, hyperfixations, forgetfulness, and insomnia; his autism symptoms include trouble with social skills, stimming, near inability to remember names and faces, lack of eye contact, hyperfixations again, and sensory processing issues, especially with noise and touch.

He used to have a lot of meltdowns when he was younger, usually about wearing new clothes and the amount of noise his eight brothers generated.

However, he was teased and pushed into masking nearly all the time, and made his whole personality about his ADHD, since that was what everyone accepted.

As he got older, he usually wrote off any autistic tendencies as either his ADHD or just “little habits” of his.

During his middle school years, he used energy drinks to bounce back from being exhausted every day after school. This would work, except those energy drinks would upset his ADHD, and would make it much harder to focus on even basic conversation.

After a while, he got such bad grades and had such a hard time making friends that Scout just stopped going to school altogether.

Baseball helped his focus, and the quick movement and thinking made a lot of sense to him. He never had to wait very long for the next development, and the instant gratification and community it provided supplemented what he never got at school.

With sports on his side, he rarely ever drank any energy drinks (the coach would never let them on the field), and he drank bucketfuls of water during every meet and game. Those teenage years were probably the healthiest he ever was.

However, with the amount of rumbles he got into with his brothers, and the turf wars that constantly raged in those neighborhoods, it was only a matter of time before his crime caught up with him.

After his first incarceration, he was booted from the team, which led to a downward spiral of unhealthy coping mechanisms - which included fighting someone tooth and nail whenever he could.

Even if he lost the fight, it not only catered to his impulsive nature and impatience, but also gave him roughly the same sense of friendship and camaraderie that baseball had.

One thing led to another, and by the time Mann Co. found him, Scout was a monster in hand to hand (and bat to bat) and had racked up quite the criminal record.

A perfect mercenary, ripe for the picking.

On The Team:

Scout very quickly adopted the “stupid, scrappy Boston boy” persona.

It was the only thing that made sense, and it kept him from having to try too hard in both the battlefield and socially.

Besides, that meant that he could be as silly, forgetful, and fidgety as he wanted, and no one would bat an eye.

And if he ever needed to take a break from the team, he figured everyone would appreciate the quiet.

The only thing that ever gave him away was him occasionally dissociating right when battle began, especially if the day had been stressful.

It was usually how he calmed down after a fight when he was young, but now he sometimes slid into that state when he was overwhelmed.

However, a yell from one of his teammates would usually snap him out of it.

Medic noticed this pretty early on, and wanted to look more into it, but Scout would keep making excuses not to get a mental examination.

He would blame it on zoning out, being tired, drinking too many Bonks - whatever it took for people to stop asking.

And, eventually, they did.

Even Medic stopped asking after a while - he couldn’t get a thing out of Scout.

This “try so little that when you do try it’s above average” charade worked for a long time. In fact, it went on for so long that Scout forgot how much he was actually capable of.

He began to internalize the stupidity, the exacerbation, the many comments on how dumb he was, everything.

The only time he ever gave his all was on the battlefield - moving fast, memorizing strategies, doing complicated footwork, knowing exactly how much force it took to crush someone’s skull with his bat.

That was one of the only things that he felt good doing, the only thing he could really work on without him being “found out.”

That and drawing, though he never showed the actual pieces to anyone. It was all stick figures and crooked lines with everyone else.

Sometimes, though, Scout wouldn’t be paying attention and he’d let something slip.

One time, Engineer was looking for his screwdriver, and couldn’t seem to find it anywhere.

Scout, not looking up from his comic, said, “Under the couch cushion, hard hat.”

Engineer bent down and reached into the couch, and his hand came back with his red and yellow striped screwdriver.

“Well I’ll be damned…”

At first Engineer thought Scout had just hid it, but Scout explained, still not paying attention:

“Last time we went out on th’ field, you had it on your belt, like always. But I was walkin’ by your workshop, you were usin’ a quarter to tighten a screw or somethin’. Your screwdriver had to be somewhere between the battlefield and your workshop. Engie, you’re like freakin’ clockwork. Every day, after a fight, you go to the kitchen, get a water, go to that couch, between the second and third cushion from the left, and sit there. Then ya go back to the fridge to get lunch and a beer, and ya go to your workshop until somebody needs you for somethin’. Your back loop in your tool belt is looser than all the others, ‘cause the screwdriver pulls against it when you sit down. The shank was probably in between the two cushions, and when you got up, it fell in. Demo, Pyro, and Heavy all sit on the second or third cushion at some point, so it got shimmied down. And since that’s the only time you sat down, ‘cause you woulda heard it if it dropped on the floor, and I…uh…”

“I’ll be damned,” Engie repeated, and felt the back tool belt loop. It was indeed loose.

Scout finally looked up, and realized what had happened.

“Uh, uh - l-lucky guess, huh Engie?”

Engineer squinted behind his goggles. “Yeah…real lucky…”

What ensued was Engie trying to get Scout to turn into a B.L.U Spy by chasing him around with his wrench. After a few good hits, though, Engineer saw that it was the teammate he knew and loved.

“But…how didja…?”

Scout threw his hand up, the other rubbing the back of his head where he’d been hit.

“I toldja Engie! Lucky guess! Jesus!”

Ever since then, Scout chose his words more carefully.

The Breakdown:

But, unfortunately, Scout could not pretend forever.

There was one week where Scout’s assignment count was so high that, if he wasn’t in a fight, he was on a mission.

Usually, Pauling wouldn’t trust him with so much, but no one else was available - or willing - to do the jobs.

Even when she was getting concerned about the amount of hours Scout was putting in, he blew it off.

“It’s no sweat, Miss Pauling! Their practically givin’ me the pay day. Those yahoos don’t know who they’re messin’ with.”

Over time, though, Scout had a harder and harder time staying focused and alert.

He’d sleep through alarms, stare off into space, zone out completely during briefing (not that he didn’t already do that), have a hard time hearing people in battle - even through his headset - ignore Spy’s taunts, and even forget to bring his bat onto the field.

Nothing seemed to help - Bonk!, warming up, stretching, cold showers, setting reminders, nothing.

And the team was starting to notice.

At first it was with the regular frustration - maybe Scout was just being lazy.

But as time went on, and his condition grew worse, their scorn turned into worry. They implored Medic to do something, but he had no way of getting through to Scout.

The doctor wasn’t above simply sedating him and dragging him into his lab for a check-up. However, he had a feeling that this was more than a physical issue.

The worst came when Scout was doing a routine battle with the B.L.U team on the field.

Everything had started out okay - he even remembered to bring his bad this time - but suddenly, everything was ear-splittingly loud.

He couldn’t focus on more than one sound at once, much less communicate the best course of action to his teammates.

He ended up hiding in a dilapidated shed, in a dusty, dark corner, somewhere between zoning out and panicking.

Scout’s head was in his knees, he was shaking, close to crying, when a sudden splitting of wood roused him.

A B.L.U Soldier had kicked his way into the shed, either having heard Scout or to hide from the other team.

Scout was stunned at first, but something of a blind terror filled him. He picked up his bat, screamed, and started pummeling the surprised Soldier.

At some point, he threw aside his bat and began to swing punch after punch, just like he did in his gang days when he had felt overwhelmed. Still screaming. Still crying.

By the time Scout had dissolved into a rocking, sobbing mess, the Soldier was long dead, with a gigantic pool of blood staining Scout’s shoes.

No one even knew where Scout was until a few hours later, when Spy heard a faint note of “Sexbomb” coming from Scout’s Walkman.

Scout had crawled into the shed’s framework, between the outer and inner wall, and was playing a specific verse over and over and over again, looking like he was on another plane of existence.

Spy immediately called for Medic, who had to lift Scout out by the underarms through a jagged hole in the side of the building. By then, the fight was over, so they could take him directly to the lab.

Medic’s Evaluation:

“I’m guessing zhis is your first mental breakdown?”

“Mental…doc, I ain’t crazy. Wait, you’re not goin’ to put me in a straight jacket, are ya?”

“If you’re not doing anyzhing later.”

Medic started to laugh, but quickly realized this might not be the time.

“No, Scout, everyvun has a mental breakdown at least vunce in their lives. It’s a…how do you say…a vake-up call of sorts. Vhen your body has no other options left.”

“Whaddya mean?”

“For zhe past few months, you health, both physical and mental, has been deteriorating. You eat less. You talk less. Your attacks are lackluster. You have bags under your eyes. You flinch vhen somevun yells for you. You stare off into space. Your routine, vhich usually has at least some changes, has become stringent, as if you can’t possibly expend any more energy into extra activities. You have avoided Demoman on zhe battlefield, even though you usually use him for cover.”

Medic flipped through his notes.

“I have pages and pages of your decline. However, as a scientist, I believe it is caused by zhe same source. And, though I usually respect my patient’s right to privacy vhen it comes to these sorts of matters, I believe you’ve been keeping something from me. Something that I should know as your general practitioner…your doctor.”

Scout shrugged, already shutting out the conversation.

Medic sighed.

“Maybe I tried to talk to you about zhis too soon. After all, you’ve just had a very sudden and exhausting episode. But…perhaps…”

Medic took a sheet of printer paper from his clipboard and a spare pen from his pocket.

“…zhere is an alternative.”

Scout was still unresponsive, but Medic continued.

“Zhere is a patient in my vaiting room vis a metal pole through the chest. It vill take me at least an hour to properly remove it, and a few minutes more to heal zhe area. Vhile I do zhat, vhy don’t you draw how you feel?”

Medic smiled.

“I know how much it grounds you.”

It wasn’t until Medic left that Scout actually picked up the pen, but he began drawing immediately.

For the first time in a while, he wasn’t trying to hide his strokes or scratch up the cleaner lines. No more stick figures. No more pretending.

Five minutes later, he was fully engrossed.

Medic started to walk in at one point, but, seeing how relaxed Scout was, decided to give him a few more minutes.

He deserved it.

#tf2 #tf2 scout #scout tf2 #tf2 headcanons #headcanon requests #tf2 mercs #autism #autistic community #autistic culture #red team #blu team #valve games

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loubatas-art · 4 years ago

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Autistic brain vs ADHD brain: fight! I wanted to finish this one before the end of autism acceptance month (which is April for whose of you who don’t know), but a lot of things happened so I had to slow down for a while

If you’re both autistic and ADHD, I’m sure you’re familiar with that feeling, that there’s a war in your brain between sticking carefully to your routine and “fuck it! *unroutines your routine* “ because you need your dose of *~* new things that bring dopamine *~*, and until the conflict gets resolved you physically can’t do anything. ... At least *I* am very familiar with it

Keep reading for image ID

[Image ID: A four-panel comic. On the first panel, a character is playing on a nintendo switch: he’s white with short black hair, a dark blue hoodie with the hood on and is wrapped in a vividly coloured blanket. The character is labelled “Autistic brain” and says “Routine is good. Everything happens in the same order, so you don’t need to worry about what’s coming next, or plan a thousand escapes for a thousand situations.”

On the second panel, a character labelled “ADHD brain”, identical to the first character except he’s wearing a black hoodie with “Spooky and kooky” written on it and the hood is off, is saying “I thrive on chaos and crave for adrenaline! Take some food and pack the dog, we’re going on an adventure!”. He's carrying a red backpack on his right hand and holding a dog under his left arm.

On the third panel, we see Autistic Character making a panicked face and shouting “Are you trying to murder me from complications of long-term anxiety?!” at ADHD Character while ADHD is yelling “I’M THE ONE DYING OF BOREDOM HERE!”

On the fourth panel, a third character labelled “Body”, again identical to the two others but wearing a red hoodie, is faceplanting on a sofa. The text “Meanwhile...” appear on top of a text box in which is written “BRAIN.EXE does not respond”. End of image description]

#art #comic #adhd #autism #adhd art #adhd culture #autistic art #autistic culture #autistic comic #actually autistic #digital art #self-portrait #nd strips #adhd comic

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tarhalindur · 3 years ago

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Hurr durr. I have been a fool.

So, I was thinking through a “how to fix Sotsu” post, and noting that unlike some people I didn’t exactly mind the Gou episode 17 reveal because I got the impression that my old “the biggest deception in Gou is that it’s a mystery to be solved at all” take is correct and the core arc of Sotsugou is something other than a mystery.

And then it hit me: I’ve seen this kind of arc before, and I should have realized this quite a bit earlier than I did considering where I’ve seen it.

Satokowashi-hen and Sotsu don’t follow the structure of an OG Higurashi arc. They might follow the structure of a broader Umineko character arc - my only partial familiarity with Seacats is showing. But what Satokowashi-hen and Sotsu definitely follow is the structure of a *PMMM* arc. That is to say, Sotsugou isn’t a mystery - rather, it is a *tragedy*.

(Sotsugou is nowhere near as good at it as PMMM is, mind you. Gen “Urobutcher” Urobutchi might seriously be the best tragedy writer in at least a century, and while I can’t speak to Umineko Ryukishi07′s attempt at a tragic character arc in OG Higurashi might well be my pick for the single weakest element of the original - it’s a rather typical kind of bad, too, reminds me very much of Elfen Lied (and I’ve seen similar criticisms leveled at a couple of MagiReco character backstories). But the core structure is the same, and honestly I can see a pretty solid argument that the core arc is better-executed than the relevant OG Higurashi element and the issues come from Sotsugou’s execution more generally.)

Spoilery explanation (for both franchises) under the cut:

A character runs into an unpleasant situation that’s ultimately quite minor in the grand scheme of things (something that happens to actual people all the time), is unable to really cope with it due to untreated mental illness, and this is then escalated into a larger catastrophe due to the intervention of an outside being offering a deal that ultimately results in the character becoming a Witch? That’s a pretty fair summation of Satoko’s Sotsugou arc (where the untreated mental illness is ADHD plus social anxiety - we know she’s been diagnosed with the latter, courtesy of Dr. Irie in Minagoroshi-hen). It is also a precise summation of Sayaka’s character arc in main series PMMM (where the mental illness is depression), and if you expand the terms a little (moderately less common situation with more supernatural influence courtesy of first timeline Madoka, majo -> akuma) and include Rebellion Homura’s character arc pretty much fits the description as well (not sure about ADHD, but I’d be shocked if Homura isn’t on the autism spectrum and suffering from Rejection-Sensitive Dysphoria herself). (Half the reason I’m facepalming is because I’ve only been making “Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni: The Rebellion Story” not-actually-jokes-anymore for almost a year now, and I raised the Eua-Kyubey comparison during Satokowashi-hen to boot.) Honestly, if this is right then one of the single biggest Sotsugou mistakes is never using the resident author avatar (just to be clear, that’s spelled “Eua”) to explicitly point this out because we’re all so used to mystery mode that we weren’t going to switch gears without prompting..

It would also neatly explain parts of Sotsu’s structure. At some level the answer to every murder mystery’s whydunnit is a tragedy, the explanation of exactly what drove a character to the unspeakable (see also: Othello). If Sotsugou is in fact supposed to be a tragedy disguised as a mystery, then conceptually the framework they built the structure on makes sense: reveal the culprit at the point when the show fully transitions into a PMMM-style tragedy, then frame the tragic arc as an extended whydunnit. Fair enough.

(Aside: ... Uh, hmm. My brain spit out another idea: is part of the reason for the sheer amount of repetition in Sotsu that it’s inspired by how Madoka changes on a rewatch (the signature Madoka rewatch experience: shouting “YOU CHEEKY MOTHERFUCKERS” at the screen as you notice yet another piece of blatant foreshadowing hiding in plain sight)? I wouldn’t put it past Ryukishi07, though if so either he or someone at Passione seriously botched the execution. Oh wait, that’s basically Sotsugou’s tagline as a whole, so...)

(You could also argue that Sotsugou is using a Butch Gen plot as well more than a Ryukishi07 one; refusal to compromise leading to disastrous consequences is another Urobutcher thing.)

Now, if this is actually the intent then they fucked it up. First, as mentioned above the extant fanbase was primed to view Sotsugou’s structure as the traditional When They Cry arc structure - question arcs setting up the mystery, followed by answer arcs gradually narrowing down the solution space until the truth is revealed. If you’re going to break from that and want your existing fans to follow along, you need a signal that the rules have changed, and they didn’t give a good enough one. (Or Ryukishi07 was intentionally trying to pull one over on the fans, but that only works if the fans notice.) Second. they chased two rabbits and lost them both by trying to bring in other Umineko concepts at the same time (mostly the poorly set-up illusions to illusions solve for Tataridamashi-hen); on a related note, if the plan after Nekodamashi-hen was actually a tragedy then they really needed to focus on Satoko even more than they did. Third, the characterizations of the most important characters feel off; Satoko goes off the deep end too quickly for a proper tragic arc, Rika has a major disjoint with her OG characterization (manga Nekodamashi-hen fixes this to some extent, so this may be an anime staff issue). One of Butch Gen’s core themes as a writer is hamartia, tragedy driven by the flaws of the characters, and these issues with characterization put a major damper on any attempt on Sotsugou’s part to replicate that. Relatedly and compounding this, as I have noted before it sure does feel like part of Ryukishi07's thought process when writing Lambdatoko was looking at Homura’s detractors and going “let me show you what a character this actually applies to looks like” (which would also play into Ryukishi07′s usual “even the worst monsters can be redeemed” theme), but this works at cross purposes with the tragic arc (I don’t think it theoretically *has* to, but making it work would take much better execution than Sotsugou has). Fourth and finally, they forgot the Endless Eight lesson when writing the Sotsu answer arcs. (If Sotsugou does end next week without any sign of another season or movie then add 5) they made the redemption a little too cheap. Again. OG had the same issue, after all. When They Cry themes as a solution to PMMM’s questions makes a ton of sense - there’s a reason I got the idea for that crossover, and it wasn’t just both casts yelling at me to make it - but there needs to be actual work for it.)

That said... if this is right, then the base idea is solid. It *could* have worked. It just didn’t.

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aquaburst3 · 4 years ago

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Well, it’s Autism Acceptance Month. Because it’s that time of the year, I want to make a post about something that’s lingered on the back of my mind for awhile. The more and more I think about it, both Jamil and Kalim from Twisted Wonderland have some neurodivergent traits. (Saying that term instead, because there’s a lot of overlap between autism and ADHD, so I can see either one working for these two.)

Before I get into this, I’m NOT saying that either of these guys are canonically neurodivergent nor that this is Yana’s intentions as a writer. But this is how these two have traits that could be seen as neurodivergent coded.

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Jamil’s voice: One lesser known trait of autism is our speech patterns. Neurodivergent people tend to speak either more quietly or loudly than average, having monotone voices. His voice comes off to me like that.

Jamil’s VA has a very attractive voice. But at the same time, Jamil sounds rather monotoned. He hardly raises his voice under normal circumstances. The only times I can recall that he does is when he overblots and during the Halloween Event. Granted, some of this might be due to how he was raised, since he is a servant, after all, but even then I’m not sure. At least some of that has to be due to nature as well.

The Halloween Event: I admit, I made my fair share of jokes about Jamil burning places down because of bugs. But if I’m being serious, the way that he acted during that chapter reminds me of someone on verge of a meltdown. (I’m saying “verge”, because I don’t think he reached the boiling point even then, but he was damn near close to it.)

Normally, Jamil is a calm and logical guy, who hates surprises and likes to plan things out. Him defaulting to that seems extremely out of character for him.

However, we know that Jamil hates bugs after an incident where he eat one thinking it was a date as a kid. It’s so bad that he can’t stand even seeing fake bugs on his Fairy Gala costume, if his character lines are of any concern. During the event, the litter began to attract bugs. The situation made him frightened. Like many people about to have one of those, his brain defaulted to the quickest method to make them go away-- by making the fuckers burn.

From personal experiences, this resembles what happens when I have a meltdown. ...Okay, I never tried to set my rental room on fire during one of those. But I do tend to freak out and think irrationally. Like that time I went to the doctor because I got a pimple on my breast and thought it was breast cancer when I was a teenager. (Was not my brightest hour.) What Jamil did reminds me of that. It seems to be the best explanation for what happened to me.

Kalim’s in regards to school: Kalim’s NOT an idiot. He’s pretty smart. He just has a different way of learning things.

Kalim struggles a lot in school. It took him three years to even learn how to make simple poison antidotes. Cater commented in the first chapter about how Kalim had bad marks, making him stand out amongst his peers in Scarabia.

Despite all that, Kalim is the most motivated and hardworking student amongst the second years. On par with Riddle. He enjoys Magical History more so than any other character in the whole cast, who are mostly indifferent to it. He also the third most motivated student when it comes to flying amongst the second years as well.

During the Scarabia arc, Kalim makes a comment about having a hard time studying and concentrating. Azul suggests that he should walk and then come back to his studies. Even read them while walking if that helps. Surprise, surprise. It actually works for him.

While this is speaking out of my ballpark, since I don’t have ADHD personally, but according to articles I’ve read and friends who have it, this reads to me like someone with ADHD. A lot of people with ADHD have different ways of taking information. Methods like taking a short exercise breaks and walking while studying work a lot better than just straight up reading notes for hours on end. This varies from person to person.

These aspects of Kalim’s personality reminds me of someone with ADHD.

Although, like I said before, until we get confirmation, this is all headcanon.

#aqua rambles #twisted wonderland #jamil viper #kalim al asim

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painted-crow · 4 years ago

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Secondary Toast Revolving Door, Part 1

I guess I should start with a little about me, since that’s easier than making you pick through previous asks for information and some of you guys are new here. This one’s going to be heavily personal, so you can skip it if you want.

I’m a double Bird. My Bird primary system is heavily Badger influenced, and I also use Lion to support it by telling me when I should investigate something more closely. If we can dip into primary territory for a moment, I guess you can say I understand the world through systems that model things around me. But not all of those systems are things I’ve consciously examined, or fully investigated.

My understanding of how historical people dressed is pretty limited, for example, because I haven’t studied it in depth to get all the information—but I consciously understand what I do know about it. You could say this system piece is tiny but clear; I could expand it if I chose to find out more.

My understanding of how someone I’m not close to thinks might have more data to work with, but I haven’t consciously processed it; that’s the kind of thing where my Lion primary model will tell me to look closer if that person starts acting weird. This system piece might be described as huge but fuzzy; I could clarify it if I sat down and thought about it. I probably have more of these than I realize, but Lion basically takes care of monitoring those. I don’t have to investigate everything.

But some of my systems are both large and fairly clear, because I’ve taken the time both to gather data on them and to examine it. My understanding of myself is… well, I won’t say it’s terribly clear, because I’m in my early twenties and I’m still constantly getting new information, plus someone keeps changing the environment and mucking with my data (that would be me). But I have to examine it, because my brain is like a notoriously buggy piece of software and I’m the poor schmuck saddled with tech support duties.

Basically, the reason I’m good at playing therapist with other people is that I’m constantly doing exactly that thing with myself. (This probably makes me a very annoying patient for actual therapists.)

About that buggy brain, then.

I have major depression. That was professionally diagnosed when I was a teenager and it’s probably genetic. I take medication for it, when I remember to. It especially flares up in the winter or when I’m under stress. I probably have some kind of anxiety disorder too.

I’m almost certainly autistic, which I’ve never brought up with a professional—the first person to figure it out was the system I’m now best friends with, because they’re autistic and they knew I was within two weeks of talking to me. It took me two years to catch up with them and figure it out myself.

In my defense, I thought executive dysfunction, sensory overwhelm, dissociation, and hyperempathy were like… secret menu items for depression, because those only really bug me during depressive episodes. My current theory is that they’re related to autistic burnout instead.

I mask a lot, subconsciously—it’s actually really hard to turn that off normally—and I just can’t do that as much when depressed. If I do, my tolerance for everything else goes way down and I’ll go into overwhelm and start having shutdowns and dissociating. I recover pretty quickly (hours, not days), but if you’ve never spent 15 minutes standing in a Walmart aisle trying to decide whether you want a jar of peanut butter, but you can’t make decisions because you can’t access your emotions and you don’t really feel like you’re “here” but you kind of just want to go home… well, be glad I guess.

Of course, I have other autistic traits that show up when I’m not under stress, but they’re seldom associated with autism because most people don’t know what autis are like when we’re actually happy. Like, hyperlexia? That’s not even an “official” word, the auti community just uses it because “official” literature hasn’t caught up. I taught myself to read at age three (according to my mom; she says I was reading news headlines and stuff, not just books I’d memorized) and wrote a 35k word novella when I was ten, with no external prompting. My audio processing used to be terrible, but I routinely tested at college age reading levels as a kid.

I also might have ADHD? If so, it’s also mostly just noticeable if I’m under stress, and then it’s hard to tell if that’s the issue or if it’s just autism/depression again.

You might be getting a clearer picture of how my secondary and its model end up burnt so often!

(Resisting a very strong urge to cut stuff from this post.)

In short, I was a Gifted Kid. I spent a lot of my teen years biting off more than I could chew, honestly. I felt that I should be able to do more, and I wanted to be taken seriously, but I had basically no idea how to take care of myself because my needs are different from everyone else’s. I’m still figuring those out.

I’m kind of like an orchid plant: incredibly picky about conditions, wants a different “soil” and watering schedule, gets stressed if stuff changes too quickly, but when everything is just right and it does bloom, it goes all out.

I’m not kidding when I say that I have odd needs. One of them is the need for creative work, which seems to be hardwired into me. When I say that art or writing keeps me sane, I often hear back “oh yeah! I’ve heard that can be very therapeutic,” which is an innocuous reply, but it’s always bugged me, and I think I’ve figured out why.

First, because that’s not the reason I make things… I just… have to. Second, I can’t “make up” not doing creative work with some other kind of therapy. Third and most importantly, I’d much rather think of “artist” as my ground state, and depression as a condition that happens when my needs aren’t being met, rather than thinking of depression as the default that I’m just using art to escape from. That seems to me a healthier way of thinking, and probably a more accurate one, but I’m probably the only one who can see that distinction.

If life gets in the way and I can’t make space for creative work, it will actively make my depression worse. I know this because, multiple times, I’ve been unable to pinpoint why I’m feeling shitty, and then I go back to my easel or my writing or (ukulele, cooking, even just taking care of houseplants) and realize I haven’t done anything creative in like a month and thaaaat’s the problem.

I crack open a bottle of gesso to prep some canvases and it smells like… well, I don’t think you can get high off gesso? But it’s not like when you’re out of it on painkillers or cold medicine or whatever. It’s incredibly grounding, like the world snaps back into focus but it’s also oddly euphoric. Or I write ten thousand words in a couple days and it just… I don’t know what that does. I’ve never run across a word for it.

The writer of Smile at Strangers (a really good memoir centered around women, anxiety, and karate) describes a similar feeling in relation to her martial arts practice.

It’s also a bit like when all the snow melts after winter and you step outside and there’s the smell of wet soil under sunlight and I’m not sure if this fully translates for people who don’t have seasonal depression. Sorry.

Dammit, I want to paint… I haven’t had space to set up for like eight months. I’ve been nose-deep in writing projects since last summer for a reason, but right now my friggin Ravenclaw secondary is off angsting about something because of Life Stress Bullshit, and I don’t have the focus to work on any of my writing projects. Apart from this one. But it’s not really what I want in terms of creative work.

*velociraptor screech*

Oh, yeah. I guess I could mention this is why my nickname is Paint. Not sure if that was obvious before. The header image (which is more visible in the app for some reason) is one of my paintings. It’s a tiny one and it’s not one of my favorites, but I had the photo on my phone and the colors work well enough for what I needed.

(restrains self from negging my own painting ability)

This is starting to get into spoiler territory for what burned Ravenclaw secondary looks like, huh? It’s peaced out for a couple weeks at this point. I’m trying to write about what made it take off, but my ability to think of words and form a coherent sentence kinda flew out the window when I approached it directly.

Let’s just say that around the start of the month, someone I was talking to online (if you’re reading this, it’s definitely not you) kindaaaa hit a nasty depression trigger of mine. Not their fault—it’s very specific to me, and I struggle to explain why I can’t really talk about it. Basically, I spent years studying programming and web design, and due to several different but related issues during that experience, it’s now a trigger for me. I very much want it not to be, but trying to train that out of myself has induced more than one panic attack and I’m stuck between giving up on it or figuring out a way to go back to it that doesn’t totally shut my brain down.

That paragraph took forever to write, by the way.

I think I have to end this here. I… am going to go take out the trash, and water my plants, and make my bed, and file some paperwork, and maybe I’ll even mix up some bread dough or do some laundry. Spoiler alert for what it looks like when my Hufflepuff model takes over, I guess.

Oh. And I should maybe probably eat something. I almost forgot about that... again.

#sortinghatchats #time to overshare on the internet i guess #secondary toast revolving door #mental health #burned ravenclaw secondary #hufflepuff secondary model #ravenclaw primary #paint speaks

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rasp-passion-two · 4 years ago

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Hello, sorry if this is annoying but can you explain how Himiko is neurodivirgent, I don't mean to come off as rude or anything, I just don't know much about the topic and am curious? Sorry to cause any trouble.

It’s absolutely not any trouble!! I love talking about how Himiko shows signs of being neurodivergent. It hits close to home specifically since not only is she one of my favorite characters, but I relate to her a lot. Okay, this might be a bit long, so sorry about that lol:

So in case you don’t know exactly what it is, neurodiversity is when mentally your brain is wired differently than normal, or “neurotypical”, peoples brains. Especially with considerably easy functions like socialising, thinking, learning, developing or ageing, and many others. Many disorders can fall under the neurodiversity spectrum. ADHD, BPD, autism spectrum disorder, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, dyslexia, and many others.

Personally, I think Himiko would fall into the category of being autistic, which has a lot going into it, but can be summed up as a developmental disorder that involves delays in communication, thinking, social situations, and basic human understanding.

Though there is a thread on Twitter that does a good job covering certain criterias that I won’t end up covering (her lack of understanding of social cues, development delays, the reason why she’s depressed, etc.) and it’s really good!!

Below, I’ll list the traits that, in my opinion, Himiko possesses that are common in ND people. Not all of them will be listed, just the bigger ones:

Talking in a slow, almost “emotionless” way

Himiko talks a certain way throughout the whole of the game, rarely ever changing even when she’s expressing very strong emotions. From the very first line she speaks, Himiko talks about something exciting to her, but still sounds very flat and unenthused. Most ND people will always speak in the same tone of voice no matter what. Sometimes, it's very flat and monotone, like Himikos. Sometimes they'll speak slowly either to gather together what they want to say next, or that's just how they were wired to speak. (Almost exactly like Jataro from DR:AE who speaks in a similar way. Who also has a few neurodivergent traits. But that's just a theory c:)

Childish behavior

This usually ranges, but Himiko has a few traits that neurodivergent people have that others consider “too childish”. She’s extremely naive in how she perceives the world, people around her, and their intentions with interacting with her. Like when Kaito asked her to bring her a crossbow of all things and it takes little for her to be convinced to assist him. Or when Kokichi makes fun of her, and she doesn't always gets it. She's sometimes able to understand, but mostly she doesn't understand that he's just taking advantage of her innocence to treat her how he does with others. She takes things everyone says at face value and believes them easily. Her peers consider her to be a bit slow in many areas, almost in a childlike way. She almost has a child-level understanding of vocabulary (i.e. pronounces words the way children do like how the way she says magic almost sounds like “myagic”, her vocabulary is pretty limited, and she usually starts using certain words that she hears others use). When having her Master brought up with the possibility that he left her selfishly and that she was better than him, she always denies it, keeping an innocent mentality so she won’t feel too bad. After being motivated to move forward, she’s seen a lot to want to be helpful to the group and do something useful, and in return they, in my opinion, view that behavior how older people view a child wanting to be helpful to them. The thread above goes more into detail (her bathroom issues, having a unique way of remembering and referring to objects), but these are only some of the examples for Himiko's maturity.

Being a “gifted child” when she was young

This is entirely my speculation since this is never addressed in canon, but Himiko strikes me as a former “gifted child” which most NDs go through. Her “gift” was discovered at a young age and she was really skilled at it. She was known for it by huge masses of people and praised for it. She even had to save the person who saw the talent in her and taught her everything she knows about it when he made a mistake. She gets invited to all types of events because of it. Lot’s of ND kids who were thought of as “gifted'' may have gone through the same thing. It would also explain why she’s so depressed and unmotivated through most of the game, as a result of what’s called “gifted child syndrome”. Having so much praise and expectations set on her so young. Getting older and not having the same energy for it as you had before. Technically all the DR kids are former gifted children, since they're the product of a company exploiting their "gifts", which is a factor in how the world ended in the way it was. But Himiko has more, you could say "traditional" symptoms and after-effects of growing up as a gifted child (depressed, lack of motivation, lack of motivation in her subject, etc.).

Being viewed as lazy

Even though she takes what she's passionate about seriously, less than when she was younger or not, Himiko doesn't always take action with magic, and even everyday tasks. ND people usually lack any sort of drive, sometimes having an “I’ll come back to it later” mentality, excited about it or not. Himiko lacks any drive and motivation throughout the game, even at the idea of being killed, or put in the line of suspicion for someone's killer. She’ll always make excuses on why she can’t act on things, the most common being “she doesn’t have enough MP”. Which goes back to her talent as a magician, which she is especially sluggish in.

Bottling in her emotions and not wanting them to show. But when she does, it results in an on-going meltdown

We all saw it in its prime during the end of the third trial after all, right? Himiko was sort of always closed in, but it wasn't extreme since she hadn't hit her lowest yet. When she did though, (being the prime suspect of Ryoma dying, her closest friends Tenko and Angie dying, being one of the suspects of one of their murders, etc.) She still attempted to hold it all in, which ND people do for a variety of reasons (not knowing how to process extreme emotions, not wanting too much attention by expressing them, or choosing unhealthy ways to process your feelings, amongst others). But once Kokichi called her out for the second time? Not only was everything practically gushing out of her face, but she literally passed out from crying for so long. I don't know whether to laugh or cry at that myself, ha.

The same thing happened in the last trial kind of. Once the truth of the killing game and their identities is revealed, she seems to have a meltdown. It could be from the overwhelmingness of the situation. It could be the amount of "change" of the situation, which she doesn't even remember. It could also be overstimulating tones with the change in environment, the info dumping, and how everyone jumped from topic to topic etc. Meltdowns are normal for ND people, especially since they usually hold in their feelings. Himiko got better at expressing herself, but meltdowns will still happen once something overwhelming occurs (it's a great way to let out steam!!)

Stimming

Stimming is when someone, ND or not, self-stimulates themselves by repeatedly moving in some way either by speaking, moving either themselves or something else, or watching someone else do it. Most of the time, you can see Himiko fidgeting with her fingers or with her hat. Doing something with her hands, which is a form of stimming

Despite that, Himiko most noticeably stims by speaking, as she sometimes repeats stuff others say, sometimes repeats a word in order to comfort herself and her beliefs (saying “it’s magic” over and over, either in retaliation or in general), and has a go-to word that she’ll always use almost every sentence when she doesn’t know what to say, is caught off guard/by surprise, or just when she starts and ends her sentences (y’know like, “nyeh”?).

“Odd” facial features/expressions

This one presents itself a lot in the game and through her design as well. Her lip stays tucked out all the time, her eyes don’t always stay open, and her face often keeps the same expression (tired and kind of bored). Just like when she speaks, even when she's expressing intense emotions, she'll keep a mellow expression. She lifts her hat into the air and not much changes expression-wise. She'll be accusatory to someone and not much changes expression-wise. To certain people she interacts with, they think her face is "weird" since it'll pull in ways it usually doesn't for NT people. It could be because she's trying to force the look on herself so it's more easier for people to read (which is shown to be the case for most people), but it's also possible that it's just how she looks. Since she's older, she has more freedom to make more strategies to have more natural expressions, but it's still off-putting to some of her peers.

The infamous saying, “she comes off as annoying”

Many people know this one well, and Himiko is no different, especially in the earlier chapters. Almost everything stated above is a factor that plays in people's disdain for Himiko, in the game and the fandom. Characters like Shuichi, Kaede, Tenko, and even Angie are one of the only few people who try to understand and adjust to Himiko's behavior in their own method, while everyone else either ignores her, doesn’t take her seriously, or even end up bullying her because of it, not willing to adjust themselves for her specific brand of behavior. Being an obvious target, coming off as weird, being too blunt and coming off as rude (which even caused her having strained relationships with K1-B0, Miu, etc.), sometimes hyperfixating too hard on magic (her “special interest”), all seem to be a reason for people thinking she’s too high maintenance.

,,,this ask sure is a month old isn’t it? retrdfyugihhuyt I am EXTREMELY sorry I answered this so late, but I haven’t been online lately because of moving, but at least I managed to finish this in less than a day lol. It’s long, but I love Himiko, and love all the quirks that make her who she is, and am happy to explain it to others!! I hope this answered your questions either way (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

#side blog asks n answers #danganronpa #danganronpa v3 #ndrv3 #danganronpa killing harmony #new danganronpa v3 #himiko yumeno #danganronpa discourse #GOD i practically just excreted infodump all over this post #hopefully this clear essay which i was clearly excited to write which i clearly wrote in a day is coherent

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ami-incants · 5 years ago

Photo

Sleep Charm Pouch

Pictured: Store-bought blue pouch, angelite, black tourmaline, lapis lazuli, rose quartz, charoite, amethyst, malachite, lavender, ‘My sleep is peaceful’ sigil.

This pouch was requested by @femsiriuslyobsessed. My pouches are usually to be carried on your person, but this one belongs under your pillow. See under the cut for general information about using charm pouches and their components.

Pouch Colour: Blue - Calming, peace White - Protection, peace Green - Healing, freedom Brown - Wards off bad omens, grounding

Crystals: Charoite - Promotes deep sleep, soothes nerves, calming to those with ADHD and autism, releases fear and negativity, puts things into perspective, reduces resistance to change. Amethyst - Aids sleep, eases depression and anxiety. Promotes calm, motivation, self-belief, control. Enhances calm, strength, physical and emotional healing. Lessens conflict. Protective stone. Black obsidian - Dispels nightmares by absorbing negative energies and shedding light on past traumas that allows the emotional trauma to be resolved. Aids falling asleep by reducing self-destructive thoughts. Fosters self-belief and motivation for positive change. Protective stone. Labradorite - Aids falling asleep by calming the mind and clearing worries and fears. Can help you to understand and move past nightmares. Eases depression and anxiety. Enhances strength. Protective stone. Rose quartz - Aids sleep, eases depression and anxiety. Promotes calm, self-belief and self-care. Supports all kinds of relationships. Protective stone. Angelite - Healing and protection for environment or body, converts fear, anger and anxiety into faith and tranquillity. Black tourmaline - Grounding, cleanses negative thoughts and anxieties, good for relinquishing chronic worries. Green aventurine - Calms and balances emotions, halts over-analysing, soothes emotional wounds and encourages recognition of root issues. Selenite wand - Not for in the pouch, but to cleanse the room (see below for suggested accompanying spell, or simply focus on your intention while spreading the smoke around the room. Pay particular attention to doors, windows and vents).

As this pouch is going under your pillow, be aware of the size and shape of your crystals when choosing them. A pointy crystal in the ear is likely to have an adverse effect!

Herbs/Spices: Lavender/Chamomile - Calming/soothing. Calming/Soothing incense - I use Lily of the Valley. Do not leave candles or incense burning when you fall asleep. Sage - Cleanse your bedroom with sage smoke (see below for suggested accompanying spell, or simply focus on your intention while spreading the smoke around the room. Pay particular attention to doors, windows and vents).

Charms: Broom - Brush away negative influences Hammer - Drive away malevolent energies Personal charms - Any which bring you comfort and calm feelings, would recommend a stuffie.

Sigils: Choose either/both if they suit your situation. My dreams are pleasant

My sleep is peaceful

Spell: Choose any that suit your situation. Sleep Pouch Charging Spell - Hold the pouch in your hands while reciting this spell aloud or in your head. This spell unfortunately won’t suit everyone’s belief system, I wrote it to charge a pouch for a family member. You can use one of the other spells below to charge the pouch, but I have found these need recharging daily whereas this spell works for a week. Remember, it’s possible to charge a pouch by simply sitting with it and concentrating on its purpose. This spell can also be used with candle magic and a sigil can be carved into the candle before it is lit. The candle must burn out/down as much as possible. Preferably bury the candle nub in the earth once cool. Recharge weekly.

When this beneath a pillow lies, Let those who rest their head Be visited by Hypnos to Sleep soundly in their bed. And if his sons must send to them Dreams through either door, Let them not be troublesome. Disturb their sleep no more.

Re-energising Spell - When you feel that special brand of drained that sleep isn’t aiding, cast this in bed for a productive following day. You can use one motivating or event-relevant crystal for the whole spell, or use the following recommended crystals. While reciting the first line, hold amethyst to the centre of your forehead. For the second line, run malachite down both arms, or across a problematic area. Take amazonite for the third line and hold it over your heart. For the last line, place each stone, in the same order, under your pillow (or into a pouch to be placed there) as you say each statement. Recast nightly.

Heal, heal, the worries in my mind Heal, heal, this tired flesh of mine Heal, heal, this weary, wary soul Let me sleep, help me heal, make me whole.

Nightmare Warding Spell - If relevant, use nightly as required. To ward off nightmares. Can be recited aloud or in your head while holding your pouch, a relevant crystal or a personal charm (such as a stuffie). Recast nightly.

Let me sleep without my tears Make me not relive my fears Dreams be happy, else be none Peaceful be ‘til morning come

Nightmare Banishing Spell - I wrote this with the intent for it to be used after a nightmare, but support it being used however you see fit. I would recommend using a cleansing item (a crystal such as selenite would probably be best, or a little moon water) or holding a black stone (for grounding and absorbing negativity) while reciting this out loud or in your head. Recast as required.

Take these demons from my dreams For they serve me no more I am safe. I am strong. I have closed that door.

Self-Cleansing Spell - Use as required. I use this while combing my aura with my selenite wand. You could use your favourite method of cleansing, whether it’s with smoke, water, moonwater, crystal-infused water or music. I use this before spiritual work but also anytime I’m feeling a little woolly or run down. The purpose of including it here is to rid yourself of any negativities that may be clinging to you and getting in the way of a peaceful sleep. The words ‘keep’ and ‘leave’ can be swapped or substituted with ‘make’ if it feels appropriate. Recast as required.

Cleanse my mind, Cleanse my soul, Keep me kind, Leave me whole.

Area Cleansing Spell - Use as required. As above, I use this spell to cleanse an area before spiritual work, and I have included it here to rid the bedroom of any negative energies that may be lurking and interrupting your sleep. Use your preferred method of cleansing while reciting this spell. Repeat the spell if necessary to cover the entire area that you want to cleanse. Pay special attention to doors, windows and vents. Recast as required.

Let negativity dwell no more. Banish evil, close the door. Let this area peaceful be. Protect this space and protect me.

Ask box is open for suggestions!

Below the cut for more information on how pouches and each element of them work.

About Pouches

Pouches can be made of any material, but natural is better. I prefer to use natural cloth as it is easy to carry around, easy to access and I can feel the energies from the crystals through the material, and smell the herbs. Pouches do not need to be professionally made, you can use a simple drawstring bag that you have made yourself, or even use a handkerchief/cloth square secured with a ribbon. If you cannot source a suitable pouch in the desired colour, the protecting energies of white or the grounding energies of black work well for most situations. It is up to you whether you cleanse your pouch and its contents as a whole or as individual components. Due to the multiple ways I use my crystals, I cleanse and charge them regularly so do not feel the need for a full ritual when putting together a pouch. It is not necessary to use an item from each of the suggested categories, go with what feels right to you.

About Crystals

Chose the number of crystals that feels right for you, and is practical for you to carry around. My magic tends to work in odd numbers, particularly 3, 5 and 7. Black stones tend to need cleansing more frequently as they can get clogged up with the negative energies they have absorbed. Smoke and moonlight are easy and safe ways to cleanse. Sunlight can be used but may discolour some crystals. It’s common advice to cleanse crystals in water/moonwater but this can be risky as many crystals may dissolve, rust, discolour or release toxins. (Crystals that end in ‘-ite’ are particularly likely to react poorly with water.) I cleanse all of my crystals under the full moon each month, and with sage smoke if needed in the interim.

About Herbs/Spices

Follow your nose and use herbs that you enjoy the smell of. Whole fresh herbs are highly preferable where available. They will be much more potent and can be added to the pouch as they are. If using dried herbs, you may want a smaller pouch/vial to contain them within your charm pouch, to avoid the mess. Some herbs are better ingested, and many are available in tea bag form so could be carried within the pouch that way for their scent and for a cup of tea to pick you up if the occasion arises in a location where herbal teas are unlikely to be available. Ginger can be used to give added potency to any spell.

About Charms

Certain objects have particular meanings, but sometimes the most powerful charms are ones personal to us. I have two items of jewellery that I always wear to connect me to three important people in my life, and a third I wear in times of particular need. A personal charm could remind you of a person, place or time. As long as the memory it evokes matches the energy you want in the pouch, it should complement the magic of the other items. Not all charms need to be inside the pouch, you can wear them as you would normally, but if you want to give them a boost you could put them inside the pouch while you cleanse/charge it. If the suggested item seems too large for a pouch, assume I mean a toy/miniature version e.g. broom, hammer.

About Sigils

The sigil can be drawn (preferably in the pouch colour) onto paper, stone, wood etc to be placed inside the pouch, or can be marked onto the pouch itself. When drawing the sigil, think about the affirmation and visualise it already achieved. If using candle magic to charge your pouch, the sigil can be carved onto the candle.

About Spells

Spells do not have to be written down and kept within the pouch. They can be used to charge the pouch, or recited from memory at times of need. If writing it down to serve as a reminder, it is beneficial to write it in the optimum colour for that pouch.

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hmhteen · 7 years ago

Text

HMH Teen Teaser: THE LOVE LETTERS OF ABELARD AND LILY!

We’re so excited about this one, people! This is the love story of Abelard, who has autism, and Lily, who has ADHD. They’ve known one another since they were kids, but one fateful day in detention, Lily kisses Abelard. Their relationship deepens and changes in ways difficult to describe in words. Especially because Abelard’s autism makes it difficult for him to communicate verbally...so they write one another text messages, often quoting an old book they both love, and just when they think they’re finally connecting, a decision Lily makes about her own mental health changes everything.

You can read the first four chapters of this romantic YA below!

CHAPTER ONE

The day Abelard and I broke the wall, we had a four- hour English test. Seriously. Every tenth grade student in the State of Texas had to take a four-hour English test, which is too long to sit still even if you are a normal person. And I’m not a normal person.

After the test, I told my feet to take me to geography. If I didn’t tell myself where to go, if I let my mind drift, I’d find myself in the quiet calm of the art wing, where the fluorescent lights flickered an appealingly low cycle of semipermanent gloom. Or I’d stand in the empty girls’ room just to be alone. Sometimes I think I’m not attention deficient but attention abundant. Too much everything.

When I got to geography, Coach Neuwirth handed out a boring article about the importance of corn as a primary crop in the early Americas. Then he left the room. He did this a lot. Ever since basketball season had ended, Coach Neuwirth seemed like someone who was counting the min- utes until the school year was over. To be fair, he wasn’t the only one running out the clock.

Thirty seconds after Coach Neuwirth left, the low murmur of voices turned into a conversational deluge. I sat in the back of the room because that’s where the two left- handed desks were — in the row reserved for stoner boys who do not like to make eye contact with teachers. Two seats in front sat Rogelio, turned sideways in his chair, talk- ing fast and casting glances in my direction.

“Cosababa, pelicular camisa,” Rogelio said, and the boys around him all laughed.

Okay, this is probably not what Rogelio said. I’m not a great listener. Also, my Spanish is terrible.

“Camisa,” he repeated.

At the word camisa, Emma K. turned to look at me, and whispered something to the blond girl next to her. I instantly wondered if I’d been talking to myself, which is a thing I do. It attracts attention.

Then it sank in. Camisa. Spanish for “shirt.”

Maybe there was something wrong with my shirt. Maybe the snap-button cowboy shirt I got at a thrift store was not charming and ironic as I’d imagined, but seri- ously ugly. Emma K. had whispered about my shirt. Even Rogelio and his friends, who often wore snap-button cow- boy shirts, had laughed at my shirt. Or maybe not, because my Spanish isn’t good, and anyway, Rogelio could have been talking about someone else. Not Emma K., though. She looked straight at me.

What if I’d popped open a button at bra level and I’d been walking around all day with my bra exposed, and was I even wearing a nice bra, a sexy black bra? Or was it just one of those tragic old bras with a ribbon or a rose that might have been cute once but, over repeated washings, had turned slightly gray and balled up like a dirty piece of dryer lint stuck to the center of my chest?

I clutched the front of my shirt, and Emma K. and the blond girl giggled. My shirt was properly buttoned, but I couldn’t sit in my chair for another minute. School was a molasses eternity, a nightmare ravel of bubble sheets and unkind whispers unfurled in slow motion. I had to leave, even though I’d promised my mother that I would under no circumstances skip school again.

I stood. My feet made a decision in favor of the door, but a squeaking metallic noise stopped me.

I turned.

Directly behind me was an accordion-folded, putty- colored vinyl wall, along with a gunmetal gray box with a handle sticking out of one end. The squeaking noise came from the metal box. The handle moved.

When our school was built in the sixties, someone decided that walls impede the free flow of educational ideas, because some of the third-floor rooms are all double-long, cut in half by retractable vinyl walls. Apparently, the archi- tect of this plan had never been to a high school cafeteria to experience the noise associated with the unimpeded flow of ideas. The wall doesn’t get opened much.

Last time anyone opened the wall was during Geography Fair. One of the custodians came with a strange circular key he inserted into a lock on the side of the box. He’d pushed the handle down and the wall had wheezed open, stuttering and complaining.

Now the handle jiggled up and down as if a bored ghost was trying to menace our class, but no one else was paying attention. I wondered if the custodian was trying to open the wall from the other side. It didn’t make sense.

I left my desk and walked to the box. I leaned over and grabbed it, surprised by the cool feel of solid metal. And suddenly, I felt much better. The world of noise and chaos faded away from me. The touch of real things can do this.

The movement stopped. I shook the bar up and down. It didn’t range very far before hitting the edge of what felt like teeth in a gear.

I pushed down hard on the handle. After a momen- tary lull, it sprang up in my hands, knocking with sur- prising force against my palms. I put both hands on the bar, planted the soles of my Converse sneakers, and pulled against it with all my might.

There was a loud pop, followed by the whipping sound of a wire cable unraveling. The bar went slack in my hands. The opposite end of the vinyl wall slid back three feet.

Everyone stopped talking. Students near the door craned their heads to see into the other classroom. Dakota Marquardt (male) said, “Shiiit!” and half the class giggled.

A rush of talking ensued, some of it in English, some in Spanish.

I dropped the handle and slid back into my chair, too late. Everyone had seen me.

Coach Neuwirth ran back into the room and tried to pull the accordion curtain closed. When he let go of the edge, it slid away, leaving a two-foot gap.

He turned and faced the room. “What the hell hap- pened here?”

It’s never good when a teacher like Coach Neuwirth swears.

I waited for someone to tell on me. Pretty much inevi- table.

Dakota Smith (female) stood and straightened her skirt. She pulled her long brown hair over her shoulder and leaned forward as though reaching across a podium for an invisible microphone.

“After you left, the handle on the wall began to move,” she began. “Lily put her hands on the handle and pushed down and the cable broke and — ”

“Thank you, Dakota.” Coach Neuwirth strode to his desk. “Lily Michaels-Ryan, please accompany me to my desk.”

I followed him to the front of the class, keenly aware that every set of eyes in the room was fixed on me. Coach Neuwirth filled out a form for me to take to the office, not the usual pink half-page referral form, but an ominous shade of yellow with pages of carbons. As I stared at the razor stubble on top of his pale head, I realized I’d messed up pretty badly. So badly, I probably wouldn’t be allowed to see my father in the summer.

“It wasn’t just me,” I said. “There was someone on the other side pushing down. I didn’t mean to break the door, it’s just . . .”

Coach Neuwirth ignored me.

“You’ll note, Miss Michaels-Ryan, that I have filled out a Skrellnetch form for you. Your mother will have to sign the kerblig and return it to the main office before you can be burn to clabs . . .”

This would be a good time to mention that I’d stopped taking my ADHD meds about a month earlier because they made me puke randomly and caused my head to ring like an empty bell at night. Side effects.

“. . . Your parents will have to sign the kerblig before you can be burn to clabs. Do you understand me?”

He waited, holding the Skrellnetch form that I needed to take to the office. Clearly, he had no plans to hand me the all-important Skrellnetch form until I answered him. I contemplated my choices. If I said yes, he would hold me responsible for remembering every clause in his statement, and I would be made to suffer later because I had no idea what he had just said. My heart pounded with a weird mix- ture of fear and exhilaration.

However, if I said no, Coach Neuwirth would consider it a sign of insubordination and general smart-assery. It didn’t look good for me.

“So . . . what copy does my mom sign again?”

Peals of laughter erupted from behind me. Someone muttered, “Ass-hat,” and the laughter increased.

“Get the hell out of my classroom,” Coach Neuwirth said. He threw the Skrellnetch paper across his desk at me.

I began my trek to the office, hoping I wouldn’t run into anyone while I held the stupid Skrellnetch form. After the noise and glare of the classroom, the quiet calm of the hall, with every other row of fluorescent lights off to save on electricity, was a relief. Six steps of cool dark, six steps of bright white burn. Down the stairs. The first floor had a band of colored tiles at shoulder height: white, mustard yel- low, white, blue. I held my right hand out and touched only the blue tiles as I passed through the hall, feeling my jittery state of anxiety mute into a dull, sad place in the center of my chest.

Down at the office, kindly Mrs. Treviño eyed my yel- low Skrellnetch form with visible regret.

“Lily, what happened?” she said, as though I’d twisted an ankle in gym, or had some other not-my-fault kind of accident.

“I broke the sliding wall between Coach Neuwirth’s and Ms. Cardeña’s rooms.”

Mrs. Treviño sighed deeply. I looked away as my lips started to quiver. A gray cloud of shame descended on me with remorseless speed. I’d like to be the good, thoughtful person Mrs. Treviño had mis- taken me for. A person who doesn’t break stuff.

“Well, you’re not the only one,” she said. “Come on back.”

She escorted me to the inner chamber. There, by the vice principal’s office, were two ugly orange chairs. On one chair sat Abelard Mitchell. I took one look at him and knew he’d been on the other side of the wall pulling up on the handle while I pushed down.

Mrs. Treviño gestured to the empty chair and left us alone in the waiting area.

I’d known Abelard since kindergarten. Since my last name was Michaels-Ryan and his was Mitchell, we stood next to each other at every elementary school function. Abelard was tall and slim but broad-shouldered, with a mop of sable brown hair and dark blue eyes. He was gorgeous, but he had some sort of processing delay, mild autism or Asperger’s syndrome or something. He didn’t interact like everyone else.

But sure. Neither did I. When I was seven, I acciden- tally smacked Abelard with my metal lunchbox because I couldn’t stop swinging my arms. I cut his cheek, but he didn’t cry, and no one noticed until later, so now he had this little scar, which was weirdly sexy. Abelard never said anything. He had to have noticed that I was standing there in front of him swinging my Hello Kitty lunchbox with happy, maniacal abandon.

I liked to believe that he could have cashed me in to the teacher and he didn’t.

I dropped into the chair next to him, feeling suddenly nervous to be sitting on a chair that was actually bolted to his chair — as though even the furniture was there to be punished.

“Hey,” I said, a little too loudly. “So you were on the other side of the wall? Who knew it would break like that? You’d think a handle roughly the same age as the Titanic would be sturdier. Although I guess that’s a bad compari- son.”

He said nothing. He was probably thinking about com- puter games, or quantum physics, or the novels of Hermann Hesse. From all available information, which I’ll admit was limited, Abelard was pretty brilliant.

“You were on the other side of the wall.” Abelard glanced at me and looked away.

“Yes.” I felt a strange thrill of complicity. “Usually, I’m here by myself. Why did you . . .”

I stopped before I asked him the stupidest of questions: Why did you break that? My least favorite question in the history of questions.

“The mechanism was squeaking. One of the gears is rusted. They need to oil it.”

I nodded. I didn’t know what to say, or if there was anything to say. I thought of Abelard, under the same anx- ious impulse to touch everything in the world of the here and now that we could feel with our hands. But unlike me, he was thinking about the hidden gears in the box, years of neglect and humidity, gears rusting away unused. He wanted to fix things, not destroy them. A more evolved monster, Abelard.

He leaned over and peered at me from under his shaggy fringe of hair. I caught a hint of his warm scent. Nice.

“Lily Michaels-Ryan,” he said. “You were in my English class last year. You hit me with a lunchbox in first grade.”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” I said. “I hope it didn’t hurt too much. On the plus side, I really do like the scar. It makes you look like a pirate, a little disreputable, you know?”

Abelard brought his hand to his cheek and traced the edges of the scar as though checking to see if it was still there. Suddenly, I wanted to run my hand along his cheek- bone to feel for that slightly raised skin, proof of my earlier bad act.

The sight of his hand on his cheek made me conscious of where my hand was on the arm of the chair, touching the sleeve of his shirt. A phone rang in the office around the corner. Mrs. Treviño’s voice came from the outer office, but it felt like she was on the other side of the world. We were alone.

“Abelard, why didn’t you tell anyone that I hit you with my lunchbox?” I said. “I never got in trouble for that.”

Abelard frowned in slow motion. He seemed slightly offended, like I’d accused his seven-year-old self of being a tattletale and a snitch. I’d been right. He had protected me, one freak to another. I felt a swell of something more than gratitude, more than surprise.

Abelard’s lips parted slightly, like he had something to say that he didn’t want anyone else to hear. I wanted to know what he was thinking. Suddenly, what Abelard had to say seemed like the most important thing in the world.

I turned my head and put my arm down on the chair to lean in so he could whisper in my ear. My arm slipped on the ancient vinyl, and I accidentally moved too close to Abelard, which is a thing that I do. I’m not good with per- sonal space.

Abelard didn’t say anything. I felt his warm breath on the side of my face, a thousand little hairs on my cheek moving in the soft breeze, and I thought of his cheek and how I’d wanted to run my finger along the edge of his scar. And still it seemed like Abelard had something to say, but it wasn’t coming, and maybe he was too anxious to speak. I didn’t know what to say either. My brain was not forming thoughts in English.

I lifted my face and he looked away. But his lips were there, centimeters from mine.

I kissed him. The kiss was over before I really knew what I was doing, just a momentary soft press of my lips against his. A stray impulse that didn’t make sense, my wires crossed by the randomness of the day.

What was I thinking?

“Well, it was nice of you not to tell on me, even though you were only seven.” I went on talking as though I hadn’t just kissed him. I do this a lot. When you live at the mercy of your impulses like I do, you pretty much have to.

“Maybe you should have told someone? You probably needed stitches. Not that I don’t like the scar — it’s a great scar.”

Abelard brought his index finger to his lips and frowned. He had one of those serious, symmetrical faces that a slight frown only improves.

“Lily,” he said slowly, “I — ”

I braced myself for a quick, awkward rejection, but before Abelard could finish his sentence, Vice Principal Krenwelge rounded the corner. I didn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved.

CHAPTER TWO

My mother came to get me at school. She arrived look- ing frazzled, a small coffee stain over the left breast pocket of her shirt, lipstick reapplied but the rest of her makeup faded, leaving her skin blotchy, nose reddened by the sun. I expected her to be mad, but this was far worse. She looked defeated. Friday, the end of a long week, and now this.

Mom had a brief conference with Vice Principal Krenwelge, and then we drove home in silence. I was tired, beyond tired, needing the comfort of a darkened room.

“Are you mad at me?” I finally said.

We were stopped on Lamar at the light in front of Waterloo Records, where Dad’s band had a CD release when I was five. I remembered Mom in a tight camisole and brightly colored skirt, holding a sleepy baby Iris on her shoulder. Her hair dyed magenta red. Happy clothes. Sexy, even. Afterward, we walked to Amy’s for ice cream. Life in the before time.

“No, Lily, I’m not mad. You’re just lucky Abelard’s mom volunteered to pay the damages.”

This made me sit up.

“Why? Abelard and I broke the wall together. It was as much my fault as his.”

“Not according to your vice principal. Mrs. Mitchell seemed to think that it was Abelard’s idea to break the wall, and you were just following along.”

Mom rolled her eyes to let me know what she thought of this explanation. Me in close proximity to a broken thing: cause and effect. Mom knew who was at fault.

Why would Mrs. Mitchell think that Abelard was at fault? There could be only one reason. Abelard must have taken the blame for me. It didn’t feel right. Abelard wasn’t the breaky type. If I hadn’t pushed down on the stupid handle, Abelard might have found a janitor to oil the gears. “Abelard said the wall was already broken. Abelard said the gears hadn’t been oiled in an eternity.”

“Well, the next time Abelard decides to ‘fix’ something, don’t volunteer to help, okay?”

“Volunteer to help,” I mumbled.

I liked the idea that I’d jumped up because I’d intuited that the situation needed my special breaking expertise. But what if breaking and fixing were really the same activ- ity, reversed?

Did Abelard really “fix” things, or did he just break things, like me? I wanted to ask him about his experience fixing things and breaking things. I thought about the time I’d pulled up too hard on the back seat handle of the car door while pushing against the door with my hip, and the handle broke. And then for some reason, I flipped the child lock switch thinking it might fix the door, only it didn’t. It locked the door, permanently. I’d tried to fix it, I really had. “. . . and Mrs. Screngle says tuber work.” Mom glanced over at me. “Lily, are you listening?” “No,” I admitted. No point in lying. “Did you eat today?”

I had to think about it. The day seemed like an eternity, as though the time before I broke the wall and the time after served as a clear demarcation of events, like the birth of Jesus or the arrival of the dinosaur-ending meteor off the coast of the Yucatan. And now my mind was filled with thoughts of Abelard. Why had he covered for me?

“I don’t remember,” I said.

“Is your lunch still in your backpack?” Mom asked.

I dug through the backpack at my feet. Sure enough, my lunch was untouched in the outer pocket.

“I would have eaten, but they told us to eat during the test, and I was still working, and I just sort of forgot about it, and then we had to go straight to sixth period, so I didn’t have time.”

“Are you hungry now?” I nodded.

We drove through P. Terry’s for veggie burgers, and we split a chocolate shake on the way home, like I was being rewarded for screwing up. I was happy enough, but I couldn’t let things go. I kept thinking about my dad in Portland.

At the start of the school year, Mom had promised that I could visit Dad if I kept my grades up and didn’t skip class. I’d been trying, but things hadn’t been going too well. My grades are all over the place, and I try not to skip, but sometimes I can’t help it.

“So, Mom, about the summer . . . I mean, could I still see Dad?”

Secretly, I planned to go visit Dad and just stay on. Dad taught English at a homeschool cooperative connected to the farm where he worked, kids getting life credit for milk- ing goats and picking organic beets. Heaven. I’d miss Mom and Iris, but clearly I belonged in a “less-structured learn- ing environment.”

“I know you want to see your dad.” Mom paused. It wasn’t quite a pregnant pause, just an awkward millisecond or two. “But it’s not that simple. We’d have to talk to him, and he may not be in a position to have houseguests . . . and of course, your grades . . . and no more skipping . . .”

I stopped listening. A qualified yes is almost a full yes. I’d have to improve my grades and attend all my classes, blah, blah, blah. I could do that.

“You know, Lily, seeing your dad again isn’t going to solve all your problems.”

I nodded to let her know I’d heard her and stared out the window. She was wrong. My father had solved my big- gest problem. There was no reason to think he couldn’t solve my smaller ones.

***

My father taught me how to read.

When I was in second grade, the school reading spe- cialist decided I was dyslexic. She told my mom to read to me every single night, but Mom worked nights. So Dad read to me.

In the beginning, he read me books about cat warriors while he drank craft beer. When Dad got tired of reading books about cats, he picked up Nancy Drew and the Three Investigators from a used book store. These books amused him with their gee-whiz ’thirties and ’forties references: chaste country club dances, German housekeepers devot- edly making strudel, and clubhouses with secret tunnels made out of packing crates and junk. Nancy Drew ushered in cheaper beer: Tecate in cans. I laughed at Dad’s earnest voice for Ned Nickerson, Nancy’s straight-arrow boyfriend, and I fell asleep worrying how Nancy was going to get out of that cave by the ocean before high tide.

“Choral reading,” my mother said, echoing the reading specialist’s advice. “Dad reads a passage, Lily reads a passage.”

My father sat by my bed with the book held between us as I painfully sounded out each little word. I learned to read the same way Hercules learned to hold a full-grown bull in his arms, by having to brute-force sound my way through every syllable until the words got longer and heavier. At first, I read individual words, then sentences, and eventually paragraphs.

Together we read all of Harry Potter; The Lightning Thief ; The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; Inkheart; and Diane Duane. When the words began to swim on the page, Dad read to me from his own personal library of medieval classics. By this time, I was sharing a bedroom with my sister, Iris, and she listened with rapt attention.

Dad read Le Morte d ’Arthur and Physica by Hildegard von Bingen, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and The Letters of Abelard and Heloise.

At about the time we started on Tolkien, with a nightly supplement of The Prose Edda and the Nibelungenlied, my father had discovered vodka. Cheap, easy to hide, and packed more of a punch than beer.

I never questioned the hours I spent sequestered away in my bedroom with Dad, reading while he drank. It was fun, and it was too good to last.

The end came when I was in fifth grade. My mom caught me alone in my room with her copy of Jane Eyre.

“Are you reading?” she asked, hands on her hips. Her dark green eyes glittered with some internal fire I recog- nized as hopefulness. She had a sort of feral alertness that alarmed me.

“What? . . . No,” I replied, thrown off my guard. I quickly regained my composure. “This book is weird. I can’t understand this language. What’s it about?”

“It’s a love story about a girl with a strong moral compass. It’s an older book, so the language can seem a little stilted, but it’s really good.” She smoothed the hair away from my forehead and attempted a wan smile. She looked sad. “You should have your father read it to you.”

“I will.”

I felt bad about lying to her, but mostly I felt relieved. Crisis averted! My father read me Jane Eyre, or he reread me Jane Eyre, because I’d already finished it by then. I didn’t care. Mom was happy; Dad was pleasantly drunk. Life was golden.

At the end of fifth grade, the school tested me again. I’d never seen my mother so thrilled. She came home wav- ing her copy of my test results over her head.

“Your phonemic scores are still relatively low,” she said. “But your comprehension is off the charts. You’ve made amazing progress, Lily.”

I didn’t immediately get the magnitude of what I’d done, but I think my father did. He greeted the news that I was in the 98th+ percentile in reading comprehension with a queasy smile. I’ll never forget the look he gave me. It was as though his usefulness on the planet had suddenly ended. Maybe he knew divorce was not far off.

“I’ve heard about this book Wuthering Heights,” I said, hoping I wasn’t overplaying the wide-eyed thing. “I don’t think I can read it by myself, though. It’s for older people, right? But we could read it together.”

“Sure thing, Lil,” Dad said, his eyes distant.

We all smiled at one another. The happiest part of my life ended there in the fifth grade.

CHAPTER THREE

Monday morning my mother woke me while it was still dark. She stood by my bed with a cup of tea and a piece of toast.

“Eat the toast,” Mom said. She hovered over me, already dressed for work in a white linen shirt and a fifties beaded cardigan that may have once been an ironic statement for her but that she now considers an heirloom.

“It’s the middle of the night.” I rolled over to face Iris’s twin bed next to mine. “Look. Iris is still asleep.”

My sister was an inanimate lump of covers. Iris usually springs out of bed like Snow White, ready to polish silver and sing with birds, but it was so early she wasn’t even stir- ring.

“I have to go to work early today,” Mom said. “You need to take your medication.”

“I can’t take it on empty stomach.”

“Hence the toast.” Mom thrust the plate at me. Reluctantly, I bit into the toast. At this hour of the morning, food seemed like a human rights violation. I chewed twice and swallowed with difficulty before slump- ing back on the bed.

“Now your medication.”

I took the pill and swallowed without hesitation. She handed me the lukewarm and very weak tea with milk to wash it down.

“You don’t trust me anymore,” I said.

“It just doesn’t seem like you’ve been taking your medi- cation lately, Lily. Maybe you’ve forgotten. I thought I would help you remember.”

Every morning for the past month, Mom had left a cup of tea, a piece of toast, and a pill on a plate for me by my bedside. And every morning I’d taken that pill and stashed it in an old pickle jar under my bed. I didn’t like the drug. It sucked the creamy goodness out of life.

Antidepressants tend to do that. I should know. This wasn’t the first one I’d been on.

Bells and whistles went off in my head. On Saturday, the day after Abelard and I broke the wall, Mom offered to take me and Iris to a movie. She didn’t go with us, and at the time, it seemed kind of weird. She must have gone home and searched the room for missing pills.

I probably should have flushed the medicine in the toilet so downstream fish and migratory waterfowl could expe- rience an unexpected rush of jittery calm and the sudden ability to meet deadlines and organize paperwork. Yes, I could have shared my drug bounty with the ecosystem, but a strange frugality had stopped me. The stuff was expensive.

Once Mom left, I looked under the bed. Sure enough, the pickle jar was gone.

I’m sure Mom was relieved to find my hidden stash, because I’d saved her a couple hundred bucks. One thing was for certain: She would never mention the pickle jar, and neither would I.

***

School. I met Rosalind at our usual spot under the live oaks in the courtyard for lunch.

Rosalind is my oldest friend all the way back to kinder- garten. She’s tiny and plays small children in local theatri- cal productions. With her long dark hair in braids and her giant brown eyes, she can pass for twelve. Maybe ten on a really big stage.

Rosalind was eating out of a bento box filled with brown rice, raw carrots, and seaweed salad. Rosalind’s parents are restricted-calorie-intake people who have formulated a plan to live for all of eternity. Like the children of vegan, mac- robiotic, gluten-shunning parents everywhere, Rosalind’s favorite food is pizza — though she likes classy pizza: feta cheese, black olives. Her dream is to move to New York and eat nothing but pizza. Also — acting.

“Lily, how was your trip to the vice principal’s office?” Rosalind asked.

“Gripping and poignant. I laughed, I cried — ”

“Was your mom mad?”

“Weirdly, no. I have a week in detention, but that’s it. She even said I can still see my dad this summer.”

“Really?” Rosalind raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Your mom said you could go to Portland?”

“If I keep my grades up and don’t skip class.”

Truth be told, Rosalind didn’t entirely approve of my plan to visit my dad and then refuse to return. She didn’t think I was cut out to be an organic beet farmer. Also, she would miss me.

I glanced across the courtyard. Abelard sat at his usual spot on the low wall under the crepe myrtle. Alone. The sight of him through the milling crowd sent a jolt of electricity up my spine. I realized I’d been scanning the halls all day, hoping to catch a glimpse of him.

I settled on the bench next to Rosalind, carefully avoid- ing a patch of grackle poo, and opened the lunch that Iris had packed for me. A tomato sandwich, apple, Oreos. I nibbled on an Oreo and set the rest aside.

“You’re not eating?” Rosalind said. “Why, if I had a sandwich on actual bread — bread made from real demon wheat, mind you —”

“Here, have it. It’s yours. Taste the evil.”

I handed Rosalind my sandwich, but she just shrugged. I suspect she actually likes brown rice.

“So you aren’t eating. What’s up?”

“I’m back on my drug-based diet. My stomach will

refuse all food until five thirty, at which point I will eat my entire day’s calories in two hours, mostly in potato chips. Straight out of the bag. If we even have potato chips. Might be stale crackers.”

“Healthy,” Rosalind said. “I thought you weren’t going to take the drugs anymore.”

“After my little trip to the vice principal’s office, my mother decided she would watch me take my meds, like some hospital matron in one of those old movies your parents love.”

“The Snake Pit, Olivia de Havilland,” Rosalind said. “Whatever.”

Rosalind frowned.

“The drugs aren’t good for you, Lily. They change you.” “It’s not like I have a choice.”

“Um, you know how my mother is always talking about . . . balance between . . . gluten and sugar can . . . talk to your mother . . . only if you . . . off the medication . . . take you to a dark place.”

I shrugged, uninterested in the topic of my medication and diet. Abelard was eating cookies or crackers, reading something on his phone, dark hair falling over his eyes. I couldn’t stop thinking about him. He was an attractive nui- sance, a shiny object.

“What do you think of Abelard?” I asked.

Rosalind followed my gaze. “I don’t know. He’s kind of in his own little bubble. Why do you ask?”

“He was on the other side of the wall when I — when we broke it.” Breaking the wall was beginning to feel like a shared secret, a source of pride. Abelard and I destroyed something — together.

“Okay,” Rosalind said slowly. Dubious. I know that look.

“He took the blame. For both of us. He didn’t have to do that.”

“And you think that was about you?” “Maybe it was about me,” I said.

I continued to stare. It was easy to stare at Abelard. He never lifted his head, never glanced in my direction. Plus — kind of beautiful. Rosalind had a point, though. Abelard was self-contained. Maybe he hadn’t thought about me once since I’d kissed him in the office. And here I was thinking obsessively about him, imagining we had some sort of secret kinship just because ten years ago I hit him in the face with my lunchbox.

“I’m just saying, don’t construct an elaborate fantasy about him before you find out what’s really going on in his head,” Rosalind said. “Abelard is not like everyone else.”

“Neither am I.” Rosalind sighed.

“You know what I mean, Lily. Unlike Abelard, you can carry on a conversation —”

“Almost like a normal person,” I interrupted. “You are a normal person,” she said.

I kind of loved that Rosalind thought there was nothing wrong with me that couldn’t be cured by regular helpings of wheatgrass shots and a little extra understanding. This was why she was my best friend — but it bothered me to hear her say Abelard was not like everyone else. Broken.

Whether she admitted it or not, I was also not like everyone else. Why be polite — why not just say “broken”?

I am a proud Broken American. There. I’ve said it.

CHAPTER FOUR

Normally I leave school each afternoon like I’m running the bulls at Pamplona. Not that afternoon. I went to the bathroom and fought for space at the mirror with the girls who did their makeup. I brushed my hair in the corner, but then one of the mirror regulars, a raccoon-eyed blonde named Montana Jordan or Jordan Montana, took pity on me.

“Here.” She waved me to a free spot in the mirror. I touched up my base and put on some lip gloss.

“You should really sclur your blash,” Montana Jordan/ Jordan Montana said. Her voice echoed noisily against the bathroom tile. “Screeb pretty.”

“Sure,” I replied. Screeb pretty. That was me.

“Sclur your blashes,” she said, holding out an eyelash curler.

“Oh.” Curl my eyelashes. My brain took the visual cue and made sense of the words. “No thanks. I’m on my way to detention. Coach Neuwirth.”

I stared at my reflection in the mirror — a slight bump��on the bridge of my nose, skeptical green eyes. My wavy brown hair already starting to look like my time with the brush had been an exercise in futility. I couldn’t see how curly eyelashes would be much of an improvement.

“Really?” she said. “Me too.”

And then she went back to curling her eyelashes.

***

Abelard was already in detention when I arrived. The only other people in the room were Richard Hernandez from my algebra class and Rogelio. An emo boy I didn’t know wandered in after me.

I dropped my backpack on the floor and sat at the desk in front of Abelard, my heart pounding. Coach Neuwirth could show up at any moment. I turned around and faced Abelard before my heart rate settled.

“Okay,” I said. Extraneous hand movement. I do this when I’m nervous. “Why did you take the blame for break- ing the wall when it wasn’t just your fault? Because my mom said that your mom told the vice principal that you said you were to blame.”

I stopped because I’d run out of breath. Also — tortured sentence.

Abelard looked up. His eyes were a clearer, deeper shade of blue than I had remembered. He looked away.

“And when I hit you with the lunchbox in first grade, you never told anyone, but you probably should have. It wasn’t like we were really friends or anything —”

“You came to my house,” Abelard said in a surprisingly loud voice.

Tectonic shift of the earth’s crust, a realignment of everything. Abelard and I had a prior history, a reason I’d felt a natural connection between us. I wished I remembered.

“You came to my house,” Abelard repeated. “I was five. We watched Pokémon together. You insisted Charizard was a dragon, not a lizard.”

I’ve had an obsession with dragons ever since Dad read me The Poetic Edda. There’s a dragon in Norse mythology who chews on the roots of the tree of life. A bad thing, right? But my father contended that without the dragon, the tree of life would become overgrown and eventually choke itself out of existence. My personal spirit animal — the destructive dragon.

“Because — fire-breathing,” I said. “I mean, hello, dragon?”

Abelard blinked.

“Char — lizard, Charizard,” he said slowly. “Etymology.” Beside us Richard and Rogelio switched their conversa- tion seamlessly from English to Spanish. Should have been a hint, but I was too excited to pay attention. A rustling

noise at the front of the room and throat clearing. “Turn around.”

“Oh, you did not just play the Pokémon etymology card,” I said, experiencing a rush of word-borne feels. More fun words than I’d had in a long time. “Dragons are everything! It’s a dragon who nibbles on the roots of the tree of life, because otherwise —”

“Miss Michaels-Ryan! Turn around!” a voice boomed. “Stop pestering Mr. Mitchell.”

Pestering. I was pestering. A word invented by teach- ers to mean “bothering” but sounding infinitely worse, like something you’d get arrested for doing in a movie theater.

I swiveled, and Coach Neuwirth locked eyes on me. I felt my stomach flop, but at that moment Rogelio muttered something hilarious in Spanish. Rogelio is a natural-born confrontation clown, one of those guys who always have to get the last word in. It didn’t help Coach Neuwirth’s mood that the last word was in Spanish.

“We’re going to break up your little party,” Coach Neuwirth said. “Mr. Mondragon, please move next to Mr. Kreuz, Miss Michaels-Ryan, next to Mr. Hernandez.”

I moved back a row next to Richard Hernandez. Abelard turned sideways in his chair and stared out the window. The room went quiet, unearthly quiet. Montana Jordan/Jordan Montana slid soundlessly into the room and took a seat across from the emo boy. Coach Neuwirth glared at her from his desk.

“Nidhogg,” Abelard said in a voice that cut through the thick stillness. “Yggdrasil.”

Nidhogg — the dragon. Yggdrasil — the tree of life. I didn’t remember the names from Norse mythology, but Abelard did. Abelard, my secret cartoon-watching friend from a childhood I didn’t quite remember. Abelard, who knew Norse mythology and the finer points of gear mainte- nance. Was there anything he didn’t know?

***

Detention was pretty boring. Half an hour later, I’d fin- ished my homework. I hadn’t eaten my lunch, and I was hungry and tired, too burnt to read. There was nothing to do.

Richard Hernandez sat at the desk next to me, draw- ing. I leaned over, expecting to see badly drawn girls with gravity-defying breasts, motorcycles, guns — the standard Grand Theft Auto love letter to chaos and faceless sex. The stuff boys draw.

Instead, Richard was drawing Abelard. Abelard with a three-quarter profile, his right cheekbone illuminated by sunlight streaming in from the window. Richard had drawn the barest line of a mouth and was filling in the details of Abelard’s chin, muscles in his jaw shaded diagonally from top left to bottom right.

The only part of the picture Richard had finished was Abelard’s eyes. He’d perfectly captured the way Abelard’s dark blue eyes held the light, the open, almost mystical quality of his gaze.

I glanced at Abelard and felt a strange thrill in the pit of my stomach. There was something otherworldly about him. It wasn’t my imagination — Richard saw it too.

Richard finished Abelard’s chin and moved to his hair. “Wow,” I murmured.

Richard wrapped his right arm around his picture to shield it from my view and looked up. He had close-set, intelligent eyes and dark hair in a Caesar cut.

“That’s really good,” I whispered. Good was an insuf- ficient word for his drawing, like telling a rock star his music was nice. I felt a little stupid about that, but what could I do? Drugs kill thought — even the happy, helpful drugs.

“Shhh . . .” Coach Neuwirth hissed. “Thanks,” Richard mouthed silently.

Richard returned to drawing, and I continued to watch. Minutes passed while he sketched in rapid, assured move- ments. It was calming, watching Richard, as soothing as a lullaby. I almost forgot that I was hungry and that the skin over my skull was beginning to crawl and itch.

One of the basketball players came by to talk to Coach Neuwirth. They stepped out into the hall, and I leaned over toward Richard.

“You’re left-handed — like me. Also Leonardo da Vinci,” I whispered. “You shade in the same direction — top left to bottom right. Do you know they think da Vinci was dyslexic?”

I held my hands out to visualize this, making the clas- sic L for loser with my left hand. Kindergarten tricks. They never get old.

“You’re making that up,” Richard said. “How could anybody know?”

“I’m not making it up. I saw it on Nova. Da Vinci wrote letters backwards and misspelled words. Classic dyslexic tendencies. I should know. I’m dyslexic, too.”

“No you’re not.” Richard looked up, his close-set eyes in a savage frown. “You can read.”

Richard said the word read with the naked bitterness I usually reserve for the terms late slip or instruction sheet. Dyslexia. You can pass for normal for a while, but even- tually the anger gives you away. The monster will out. I decided I liked Richard.

“Yes, I’m totally normal,” I replied. “That’s why I’ve been in the same algebra class with you for two years running.”

“But I see you reading all the time. You always have a book —”

“I hear talking,” Coach Neuwirth boomed.

Richard startled at the sound of Coach Neuwirth’s voice. His pencil slipped, and the picture of Abelard floated off the desk, slid across the floor, and landed face-up in front of Rogelio Mondragon.

Richard froze, a stricken look on his face.

Coach Neuwirth was in the hall talking, his back half turned but still in the line of sight. I eased out of my seat in a crouch and moved slowly toward the picture, hoping to snatch it before Rogelio noticed.

I was too slow. Rogelio spotted the picture and grabbed it. He glanced at Abelard and back to the picture as his expression changed from perplexed to positively gleeful. It was as though he’d found a secret love letter, ready-made for a million stupid jokes. Someone was going to be made to suffer in both English and Spanish. Rogelio scanned the room, searching for his victim.

At the exact moment Rogelio’s eyes settled on me, Coach Neuwirth strode down the aisle and ripped the pic- ture out of Rogelio’s hands.

“Whose picture is this?” Coach Neuwirth demanded. Richard looked a little sick.

“It’s mine.” The words were out of my mouth before I realized what I was saying. Lies are like that sometimes.

Coach Neuwirth held the picture and examined it care- fully.

“So, this is your boyfriend?” Coach Neuwirth chuckled. “Pretty good likeness of our friend Abelard here.”

Hard to determine who he was trying to humiliate at this juncture, Abelard for being unlikely boyfriend mate- rial, or me for being, well, me. Sometimes I think Coach Neuwirth lets the cruelty fly randomly just to see who might get hit.

Abelard turned to look at me briefly. I couldn’t tell whether he was horrified, embarrassed, or intrigued that Coach Neuwirth just told the whole world he was my boy- friend. I looked away.

Coach Neuwirth handed the picture to me.

“Put it away, Ms. Michaels-Ryan,” Coach Neuwirth said.

I folded the drawing of Abelard and slipped it into my book.

***

In the afternoon when I returned home, the picture fell out of my book. Abelard, beautiful and distant. Richard Hernandez’s own version of the Mona Lisa, a mystery for the ages. Abelard, no doubt named for Peter Abelard from the twelfth-century text The Letters of Abelard and Heloise. Strange.

I drew a thought bubble over his head and wrote the words I am Abelard, medieval French philosopher and time traveler. I have come to the future on a quest for love and beauty, but find only the barren wasteland that is high school. My tra- vails are for not!

I stuck the picture on the bulletin board and collapsed on my bed, empty. I opened my book, a novel about a girl on the run with her brilliant, eccentric father. After three pages, I quit reading, because I didn’t care what happened with the father’s new girlfriend or the daughter’s desire to go to a normal school for more than three months at a time. My head had begun that drug-fueled end-of-the- day descent, circling the empty runway of a town called Apathy.

I put my book away.

My sister came into our bedroom.

Iris is in seventh grade. Tall like me, brown eyes to my green. Same wavy brown hair, same bump on the bridge of her nose. Iris doesn’t seem to have inherited my moth- er’s large breasts like I have. She wishes that she had my breasts, but she is wrong about this.

Iris attends the Liberal Arts, Math, and Engineering Academy — LAMEA, or LAME as everyone calls it. She is the perfect student, equally adept at the long-form essay and robotics, and building musical instruments out of found objects. Found objects are a big part of the curricu- lum at LAME.

For someone with such a full curricular life, Iris has an overdeveloped interest in my activities. Like being me has a 1950s-motorcycle-and-leather-bomber-jacket sort of glam- our for her, because she has never tasted the fruits of failure. I could tell her that living outside the lines is not all that, but she probably wouldn’t listen anyway.

“What are you doing?” Iris said. “Nothing.”

“Who is that?” She leaned over the picture of Abelard, studying it with the dreamy intensity she usually reserves for K-pop stars with ice-blond dyed hair and too much mascara.

“No one,” I replied. “A kid at my school. His name is Abelard.”

“He’s adorable,” she said.

“No.” I stared at the picture. “Well, yes, he is.”

I thought about my impulsive kiss, and my heart flopped in protest. Continued exposure to the sight of Abelard’s faraway eyes was unfair.

“It’s dinnertime,” Iris said. “Mom told me to tell you.” “Not hungry,” I replied.

“Mom made a really good salad. We’ve got Supernatural cued up.”

Supernatural. Salad. These are the things we do together, eat salads and watch Supernatural because all three of us, Mom, me, and Iris, think those guys are hot. Iris likes the taller baby-faced one, but Mom and I prefer the deep- voiced snarky brother. It’s like a miracle, Mom says, to find such transgenerational hotness on TV.

This was our familial idea of a good time. It meant nothing to me at that moment — good TV, hot guys in a seventies ride, salad.

“No thanks,” I said. “I’ll just lie here and listen to the inside of my skull buzz.”

Iris wandered off. I played Candy Crush on my phone until I saw little orange and blue striped candies exploding on the insides of my eyelids when I closed them, and still it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough pleasure, not enough light or color to fill the emptiness of my brain. It didn’t feel good or fun, but it was motion of a kind. If I stopped playing, I would realize that there were no thoughts left in my head and I was truly alone. This was what happened when my ADHD medicine wore off. This was why I hated drugs.

***

I left the picture of Abelard in my room, thinking I would show it to Rosalind over lunch. But when I packed my stuff up for school in the morning, the picture was gone. This didn’t surprise me in the least. Most pieces of paper I come into contact with disappear suddenly and without reason. It’s just the way it is.

******

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