I heard everything.
I don't even know how it started, but suddenly, when my mom spoke to Katie and I wasn't in the room, I could clearly hear it. When there were girls whispering across the hall in school, I could hear them too. And I didn't like it. It scared me. I didn't tell James or Carlos. They'd probably think it was nothing, or else they'd make jokes about me turning into some kind of mutation-superhero.
I didn't feel super.
It was after about a month of this that the headaches started. They were piercing and excruciating, like migraine. I got them in the morning, during the afternoon, and at night. Sometimes it was so bad I couldn't sleep, or during the day I'd ditch school because there was no point in going when the only thing running through my mind was Headache, headache . . . My mom found out after a little while, but instead of getting annoyed with me, she got worried. She was sympathetic, and said it would probably stop soon.
It didn't.
The nightmares came next. After waking up, I could never remember what they were about. All I knew was that they scared the shit out of me. They had me waking up in the middle of the night, screaming like some chick in a horror movie. A lot of the time I'd feel myself been shaken awake and would open my eyes to see my mom's terrified face above me. She would frantically ask me what was wrong, and what kind of nightmares I had. I told her I didn't remember, and she left it at that. But then it didn't stop, so then she got worried. She took me to the doctor, but she couldn't find anything wrong with me. I thought plenty was wrong, but I didn't say so. She said it would eventually stop, but when it didn't, my mom worried even more. She tried to give me sleeping pills, but I didn't want to take them. It was only until I started seeing double from lack of sleep and looking like a zombie that I agreed. And this stopped the nightmares.
For a while.
I couldn't eat anymore. I didn't want to do anything, because every little thing I did drove me closer to the edge. I heard strange sounds everywhere, sounds that no one else could hear. Standing up, sitting down, walking, running, eating, drinking. I only drank because I decided it was better to hear those strange noises than to end up dying of dehydration. But I never ate. One day I almost passed out in the middle of gym class, but I still wouldn't eat. I couldn't. James and Carlos worried about me, told me I should take care of myself. In the end my mom decided it wasn't a good idea for me to keep going to school. So I left. I packed up the contents of my locker and left in the middle of class, when no one was in the hall.
I wondered if they'd notice when I didn't come back.
My mom wanted to try home-schooling, but it was too expensive, and I still didn't learn anything. I felt totally alone and cut off from the real world, even though James and Carlos came to visit me almost every day, and Katie and my mom were nearly always around. Sometimes, I wanted to scream at all of them to leave me alone, because they were making everything worse. The headaches, the dizziness, everything. Sometimes, it became too much, and I would scream. These were times where I just couldn't think straight anymore and didn't even know what I was doing. I could only remember it happening, but I couldn't really control it. Crying and screaming when anyone went near me. Then my mom took me back to the doctor. Once my mom had told them all the terrible stories, she asked me to leave the room so they could talk in private. I heard them anyway, because I could hear everything. The doctor said I was probably schizophrenic.
And paranoid.
And crazy.
But I wasn't crazy.
I wasn't.
My mom became more careful around me, and I knew she believed the doctor. Katie was the same. They thought I was crazy. I never knew what Carlos and James thought because my mom told them it was best that they stop coming over. She waited until I wasn't around, but I heard anyway, because I heard everything.
I wasn't crazy.
But I guess I sort of acted like it. One day, I was sitting at home, in the kitchen. My mom was making . . . something (I didn't know what it was, mostly because it was really just for her and Katie, because I still wouldn't eat if I could help it). Then she dropped a pot on the floor. Everything was a little blurry, but all I could think was how much the pain was getting to me, and how I had to make it stop. I could hear my mom shrieking above my own screams, begging me to stop, grabbing hold of my wrists. All I did was cry. She took me to the hospital because she didn't know what else to do. I was still crying even when I got there, and I couldn't breathe. I needed them to know I wasn't crazy. I was still determined to believe it myself, no matter how unlikely it was that I was right. So I kept repeating it over and over. I couldn't think of what else to do. I just couldn't think at all.
Then Logan came.
He didn't know me, and yet he believed in me when no one else did. When I lost it and was seriously tempted to stab myself with that syringe, he convinced me that he could really help me, that he didn't think I was crazy. I don't know why I believed he could help me when the other doctors couldn't. He didn't look any older than me, after all. But somehow I just knew.
I was right.
He convinced his dad to try and help me. They found out what was really wrong with me. Apparently I had something wrong with my left ear, though I didn't understand what that had to do what was happening to me. They were going to give me an operation, and I was nervous about it. I'd never had an operation before, but I was desperate to get rid of the headaches, the constant torment. So my mom agreed, and they went along with it.
It worked.
When I woke up, I saw Logan standing above me, with James, Carlos my mom and Logan's dad. Logan spoke to me, and it didn't hurt. It felt like it did before. I'd never been happier in my entire life. And I owed it all to Logan. I had my life back, and I was eager to get back to the normal life or a teenage boy as soon as possible. And Logan was in my life now, and I was happy about this.
Although I wasn't completely sure why.
When those bullies bothered Logan, I got mad. I hated it when those two picked on people smaller than them. Then they turned on me, and suddenly I didn't know what to do. They told me I was crazy, and I almost believed them. Then Logan stood up for me. He told me it'd all be alright. That I could get through it. We were best friends from then on, and closer in a way that we weren't with James and Carlos.
Then that day at the ice rink happened. He kissed me, and I felt like I was on top of the world. I wanted everything to go further from there. I wanted him to hold me, and kiss me again, this time without James interrupting. I wanted a whole lot more than even that too, though I was clearly keeping that to myself.
I think I might love him.