11th Grade, High School
Age: 15-16
October 2008
…
"And with that we totally adjourn this emergency meeting," Ashley A says from the front of Mr. Dudikoff's classroom. "Like, thank you everyone!"
Vince grunts as he jumps down from the windowsill in the back of the room and Gus glances toward him. The other boy looks annoyed with his arms crossed.
"That's it?" Vince asks, shaking his head as he turns toward TJ. "I don't know how you dealt with them."
"With a lot of patience," TJ says. Then he looks around the group and nods his head toward the door. "Come on, let's go to lunch."
As they walk out of the room, Gus glances over to where the Ashleys are still standing at the front of the room. They have a notebook out, full of ideas and lists for their homecoming shopping no doubt. The girls, as always, had nominated themselves as head of the homecoming committee, a committee that Gus isn't entirely sure really exists, but regardless they took charge of almost everything surrounding the junior class' homecoming festivities.
Today they had called an emergency meeting because the theme that the junior class senate had chosen for the hallway decorating contest "Welcome to the (Junior) Jungle" was going to look too close to the Seniors' "Save the Rainforest" theme – and so they unilaterally made the decision to change it. He had personally liked their runner-up theme "Juniors, Just Keep Swimming" but the Ashleys deemed that too similar to the "Sophomores Under the Sea" hallway. Too much ocean.
The new theme – "The One Where They Were Juniors" based off the title to each Friends' episode – wouldn't have been Gus' pick. He liked TJ's shout out of Jurassic Juniors, but the Ashleys glared at him so hard when he offered up another idea that no one else questioned their decision.
And so it was decided. The meeting in total took about five minutes. It took longer waiting for everyone to get there than it did for the Ashleys to present their idea and pretend that they were taking suggestions. He has to give it to the Ashleys though. They are extremely committed to their work. Their class is currently on a winning streak for the hallway and float competition.
Ashley T looks up as his group reaches the door and gives him a small wave. He waves back with a small smile before rushing off to join the rest of his friends.
"I will just be so happy when all of this is over," Vince is complaining when Gus catches up.
"You think this is bad? Just wait until prom," TJ says with a grin.
Vince groans and runs his hands down his face. "I'm not letting you fail math again. You are taking this job back next year," he grunts. "I am not going to spend my senior year trying to round up unhinged Senior Ashleys."
"They're not that bad," Gus says. The rest of his friends turn to look at him and he gives a small shrug. "They're just passionate."
"That is true," Gretchen agrees, turning to give Vince a look. "Some people might say the same thing about you."
Vince's eyes widen. "You did not just compare me to the Ashleys."
Gretchen gives him a playful shrug and the group continues on toward the cafeteria. Gus stuffs his hands into his pockets, pulling up the rear. He does think that the Ashleys aren't actually all that bad in the grand scheme of things anymore. Sure, some are more outright mean than others – Ashley Q, in particular, isn't winning any kindness awards anytime soon – but they have goals and dreams and aspirations just like everyone else.
Sitting at the math table with Ashley T and Spinelli has shown him that. Sometimes he gets to class early just to have a chance to chat with her. At the beginning it was mostly small talk about the homework or class in general, but now he gets regular updates about her life. She tells him about how she had to pick Brittany up from cheer or how she's trying to help Tyler with the transition to high school. He knows that she passed her driver's license exam – the first of the Ashleys to do so as the oldest – and about how she's starting to think about colleges to look at over spring break. And he finds himself responding in kind. The first few weeks he tripped over his words, just as he had at Kelso's over the summer when he ran into her, but now he feels like he can actually have a real conversation with her.
The only problem is that it feels different talking to her than it does talking to Spinelli and Gretchen. When he talks to them, his gut doesn't bubble excitedly and he doesn't feel his cheeks warm up when they giggle at something he said. He recognizes that this is not good. He can't like Ashley T.
Although, it's not like it would go anywhere anyway. Ashley T is pretty and popular and…an Ashley. In middle school they had lists of acceptable boys. He can't imagine that those standards have lessened just as he can't imagine himself being on that list.
He sighs and finds that he has stumbled a good distance away from his friends while lost in thought. He rushes forward, catching up just as the group turns the corner onto the catwalk that connects the school to the addition that houses the cafeteria.
The windows that line the catwalk are covered by posters proclaiming the theme for homecoming this year as The Little Mermaid, definitely a play on the sophomore class's hallway theme of Under the Sea. There's a poster that has Sebastian the Crab with the quote, "Your Majesty, this will be the finest homecoming I have ever conducted." At the end of the hallway in the rotunda, he can see a table set up with a few sophomores sitting at it, selling homecoming tickets.
"Shall we grab our tickets on our way in?" Mikey suggests.
"Might as well," Vince agrees.
There is a small line at the table and as they continue through the catwalk toward the line, Gus can pick out a few of their classmates' faces. He sees a few of the soccer girls, a couple of kids from his math class, some upperclassmen he doesn't recognize.
Beside him, Spinelli stops walking. The other four continue ahead through the catwalk as if they haven't noticed, so Gus stops with her. Over the last couple of weeks there has been an obvious change in her behavior. She showed up to school with heavy eyeliner and a mood to rival all her previous freakouts. But a couple of days later, she became noticeably more quiet and withdrawn.
It felt like watching a balloon deflate. A loud pop and then all the air rushes out, leaving a shriveled piece of rubber in its place.
No one has said anything aloud about it, but he has seen the slight demeanor changes that demonstrate to him that he isn't the only one who has noticed. Gretchen always seems to be looking at Spinelli out of the corner of her eye. TJ, who has always been protective of Spinelli, is never far and even when he doesn't appear to be paying attention, just the slightest of noises has him turning his head or reaching for her hand.
It reminds him of his mother's behavior when his father turned home to Arkansas. Gus had been young enough – and naive enough – to think that his father's stay at Walter Reed and the extensive rehab he received before he was medically cleared to return home for good would cure him. But his father returned from Iraq with more than just a missing leg and bits of shrapnel that is safer to leave in his body than remove.
Nightmares. PTSD. His father can still be spooked by a car backfiring or fireworks.
Gus turns to look at Spinelli and his assessment of the situation is brief. Her rate of breathing is steadily increasing. Her hands are trembling. She stands locked in her position, staring straight ahead of her at the homecoming ticket booth. He knows this. This is a panic attack and the first thing he needs to do is get her out of the crowded hallway.
"Spinelli," he says, as calmly as he can. She looks at him with wide, wild eyes. "Let's go to an empty classroom, okay? Follow me?"
He can feel movement behind him and he quickly turns his head. TJ and the others returned, but Gus is more focused on the people at the end of the line waiting for tickets, who are now looking in their direction with mild interest.
"What's going on?" TJ asks, his voice higher pitched than normal.
Gus just continues to slowly lead Spinelli in the opposite direction out of the catwalk, away from prying eyes, knowing the others will follow. As he does, he answers slowly.
"I think she's having a panic attack," he tells the group quietly. When he continues, he speaks more to Spinelli than the rest. "My dad used to get these all the time. They feel very scary when they're happening, but I promise, we're gonna be here the whole time."
The first classroom to the left of the catwalk is empty and Gus leads her inside, directly to the chair nearest the door. He has her sit down and then he pulls out the chair next to her to be at her level.
"Can you look around the room and name three things you see?" he asks, remembering that this exercise works well for his father. It is meant to ground the person in reality and help them lessen the anxiety. "Any three things."
Spinelli shakes her head. "I can't breathe. Gus, I feel like I can't breathe," she says while gasping for air.
He nods his head.
"I know that must be scary," he tells her.
He hears shuffling and he looks up briefly. His four other friends look horrified and he can see the panic rising in their own eyes. Of course, when he first saw his father have symptoms like these, he remembers running in the other room, hiding behind a cabinet while he bit his nails, worried and scared while his mother helped talk his father through the episode.
"Don't panic," he tells the rest. "It'll just make it worse."
"How do you expect me not to panic?" TJ exclaims. His arms flail while he talks with his hands. "She just said she couldn't breathe!"
"That'll pass," Gus says. Then he turns back to Spinelli and waits until her eyes meet his. "It will pass. I promise. Just breathe with me. Same speed. We'll count to four as we breathe – one, two, three, four. Now the same thing as we breathe out. One, two, three, four. Good. We'll keep doing that."
As he continues counting to four, he can hear Mikey trying to console TJ. "Why don't you breathe deeply too? Follow Gus' lead."
Gus continues counting their breaths until Spinelli's breathing has slowed to match his own. Once it has, he tries the exercise he first tried over again. At first, she just keeps breathing, too afraid to speak and get out of her rhythm, but then after a few more deep breaths, she finally answers him.
"Glasses."
"Good," he says. "That's one."
She nods and wipes at the thin sheen of sweat on her forehead as her eyes dart around the room. "Blackboard."
"Good. One more."
She lets out a breath. "Backpack."
"Good job," he says.
She nods slowly. "Thanks."
"My dad has panic attacks," he tells her. "It took him a long time to learn his triggers and his coping mechanisms, but he learned. You will too. With some help."
She shakes her head and turns away. "Your dad went to war," she mutters and when she speaks again, her voice gets louder and more frustrated with each word. "Your dad went to war and almost died. That's a good reason to panic. I'm just stupid."
The entire way through her panic attack, he made sure not to touch her. He knows that Spinelli is not a touchy person and wanted to respect her boundaries and not panic her more. But now he is afraid that this outburst might get her going again and he wants her to look at him, so he touches her shoulder.
"Spinelli, look at me," Gus says, keeping his voice firm. She turns back begrudgingly, avoiding his gaze while her eyes well with tears. "Yes, my dad went to war and he struggles with his mental health because of it. But that, in no way, discounts what you're going through. There is no hierarchy of reasons to feel the way you feel. Sometimes it just happens."
She crosses her arms. "I hate this. I hate not being able to control it."
"Is this the first time this has happened?" he asks.
Spinelli doesn't answer. Instead, she stares at the desk in front of them. He decides not to push it any further, figuring that it's not his place to put her on the spot. Instead, he glances up at his friends, all standing together near the doorway, close but not too close, all of them looking like they don't know what to do next.
"We could just eat lunch in here?" Gus suggests.
"I'm not hungry," Spinelli mutters.
TJ's shoulders slump. Mikey must also see this because when Gus meets his eye, he can tell his friend is trying to think of what to say next.
"I'm not hungry either. Why don't we go spend the rest of lunch in the auditorium?" Mikey asks, stepping toward Spinelli with a smile. "We'll just dance during lunch. How does that sound?"
The girl shrugs her shoulders and Mikey follows her as she stands, walking out of the room. TJ follows a few paces behind and Gus finds himself in stride with his friend.
"I'm glad we had you," TJ says after a few paces. "I wouldn't have known what to do."
Gus shrugs. "I'm happy I could help."
They continue following the other two slowly, allowing them to further the distance between them. When Mikey and Spinelli disappear from their sight, Gus turns to TJ and asks the question he has had in the back of his mind since the episode started.
"Do her parents know?" he asks. "About what's going on?"
"Yeah," TJ breathes. He pinches the bridge of his nose with one hand. "I went with her when she told them."
"And how are you?"
TJ turns to him with a look of surprise. "Me?"
Gus nods. "It's hard to watch her go through this, I'm sure. When my dad was really bad, it felt good to talk about what I was feeling."
TJ eyes him for a minute, as if he isn't sure if he can say anything. Gus figures that no one has asked him about it. People never asked him. His mother had insisted that not just his father go to therapy. They all did, individually and as a family, and he credits that with helping them through the toughest times.
After a minute, TJ finally speaks.
"I'm…angry," he says, shaking his head and looking at his feet. "Her parents, you know her parents, they are doing everything they can to help her and it feels like nothing is happening. They put her on every cancellation list but all of the psychiatrists around here have, like, months long wait lists or they don't take teenagers or some other reason. And she's not deemed urgent, you know. Because she doesn't want to hurt herself, she just hates herself."
He leans his head back and blows out a breath.
"And I'm mad at her, which I know I shouldn't be," he says. "But she never told anyone what she was feeling. She just had it in her head that she had to be the anti-Ashley and she spent all of her energy cultivating this image for herself." He sighs, his voice sounding defeated when he starts speaking again. "And I knew she was doing it and I saw what it was doing to her and I didn't push her hard enough to stop, so I guess I'm really just mad at myself."
He looks up at Gus, his eyes transitioning from sadness to anger.
"And, you know what, I'm mad at a lot of people," he says. "Her teammates are treating her like garbage right now. Just because she can't snap out of it. Yeah, I get it, she's the goalie, she's important, but she's so much more than that."
"She is," Gus agrees. "A lot of people don't understand mental health."
TJ nods. Then he sighs again, letting his shoulders slump.
"I'm worried too about what she hasn't told us yet," he says. "I feel like she's slowly letting me in, but I just know there's so much more. I just want her to trust me."
Gus puts his hand on TJ's shoulder. "I'm sure she does, even if it doesn't feel like it right now. It's hard to admit when we're struggling."
TJ gives him a small smile that doesn't quite meet his eyes. "Sorry to unload all of this on you."
"I think it's important. When you help someone through this, it doesn't help anyone to keep your feelings inside. It's good to talk to someone," Gus says. Then he nods his head. "Let's go meet the others."
He watches as TJ lets out a breath and quickly pulls himself together. By the time they make it to the auditorium, he almost looks like nothing is wrong. Both boys step into the doorway and watch as Mikey and Spinelli dance around on stage, Mikey also singing popular songs from the radio as their background music. Vince and Gretchen are nowhere to be found and Gus quickly looks over his shoulder, trying to see if they're still in the hallway, but he doesn't see them. He turns to TJ, wondering if the other boy saw them lagging behind, but stops short of asking when he sees TJ focused on the stage. Instead of interrupting, he lets Mikey's deep baritone capture his focus as well.
…
As the others leave the room, Vince taps his foot against the tile floor while he waits to follow Gretchen. But Gretchen doesn't move to follow the rest. She stays standing in her spot, picking at her fingernails while her eyes stare at the seat Spinelli just sat in. He takes a single step toward her, hoping to catch her attention, but she continues her stare.
"Gretch?"
He can see her jaw tense and then her swallow, her eyes unwavering. So he takes another step toward her.
"Gretchen."
She finally turns her head toward him, her eyes staying on the now empty chair until she is fully facing him.
"I didn't know what to do," she says quietly.
Vince frowns and immediately shakes his head. "That's understandable. None of us did."
As he speaks, he can see that she isn't listening. He can see her eyes flickering behind her glasses, the gears in her head spinning with her own thoughts. She looks like she's mentally putting together a puzzle. He watches as her brow furrows and she begins to clasp her hands together, her knuckles becoming white under her own strength. He reaches forward and takes her hands in his, hoping to draw her attention and stop her from unconsciously cutting off the circulation from her own fingers.
She blows out a breath. "I should have said something."
"About what?" he asks.
"I knew," she says, her eyes wide as she glances up at him. "I knew she was struggling. I knew she was exhibiting anxious behaviors. But I didn't have all the details. I was…was trying to gather all my evidence before I said something. But I had been meaning to talk to TJ about it for weeks and I didn't."
"You had no idea that was going to happen," Vince tells her.
"But I should have. I'm her best friend. I should have seen it. I should have known what to do," she says. "I didn't know what to do. I didn't know and so I didn't do anything."
She lets out a shaky breath and Vince gently squeezes her hands. He understands the guilt she feels, even if it's for an entirely different reason. Over the last few weeks, he had been fairly dismissive of Spinelli, still harboring some anger at her from when she blew up at him in the hallway. And, perhaps, it wasn't just that. Underneath the surface there has been a bubbling of tension spurned by jealousy that started at Third Street when the two of them battled for the spot at TJ's right hand. He would never say it to her face, but he knows that's part of why he has been so short with her recently and why he has always been so unforgiving of her behaviors.
But while he feels guilty for assuming her behavior shift was the beginning of a bratty episode, Gretchen's guilt comes from an entirely different place. Gretchen seems to think she should have had all the answers, even when she probably didn't have all the facts.
"How were you supposed to know?" he asks her. "It's not like she told you that she was having these panic attacks."
"But I did," Gretchen insists. "Maybe not the panic attacks per say, but I knew she wasn't sleeping and that she wasn't eating. I told her that she needed to tell her parents. I tried, but I didn't know what else to do."
She sounds like she wants to continue, but when her voice cracks on her final word she stops. Vince lets go of her hands and wraps his arms around her shoulders, pulling her into his chest. He can feel her deep breathing against him, clearly trying to stop herself from crying. Once he feels her body start to calm down, he leans his mouth to her ear.
"It sucks. This whole situation sucks," he says quietly. "But it is not your fault."
She pulls back and he lets his arms loosen around her. Before she can argue with him, he begins speaking again.
"I know we tease you all the time about how smart you are. Call you Dr. Grundler. Insinuate that you're lightyears ahead of everyone else," he says. "And you are brilliant. You are intuitive. You know things that I have no idea how you know them."
She wraps her arms tightly around herself at the compliments.
"But," he says. "You are not a doctor. You're not even an adult yet. You are a high school junior with a best friend that we both know doesn't let anyone know she's in trouble. And I can assure you that, knowing you, you did the best job you could have with the information that you had."
"So, why do I feel like I failed?"
Vince's heart drops into his stomach at how small her voice sounds. He opens his mouth to answer a few times, but nothing that comes to mind seems right to say. So, instead he just takes her hand and gives it a squeeze.
They head to their classroom rather than go to the auditorium or to lunch. The rest of the day, Vince learns almost nothing in class. He spends his time watching Gretchen, seeing her try her best to focus on taking notes. He can see when she falters, he tries to make up for it, but he knows his notes have nothing on hers.
When the bell rings, signaling the end of the school day, he heads to her locker with her as she pulls out her books.
"I'll walk home with you," he says when she begins zipping up her bag.
"Don't you have practice?" she asks. When he just shrugs, she shakes her head. "You're going to get in trouble with the coach."
He will. Especially with a big game this Friday and homecoming next week, his absence will be noticed. But it isn't like he starts the games anyway. Vance starts at his position and today is the first time in a long time that this hasn't bothered him. Not being the starter gives him a little bit of leeway for today, allowing him to walk Gretchen home and be late for practice. Or skip. He has never skipped a practice before but today may be the day.
"Some things are more important than football."
Gretchen looks at him incredulously, one eyebrow raised. When he doesn't immediately back down, she lowers her suspicion.
"Don't let anyone hear you say that," she says, shutting her locker door. "Vince LaSalle not caring about sports? They'll think you've lost your way."
She isn't wrong. People around school will probably flood the hallways with rumors tomorrow about him skipping practice. He figures that TJ is probably in a very similar position to him at this very moment, just one floor up at Spinelli's locker, and figures that might save some of the rumors if both of them are missing. People may just think they had some last minute student senate stuff to do or something else. He doesn't really care.
So, maybe he has lost his way a bit. Freshman year Vince, or even Sophomore Vince, would have never skipped a football practice for any reason and he definitely would have cared about what people would say about it. Maybe it's because he is putting more of a focus on basketball or maybe it's because he is working so hard on his schoolwork and actually enjoying it. Or maybe it really is because he plays second to Vance. Whatever the reason, the idea of skipping practice today to walk Gretchen home from school feels like the absolute right thing to do.
"Let them talk," he jokes with a smirk. "You know how I love to be the center of attention."
She rolls her eyes and the two walk out of the school, discussing the upcoming project for their anatomy class. They do all of their projects together and this section is on the lungs. Their teacher is having each pair research a disease to talk about and they've been given emphysema. Gretchen, of course, already has an idea for a diagram and model, with a healthy lung on one side and an emphysema lung on the other, pinpointing the areas of difference and showing how different treatments help.
Gretchen joked about him being passionate earlier this afternoon, but it's truly amazing to see her eyes light up with ideas.
As they get closer to their neighborhood, his grand idea of getting Gretchen talking about a school project to make her feel better seems to falter. She gets progressively quieter as they pass Third Street, one of the gym classes outside playing dodgeball as they pass.
"Man, sometimes I think it'd be nice to go back," he says, nodding toward the group of kids. They can't be more than nine or ten. "All your problems were solved by the end of recess."
She lets out a breath. "I guess that's part of growing up. The problems get harder. The consequences get more severe. People become more stuck in their ways and it's more difficult to get through to them."
He nudges her shoulder, catching the double meaning of her words as a callback to earlier.
"You okay?"
She nods her head. "I just wish I could do more."
"You're a good friend," he tells her. "Just remember that."
The rest of the way down 3rd Street, they don't say much back and forth, but by the time they arrive at Gretchen's house, they're back to talking about their project. Gretchen invites him in to start working on it and he agrees, deciding that he is already way too late for practice to turn around now. They get a good chunk of it done by the time Vince needs to head out and she walks him out, stopping him as he walks down her steps.
"Thanks for walking with me and staying today," she says, leaning against the doorframe. "I really appreciate it. Especially knowing that you'll be in a heap of trouble tomorrow at practice."
He shrugs. "I'd do it again in a heartbeat."
"Thank you," she says again.
"Call me if you need anything."
She waits by the door until he has turned the corner out of her driveway and is a few houses down. He stuffs his hands in his pockets as he walks, the early October air chilly without a coat. He glances around as he walks, vigilant of his surroundings. A lot of the houses in town have started to put out posters for the upcoming election. Most are for the local elections – Skinner for Superintendent, White for School Board, Fitzhugh for Mayor. He rolls his eyes at that one. Fitzhugh has been mayor of their town for as long as he can remember and, for the most part, it's because he runs unopposed. Vince thinks he buys off the competition with bribes. Plus, he is known for his sleazy political slogans. When they were little he even dressed up as Santa Claus in the Christmas parade and told the kids who came to tell their parents that Santa suggested Fitzhugh for Mayor!
But as he walks, he notices a fair amount of signs for the upcoming presidential election, almost all of them for McCain. He can't say he's surprised. He hears his parents talking about it and despite not being very engaged in national level politics, he knows the chances of Obama being elected are probably slim. Although it would be nice to have a president that looks like him, he isn't getting his hopes up.
If his neighborhood is any indication, McCain is going to win in a landslide.
He shakes his head and turns the corner onto his street. He already did his free throws today, early this morning before school, but after today he wants to clear his head. He drops his bag in the entryway and grabs a basketball from the garage, dribbling it on his way to Third Street. School is long over by now and the court is empty. He steps up to the line and readies his stance, aiming for the hoop before letting the ball go.
…
Notes
And, with that, we pass the baton to Vince as primary narrator.
The poster in the catwalk is a play on the line "Your Majesty, this will be the finest concert I have ever conducted. Your daughters, they will be spectacular!" said by Sebastian in The Little Mermaid (1989).
Mayor Fitzhugh is the Santa during the parade during the episode, Yes, Mikey, Santa Does Shave.
This chapter ended up a lot longer than I expected, but I didn't feel like there was a good cutting spot, so you get an extra-long chapter this time.