"Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we learned here."

-Marianne Williamson

****

This is how it started.

Me:” I love you”

Him: “I was watching this documentary about pigs and…wait what did you say?”

Me: “Nothing, what about the pigs?”

Him: “So mother pigs…like, sing to their piglets when they’re just born. Isn’t that crazy?”

Me: “Yeah, crazy.”

This is how it ended:

Me: “So I decided to watch that pig documentary you kept telling me to watch and…”
Him: “I heard you.”

Me: “What?”

Him: “You said I love you that day. I heard you and I didn’t say anything back because I didn’t love you.”

Me: “Oh.”

            It started on December sixth. Linus walked up to me, stuck a bear into my arms and, blushing, ran away. We were thirteen. I was ugly. He was not. It was a dare from the older boys, to go up to the least attractive girls on Valentine’s Day and give them a gift. I wasn’t fooled, I stood against the wall with my ears warming up, eyeing the boys laughing against their fists. In an alternative world, I would have marched up to them, put my face against theirs and said, “I bet you think you’re so funny, huh?”

But in the real world, this world, I was me. I placed the teddy bear on the ground, beside me on the wall and looked away. Covering my face with my hair, I stared at the doorknob as class started, letting the stream of students into the room. As soon as I sank into my seat in Geometry, I started to cry. I know, I know, it’s pathetic. Why would I cry over a stupid prank? But it wasn’t stupid, not to me at least. I had been in love with Linus Weathers all my life.

            After that, I stopped staring at Linus. I stopped sketching his face in the coordinate grids, writing his name in Elvish language, imagining my arm looping through his. He was from the world of baseball and after school hangouts; I was from the world of trigonometric ratios and cosine curves. It was doomed from the start.

            So when Linus showed up in my Peer Help group in eleventh grade, a ball of fire rose in my stomach and dissolved into small rays in my bones. What was he doing here? Peer Help was the only place I felt safe revealing my fears, telling the people the how and why. And now the sanctuary was all ruined, because what the hell? What did Linus Weathers need help with? How could he of all people have problems?

“I would like to introduce Linus to our group,” Ms. Matthews said, gesturing to the boy standing outside the group.

The Crazies assessed them, narrowing their eyes, with their brains whirring like fans. I could practically hear their thoughts:

How can someone look like that and be here? –Ann

Woah. –Anthony

What a cocky piece of shit – Jane

Ohmygodohmygodohmygoadkjsadkakdkjas – Me

His gaze landed on mine and I couldn’t help it, I shivered. I stared at my hands, sweaty in my lap and tried to press the resurfacing memory into the back of my head. I couldn’t help but remember.

“Be mine,” he had mumbled, and almost violently, shoved the stuffed animal into my gut.

I cast my eyes away from his and cleared my throat.

Linus took a seat across from me and I wished that God would one day do me a freaking favor and show up with some lightning rod or something to strike this curse away from my life.

But he let me down, per usual.

What did I expect? A miracle?

The sad thing is, Linus and I used to be best buddies. When we were four, my dad met his dad, who also loved the words of Jesus and they formed a Bible group, talking about spirits and Heaven. Being a small child (who was already learning the Ten Commandments); I was left to play in the living room with Linus. We played with blocks and puzzles, used my tricycle to treck around the floor. We would crawl under my couch and press our faces up against the flap to see our father’s ankles, hairy and pale. Dad told me that one day, Linus started to cry because I stepped on his finger. I had bent down and kissed the tip of his pinky, ceasing the bawling.

“Never did see two kids get along so well,” dad had told me.

            But when we turned eleven (he on May first, me on February twenty third), everything changed. Linus’ mom moved out of the house and on Fridays we wouldn’t hang out in my den, like usual. Instead, he went straight home and didn’t call or anything. I guess that’s when I decided I knew what love was, although I was probably one hundred percent wrong, but I knew what it wasn’t (i.e. Linus’ parents) and I had watched enough romcoms to have a sense. But those months without him were a torture. He was my best friend. We did everything together. And after reading too many love stories and listening to too many heartbroken ballads, I decided that I, too, was heartbroken. So I called him on Halloween night and was surprised to hear him sound happy. He was talking about the pig documentary and I just slipped it in and if God did exist, I would consider this his grandest move. He didn’t hear me. I told my best friend of seven years that I loved him and my words were drowned out, thrown into a river, never to be heard again. After Halloween, I never called him back. He never called me back. When we were twelve, we started the school year strangers. That’s that, I guess.

***

“Alright Megan,” Mrs. Matthews grinned my way.

The bulbous eyes crawled onto my skin and my fingers shook. My nails are disgusting, chpped and thin and for a moment I want to rip them off and leave the skin beneath. The doctors haven’t found an answer to that phobia – they say now I’m just making these fears up for attention.

“Yesterday,” I force the words from my dry lips. “I shook my father’s friend’s hand.”

The applause followed. I bent my head, pretending to be proud of my lie. The spotlight swung to Linus and he squints at us the way he does, screwing up half his face. the face has become so familiar it hurts to breathe, so I look down but then I see my fingernails and I have to hide them beneath my sweater.

“Well, um. Can I go next week?” his eyes, light brown, land on mine. I stare back, not daring to blink, until his gaze shifts to Mrs. Matthews.

“Of course, Linus. Next week I would like at least one successful event.”

He nodded.

Ann, clothed in an army jacket and bright pink leggings, is next. She smiles, I love her smile, with her lip curing on the side of her cheek.

“Today, I” she half choked on her gum and then blew a bubble, “I climbed a tree in Lake Forest.”

Mrs. Matthews smiled and everyone else broke into bouts of laughter. Everyone knows that tree, it’s the tallest one in the state. But it’s a notch down from Ann’s previous attempt, the empire state building.

“Let’s try solid ground next time,” Mrs. Matthews clapped her hands and I imagine bees swarming from her fingertips. What if there were bees crowding around me, now? Too small to see, stinging at my collar, my shoulders, my kneecaps. Jumping to my feet, I swatted at my neck, biting my lip until it bled.

“Is everything okay?” Mrs. Matthews approached me, palms open in her ‘I’m not going to hurt you’ way.

“Bees,” I mumbled, flicking a microscopic one off my elbow.

“Breathe, Megan, and remember where you are.”

I nodded. Room 313. I nodded again. There are no bees. There are no bees. I sat down. The group barely acknowledged my scene, they’re used to it, but I could feel Linus’ gaze hardening into a stare. My eyelid twitched.

“Don’t forget to journal,” Mrs. Matthews dismissed us and I grabbed my bag. I watched Linus from the corner of my eye, watched him push his dark brown hair from his face.

He slung his soccer cleats over his shoulder tied at the laces. I swallowed. There could be a million of bacteria growing on the heel of one sneaker, imagine two? Did he leave them by his bed, could the cells morph into bugs and eat his skin until…?

Irrational fears, Megan, I reminded myself.

“Megan,” Mrs. Matthews pulled me aside, Linus’ head ducking from viewi n front of me.

“I’m worried about you.”

I smile, like I always do.

There's a smoothie lying on the white board sill, and it's rim, half teetering off the edge, fills me with a rush of pain.

"Nothing to worry about," I fold my arms over my chest and smile, "Truly. I feel better than I have in years." False. "The fears are less violent, now." Also false.

Mrs. Matthews clears her throat, a soft, gliding sound. She's so pretty, I can imagine an artist painting her hair in strands of auburn, the slitted browns in her eyes. Her arms are my favorite, rounded at the top until they run like a river to her candlestick fingers. I wish I could draw, she would be my first project. 

"Okay. Well, I do see that you've worked your way up to number one in Precalc." She leans back on a desk, placing her thin hands on her burgundy skirt. "I am very proud of you. You have scored excellently on your exams and you consistently exceeded the standards of your teachers."

My body warms and for a blissful moment I forget about the cup, about to fall.

"So. I spoke to your teachers and they informed me that they wished to nominate you for the Young Braniac scholarship."

My fingers cur. A gate shoots up and locks its bars across my heart. Braniac was another name the kids would spit at me.

"Um," I stare at the ground. Her toenails are a light of orange, another perfect detail. "That's really cool and nice."

"You should be happy, Megan. This is an extraordinary opportunity for you and your future."

Mrs. Matthews eyes me while she speaks, thinking that because I'm looking down I can't feel her gaze. I'm used to measuring the stares, I imagine myself jotting down the eye blinks, the pursing of lips. If I were an experiment I would call myself The Scared Girl and Her Unfortunate Victims. 

Mrs. Matthews pulls her sleeve up in that nervous way of hers. "Well, I know it's a lot to take in. So speak with your father and get back to me, alright?"

I nod. "Thanks."

"No problem. See you Thursday, okay?"

She turns away, her perfectly sloped shoulders making waves in the air. I grab my backpack and go.

Mom picks me up in her white van, which is ironic because her soul is anything but white. But when she opens the door and holds out her pointy arms, I run toward her and give her a quick hug. I don't want her to think that I don't love her. She smells like soil, she's probably spent the morning in her garden.

"How was your day?" handing me a water bottle filled with apple juice, she shakes back her blonde hair. It's grayed a lot over time.

"Okay. I got nominated for the," I winced, "Braniac scholarship."
"Oh, that's fantastic Meg!" she grab me and I scream because for a moment I picture myself being strangled from the front. Releasing me, with her blue eyes wide, she whispers "I'm really proud of you, babe."

But there' a sour wrinkle to her gaze because she sees me in my stain-free jacket and spotless jeans and she realizes that the one child she has is an utter failure. I know she wants to throw something on me to destroy my built up perfection. She opens the car, slides her striped dress with her glass body in the seat and waits for me. I touch the doorknob three times, lean my wrist against the side mirror and then grab the handle. It's a sort of prayer I've made up, to prevent the car blowing up or roadside accidents. We ride together in silence. I like that mom's car is clean, even if she has pots of flowers in here almost every morning. There are somethings I love about mom. But there's one thing I do not. She's dirty. She's so damn dirty.

    ***

    Mom and dad met in high school, Mom was a cellist from a strict, Catholic family. She wore long dresses that covered her elbows and knees, never wore her hair down and played her instrument like it was a lover. I found pictures of her in the den once, and her eyes were black and blank. But her fingers, resting on the neck of the cello, were alive, moving even in the still photo. Then she met dad. Three years older than she, he worked as a barber at the best shop on the block. He was only nineteen, but he had cut the hair of a billion and one celebrities, all while singing the hymns of God. Mom walked in with her little brother, Tyson, to get a nice form and that's when she heard dad singing.

It was her favorite hymn, Jesus Paid it All. He was midway through the second line when their eyes met.

"Child of weakness, watch and pray," then their gazes locked.

She put an arm around Tyson to steady herself and said, "I would like a nice form for my brother, here."

He smiled, white teeth shining against his copper skin. She knew he was Italian from the hair peeking out of his chest, the gold cross glittering across his thick neck. She knew what her mom would say to that, "dark white dirt."

Mom's Irish, comes from a very white, blue-eyed family. Although nobody in her direct family was a drunk, she told me that she didn't have enough fingers to count the amount of family members who were alcoholics. But when she saw dad, dressed in his white t-shirt and slicked back hair, mouth puckered, she told me that religion and ethnicity didn't exist. All she saw was him and she knew the minute he led Tyson into the high chair that she had to have him. And she did.

    On my sixteenth birthday, mom told me that dad and her would meet each other on her fire escape and eat fried raviolis his mom used to cook. She would tell him about her father's hatred of her, how he despised her dark, brown hair and thick eyebrows. "And he would kiss me," mom had said, combing back my hair, "and say, 'well, I think your hair suits me fine.'"

   When I get home, I find dad lying on the couch, reading the newspaper. He works mornings at the postal service and when he get home, he always reads his Times. I plop down beside him and grab the section he's already read (which always sits on the right of his cup of tea) and stick my head in between the pages.

"So," I clear my throat, "How's the world today, Doc?"

"Sick, girl. Sick."

Raising his eyebrows above his square glasses, he grins. "Braniac, huh?"

I freeze. "Mom told you?"

"Yup. Texting makes things so much more efficient."

I lean back and sigh, placing the paper on the table. I left mom in the driveway while she was parking the car.

"You should be happy." 

I shrug. I bend down to tie his shoelaces because that's Phobia #41. Untied shoelaces. All of my sneakers, even if they aren't on my feet, are tied.

"Well, you should do it. You spend a week with a chosen friend to work on the project and then you present it to a panel. I've done my research."

He flashes a smile at me and I knot the laces once more, "I guess so. I'm not really sure I'm up to spending seven days alone with other people."

"Well, give it some time."

I nod.

Mom walks in, face flushed from the wind and takes off her jacket. I watch dad watch her. He frowns when he sees her now, frowns in his eyes and mouth. She's not the same, he knows it and I know it, cause dad and I...we're a team. Mom smiles at us and slips off her shoes, leaning into the recliner. We sit in silence until I take out my AP Physics notebook and start working out acceleration equations.Mom switches on the TV and I see her yawn across the room. Dad put's his arm around me and I punch in the number 3.29 into my calculator. Mom yawns again. I measure them now, she hit a maximum yesterday at thirty two. She's reached sixteen since she picked me up. I started to record them the day I found her butt naked in bed with a man that wasn't dad. He had a mustache and long, shaggy hair and he was humming Hound Dog under his breath. When I opened the door, quietly, I saw him leaning over her, black beads swinging from his neck and in that heart stopping moment, mom yawned. My world crumbled and fell, my walls melted into splinters and mom yawned.