Am I Normal Yet? (2 page)

BAD THOUGHT

You should wash them again, just to make sure.

I did double over then, holding onto the edge of the sink as my body crumpled. Sarah'd warned me this could happen. That the thoughts may come back when I cut down my dosage. She told me to expect it. It would be okay though, she said, because I had “coping mechanisms” now.

My mother knocked on the bathroom door. She'd probably been secretly timing me again – anything over five minutes was a warning sign.

“Evie?” she called.

“Yes, Mum,” I called back, still knotted over.

“You okay in there? What time do you need to leave for your party?”

She only knew about the party. She didn't know I had a date. The less Mum knew, the better. My little sister Rose knew, but had been sworn to secrecy.

“I'm fine. I'll be out in a sec.”

I heard her footsteps thump down the hallway and I let out a slow breath.

Logical thought

You're okay, Evie. You don't need to wash your hands again, do you? You only just washed them. Come on, up you get.

Like a well-trained soldier, I straightened myself and calmly unlocked the bathroom door. But not before one last brain malfunction muscled its way in for a parting shot.

BAD THOUGHT

Uh oh, it's coming back.

After a dismal summer of constant frizz-rain, September had been on its best behaviour. My leather jacket swung over my shoulder as I walked to the train station. It was balmy and light still, with kids rollerblading down the pavements and parents sitting in their front gardens with evening beers.

I was so unbelievably nervous.

I hadn't wanted to meet him by myself. But Jane – TRAITOR – was getting a lift to the party with Friend-Stealer…sorry, I mean Joel.

“You don't really need me there to pick your date up,” Jane had said, in a sickly-sweet voice. “Isn't that a little…immature?”

I, personally, thought it was more immature to dye your naturally-blonde hair jet black as an act of rebellion against your perfectly-nice parents – like Jane had. But I didn't tell her that. I just stared at my feet so I didn't see the patronizing crinkle at the sides of her kohl-covered eyes.

“I just thought it would be cool, like, if we all rocked up together?” I replied. “You and Joel. Ethan and me. You know, as a group?”

“Hon, he'll want it to be just you and him. Trust me.”

I used to trust Jane…

I used to trust my judgement.

I used to trust my thoughts.

Things change.

And, today, things were spiralling.

What if Ethan didn't turn up? What if it was the worst night ever? What if he could tell I was mental and lost interest? What if I never found anyone who could put up with me? I mean, yes, I was better, but I was still…well…me.

I remembered what Sarah told me about dating.

What Sarah told me about dating

“I got a date,” I said to her.

I sat on my favourite chair in her office, twirling a stuffed bunny in my hands. Sarah did Family Therapy too, so there were always loads of toys to play with when she told me things I didn't like.

It's impossible to surprise a therapist – I'd been with her two years, and I'd learned that early. Yet Sarah did sit up in her big leather chair.

“A date?” she asked, her voice all neutral and therapyish.

“This weekend. I'm taking him to a house party.” The bunny spun faster and I couldn't help but smile. “I guess it's not like a date date. I mean, there won't be any candles or rose petals or anything.”

“Who is this date with?”

Sarah jotted notes on her big A4 pad, like she always did when I said something interesting. It felt like an achievement, when she got the Bic biro out.

“Ethan from my sociology class,” I said.

“Right, and what is Ethan like?”

My tummy bubbled and my smile spread out wider, like margarine.

“He plays the drums. And he thinks he might be a Marxist. And, he finds me funny. He actually said yesterday, ‘Evie, you're so funny.' And…”

Sarah broke in. With her classic question.

“And how does that make you feel, Evelyn?”

I sighed and thought about it a moment.

“It feels good.”

The Bic biro moved again.

“Why does it make you feel good?”

I dropped the bunny back into the toy bin and stretched back, trying to work out the answer.

“I never thought a guy would fancy me…I guess. What with everything up here…” I tapped my brain. “And, it would, you know, be nice to have a boyfriend…like everyone else…” I trailed off.

Sarah narrowed her eyes and I braced myself. Two years had taught me narrowed eyes = a blunt question.

“It might be nice, but do you think it's the healthiest thing for you right now?”

I stood up, instantly mad.

“Hey! Why can't I just have one normal thing? Look at how much better I am. I'm coming off my medicine. I'm going to college every single day. I'm getting good grades. I even put my hand in a bin last week, remember?”

I slumped back down again, knowing she wouldn't rise to my dramatic outburst. Sure enough, she remained composed.

“It's normal to want something normal, Evie. I'm not denying you that, and I'm not saying you can't or shouldn't do it—”

“You couldn't stop me anyway, I'm a free person.”

Silence to punish my interruption.

“All I'm going to say, Evie, is that you're doing brilliantly. You said so yourself. However…” She tapped her biro on her pad, rolling her tongue in her cheek. “However…relationships are messy. Especially relationships with teenage guys. They can make you overthink and overanalyse and feel bad about yourself. And they can make even the most ‘normal' –” she made the quote sign with her fingers – “girls feel like they're going crazy.”

I thought for a moment. “So you're saying Ethan is going to mess me about?”

“No. I'm saying boyfriends and girlfriends in general mess each other about. I just want to make sure you're strong enough to cope with the mess, alongside everything else.”

I crossed my arms.

“I'm still going on the date.”

It was a bit of a walk to the train station. The sun set gradually, making the sky an inky purple. There is lots of sky about where I live. Most houses are detached, with big sprawling gardens. The town centre has a Starbucks and a Pizza Express, a few pubs and all the other usuals, but it's still just an island of buzz in a vast sea of suburbia.

Ethan sent another message, telling me when his train was due to arrive. He lived a couple of towns over. It was exactly a nineteen minute train journey.

BAD THOUGHT

What if he holds onto a pole on the train? What if someone with norovirus sneezed into their hands, and then held the same part of the bar before Ethan? What if Ethan then holds my hand?

I stumbled on nothing and almost fell flat. Dating
did
bring a whole load of new mess into my brain. But, as ever in my brain, it was never “normal” mess.

Things I reckon it's normal to worry about before a first date

• Will it be awkward?
  
• Will they fancy me?
  
• How do I look?
  
• Will I like them?
  

I'd had all the above, on a recurring merry-go-round of neurosis ALL DAY, but I'd also had stupid stupid bad thoughts about stupid stupid bacteria. As bloody always.

To distract myself, I replayed how Ethan and I had got to this first date.

How Ethan and I got to our first date

He'd come into our second lesson looking pretty damn pleased with himself.

“Hey,” I said, shyly, as he sat opposite me.

“Alien hand syndrome,” he answered, nodding cockily.

“Huh?”

“It's a new thing for you to be scared of. Alien hand syndrome.”

He'd remembered our conversation! And he'd done his own research! I grinned and tilted my head. “Oh yeah? And what's that?”

Hang on… WHAT THE HELL IS ALIEN HAND SYNDROME? WILL I CATCH IT?

“It's proper weird.” He waved his hands about all crazy. “It's a neurological condition where your hand, like, grows its own brain and does crap all on its own accord.” He grabbed his throat and pretended to strangle himself.

“What, even jazz hands?” I asked, trying to make light of it through my inner doomness.

He made his fingers jazzy, waving them in my face as I laughed nervously. “Yeah, maybe. But alien hand randomly slaps people, or chucks stuff on the floor; it might even try and strangle someone else. Here, I'll show you.”

He got out his phone and pulled up a YouTube clip, checking our sociology teacher still hadn't arrived, leaning right in close so we could watch together. It was the closest a guy's face had ever been to mine and I felt all panicky, in a good way. Ethan smelled of bonfire, in a good way. I could hardly concentrate on the hand video.

I drew back first, and got my textbook out. “I don't believe it,” I said. Not wanting to believe it.

“It's real, honest.”

“How do you get it?”

Ethan put his phone back in his pocket. “It's usually a side effect of an operation to cure epilepsy.”

I let out a big, real, sigh of relief. “Oh, good. I'm past the age where you develop epilepsy.”

Ethan burst out laughing again, just as our teacher arrived and shushed him.

Class began. Our teacher paced in front of the interactive whiteboard, introducing us to Marxism and Functionalism. Ethan kicked me under the desk. I looked up and he held my gaze intensely, before retreating back under his hair, a small smile on his rounded dimpled face. I withheld a grin and delivered a retaliatory kick. When he looked up, I held eye contact for only a second.

Best game ever. Kick, stare. Kick, stare. Goosepimples stood to attention all over my body as our teacher's lecture faded into background noise.

I didn't have one bad thought the entire lesson.

In our next class, I was ready for him.

“Capgras Delusion,” I said, before he'd even sat down.

He threw back his hands. “Aww, man, I've got one too. I wanna go first.”

I shook my head. “Nope. Mine first.”

“All right, all right. What's Capgras Delusion?” he asked.

I put on an authoritative voice. “It's when you suddenly believe someone close to you, like your husband, or your sister or something, has been replaced by an identical imposter trying to take over their life.”

“Woooooah. No way.”

“I know.”

“Like an evil twin?”

“I guess.”

“That is so cool.”

“I guess.” I'd already checked on Google and I wasn't in the high-risk category.

Ethan threw his bag down and stretched back in his chair.

“Pica,” he said.

“Whata?”

“Pica. It's an eating disorder where you love eating inedible objects with no nutritional value. Like rocks, and laptops and stuff. You're just compulsively hungry. You're always in and out of hospital because you've eaten stuff you shouldn't.”

I was about to open my mouth but he stopped me.

“Don't worry. You're unlikely to get it. It's linked with autism.”

I nodded happily. “Cheers.”

We smiled at one another but were, once again, interrupted by our teacher, daring to teach us.

Over the next few lessons, we took it in turns to share a new disorder we'd discovered. Until suddenly one day Ethan seemed intent on actually learning. I watched him scribbling in his notebook as we were introduced to Karl Marx's big revelation that poor people aren't treated right by rich people. I tried to concentrate too, opening my own pad to make notes.

That was, until his notepad slid across my desk.

Can I ask you out?

My breath ran out of me and I smiled the entire lesson. I wrote back only one word…

Maybe…

The bell rang and everyone stood to reload their bags. “So,” he said, sitting on my desk right in front of me. He was
so
confident. I liked it.

“So, what?”

“Are you about this weekend?” he asked. “I like you, Evie, you're on the cute and kooky side of weird.”

KOOKY!? I'd finally made it down the weirdness spectrum to merely kooky!

I flicked through my plans. “I'm going to a house party on Saturday. There's this girl in my form, Anna. She said her mum is really cool and lets her have house parties. Her first one is this weekend.”

“Cool. Can I come? With you I mean?”

OHMYOHMYOHMYOHMYOHMYGODDDDD.

“Sure,” I said, as nerves and goodness went crazy in my bloodstream.

“Great, where is it?”

I reached the platform two minutes before the train was due and tapped my foot whilst waiting. I allowed myself to get excited. Like, really excited. Was I going to fall in love? Was this the start of it? Had I managed to find a nice sexy boy in my very first attempt at dating? Was this karma making up for the crap my life had been for the past three years?

Yes. Maybe. No, hell, yes.

The train was coming. Ethan was coming. For once, finally, I was living my life as it should be. For once I was going to catch a break.

The train doors opened… Ethan appeared amongst a crowd of passengers getting off…and tripped over his feet, landing flat on his face. An empty two-litre bottle of cider rolled out of his hand.

“Bollocks,” he yelled. He tried to stand but fell again, rolling onto his side and laughing.

This
wasn't supposed to happen.

I took a tentative step towards him. Passengers sidestepped us, giving us both dirty looks.

“Ethan?” I asked.

“WOAH, EVIE, I NEED YOU TO GIVE ME A HAND HERE.”

He reached out for my arm, and I took his body weight – staggering under it as he righted himself. He absolutely stank. Of cider. And maybe a bit of sick.