Am I Normal Yet? (6 page)

A levels I couldn't do

Geography
– Out of the question. Learning about volcanoes? And earth crust? And ice ages? And all the other geological phenomena I couldn't control and could kill us all dead? Are you kidding?

Biology
– Oh, cancer. Let the person with diagnosed Generalised Anxiety Disorder and OCD learn about cancer? Next!

French/Spanish/German
– Why bother learning a language when it's highly unlikely you'll ever be well enough to leave your own country? I'd barely left the county… Only that one time for a cousin's wedding where I completely lost it at the finger buffet and Mum and Dad had to drive us home through the middle of the night…

Philosophy
– Don't even get me started on what existentialism does to my mind.

Psychology
– We've already discussed this.

And so on and so on and so on, until I took sociology, film studies and English language. Nice and safe. No scary ideas.

“She's well clever, aren't you, Eves?” Lottie asked, disrupting my inner ramblings.

“I'm okay. I guess.” Sarah once said it takes quite a high level of intelligence to dream up every worst-case scenario for every situation. Ever. Like I can…

Amber mopped up her beans with her stiff triangle of white toast. “So did you guys not stay in touch when you were at different secondary schools?”

“I…”

Lottie interrupted. “I tried. But after Year Eight, Miss Snooty Knickers here fell off the planet and stopped answering my calls.”

She said it friendly enough, but a bit of hurt was there.

“I…I… Sorry, Lottie. Secondary school kind of swallowed me up whole…”

“And spat you back out again?” Amber finished for me. “That's what happened to me. I hated school so much. I'm so glad I'm at college. You two are the first people I've met in a long time I actually like.”

We all beamed at each other, though inwardly I felt queasy with guilt…and grease. I hadn't meant to ditch Lottie. I just…ditched life, and Lottie was part of that. What was I supposed to do? Answer her calls and say “Sorry I can't come out tonight, I'm writing the sell-by dates of every food item in my house into my special OCD diary”?

She wouldn't have understood. Or worse, she would've pretended to understand but then got annoyed when her support didn't magically cure me and buggered off.

Just like Jane.

“Right, I'm stuffed,” I announced. “And film studies beckons.”

Amber narrowed her eyes. “Lottie. You said the girl was smart. And she's off to film studies?”

“Hey! I'll have you know we have to write essays!” I protested.

“Yeah, yeah. About what?”

“
Casablanca
and stuff?”

“Cassawhatta?”

“I'll pretend you didn't just say that,” I said.

We all chucked our money on the garish tablecloth and scraped our chairs back to leave. An autumn chill hit us as we trundled back to college.

Guy was just leaving as we got to the gates. He was smoking a suspicious-looking roll-up, his hair stuffed into a grey beanie hat.

“Evie,” he said, far too pleased to see me. Definitely a suspicious cigarette. He held out his hand for a high-five. “How was your date in the end?”

I high-fived him back unenthusiastically. “Not great. He went upstairs and shagged someone else.”

Guy tried and failed to hide a burst of laughter. “On your first date?”

“He's a sex addict,” I explained. “Well, that's what he told me anyway.”

This time he didn't even try to hide his giggles. He bent over, clutching his ribs. The roll-up dropped out of his mouth onto the pavement. Guy didn't notice.

“Seriously?” he asked, his head still upside down.

I looked to the others for support. They just gave me “we're talking to this loser again?” looks.

“Seriously. That was my weekend.”

“Christ, you make me laugh.” He got himself upright again, realized he'd dropped his joint, and ducked to pick it up off the floor.

“Yeah, well, at least I'm not plucking a soggy roll-up out of a gutter with an indeterminate tribal scar forever etched onto my body.”

“Fair enough.” Guy was waterproof against insults once he'd had a smoke. “Anyway, you got class now? Bye, ladies.” He re-lit his smoke and sauntered off.

Amber didn't look impressed as we watched Guy cough his way down an alley. “That's the guy from the kitchen, right?”

“Yeah, Guy. He's okay really. He's Joel's best mate.”

“And Joel is?”

“Jane's boyfriend.”

“Ahhh, Jane.” Amber gave Lottie a knowing look. I tried to read into it but the bell went.

“See ya,” I yelled behind me and I ran off to class and
Casablanca
.

“See ya.”

I was almost late for film studies and sat down all a-bluster, grabbing my notebook out my bag and rushing to get to the right page. My rush was wasted though as our teacher, Brian, walked in wearing shades and bashed his head face-down on the desk.

“All right, class? I'm hung-over as sin,” he told the wood. “Take it easy on me today.”

From what I could tell, Brian was a frustrated director with a drinking problem. Yet he was worshipped by the rest of my class for his tendency to yell “NO YOU'RE WRONG” and smash the table if you dared suggest
Forrest Gump
deserved that Best Picture Oscar over
Pulp Fiction
.

“So…” Brian continued to address the desk. “As I need to spend most of the next hour focusing on not vomming my guts up…” I felt sick, instantly sick. “Here is a very easy task for you. For some unknown reason, the examining bastards have decided to add noughties films to the exam syllabus. I haven't read which ones they're testing you on yet, so turn to the person next to you and discuss your favourite three films since 2000. Then report back at the end of the class. GO.”

I counted around the circle of desks to work out who I was paired with.

One…two…one…two…one… I looked to the left of me, and found myself staring into the most impressive pair of cheekbones the world has ever known. They were attached to this guy, a smiling guy, as he'd already worked out we were partners.

“Hi, I'm Oli,” he said.

“Oh, hey, I'm Evelyn…well, Evie.”

He smiled again. The cheekbones. The almighty cheekbones. His face looked like it had been chiselled out of butter by the gods, and yet he was all shy and looky-downy.
Ding ding ding
. My innards were lighting up like a slot machine. I promptly forgot all about worrying I'd fail my AS level due to Brian's teaching.

“I've not seen you in class,” I said, knowing I certainly would've noticed THOSE cheekbones before. “Did you just switch AS levels or something?”

He coughed and his smile dropped slightly. “I…no…er…there was a problem with my admission…” His voice went up like it was a question, and he carried on. “They thought I was staying on at my old school's sixth form…paperwork muddle. This is my first full week.”

I nodded. “Oh okay. That's…er…weird. So, you like films, huh?” I gestured towards the screen at the front of the classroom, and then cursed myself for stating something so obvious.

“Yeah. I'm not much of a reader, I prefer my stories in visual form. How about you? You're, like, the only girl in this class, have you noticed?”

“Oh, am I? Right…” And we both blushed, his sculpted cheeks and my normal puffy cheeks each glowing red. “But, yeah, I love films…they're escape, aren't they?”

Escape was undermining it. Films had been my saviour over the past few years. The roll of opening credits the only thing that could distract my brain when it swan-dived into the neurotic abyss. I must've watched hundreds of movies during my meltdown. Locked in my sterilized room, a tiny TV in the corner, I was able to lose myself in the stories and get caught up in the characters. For two hours at a time, I could forget all the whirring non-stopness of gut-twisting anxiety. I could merge myself into the lives of people capable of leaving the house, capable of having storylines.

“I guess they are,” Oli said. “So, anyway, shall we do this assignment then?” He couldn't quite hold eye contact. Which was a shame because his eyes were a shocking green colour. Like basil, or something more romantic-sounding than basil. But basil is a pretty lovely shade of green to have eyes made out of.

“Yes. Sure.” His shyness made me shy and I found myself playing with my hair. “So what are your top three films since 2000?”

“Well,
Fight Club
, obviously,” he started, ticking it off on his finger. He didn't even need to think about it. He'd obviously honed the list loads of times in his head. I was impressed. “Then
Pan's Labyrinth
, and, well,
Donnie Darko
. Of course.”

I nodded, secretly correcting him in my head.
Fight Club
came out in 1999, but he seemed too shy for me to say so. “Donnie's my number four. He doesn't quite make it into the top three though.”

“Ahh, so what are yours?”

I didn't need to think about it either. “
Am
é
lie
,
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,
and
Big Fish
,” I reeled off.

It was his turn to nod, and it was an appreciative one. “Interesting choices…for a girl.”

“And that's supposed to mean?” I asked.

“Well…er…” Oli realized his mistake and he spluttered and stumbled over his answer. Shy shy shy shy SHY. “It's just…erm…well…not a regular girl's top three, I guess…in a good way…seriously…in a good way…I meant that in a good way.” His basil eyes downturned and I could see him hating himself internally. It felt weird, making someone else nervous rather than being the nervous one. Quite powerful. I liked it. He was so shy though that I dropped his “good film choices for a girl” comment. Maybe I fancied him a bit.

“So what film got you into film then?” This is a film-person question. We've all got one. The film that made films a way of life, rather than just passive entertainment.

“
The Godfather, Part II
.”

I burst out laughing and Oli's cheeks burned brighter.

“What's wrong with
The Godfather, Part II
?” he asked, a bit mortified.

“Nothing's wrong with it – it's a great film. It's just also the biggest gender cliché ever of a bloke's favourite movie. And you just made that comment about me having good film choices for a girl.”

“But, it's Al Pacino…” His eyes didn't meet mine and I let it drop. Again. I really did fancy him, I guess.

“Never mind. I like
The Godfather
too.”

“Oh…cool…” He stared at the desk. “So what film got you into films then?”

I smiled, recollecting the first time I'd seen it. “It's a weird one.
Edward Scissorhands
.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

The first time I saw Edward Scissorhands

I'd just started to get sick, and no one knew why or what or how yet. Mum had tried to force me to go to school again, but I'd barricaded myself into my bedroom by pushing all my furniture against the door.

Have you ever barricaded yourself into a room? Honestly, it's the most definitive way of confirming that, yes, maybe you have gone mental.

And that confirmation unleashes the emotional landslide – where, suddenly, after fighting for so long, your brain gives up and erodes in on you, spiralling your thoughts into monsters who seize the city and tell you nothing is going to be okay ever again. That this is your new life now. Fear, and pain, and confusion. And your mum hammering at the door, screaming that she's calling the police for your truanting, and you don't even care – just as long as you don't have to leave the house.

Eventually Mum gave up – thinking if she stopped “giving me attention” I would “snap out of it”, because that's what every parent of someone who gets head-ill believes at some stage.

I was left in peace.

To ruminate into madness.

The problem with that is, there's only so much delirious spiralling you can do before your brain gets a tad bored. Not bored enough to move the furniture, open the door and say, “I'll go to school now.” But sustained crying was exhausting and, without drinking, due to the barricade and such, it got hard to keep producing tears. So eventually I started looking for things to do and found an old DVD Jane'd lent me – she'd been going through a Johnny Depp obsessive period – and shoved it into my laptop.

Films had never been a huge deal to me before. They were things in the background in a friend's room, or a way of passing time on Christmas Day when the family is bored of one another. But the moment
Edward Scissorhands
began, with its haunting music and blizzarding snow and magical fairytaleness, it did the impossible. It made me forget what was going on in my head. For one blissful hour and a half I was distracted by this story of an odd boy who didn't fit in, in a boring town just like mine. It was like going on brain holiday. And it was so beautiful and poignant and perfect. That was the film that did it.

And for the following years film was my only escape. I chased gorgeous story after gorgeous story, usually old romances, my film pile growing ever bigger and my movie knowledge ever greater as my brain got gradually worse, and then much worse, and then better.

“So why
Edward Scissorhands
?” Oli asked, his basily eyes wide with interest.

“Oh. I just like Tim Burton,” was my reply.

Sarah couldn't wait to hear about my disastrous date. Naturally.