The Astonishing Adventures of Fan Boy and Goth Girl (22 page)

I tilt my head to one side. The patch moves, following my line of sight. I can barely make out things on the periphery of my vision. It's like the reverse of tunnel vision.

A migraine. A migraine's coming.

My stomach tightens. This is how it happens. I used to get these all the time, years ago, when my parents first got divorced. My doctor said they were stress and diet related. Mom wanted me to go into therapy, but they stopped coming as frequently and she forgot about them. Honestly,
I
forgot about them.

But now I remember. God, the pain. The pain comes later. First, the loss of vision. It's like a herald, like a vanguard, an advance scout. I lose my vision and my guts churn. Soon the patch of blindness will start to shrink, and even though I shouldn't I'll feel relief that I'm getting my sight back. But once the patch is gone—in the very instant that I can see again—that's when the pain will hit.

I breathe slowly, trying to forestall a panic attack. Looking down, I can see only the extreme edges of the pages of my notebook: a molecule of heme on one page, a molecule of chlorophyll on the other. Don't ask me why, but for some reason I notice that the only difference between them is that heme has iron in it, little "Fe" notations. So maybe that's why science-fiction aliens have green skin: They're missing iron in their blood, so they have chlorophyll instead, which means that Brainiac 5 and J'Onn J'Onzz can photosynthesize...

Oh, God, this is going to hurt so bad. Do I have any of my migraine medicine at home? I can't remember. It's probably expired by now anyway.

The patch of fuzzy light has contracted a bit. Just enough that I can see to stand and walk—carefully—to the front of the class, where Mrs. Reed is grading tests while we all copy molecular structures from the board. I avoid even glancing in Cal's general direction; my face is probably screwed up into something horrific.

"Is something wrong?" she asks.

"I think I need to go to the nurse's office," I tell her, keeping my voice low.

"What's wrong?"

I can't tell what she's thinking; I can't read the expression on her face because there's just a blotchy welt of static there.

"Please."

There are benefits to being a geek, a goody two-shoes, a guy who's never gotten in trouble: She lets me go without forcing me to launch into some sort of explanation. Halfway to the nurse's office, the patch shrinks further and I take advantage of my partially restored sight, almost breaking into a run.

I tell the nurse that I need to go home. Right now. She starts to ask questions and I gnaw on my lip in frustration, glaring at the slightly vapid expression on her face, and I realize I can
see
her face, and it
hits,
the pain, oh
God,
my head explodes no I
wish
it would explode because then the pain would stop because I'd be dead which is fine being dead is fine better than this my teeth come together
hard
and I groan and she looks at me like I've pulled a gun terrified and I throw my head back and I want to scream I hear her picking up the phone I want to scream into the world vomit the pain out through my eyes and my mouth and my nose and my ears there are spikes driven through my skull spikes with more spikes growing out of them and more spikes growing out of
them
like fractals ever growing into infinities of agony phone dialing she's talking to someone and she comes to me and her hands are on me and she sits me down and she's holding my hand and she strokes my forehead and I'm getting aroused I can't believe it my skull is rupturing from within like Krypton and it's stupid old Mrs. Hennessey and I'm getting turned on even though I'm dying just because something female is touching me and now I'm embarrassed on top of everything else—

"I can't give you anything. There's nothing in your file for medicine."

I don't
care.
Give me
something.
Give me an aspirin or a Tylenol or a goddamn
Midol
just put something in my body that has a chance in hell of dimming the bright, hard light of the sun that has blossomed inside my brain.

"Your mother is coming to pick you up, OK?"

Do the math. Do the math. Mom's office is in Lake Eliot. Fifteen minutes from Dad's house. And Dad's house is an hour from here. Do the math.

I can't. I can't do the math. My brain won't work. All I can think of is pain and arousal and Dina (thank God, Dina, yes, think of Dina) and Courteney and how aliens could have photosynthesizing blood, it could really work, it really could, maybe you could genetically engineer humans that way, too, and we could process our own food from sunlight and you'd save the world that way and I'm the first one to think of it and we'd all be green, a green world, green people, that would work, that's a great idea that's a—

I should remember it to tell Bendis.

I
NFINITIES PASS
. U
NIVERSES EXPLODE
from their Big Bangs, expand and cool over billions of years, contract into primal atoms, and explode again.

Mom picks me up. I'm on a cot in the nurse's office, curled into a fetal position on my side, rocking because movement seems to lessen the pain, though just a little bit.

In the passenger seat, I resist screaming when she starts the car, the rough growl of the engine like claws in my ears.

"This is just like you," she says. "I can't believe I had to drive all the way back here. You're getting back at me for not driving you on Saturday, aren't you? This is your way of getting back at me."

"I'm sorry, Mom, OK? I'm sorry?" I'm trying to talk through a brick that's been thrown through my head. My
teeth
hurt. I can't even think. I just keep playing back the bass line to an Eminem song in my head. I don't know. It just keeps thumping there. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." I'm crying now because I
am
sorry and because it hurts so bad and crying should make her loosen up, right? But she just stares straight ahead and hits the gas and we go.

At home, when I miss the next-to-last stair on my way to the basement and stumble, fall, and slam into a wall, she decides this isn't pretend. I've got the Eminem song mixed up with something from Outkast and those green aliens seem pretty cool, and then a BIG wave of pain crashes over me and I whimper, whimper like a puppy that's been kicked over and over again and she helps me into my room and then my mother is taking off my belt and I don't want my mother to undress me and thank God she doesn't she just takes off my belt and my shoes and unsnaps my jeans then makes me lie back and pulls the covers over me and I curl up again like a baby and rock rock rock back and forth because it feels a little better that way and I want to cry some more so I do I let it go in big wracking sobs that jerk my body and that actually feels better, the pain is more manageable until I
stop
crying—it comes back bigger and worse and angry, like how dare I stave it off even for ten seconds? How dare I? I was going to call Cal, really, really I was going to call him and try to explain about the lacrosse team and make us be friends again, but now it's all ruined how can I call him now how can I—

Mom puts a cool, wet washcloth on my forehead, which feels great and I start to breathe calmly and my heart slows and my body rests until a bead of water starts to run down my temple and it seems magnified a million times, like a boulder rolling down and I move to brush it away and the movement wrecks the rhythm I had going and I'm in agony again and I can't stop it and I don't know what happens next because I open my eyes and shut them immediately against the light and there are voices.

"Can't you give him something?"

It sounds like my grandmother. When did my grandmother get here?

"He used to have medicine for these."

"Don't you have something over-the-counter?"

"I can't find my Excedrin. I had a whole bottle that I never opened because of the baby."

"I'll go out for you."

Wham! Bam! Another wave of pain, a fresh dose of it, just to remind me, and I thrash on the bed, crying out, and a new voice, my stepfather's: "That's it. Call the ambulance. Take him to the emergency room."

"No..." I make myself say it. I force myself to form the words through the pain. "No hospital. Don't want hospital." Hospitals mean tests and doctors and beds and overnights and I need to be free, free on Saturday.

Someone puts something against my temple, the only part of my head they can reach, as I've turned to my side again. I feel and hear the scrape of ice cubes in a towel. My temple starts to burn with the cold. I want to die.

The lights go out. The ice burns until my skin goes numb, and then turns into a sharp, shifting weight.

I force myself to breathe regularly. I think of Courteney. I think of Dina. I think of sex, which takes my mind off the migraine pain and brings a different, familiar, manageable pain.

I hear the casters on my chair squeak briefly, coming closer to me. In the darkness, someone takes my hand and strokes it, gently, in perfect repetitions. The exact same time span between each stroke. The exact same pressure each time. The exact same path of motion. The pattern-matching part of my brain takes note and obsesses, and my head goes numb, and someone holds my hand as I fall asleep.

F
RIDAY STARTS WEIRD
. Even weirder than the sensation of being a marked man as I walk through the halls. Even weirder than the migraine yesterday. It's almost like I've never recovered from the migraine, like some wiring in my brain blew out yesterday and is sparking and sputtering, shooting facsimiles of reality through my cortex.

For one thing, I once again have ventured outdoors without my bullet. Yeah, I had the migraine without it, but I
survived.
If I could survive that without the bullet, maybe I don't need it anymore. Why not put that to the test? So I deliberately walked out of the house without it in my pocket this morning. I did spend a few seconds stroking the hard drive case, though, just for luck. I'm dedicated and courageous here, not stupid.

For another thing, Cal is nowhere to be seen.

And for
another
thing, Mom is acting weird, too.

When I woke up this morning, she wanted me to stay home. But she didn't seem to understand that I felt fine. How much more obvious could I make it? Yesterday: drooling moron moaning in pain. Today: regular guy sitting at the table, eating cinnamon toast. I can't believe I had to make the case for going to school. Wouldn't most parents be
thrilled
to have a kid who
wants
to go to school?

In school now, I glimpse Dina heading up the stairs, my eyes and brain and everything else arrested and at attention. A sudden fear thuds in my heart along with the usual useless lust: What if someone finds out how I feel about Dina? What if Kyra blabs or Cal says something? I see myself pounded by more than Frampton, or laughed at as I walk by, or ... Dina herself watching me with pity and contempt...

It's a weird day, like I said. I see her a lot. It's like someone's guiding us through the halls, toward each other. She's wearing a short denim skirt that shows off flawless sculpted legs, and a sheer blouse that looks like it would melt under the heat of your hands. Rich blond hair swirls down to her shoulders. I file it all away, knowing full well I'm obsessed. She's made it into my unconscious world, where I invented Courteney.

Or ... wait.

I stop dead in my tracks in the hallway as Dina approaches from the other direction. Someone jostles me, pushes me out of the way against the wall. She's closing in on me.
Is
it Dina? Or is it Courteney? Which one did I create? Every curve of her is in motion, and I can't stop my mind from capturing those motions like a camera, and what if she uses her powers? What if she looks into my mind and plucks out my lusts and fears and projects them for everyone to see?

She passes me in a whiff of perfume, my thoughts no more obvious than what I fear is a look of abject lust or maybe puppy-dog love on my face. But no one's looking at me, so it doesn't matter.

It takes me a class period to finish shaking off the strange sense of unreality that permeates the day. It wasn't Courteney—it was just Dina. I didn't create her. If anything, she created herself. She created Courteney, using me as her instrument and her medium. I actually like the way that sounds.

In my classes without Cal, I feel terrible. In the ones
with
Cal, I feel worse. I don't even bother looking at him or for him. I go through the motions, hand in papers, take notes, but I don't care, not really, and I keep my hand down even when I know the answers.

I want to go to Mrs. Sawyer and apologize for the Tortoise Blight. I don't know why.

Instead, I trudge through to the end of the day, glance around for a glimpse of Kyra and one of her cars, then get on the bus so that I can go home, wrap up my preparations for tomorrow...

But first, there's dinner.

Mom is in one of her "We're a family" moods when I get home. The house smells like a Taco Bell exploded, meaning that the promise implied by the chili ingredients I saw the other day has come to pass.

"We're all going to eat
together
tonight," Mom says, beaming as if all's right in the world. And maybe it is for her. She's got her shower tomorrow and I'm going to the convention still, so she doesn't have to worry about that.