The Choices We Make

Tick tock. Tick tock. I looked at the clock. It was moving slowly. I wasn’t even supposed to be in this class. It was my free period. But my best friend was about to give a presentation, and she was a terrible public speaker. She always stuttered and got clammy and freaked out. Her anxiety had a habit of getting the best of her. So instead of enjoying my study hall, I was watching terrible presentations put on by average middle-class American teenagers, talking about things that mattered to them that really didn’t matter at all.

“Alexandra Marks.” Mrs. Johnson called out, after the clapping of the last presentation ended.

Lexy stood up slowly and straightened out her sweater before turning back toward me with a nervous smile.

I nodded encouragingly at her, but I knew there was really only one way this was going to end. I had sat through every presentation she had given in English this semester. I had helped her practice each one. I knew she knew the stuff she was talking about. But I also knew it would be painful to watch.

“The common reasons many teenagers turn away from their parents and start trying to practice magic or other supernatural things,” A mouth full in itself, but Lex rushed through it.

She had always been the kind of person who didn’t like boring. And she had been fascinated with the supernatural world since 7th grade when we discovered my house was haunted.

Now, we were freshmen, and her obsession had tampered off a little, to only watching Ghost Adventures on Saturday nights, a show that only terrified me, but had been our tradition for 2 years now.

But this project had opened a whole new can of worms. If I had thought she was obsessed in 7th grade, that was nothing. This was her project for the next four years. This was her baby. Bringing to light the similarities between religions and fables and cultures. Anything and everything, she had a hundred pages already. It was what she loved to do in our free time. Some would call it crazy, but I knew it was because there was something different about us, and she just wanted answers.

Finally, she stumbled to the end of the presentation and the bell rang.

“You did great,” I told her as we picked up our books and made our way to our lockers.

“It was disaster.” She replied with a sigh. “I should never be allowed to speak in front of anyone ever again. This was a thrilling project that should have had everyone’s attention, but instead those who did pay attention were laughing at me, and everyone else was thinking about random stuff that was totally irrelevant and way less entertaining than my presentation.”

“You listen to people’s thoughts while you’re up there?” I laughed as I traded my books for my lunch.

“Well, I can’t block them when I’m trying not to throw up.” She answered, her tone defeated.

“Maybe that’s your problem.” I told her, nudging her as she closed her locker.

“Well, I hope not,” She let out a chuckle, “it’s not a problem I can fix.”

I shook my head as she put her headphones in. We were headed to the cafeteria, and if the noise level there wasn’t bad enough, I couldn’t imagine how loud Lexy’s head used to get.

I used to wonder why she sat alone during lunches, just listening to her music. I always thought it was weird. No one ever sat alone during lunch. I mean, even the ‘weird’ kids seemed to have a group. But I learned later that it was because she couldn’t bear the flood of thoughts. There were too many people to block out and she couldn’t handle it. Music though, could drown it out. A trick she had figured out forever ago. If she turned it up loud enough, she could ignore the thoughts protruding into her head.

Now though, I didn’t allow her to sit alone. But we had an agreement. In winter, we would go make an appearance in the cafeteria then eat in the library and when the weather was warm enough, we would eat outside. The cafeteria affected me too, so I was never opposed to eating away from it. Not since I discovered I could feel other people’s emotions and see things happen before they did or as they did. That’s how I learned about Lexy’s problems. I felt she was upset one day. We weren’t even in the same class, but I could feel someone was upset, and then when I closed my eyes, I saw her crying in the bathroom.