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duffel bag.
    “Hey, there’s only one pair of shorts and a single T-shirt in here,” I pointed out. “Are you sure you want to wash them all by themselves? We usually wait until there’s a full load.”
    He didn’t answer. I looked up to see him reading the ingredients on my mother’s box of presoak powder. I was kind of surprised when he didn’t ooh and aah.
    Right. Time to change the subject to whatI wanted to talk about. I started the washer and we walked out of the laundry room and crashed on the couch in front of the TV.
    “So, hey, you seemed to be pretty friendly with Tina Zabinski at the student government meeting,” I said. “I didn’t know you knew her that well. What’s up?”
    “Oh yeah, what were
you
doing there?” As I suspected, JonPaul had completely forgotten my surprise appearance that morning.
    “Broadening my horizons. So, back to Tina—are you two friends?”
    “No, not really. She’s just, you know, around.” He pulled a small lunch cooler out of his backpack and became completely engrossed in pouring out individual portions of raw almonds and golden raisins into cereal bowls he’d wrapped in plastic. Undoubtedly after sterilizing them.
    I am not easily distracted. “What do you think about her?” I persisted.
    “Oh, she’s … hey, I only have enough organic peanut butter left for one sandwich. Wanna share?”
    “No, I’m good.” I peered into the jar of what looked like baby diarrhea and then jerked away.
    “Looks like baby diarrhea, doesn’t it?” He spreadit happily on some whole-wheat, flax-enriched bread and took a hefty bite. “This stuff is so good for your digestive system. Healthy turds float, bro, did you know that? The ones that sink are bad news and mean you’re eating all the wrong stuff and poisoning your own body with toxins like preservatives and additives.”
    We. Are. Not. Talking. About. This.
    I couldn’t take it anymore, and as he started jotting down the details of his snack in his food log like some obsessive hippie survivalist scientist hybrid, I jumped up from the couch, hollering, “JonPaul, are you okay? Can you hear me? Don’t go toward the light, come back to my voice!”
    “What are you talking about? I’m just sitting here adding up my carbs and my protein grams.” JonPaul looked totally freaked out. He should have—I’m very dramatic; I was totally committed to the moment, and I was selling this bit.
    “You ate that peanut butter sandwich and twitched and your eyes rolled back in your head and, although it was only for a few seconds and I’m not one hundred percent sure, I coulda sworn you stopped breathing.”
    “Probably sudden-onset peanut allergies; I read about that on the AskADoc.com site the other day.”I could see that his hands were shaking. “Do I look okay?”
    “Kinda.” I studied his face, frowning.
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “You look … splotchy. And you seem a little … unsteady.”
    “I
am
dizzy.”
    “Low blood sugar,” I said, nodding. “That’s probably all it is. You should lie down for a while.”
    “Or maybe eat something?”
    “And run the risk of choking to death on your own vomit? What if it’s something more serious?”
    “Yeah, buddy, you’re right. I’m gonna bail, head home and go lie down for a while.”
    “Smart.” I nodded some more.
    JonPaul went off, limping slightly. He’d probably be checking his pulse and taking his temperature all night. That kind of behavior made me more certain than ever that, once he was pushed to batcrap-crazy extremes, he’d be forced to see the depth of his obsessions, and then he’d start to develop a more realistic perspective on the whole health nut thing.
    I’d started out on the right foot.
    I slid the movie into the machine and watchedthe car turn into monsters by myself. I kind of missed JonPaul, but at least I could eat bananas dipped in melted chocolate chips and not have to listen to what the processed sugar and