Read Schizo for Free Online Page A

nod and whisper back, “Okay.”
    Mr. Heinz always starts his class exactly on time, so even if I’m, like, a minute late he acts like I missed half the period.
    I go and take a seat next to this girl Alexis, who I know pretty well. She has black hair with bangs and bright red lipstick.
    â€œHey, Miles,” she says very quietly.
    â€œHey.”
    My body lands heavily in the hard wooden chair. Someone has carved the words
Roberta Blows
into our desk. I’m not sure who Roberta is.
    I nudge Alexis gently to show her the carving.
    â€œRight?”
she says, smiling.
    â€œDid you know Eliza Lindberg was back at school?” I ask her. Alexis was in our seventh and eighth grade classes, too.
    â€œEliza?” She narrows her eyes at me. “No. Really?”
    And then Mr. Heinz calls out, “Solve the problem quietly, guys.”
    And so I put my head down. I try to do what he says.
    But I’m shaking now, trembling so my writing comes out all scratchy, nearly illegible.
    My mind keeps going around in circles—manic, anxious, remembering.
    I feel like I might actually get sick.
    My stomach seizes.
    And there’s sweat all down my back and broken out on my forehead.
    â€œHey, are you okay?” Alexis whispers.
    I stand up.
    â€œYeah, uh . . . no . . .”
    I walk quickly out of the room, ignoring Mr. Heinz calling out to me.
    When I get to the bathroom, I lock myself in one of the stalls and get ready to puke.
    It’s just the medication,
I tell myself,
eating through my stomach.
    It can’t possibly have anything to do with Eliza being back.
    I think about Mr. Heinz and the Punnett squares—dominant and recessive traits. But where this fucking mental illness comes from, I have no idea. No one else in my family is crazy like I am. I’m the defective one—the mistake. And I am obviously not fit for survival. If I were out in the wild, I would’ve been left for dead long ago.
    I curl up as small as possible on the floor and wait for the nausea to pass.

8.
    THE LIBRARY AT STANYAN Hill is pretty unimpressive for a private school.
    It’s about the size of two classrooms put together, the shelves filled with big reference volumes no one ever looks at and a whole lot of paperback teen fiction like the
Twilight
series. There are a few classics and some oversize collections of poetry and short stories. And then there is a whole wall of different magazines.
    My mom has been fighting for years to get them to expand the library, or at least to expand their collection, but it’s never been a priority. From what I’ve seen, the library is just kind of an afterthought. The school spent all this money building a big fancy computer lab and stocking it full of brand-new Macs, so barely anyone even uses the library anymore. In a lot of ways, I’m surprised my mom still has a job here. The library is pretty much empty every time I go in.
    And today at lunch is no exception.
    The door is propped open and my mom is sitting on a stool behind the desk reading a book herself. There are a couple of freshmen reading a graphic novel together at one of the round wooden tables in the corner by the window. They are very small and very young-looking, with pasty, pale skin. They have on preppy sweaters and loose-fitting jeans and white old-man sneakers. They are dorks. They part their hair on the sides. They hang out in the library during lunch.
    But then again, so do I.
    â€œHey, Mom,” I say, startling her from whatever book she’s reading.
    â€œShhhh,” she tells me, holding a finger up. She’s wearing a thick wool sweater and a knit scarf and her librarian glasses. Her hair is cut a few inches above her shoulders.
    I look over at the two nerdy freshmen again and raise my shoulder up, like,
Seriously, I have to be quiet for these guys?
    She follows my gaze and then smiles and gestures for me to go back into her office. I follow her