I See Reality by Kristin Elizabeth Clark

Author:Kristin Elizabeth Clark
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780374302597
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)

FOUR MONTHS LATER

Graduated valedictorian last weekend, after all. Andi smiled at me once during my speech, then disappeared before I could tell her congratulations. No Adderall relapses to date, but still in therapy thrice weekly and grounded until it’s physically impossible for me not to be.

“We’re working on ways to hold you accountable in college, too,” Mom keeps promising, usually while jingling the keys to the car that I might drive again in my late twenties, if I’m lucky.

“I’m most excited about our unannounced visits to your dorm room,” Dad keeps chiming in, to further emphasize my future embarrassment.

In their own very suburban way, they make a scary team.

Truth is, I’m probably not the “responsible young man” they think I should be before they trust me again. But I’ve stopped doing most of the stuff that was distracting me from dealing with my assorted anxieties and turning me into an unnecessarily ambitious ex-boyfriend monster with lame sibling rivalry issues. Haven’t quit missing Andi yet—seeing her smile at me again refueled those flames for at least another century—but lately I’m not as afraid to address the sucky feeling of missing her … before plucking it out and trying something new that pales in comparison to her. Activities like making sales calls for Dad out of the kindness of my being punished, getting a haircut twice, and spacing out in the living room.

For today’s new letdown, I’ve walked a mile to the nearest coffee shop. I’m sarcastically hoping there will be a long line extending back to the door for me to wait in, and sure enough, there is. “Is the coffee any good here?” I ask the barista when finally I reach the front. Her name tag reads Vanessa, and she stares at me from behind thick glasses with eyes that seem to be saying, Your coffee jokes are weak, I’m only here for the summer, and there’s nothing remotely attractive to see underneath these horn-rims! Except that third one’s a lie—there’s no hiding from that kind of pretty. Suddenly, I’m nervous.

She grants me a smile. “It’ll taste amazing under one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“You want it to taste amazing.”

“I don’t trust myself to draw those types of conclusions,” I say, while making too much eye contact with the bowl of bananas on my right.

“Then I’d get the iced white mocha with whip.” Vanessa doesn’t tell me it’s also known there as the “sorority girl special” until after I decide to order it. She puts a smiley face on my cup, though, as I look down at the plastic box that says TIPS and frown.

“Would you believe me if I promised to bring your tip tomorrow?”

She clicks her tongue twice and nods. “If I had a dollar for every time I believed that…”

“Right. You could buy a new … life-changing whatever-you’d-like.”

“A nicer shampoo, maybe,” she says with a dreamy twirl of her dark hair.

I want our conversation to continue a lot more than the twenty customers behind me do. I push through the

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