Lexapros and Cons by Aaron Karo

Author:Aaron Karo [Karo, Aaron]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2012-04-10T04:00:00+00:00

I stare at my food without touching it. Steve looks at me like he’s trying to figure out what to say.

We’re sitting at our table in the cafeteria alone. Kanha got sick again in Calc this morning and went home afterwards. Either he’s allergic to integrals or he keeps getting food poisoning. This time I didn’t laugh when he threw up. Amy didn’t even turn around.

“Come on, Chuck,” Steve says. “We’ve been over this. You’ll get Amy back. It was just a misunderstanding.”

“It wasn’t a misunderstanding. She thinks I’m a freak. I am a freak.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Steve, what you would do if you tried to kiss me and instead I threw your dog on the floor?”

Steve isn’t quite sure how to respond to that. Perhaps it’s not the best example.

“Look,” Steve says, “you always say how cool Amy is. So you should just go talk to her.”

“She said she never wants to speak to me again.”

“Girls always say that.”

I look up at Steve, calling him out.

“Girls always say that … according to the many movies and television shows I’ve watched on the matter,” he clarifies.

“I can’t,” I grumble. “I don’t even know what I would say.”

“Try texting her.”

“I did. No response.”

“Oh.”

I have sent Amy a few texts. Sure it’s a little informal given the circumstances, but I can’t get up the nerve to call her and I know she won’t pick up anyway. Plus, I wasn’t lying when I told Steve I didn’t know what to say. I swore I would never tell her about my, well, mental issues. My first text was beyond lame: So sorry about other day. Pls call me. Tell buttercup I said hi. She didn’t write back. I don’t blame her.

“What about Facebook?” Steve asks. “What have her statuses been like?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “She defriended me.”

“Ouch.”

“Actually I can’t even see her page at all now.”

“So she blocked you?”

“I guess so,” I admit.

“Shit,” Steve says, scratching his head. He looks genuinely concerned.

I yawn for like the tenth time at lunch and Steve takes note.

“Did you sleep at all last night?”

I’ve been taking the Lexapro for about a week but haven’t told Steve about it. I don’t feel any less OCD-ish. Still checking the stove, making lists, and keeping embarrassingly detailed records about my masturbation regimen. I do, however, feel kind of sluggish. I’m sleeping slightly better—not because I don’t have the urge to get up to pee fifteen times—but because I’m so exhausted. The weird thing is, even though I’m sleeping more, I feel even more tired during the day. These pills are strange. I hope Dr. S. knows what she’s doing.

I pick at my food. “Yeah, I slept,” I say.

“You wanna hang after school?” Steve asks.

“I don’t know, maybe.”

I don’t really want to do much of anything. I feel very blah. And I miss Amy’s laugh—with me, at me, whatever. I also haven’t told Steve that I never put in a good word for him with Beth. I know he’s chomping at the bit to ask me about it but won’t say anything while he knows I’m wallowing in my own misery.

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