The Music of What Happens by Bill Konigsberg

Author:Bill Konigsberg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.

The night of the zoo kiss, I find myself unable to sleep. I am thinking about Jordan’s lips against mine, and how he actually whimpered when they touched, and how real it felt.

It’s amazing. The simple act of kissing with someone I really like can just send me. Like a drug, maybe.

And then there are the times it doesn’t feel like that. At all.

Nausea fills my throat. I’m like, Do I need to vomit? I laugh. I liked the kiss. Jordan made me want to do the opposite of vomit.

So why would I even focus on that?

I’m alone in my bedroom. Lying down in bed. After a first kiss with a dude I like. So what’s this heavy syrup filling up my sinuses? Expanding upward.

I shut my eyes tighter, ignoring the weird feeling behind my eyes.

It stays, and then it gets worse, and I even think maybe I should call 9-1-1. Suddenly my face is numb with this syrupy feeling. It’s in my nose, in my head, sloshing down into my chest. And I’m like, Am I going crazy? Focus on the positive. Focus on the good stuff.

Kevin, the name, appears in big, bright lights, and I thrash it out of my brain. My head hits the headboard slightly and that makes me dizzy, but it does nothing to stop the slush. Oh no. I think to myself, Oh no.

I make a deal with God. Please, God. Let me just feel the good thing, not this other —

God says no.

I pinch my eyes closed. There’s a milky, full feeling gathering around my heart. A sludge. Slush. My body goes heavy all the way through, and suddenly I’m underwater again, like when Betts jumped on me, and waves of it fill my sinuses, the veins in my arms, my inner ear.

Dad saw a psychic once. He was into that for like a minute when I was a kid. And he went and saw her and showed her a picture of me. The psychic said I might have tooth trouble in my life, and that if I was ever to be in trouble, I should go to sleep. If I went to sleep when troubled, I’d wake up with an answer. I’ve always remembered that. So I focus on the insides of my eyes and will my heavy heart to slow down.

The shapes inside my eyes intensify, go purple, pop and lock, rearrange and squirm. I feel it. I feel the sleep overtake me. And I’m so, so relieved.

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