Antoine’s eyes are on you.
“He has an excellent motive,” you add. “I can’t blame him. I have to say that I understand.”
“What do you mean?”
“Come on, Antoine. You know why. I’m a monster. Probably a sociopath. Everyone at Rockland thinks so. Right?”
“No,” says Antoine. “Not everyone. I don’t.” He pauses and adds, “Not anymore.”
Chapter 14. Saralinda
In history class I do not pay close attention because I am thinking about Antoine and his mother and also Kenyon and Evangeline.
So Kenyon won’t listen to Evangeline, and Kenyon is my friend, but that doesn’t mean everything she says goes with me. Those two got off on the wrong foot. It’s like in Pride and Prejudice only without the romance, the point is that you can be prejudiced or prideful against someone who you would love if only you knew their heart. Or in this case not love, like. Or understand. Or some verb.
Speaking of love. If I were gay I would at least like Evangeline and Kenyon, both of them. Well, I already like them, that’s not what I mean. What I mean is that if I were gay I would maybe have less heartache. Although again it is not my heart that troubles me, it is my body. Anyway Kenyon would be angry at me for thinking that being gay is easier on the heart, it has certainly not made love easy for her so I do know better.
Still I would (wouldn’t I?) at least dare to think about approaching a girl I wanted, but then again maybe not if I felt about her the way I feel about—but I will not think about Caleb. Or about what is wrong with me, it feels so intense and makes me want to run away—no, be honest, what I want is to throw myself at him.
Then if I am rejected, run away.
Or maybe run away if I am accepted, I don’t know!
At the same time I have not forgiven him for thinking I am slow and the harsh way he said it. Also I have not changed my mind about him, he is damage personified but that is not all he is and part of me does not care because—because!
Because sex I guess but I had no idea! Also no idea I could feel this way when I disapprove of how I feel!
In short I am doomed, even deceiving myself that I am thinking about Evangeline and Kenyon when really I am thinking about Caleb, yes, thinking about Caleb when I should be thinking about Antoine and his mother and also about whether Kenyon is right about the fraternity. The cherry on top of my self-absorption by the way is that I am doomed to go over the facts of the Industrial Revolution at home tonight in order to understand what I have just now entirely missed in class.
Sigh.
Beneath the desk I illegally text Evangeline and she answers also illegally because rule: No phone use during class. I’ve never broken the rule before, did I mention doomed?
I also text my mother to say I will stay after school to use the library, outright lie.
But I do not feel guilty, I refuse to feel guilty as this is my life my body my mistakes to make if they are mistakes at all which I don’t know that.
And here is the truth which she doesn’t want to acknowledge so I must lie until I find courage: I’m growing up, Mom. Things have to change between you and me.
Also truth, I do not want to hurt her! It is so delicate.
After school I cross the quad to Evangeline’s dorm and think about Antoine and how he looked in the cafeteria, and what he said about his mother, and if it is true it is also a reminder to be grateful for mine. When I find that courage I will also express that I value and love her which will not help because it is just not going to go well. It will be not a discussion but a confrontation and also big drama which is why I have avoided it so far (also primal fear).
It is not necessarily always pleasant being in my head, believe me and where is some ibuprofen when you need it?
Evangeline’s room is in a corner on the first floor of Morse Hall. It has two twin beds elevated off the floor and accessed by ladders, with room beneath each for a desk and a bureau. One half of the room is scrupulously neat but the other looks like a wind has blown through, not as bad as the carriage house after the roof caved in of course, but reminiscent to me of that, although it is mostly foodstuffs on the floor, cereal boxes, Oreos, Pringles canisters, also clothing. Some dust. It is all so interesting my headache almost goes away.
“The chaos and the crap are all totally Irina’s, in case you care,” Evangeline says.
I shrug though actually I am quite interested because, speaking of insides and outsides, Evangeline’s roommate Irina Grekova eats only salad at lunch and when she turns sideways she has the figure of a pencil with breasts.
I sneak more looks around than the ordinary person would but this is my first time in a dorm room. Could I live in one? Suppose by a miracle things go well when I talk to my mother which they won’t but if they did, could I live at school? It can’t cost more than the daily car service, or can it?
“Thank you for texting me.” Evangeline doesn’t look at me as she arranges the desk chairs near each other and we sit down. “It matters to Antoine. I felt terrible when you guys wouldn’t listen, like I’d let him down.”
“Maybe I can talk to Kenyon later,” I offer.
Evangeline grimaces. “Because she wouldn’t ever listen to me.”
“Well . . .”
“I didn’t know about her mother,” she blurts. “I just found out.”
“Oh.”
“I’ll apologize. But how could she believe that ridiculous story about Omicron Kappa?”
Because I have tact I do not say that we have two ridiculous stories to choose from. I say, “Well, give it time and maybe that other apology? So, about Antoine—”
“Kenyon threw herself on top of you as the roof came down. It was amazing.”
“I know! She told me that she had no memory of deciding. She did it instinctively. Isn’t that incredible?”
Evangeline hunches a shoulder. “Physical courage is something that can happen with someone who lives mostly in her body. I’m not like that. I have to think things through. So she and I are too different to ever understand each other.”
I say, “I personally would welcome cooperation between my body and my head.” It comes out sort of bitter unfortunately, and Evangeline narrows her eyes at me puzzled. Then she shrugs again and opens a small refrigerator. She takes out two sodas. I burst out, “Evangeline? Do you have any real food? Something with protein?”
“Cheese okay?”
“Yes!” I am relieved because lunch was a fiasco for diabetics everywhere or at least for me. “Also do you have some ibuprofen or aspirin or something for a headache?”
She does. She also sets up cheddar and a knife and I eat some of that.
“So about Antoine?” I prompt when Evangeline doesn’t bring it up herself—weirdly, considering why we are here. “Why does he think his mother might . . . ?”
Her hands fist in her lap.
Then she tells me. Her face is rigid and her voice is tight and it is horrific.
Antoine sweet Antoine with the smile and the sports-playing knees and the way he is always so kind to everyone, his father died slowly horribly it took years from a genetic disorder that steals both your body and mind there is no cure. Evangeline says nobody at school knew it was happening except her and Dr. Lee because Antoine wanted absolute privacy and no pity or special treatment, and then finally it ended last summer with death, which had to have been a blessing although oh God.
That is what I think until Evangeline says the worst part of all.
Antoine has the same disease.
So that day in the carriage house when Antoine smiled at me and made me feel so seen, inside him the genetic time bomb which is called Huntington’s disease was going tick-tock, tick-tock.
Evangeline talks for a while very staccato, and I take in some of it and some of it I don’t but I resolve to do research later on the
internet if I can bear it, I ought to bear it he has to live it.
My diabetes is nothing my foot is nothing.
When Evangeline stops, I ask her what this has to do with Antoine thinking his mother is trying to kill him. “Is it because she wants to make sure he doesn’t suffer like his father?” I imagine I might feel that too: I will do this terrible thing to the one I love, so that something even worse will not happen. Only then I remember the carriage house and how five of us almost died and then I am less understanding of Mrs. Dubois.
Evangeline shakes her head. “Yes, sort of, and no, sort of. What happened was, Antoine was trying to reassure her, so he promised that he would kill himself once he became symptomatic.”
“Wait, what—”
“I don’t know if he meant it. He doesn’t know either. Anyway it wouldn’t be until he’s in his forties or something like that. The disease has a long gestation time. He gets to have a real life for like twenty years at least. Maybe they’ll find a cure between now and then. He was just trying to say something to make his mother feel better. He wanted her to know he wouldn’t necessarily suffer.”
I try to imagine telling my mother I will kill myself someday and having her be happy about it or at least relieved.
Evangeline says, “Only Gabrielle Dubois is Catholic, and suicide is a sin.”
“Oh.” I think about that and then I add, “But then isn’t Antoine Catholic too? Didn’t he know she’d react that way?”
“He told me he probably should have known, but he didn’t. He stopped believing years ago. He stopped paying attention in church.”
I nod but am still thinking. “If she commits murder, that’s a sin too,” I point out. “Especially your own child. Isn’t that like a special sin? Not to mention, uh, killing four other kids.”
“It’s only been eight weeks since her husband’s death,” says Evangeline. “She’s not exactly stable.” She looks at me.
I look at her.
I say, “What can I do to help?”
She laughs but it is slightly hysterical. “Honestly, I don’t know what’s going on. I thought at first he had to be wrong, she wouldn’t do this, but I’ve been thinking and now I’m not so sure. Maybe Kenyon is right, though, and Omicron Kappa did exactly what she says. I don’t know. I just don’t know!”
She sounds enraged at her own uncertainty.
I don’t know what to do or say so I have more cheese while Evangeline fishes glumly down into the canister of Pringles for every last crumb.
If my previous fantasy about Antoine still had its roots in me, I would do everything I was allowed to do for him, now that I know about this. Only the problem is that while I still like Antoine very much, the crush part of it seems to have definitively faded. (Am I fickle by nature? I hope not.) Also Antoine should be loved and wanted, not pitied, and also also, I am not what he wants, I know this, I am just some girl who had a crush.
Then all at once Evangeline is crying, short sharp gasps. I hesitate, then I put Georgia down and lean over and put my arms around her. I am awkward and she doesn’t accept me really, she stiffens and mumbles that she’s sorry and she pulls away and dries her eyes on her sleeve and glares at me and then away.
Still I know now that she is not so tough after all.
While she is not looking at me I ask her very quietly if she loves Antoine, though it is not my business I realize that.
She shakes her head but not in the definite way that means no way, instead it is a slow movement from side to side with her head bent like she can’t bear its weight.
“Sorry,” I say quickly. “Never mind.” I get it, she doesn’t have to tell me.
She loves him, that is what I think, but it’s hopeless because he is sick.
Chapter 15. Caleb
Antoine stares at you levelly. “I don’t think there’s anything really wrong with you, Caleb.”
You have your back against Ellie Mae’s door.
He says, “You found me and dug me out of the rubble. You worked to dig all the girls out, and you did way more than me because of my shoulder. You were panting. Your hands were bleeding. Then there was a bolt of lightning and I saw your face, so don’t tell me you weren’t scared for the girls. Don’t tell me you weren’t doing everything you could to get them out. Don’t tell me you’re a monster. I was there and I know better.”
Air is available to you at last, and so is your voice, though it sounds as if it’s coming from far away. “I was faking it. Doing what normal people do because in that particular situation it was obvious what normal people are supposed to do.”
“Oh, so you didn’t care whether, let’s say, Saralinda lived or died?”
You grind your teeth. “I don’t know her very well.”
“I didn’t say you do. I only said that I watched you dig her out.”
You say, “What I am is the sociopathic son of a genius psychiatrist—”
Antoine interrupts. “Really? Your father might be a genius like they say, but Dr. Lee thinks he’s also a narcissistic asshole—”
“What?!”
“Okay, so his personal notes only said narcissist and I added asshole. Fine. Your mother is present in your life, but cowed and scared of her husband. That’s also from the notes. Dr. Lee’s opinion, which I now agree with, is that the only thing wrong with you is a whole lot of fear. Lee doesn’t know for sure what that’s about, but he has his suspicions.”
Your mouth opens, and Antoine cuts you off with the answer before you ask.
“I looked at your file.”
“But that’s—”
“Dr. Lee trusts me a little too much because I’m the senior class president. He left me in the room with his computer the other day.”
“I’m a monster,” you say again. Only it comes out like a question.
“Well, that isn’t what Dr. Lee thinks. What kind of monster do you mean anyway?”
“Forget it. Let’s go to your mother’s. You haven’t got time for this.” You can hear it clearly in your own voice—the fear that Antoine mentioned.
Antoine half shrugs, half nods. He turns Ellie Mae back on. But as he steers back onto Route 22, he says, “I can listen while I drive.”
He can listen all he wants. It doesn’t mean you have to talk.
You shouldn’t talk. Antoine has his own shit to deal with, such as believing his mother is a murderer.
But you’re fixated on the word narcissist . . . a note in a file. In your file, where the diagnosis is not about you.
You can’t take it in. You cannot take it in.
What does Dr. Lee know anyway? He doesn’t know you or your father. He doesn’t. Why should he be right?
Antoine is driving five miles below the speed limit again.
He doesn’t prompt you with questions. You don’t have to tell him anything.
But you say, “Have you ever heard of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? It’s a book by Robert Lewis Stevenson.”
Antoine’s gaze is on the road where it belongs. “I saw the movie. Classic horror. Hey, look in the back. There’s a book on the floor there.”
You fish up a copy of Dracula. “This isn’t Dr. Jekyll,” you point out unnecessarily.
“Yeah, but it reminds me of it. Old-fashioned horror. Dr. Jekyll is the one about the guy with a split personality, right? One good, one evil? Ridiculous.”
“Ridiculous,” you echo.
“The execution of the movie, I mean. Campy. I haven’t read the book.” Antoine sounds conversational. “The idea itself is extremely creepy. Like Dracula—which is great, you should read it. You can have my copy, I’m done. So, that’s what you mean when you say you’re a monster? Mr. Hyde, the evil alter ego? The devil inside?”
You turn over Dracula and look at the back. You don’t answer.
“Tell me more. I’m not saying you?
??re a liar, okay?” He goes on. “Human chemistry is a weird thing. Did you hear about that Olympic athlete who took some antidepressant? She was a wife and mother and then started leading a double life as an escort in Vegas where she did all these high-risk things. Basically she turned into a totally different person. The medication did something to her personality.”
“I’m not taking any medication.”
“I didn’t say you are. Look, I’m not saying you’re lying about this Mr. Hyde thing.”
“But you don’t believe me either.”
“I don’t know.” His voice hardens. “I’ll tell you what, though, Caleb, I’m the last person on earth to think that terrible things don’t happen to people and for no good reason. I don’t ever expect the world to make sense or for things to be, you know, fair.”
You watch his profile.
He doesn’t look back at you.
He wants you to talk, you realize. You don’t entirely understand why, but he does. Maybe he needs you to.
You tell him. You can speak clinically, because you have done a whole lot of reading, on top of the lectures from your father on abnormal human psychology and other monsters like you in human history.
Most sociopaths do not have split personalities. Most are fully aware of their desire—their drive—to manipulate, hurt, and destroy. But you are a rarer bird. Dissociative identity disorder, it is sometimes called. Your alter ego does stuff, and it steals your body to do it—usually at night. You never have any memory of it. You know your inner monster by his deeds and the trail he leaves.
Antoine says, “So your alter ego is a sociopath. But you’re normal.”
You frown, because how can the word normal apply? You say, “What if it’s my alter ego who collapsed the roof, and not your mother?”
Antoine’s voice is rough. “Do you think I’d accuse my mother without good reason?”
“You might be wrong. There’s this other possibility, that it’s me.”
“Does your alter ego know how to collapse a roof? Do you believe he left your room the night before and booby-trapped the place?” Antoine’s questions come out rat-a-tat.