Chapters (45)
The other thing is that these types of dementia are often hereditary. There’s no way to know for sure, but there’s a good chance it will happen to me too. Sometimes I feel like I’m living with a timer over my head. So now you know why I don’t care about going to some fancy school like Oxford. Why there’s no point in getting into relationships with girls who might actually like me back.
I’m waiting for the day my brain catches fire. A spark that will slowly burn everything important to ash.
4.
When I woke again it was still bright, but the light had that hazy late-afternoon quality, and when I checked my phone it was after five. For a moment all I felt was sleepy and thirsty, until I downed a liter of water that Dad must have left by my bed. Then I remembered a lot of things at once. The pain in my knee came first. Then my butt. Then Ruby and the memory of us on her bed. It felt like someone was tickling my stomach from the inside; flashes of sensation came back to me as if they were happening right then and there. Her brown eyes and her blue freckle, my hands on her waist. The taste of her lips. The sensation of her fingers trailing down my bare skin.
Should I be allowed to think of her that way when I had a nagging feeling I hadn’t treated her right?
I shook my head. That was a mistake. It felt like a bunch of ball bearings were rattling around in there. I was overthinking it. Last night was fun, and I was being really full of myself if I thought for some reason that Ruby wanted to be my girlfriend because we kissed and she invited me to a dinner. We didn’t even know each other.
When I got out of a long shower, where I definitely didn’t think about what it would be like if Ruby was in there with me, thank you very much, how dare you imply such a thing, I could hear Dad clattering around the kitchen making dinner. I stood on the landing and sniffed the air like a curious dog. I did not like what I caught a whiff of. Nothing. It smelled like nothing. My father is not a terrible cook, but he isn’t a good one either. Everything he makes tastes like unseasoned Styrofoam.