“How’s debate club going?” my dad asks. I know that they don’t really care about debate club—they don’t understand why I’m in it in the first place—but it’s nice of him to ask, I guess.

“Understand”—that’s such an imperfect word. I love imperfect words. My parents do not. And yet they embody the conflict of that one so well. My parents “understand” why I’m in debate, why I like Shakespeare and Shelley, why I hole myself up in my room and listen to Bon Iver; they perceive the meaning. They grasp the concept. But they don’t really understand. Not in the greater, metaphysical sense. They keep putting their big brains together to puzzle out the equation of their son, and—even though they get the math, they know how to do the long division, the addition, the subtraction—they can’t quite comprehend the answer they end up with.

“It’s good,” I say, knowing I need to at least try to give him something more than that. “Me and Caitlin are going to be on the same team for our first competition.”

“Caitlin and I,” my father reminds me gently.

“Right, Caitlin and I,” I mumble, annoyed at myself for being so lazy in my speech. Mom and Dad definitely aren’t going to be happy about me majoring in English in college if I can’t even get basic grammar right.

“She’s at the top of your class with you, right, sweetie?” my mom asks, a little pride sneaking into her voice at the fact that I’m still doing so well in school despite, well, despite being me.

“Yeah, she’s really smart. We’re not usually on the same team because it’s—it’s a little unfair to the other kids, I guess,” I say sheepishly, not wanting to come off as arrogant. “But our teacher thought it’d be good to mix things up this semester, so … yeah, it should be pretty interesting.”

I want to sink into the floor. I hear what I’m saying and how I’m saying it and even I’m bored by it. I’m sluggish and dull and I know they can tell and I want to break out of it—be animated, engaged; the vivacious, charming son they want me to be—but I just can’t.

Talking to my parents is impossible. Talking to anyone is impossible. It’s exhausting. Everything always sounds better in my head—my brain runs a mile a minute, I’m clever in my head—and then I open my mouth and nothing comes out.