As fun and transformative as our Saturdays were (the solemn funeral services notwithstanding, which is an odd thing to say, but they quickly became somber background precursors to the rest of the day; how quickly I got used to death), my weekdays were as dreary. No one at school (beyond Eddie) was outwardly or obviously cruel to me, but I metamorphosed into the boy who wasn’t there, or was less there than he had been previously. During lunch or before class started, kids gossiped about who’s going out with whom and whose parents wouldn’t be home the next weekend and, as the calendar turned to December, what colleges everyone were applying to. I was the hole in the donut of the conversation happening around me. Sure, I was still a fellow member of the soon-to-be-hallowed class of ’89, and oh weren’t we having the time of our lives, yeah?, and I laughed and feigned interest and surprise like a good donut hole should, but no one asked me about the club or what I did with Mercy on the weekend or where I was applying or if I did my calculus homework. Even the brainy kids (of which I was a member) froze me out. Cayla said hi to me in the hallways, but we didn’t run into each other often, and in the one class we shared she sat on the opposite side of the room.

Elsewhere in the less-heady portion of these months, my scoliosis took an unexpectedly severe turn for the worse. (Yeah, I’m sorry, and I won’t pun again.)

I kinda like that one