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Chapter 8— One Dyslexic, One Anorexic
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For the rest of the day, I couldn’t shake off the events of that afternoon. I soon realized that I’d assumed so much about Rodrick that I hardly knew anything about him at all. He’s in a band. He has a brother. He plays the drums. He can’t read…
While lost in my head, I kept asking myself how a senior in high school goes so long without properly learning how to read. Although, it certainly helped to fit together the puzzle pieces of rumors surrounding him.
I felt terrible. Worse than terrible—guilty. All I wanted was to track him back down and apologize. But, what would I say? Sorry for calling you an idiot and pressuring you to read like a normal student.
The Monday that I’d been so determined and excited about came crashing down around me by the end of the day. I walked out to the parking lot with the rest of the juniors and seniors. The sky above us darkened and blotted out the sun with heavy clouds that threatened impending rain.
Every step I took felt heavy with failure. And I wondered why this meant so much to me. Why did I even speak to him in the first place? The purpose of me being here is to not make friends with the kind of people I used to be friends with.
As I walked out to my car, I caught sight of Rodrick’s big white van with “Löded Diper” written on the side in his handwriting.
Maybe it’s not that he can’t read completely. Maybe there’s something else.
I didn’t mess with Rodrick anymore but left the school in my car, a strange mixture of curiosity and determination clouding my head.
Mom and Dad weren’t there when I got home but left a note saying Mom was out grocery shopping while Dad was working late. But, honestly, I was glad to have peace and quiet. I tossed my bag at the foot of the stairs as soon as I got home and ran up to my room, ringing up Valerie on FaceTime.
“Hey!” she called over the phone, her face pressed up against the screen like always.
Upon seeing her face, most of the tension still left in my muscles eased. I didn’t feel so alone in this anymore.
“Hey,” I replied, “What are you doing?”
“Tuning up my guitar, why?”
“I need your help.”
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An hour later and Valerie and I were knee-deep into research. My laptop rested on my knees, the fan nearly stinging my skin. But, nothing could distract me.
“What about ADHD? My little brother has that. Makes him crazy and all over the place.”
“No, he isn’t like that. He’s really chill and can focus on things.”
“Okay,” Valerie continued, typing something else in on her laptop on the other end of the call, “There’s this thing called Dysgraphia. It says it ‘impairs the ability to produce legible and automatic letter writing.”
I made a face to the screen. “What? Like handwriting?”
“Guess so.”
“No, he can write. I’ve seen it. He just misspells a ton of words.”
Valerie sighed and climbed off of her bed, her face still shoved into the camera of her phone. “I don’t understand why you’re so hung up on this. To me, it just sounds like the guy’s stupid.”
“No.” I looked her dead in the eyes. If there was one thing I refused to let myself think, it was that very idea. “He’s not stupid. I think he may be kinda smart.”
“Really?” Valerie scoffed, “The moron who tears up library books may be kinda smart? Sounds to me like you’re into him, Phil.”
“God no,” I retorted, a defensive and cold wall rising up in my words. “I just feel bad, that’s all. Doesn’t matter if he’s smart or not. He’s still a total loser.”
“Good,” Valerie replied, “Because we’ve got a big career ahead of us. You’re the Philly Emmett. If there’s anyone out there more passionate and badass than you, I haven’t met them yet.”
“Valerie…”
“I mean it. I don’t say it enough. People love you, Phil. Not because you’re some big rock star or whatever, but because you’re worth looking up to. You work hard and you love hard. You show us what we all need a little bit more of. And you can’t be dragged down by some small-town dirtbag who listens to Iron Maiden in his mom’s basement.”
I smirked. It was good to just listen to Valerie sometimes. Sure, she was loudmouthed and stupidly stubborn sometimes. But, she always looked out for me and my future. Not just the future of Anarchy Road.
“Oh wait,” she added, leaning closer in towards her laptop screen. Her nose nearly took up the whole screen as she read, “Dyslexia is a learning disorder that involves difficulty reading and writing due to problems identifying speech sounds and learning how they relate to letters and words. Do you think it could be that?”
I thought, trying to piece together all of the clues I’d picked up from Rodrick over the past week. Angie said he never did schoolwork and had to retake 12th grade. He misspelled his own band name. He froze up and ran away when I asked him to read. It all began to make sense.
“He has dyslexia,” I said, nearly a whisper to myself. Rodrick wasn’t stupid. He had a learning disorder.
Something inside of me changed at that moment. I thought back to when my anorexia had started for me. I could still feel Patrick Dean’s sweaty hands on my thigh as he told me I was almost good enough for him. I remembered walking away and feeling a new emptiness I’d never known inside of me. And every day, it got worse. I tried covering it up with lies and a bad attitude, pushing away anyone who threatened to know my problems. And I felt so…lonely.
What if Rodrick felt that way too?
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Later that night, I sat in my bed and stared up at the ceiling. It was dark all around me, only the glow of my blue nightstand lamp giving my gaze direction. One hand was pressed to my heart. I felt each delicate thump one at a time, reminding me that the next day would be better—had to be better. The other hand was laid on my flat, hollow stomach. Every couple minutes, I’d feel it rumble and growl and I’d feel the twinge of hunger that thrilled me like heroin running through my veins. I let the hunger shift into sweet light-headedness that made me feel as though I was being lifted out of my body and floating somewhere up above. It was nauseating and barely excruciating. I loved that feeling. But, I also resented it more than anything else in the world.
I turned my head to the other side of the pillow and saw the bowl of cold mashed potatoes and chicken that sat on my nightstand, completely untouched. After my anorexia, my sense of smell had become so heightened that any whiff of food drove me mad. The roasted garlic chicken smell was absolutely intoxicating. I also noticed my open bedroom window and the empty night air beyond. And for a moment, I considered it. It would be so easy. I would look so good again. Maybe I could feel good, too.
I pushed myself up on the bed, clutching my sheets in my fists. I want this. I need this.
I grabbed the plate of chicken and mashed potatoes and knelt down beside my open bedroom window. I took the fork in hand and began scraping the food off of the plate and out of the open window. It landed down into the bushes with a sad plop.
My heart pounded madly out of my chest, a kind of exhilaration I’d missed for so long. The plate was empty except for a few smears of chicken juice and white mashed potatoes left behind. In a single move, I licked the surface clean. Each bite tasted so much better than I could’ve ever expected. I want this.
I sat the plate back down on my nightstand before crawling back into bed. I need this.
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I never considered myself to be a hypocritical person. I’d always thought I was the one to speak my mind and fix others’ problems. I was good at that kind of thing. I even assured myself of it five times in the mirror when I woke up the next day. I was the one to resolve arguments in the band—like when Valerie and Freddy fought over title names or when Trevor wanted to change the band logo and Freddy pulled the ‘I started this band’ card. I was the peacemaker. I was the mediator.
So, I knew what I had to do when I drove up to school the next Tuesday morning. The parking lot was already filled up with teens screaming and laughing at 7:45 a.m. I shut off “Teenage Dirtbag” playing on my car radio and took a deep breath. Valerie’s words from yesterday echoed in my head over and over again. I don’t understand why you’re so hung up on this.
I just couldn’t shake the feeling of guilt hanging off of my shoulders. I had to fix this. If not for me, then for him. I peered out of my car window to the big red and gray trucks parked in the back of the lot. Climbing all over the car doors like monkeys were several of the football jocks, all wearing blue and white varsity jackets. They joked and hollered across at each other, throwing around a green backpack. Scurrying about the jocks with arms raised up in the air was a scrawny freshman kid with a panicked look on his acne-covered face.
It was just then that I smelled the acrid stink of gasoline and burned rubber. Speeding around the corner of the parking lot was Rodrick’s ugly white van. His tires squealed as he rounded the pavement and slammed to a stop in a vacant parking spot.
My heartbeat picked up to the speed of light, and my forehead began to throb in dull pain. Why are my hands so sweaty?
As soon as the van parked, the driver’s side door flung open with the kick of a black sneaker. Rodrick stepped out, whipping his dark unruly hair around to the beat of a Green Day song. He beat his fists on the side of the van to the song’s rhythm, just like before. I couldn’t help but wonder: Did Rodrick have rituals too?
I grabbed my bag from the passenger’s seat and climbed out of my car. Like tunnel vision, I could only see a direct line from me to the van. Last night, I’d researched dyslexia and I had practiced what I’d say in the mirror this morning. But, every step I took across the parking lot made the pain in my forehead ache even more.
For a moment, Rodrick caught sight of me and nearly hit the side of his van trying to back away.
“Rodrick—” I started, finally reaching him.
He tried to smile but shook his head.
“Hey, I really don’t think you should—”
“I just want to talk about yesterday. I didn’t think…I mean, I shouldn’t have made you…I just wanted to say—”
“Look,” he stopped me, nearly covering up my mouth with his hand. “I really don’t care what you have to say. You just can’t be here.”
I made a face back to him, shocked and slightly disgusted. “What?”
His eyes were wide as he kept glancing back at his van. “My friends are here and, no offense, but you look like Strawberry Shortcake.” He gestured to my outfit.
I looked down at my pastel pink skirt, gray sweater vest, and white ankle socks. He’s right.
I brushed off the comment and met his nervous eyes. “I don’t care. Rodrick, I think there’s a reason you couldn’t read the directions yesterday. It’s not because you’re stupid or you don’t care—”
He narrowed his gaze and rebuked, “You think I’m stupid?”
“No!” I rushed, my eyes widened and my headache pounding like crazy. I pressed a hand to my forehead and shut my eyes tight for a second. Why wasn’t this working? “I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean to…Rodrick, nothing’s wrong with you. I think it’s because you have dyslexia.”
He stared back at me, his wide lips slightly parted. He looked as if I had spoken a completely different language to him.
“Woah! Babe alert!” whooped a voice around us. Both Rodrick and I turned to see a guy with arched eyebrows dressed in a beat-up leather jacket next to another, lankier guy with stringy blonde hair and large glasses. Eyebrows grinned a wicked smile while the blonde one stared creepily at me. Both of them reeked of cigarettes and sweaty socks.
Eyebrows slid closer next to me and tried dangling an arm around my shoulder. “Got yourself a girlfriend, Rod?”
I shoved off his arm with a repulsed look and clutched my bag tighter to my body.
Rodrick glared back at Eyebrows. “Cut it out, Ben.”
I turned at Rodrick who still appeared dazed and upset. He couldn’t even look at me.
I pulled my bag strap back up on my shoulder. “I shouldn’t have brought it up. It’s fine. We don’t have to talk to each other anymore.”
He looked up at me before I gave a side glance to Rodrick’s friends and walked away.
My headache was out of control and all I wanted was to yell as loud as I could in my car. Nothing made sense anymore and I didn’t know why. I couldn’t tell if I needed a smoke or an aspirin. No matter what, I knew neither would make me feel any better.
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