I began wondering who these people were, these people from my high school who made fun of me. Even though, overall, I was having the time of my life. Seriously, I was. I felt better than I had ever felt before. I felt confident in myself as a person. I felt whole. I felt like I had gained something through this experience that no one could take away from me. I no longer cared about the stuff that had embarrassed me previously, the embarrassing shit I had said to Brandon. Still, I was under attack. People were attacking me, or at least I was imagining people were attacking me, because now they knew my own thoughts. They knew the stupid things I thought about in my head. And they were making fun of me.
I started thinking about the guy from my high school, Jeremy's friend, Chris. I imagined that he had been one of the people who made fun of me. So I aimed my thoughts at him. “Yeah. That's why Megan told you to talk to her when your IQ got in the double digits. Because you're not very smart.”
Chris was there, with Brandon. “The reason I didn't remove her earlier was because I believed her! I didn't think she made up the stuff in her book. Jeremy decided to hook up with her to see if it was true or not, what they said about her giving good head. I removed her when he told me it was false. I figured that meant she had just made everything up, and that was such a stupid thing to make up.”
What happened was, Jeremy had had a good time with me that first night, but the sex in itself wasn't particularly good. They were all making fun of me after that, for making such a thing up. Brandon had had to call up Jeremy to tell him to look me up again, because I didn't give very good head the first night. So he did, and it turned out I indeed know the coveted secret to giving good head.
Imagine Brandon calling Jeremy up. “Hey, I'm the guy who bugged Rachel's house. She didn't give good head that night. Look her up again!”
This didn't register at first, and I kept sending negative energy toward Chris.
Stop, Rachel! STOP!
“When Rachel hates you, you feel it.”
Then I realized something. I was a mind bully. I had the power to beat people up with my mind.
I wasn't physically strong, or particularly attractive, but I had something else. I had a powerful mind.
I went online and added Chris as a friend again, to see if he would accept. He did. I took that as evidence that I was right about this, and not delusional.
I was just so sick of this. All my thoughts had been planned out ahead of time. I didn't have free will. I didn't have free will! Why wouldn't people leave me alone?
“Rachel, you know, it's all in your head. Remember the time when you were in class, and one of the retarded kids was screaming in the hall? One guy in your class yelled 'shut up' but later apologized and felt really bad when he realized it was the developmentally disabled kid who had been screaming. If everyone had known this about you, if they had known that you were different than the rest of them, they would have been the same way about you.”
I thought about this, and accepted this. Then I laughed to myself. “Heh. Yeah. I'm a mind bully! Don't mess with Rachel, she'll beat you up with her mind!”
I began arguing with my parents about them treating me like a child. They wouldn't let me out past dark. Why the fuck couldn't I go out past dark? This was a good neighborhood.
I don't even remember all the things I argued with them about, I just know that afterwards I was exhausted and went back up to my room.
When were Chance and Brandon going to help me?
“Rachel. When we come over, I want you to be high. You still have some marijuana. Go smoke it with your sister. I like you better when you are high.”
I got wrapped up in my thought processes again. Talking to Brandon about things, talking to myself about things. So much stuff had happened in such a short period of time.
“Rachel, look at the clock.”
I looked. It was 4:20 pm. Message received loud and clear.
I called up my sister. “Kristen. Can I come over and smoke weed with you? I really need to smoke, it is kind of like an emergency. This is really important.”
“Really, Rachel? I'm with Tiger. We just picked up his friend's ashes at the morgue.”
Oh, God. Not a good time. “Okay, sorry.”
“Maybe you should learn to smoke by yourself.”
“Okay. I'll try.”
I didn't have a pipe, but I could try rolling a joint, I thought.
“Rachel, we think you should play the part of a Lake Oswego teenager going out to smoke a joint,” Brandon told me.
What did that mean? I should put on my Abercrombie & Fitch clothes. I put on my A & F sweatshirt, and got out the Abercrombie jeans my sister had given me. I put them on.
“God, these pants are uncomfortable!” I rolled around and jumped around the room to try to loosen up the jeans so they fit my body better.
Okay, so what did I need? My marijuana. I began searching for it. “Where's my marijuana? Where's my marijuana? Where is my fucking marijuana!?” I finally located it. Okay, weed, lighter, ID in case they card me buying rolling paper, and money. All set.
“Beev, F. Meeke! I'm going out for a walk!”
“Ok honey! Bring your phone!” My mom said.
“Leave the porch light on!” my dad added. Which was odd. Normally they didn't tell me this, they just counted on me being home before dark.
I walked over to a store near my house. No rolling paper. Try the gas station. I walked over to the gas station. There was a choice between two different types of rolling paper. I didn't know the difference, or if it mattered. I picked one at random. Paid and left.
Okay, where to smoke?
I walked into some woods nearby. My feet started to sink in mud. No, this was a terrible place to smoke. Back up to the street, over to a nearby hotel. I sat under a window and tried to roll a joint. I tried for awhile and failed.
“Oh... must have bought the wrong type of rolling paper!” I began to walk back.
“Wrong type of rolling paper, wrong type of rolling paper,” I whispered to myself.
“Rachel! You can use that paper, it'll work.” Brandon whispered to me.
I went back and sat by the trash cans this time. I remembered Larry instructing me how to roll a blunt. You seal it in place by putting a whole bunch of saliva all over it.
Still it wasn't working.
How do you roll a joint? Isn't there a song about this? How does the song go? “'Pick out the seeds and stems...' Nahh, I don't want to do that. 'Twist it on the ends!'” I twisted both ends of the joint. “More saliva. Let it dry.”
I sat there and hummed silently in my head and waited for it to dry.
“Is it dry yet?”
“Let it dry a little bit longer,” Brandon said to me.
“What about now?”
“Longer.”
After I waited what I thought had to be a sufficient amount of time, I tried lighting it. I'm no good with lighters. But occasionally, I can get them to work. Finally, after trying for awhile, I succeeded at lighting a little bit. It just burned the ends, the place where I had twisted it. I ripped the twisted part off. I lit it again and took a little puff. Marijuana hit my bloodstream. I put the joint away, walked back toward my house and laughed. Laughed because I felt good. This was a really small high, but it would do.
I got back to the house and ran upstairs to the bathroom. My thoughts went like this: “I found a bottle of Adderall! This is better than Christmas.” This was a message I had sent Brandon, five years ago. Christmas. Christmas songs. Rudolph the red nose reindeer!
I got off the toilet and looked in the mirror. I had burnt my nose, from lighting the joint. It was bright red. I stared at it for awhile before Brandon pointed out to me: “They'll think it's a zit.”
“Rachel. This is how you are to the people from your high school. You are like Rudolph.” Brandon told me. What was that song about anyway? I had to look up the lyrics to the song on the internet to remind me what the song was about. Yep. That's right. Someone was ostracized, someone was an outcast. Then, it turns out, while imperfect by himself, the ostracized person's quirks end up being appreciated. In the end, he is appreciated for his imperfections. That was like me. Even though I was Jesus, I was by no means perfect. But that was okay. I was perfect, in another sense. My imperfections had a place in the world.
“They now think you are the coolest person in school,” Brandon told me.
I typed in “birth control.” I clicked on one of the links that came up. Methods of birth control. Abstinence. How does abstinence work?
“Abstinence works by keeping sperm out of the vagina.” Seriously, that's what it said. I burst out laughing. I rolled and rolled around laughing, then fell on the floor, still laughing.
I got up. I had a picture of Brandon up on my computer, the picture of him in Venice. I kept staring at the picture. He was smiling in the picture. I could feel Brandon smiling at me. He was laughing along with me.
“Reading Rachel's mind, I discovered that one of the thoughts that goes through her mind a lot is something that happened sophomore year. At school in health class, they had a choice between a condom lesson and an abstinence video. About 75% of the class chose the abstinence video. Rachel chose the condom lesson. In her head, Rachel still makes fun of everyone for being too embarrassed to choose the condom lesson. Come on, were all those people really choosing abstinence in real life? Yeah Rachel, you make fun of them, and you are right. But did you know that they made fun of you for not picking the abstinence video?”
I made a status on facebook about people in high school being forced to watch a video about how abstinence keeps sperm out of your vagina. Then, I made another one:
Isn't it weird how people think abstinence is 100% effective?
To which someone replied, “But it is!”
I replied, “What if you are raped?” That's what I was referring to, not immaculate conception which was bogus, but rape. That's why at Innercept they put all the girls on some form of birth control, even the ones who didn't want to have sex. In case they were raped.
Personally, I thought this was my best status.
“Rachel, look at my picture some more,” Brandon said to me. I focused my attention on his smiling face, I thought about how much I adored him.
“All this time, I hated Rachel. At the same time, for the first time in my life, I started to feel good about myself. I thought I was just outgrowing my insecurities. What I didn't know was that it was because all this time, all this time I hated Rachel, Rachel was projecting love to me. It wasn't until around February when Rachel started focusing her attention elsewhere, I felt it start to slip.
“Come on, Rachel. Project some more love to me.”
I knew I was still on camera. But it was easy to forget, and get lost in my own thoughts.
I began thinking with the mind of God again. I thought about everyone who had gone to hell. Compared to hell, life on Earth was euphoric bliss. Hell was like the worst you could possibly feel. It was the combined feeling of being in horrific pain, suffocating, extreme revulsion, horror, unimagineable sadness, every unpleasant emotion you could feel combined and experienced simultaneously, and it went on ceaselessly for all of eternity. There was no hope. It never ended.
It was so bad, Jesus wouldn't do it himself. I was Jesus. I refused to go to hell. It was so bad, Jesus wouldn't even do it.
Yet, despite Jesus being too chicken, millions of people had done, or will do it. They would leave the comforts of Earth to experience the unimaginable pain of hell.
“Wow! Those people experienced agony to a degree that Jesus Himself would not do! Those people were a lot better than Jesus was!” I whispered this to myself. Then I laughed. I kept laughing. Laughing at something that was not funny.
“Those people were a lot better than Jesus was!” These were God's thoughts now. God was a jolly fellow. He found humor in unhumorous situations. I was God. It made me sad, but what could I do? These people chose this. They chose to go against Me. But still, it wasn't their fault. No one deserves that. No one deserves to go to hell. God hadn't intended for anyone, apart from the ugly soul, to go to hell.
“Those people were a lot better than Jesus was! A lot better than Jesus was!” I laughed, and laughed, and laughed. Then I got out my iPod, turned on the song “Mad World,” covered by Adam Lambert, and walked solemnly downstairs, around the neighborhood, feeling the sorrow of this situation.
All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for the daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere
Their tears or filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow
And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
At this point, Brandon pointed out to me something I had been telling him earlier. I have a lot of nightmares with happy endings. That's because my story will always have a happy ending. Jesus will always have a happy ending. Unlike those souls damned to hell, who were a lot better than Jesus was.
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very very mad world, mad world
At this point, Brandon pointed out how many times he's watched me go downstairs and walk around the island in circles.
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