Read Online Bad Kid by David Crabb - Free Book Online Page A

must surely lead to AIDS.
    These thought circles were exhausting. My ever-present manifesto was starting to feel less like protection and more likea curse, guiding me through every false smile, nervous glance, and fearful retreat. Even my sleep was fraught with tension, each dream plagued by faceless aggressors, drowning deaths, and cartoon snakes that screamed at me with the voice of God, my father, or Chris Wolfe.
    A week before the end of freshman year I woke up in the middle of the night covered in sweat. I’d been dreaming my recurring balloon dream in which I rose into the sky, screaming, knowing that the more I struggled, the higher and faster I’d rise toward the ozone, where I’d burn up. I walked down the hall into the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet for an aspirin. I swallowed it with water from the tap and started to read the “caution” label on the bottle. Then I read a different bottle’s label, then another, and another.
    â€œHoney.” I turned to see my bed-headed mother squinting in her terry cloth robe. “David, you’ve been in here forever. Are you okay?”
    â€œYeah, Mom,” I said, turning off the faucet. “Just a headache.”
    I lay awake the rest of that night, considering my options, projecting myself into the future, imagining the “what-ifs.” Suicide would be forever, but so would being alone. There was no seductive drama to killing myself anymore. It was simply a practical response to my life, the natural antidote to the dull gray thudding in my brain, the only way to undo the realization of what I was becoming.
    I stumbled through school that Monday, the last week before summer break. In the locker room I was too tired to notice or care about any of the wet, sinewy boys’ bodies around me. In spite of being totally exhausted, I ran laps for forty-five minutes.I didn’t think to fake a stomach cramp or the flu. Gym class was what occupied the 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. section of my daily list of activities. And as long as I honored my manifesto and adhered to the guidelines I’d set for myself, things would be fine. They had to be.
    As I stood up from the locker-room bench, my head began to swim. I could feel my heart beating in my temples. Violet dots danced across my field of vision. I braced myself against the wall and carefully walked past the toned torsos of Ethan Gray, Bobby Johnson, and Jason Dermot, trying my best not to puke on their broad, athletic feet. In the bathroom stall at the back of the locker room, I vomited as quietly as I could, not wanting to be the possibly-gay weirdo who was also bulimic.
    In the gymnasium I slogged up the bleachers toward Greg, who reclined casually while listening to his Discman.
    â€œHey. David. You okay?”
    â€œI’m fine,” I said, not entirely sure if I was hallucinating Greg’s voice. “Just feeling a little sick,” I added, looking into my bag to avoid eye contact.
    â€œYou look sick. Why did you even run today?”
    â€œI had to,” I said, too exhausted to fully absorb that he was talking to me. “I don’t have a doctor’s note.”
    â€œA note?” he asked with a smirk. “What do you mean?”
    â€œLike a note that excuses you from participating in PE.”
    â€œYou don’t need a note,” he smiled, flipping his bangs out of his eyes. “Nerd.”
    The way Greg called me nerd was sweet, as if the word’s rightful home had always been on his lips.
    â€œWhat do you mean?” I asked. “I don’t need a note?”
    â€œNo. You just . . . sit out.”
    I repeated it slowly, like someone who didn’t speak English.
    â€œSit . . . out . . . ?”
    â€œYeah. You show up. You sit here. And you wait for fifty minutes.”
    â€œWhat?” I asked. This simple and obvious possibility blew my mind. Greg howled with laughter and slapped my shoulder.
    â€œYou thought . . . all