During one of the lunches in the senior lounge, I noticed that Eric skipped class and sat with Claire and Carmine. Eric, who always loved attention and making others laugh, pretended to be developmentally disabled and started hitting Carmine and invading Carmine’s space. Carmine defended himself by putting his hands over his face. The handful of seniors who were around Eric just started laughing hysterically, never realizing that his actions were cruel to disabled people or to Carmine.
During one of the first lunches that I spent in the senior lounge, I noticed that I felt like I was conversing with Carmine—not in person, but through our minds. I could hear Carmine’s voice inside my head, commenting on what I was thinking. One day I was thinking about Claire, and I told this voice to move out of the way so I could get a better view of her. Carmine actually moved, and I noticed a big grin on his face. Another time he turned around when I thought something that was upsetting to him. However, I didn’t think anything of it at that time and just went on to my next class. I didn’t tell anyone or think it was the beginning of a mental health problem. I just pretended it didn’t happen.
Just like most students do their senior year, I applied to several colleges: SUNY Geneseo, Syracuse University, SUNY Albany, and American University in Washington, D.C. Syracuse and American University were very expensive, though I did get a scholarship to Syracuse. My first choice was SUNY Geneseo; I toured the campus that summer before senior year and really liked it.
Most high school seniors know that a big envelope from a college usually means an automatic acceptance, while a small envelope usually means a rejection letter. After school on March 14, 2001, I didn’t even have to pull into my driveway before I noticed that the mailbox couldn’t close because of a big envelope with “Geneseo” marked in the return address. I was so excited, I got out of the car without even putting the car into park. I ran to the mailbox and found out I had been accepted to Geneseo.
Senior year was finally starting to look up for me: I was admitted into the “Harvard of the SUNY System” and had received a generous financial aid package to boot. At that time, I again e-mailed Carmine and told him of the news. I started laughing when I heard that Carmine had told his friends that he was proud of me, even though I had never talked to him in person before.
One person who I knew didn’t like my e-mails was Carmine’s girlfriend, Theresa. Theresa was a year younger than Carmine, and the two met through their mutual friend Claire. Most of the seniors knew that Carmine and Theresa were having sex, thanks to the rumor mill, which was more crude and disrespectful than Star magazine. Eric thought of himself as ultramasculine, and he would brag that he lost his virginity in middle school. Even though it was never any of his concern, he expected his friends to be having sex, too.
Theresa liked hanging out with Carmine—and Eric as well. Being able to go to all senior parties was a great privilege for a junior, even if it did mean that she would have to put out. Even though I never personally talked to Theresa, she would give me strange looks of disgust in the hall, as if I were a MRSA-infected prostitute asking her for a dollar to ride the bus. She would parade around the hallways at school with her Gap or American Eagle bags, thinking so highly of herself. Many students thought Theresa was really nice, but it’s easy to be nice to people who are just like you.
CHAPTER 4
THE MIND GAMES BEGIN
What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other’s folly—that is the first law of nature.
—Voltaire
The day after that I received my acceptance letter from SUNY Geneseo, I was changing in physical education class and heard a voice in my head again. This time, though, it was Eric. I was changing back into my regular clothes, and I had the lyrics to a song by The Cars in my mind. I heard Eric’s voice say, “You like The Cars.” I looked over thinking Eric had actually said it, but he was busy changing into his clothes as well. It was strange, but at that time, I just went back to class.
The next time I saw Eric was the following day, in government class. Once again, my mind wasn’t clear. I felt that something was different, that I was sharing my thought process with Eric. It was like being alone in an empty
