A B C or D?

The blue moonlight buckles her seat belt in Jesse's car as the hew of the clock light on the dashboard reads 2:09 AM. Spending our nights awake, it's usually around this time that my brain turns off, and my soul yawns and comes out from the covers, opening her blinds. I start to feel an itch in my mind. My hands are reaching for the pen. My mind is on hold throughout the day, and now it's hot and ready to be used. I preheat my head at 350 F to serve up my sincerest and most secrete thoughts. They start sizzling under my tongue and pop when they come out like hot oil. I see bright, warm lights string along in my mind, turning on one after the other.

Jesse's foot sleeps heavily on the gas as he cuts corners, dragging us along in circles around vibrant towns we don't know. I don't let myself cut corners. I read into each word, flipping them upside down, pointing them in the opposite direction. Undressing each sigh and smile down to the bone, searching for the origin, analyzing every possibility until the pen runs dry and I'm left feeling confused.

I overthink my life, and I sometimes even think for other people! Yeah, I heard what you said. But I also hear the echoes of what I think you could have meant.

By now, the clock has changed its mind, and it reads 2:25 AM.

I was sitting beside Essie. With every sharp turn, I kept my focus on NOT leaning into her, but our legs managed to touch every time anyway. She didn't seem to mind. Her mind was elsewhere. She was lost in the music, hidden in the night sky, tucked tightly into the clouds.

I couldn't stop thinking about her. She is a breeze you feel on the boardwalk, that tastes of sea salt and love. I get the urge to bottle her up like sand or pick her like a flower, but she's too fast, and fluid, I can't catch her. She never ceases to think about what she should or shouldn't do. She's always on the move.

I wondered how she was feeling and what she was thinking. I felt like such a creep thinking of her as she sat right next to me, and the fucked up part is, the more I tried to stop, the more my thoughts would lean towards her like my body was with every turn.

Why do I care so much about what other people think of me? I know my opinion is the only one that holds any weight at my ankles. Why do I let the opinions of others run through me like a filter in my mind? I don't know. Add that to the list of things I'm looking for an answer too. At the top is: How to be Normal.

But I know honestly, and I'm not just saying this, I know there is no such thing as "normal." We all have our own unique versions, sequels, and prequels of normal. Maybe Essie was experiencing her prequel, and the confusion hasn't hit her yet.

For now, she is a foreign film. But her meaning is never lost in translation. She doesn't need to speak our language with her tongue, because you can feel her energy hit you sharp and concisely when she walks in the room. I wish I could mirror her unapologetic attitude. And it's sad because I believe that I used too.

At one point in time, ignorance was my sweetest bliss, and I carried no guilt, shame, or remorse about that. But during that time, I was also a bad person. I only held regard for myself, and I didn't care about who I hurt as long as I got what I wanted. Now, I'm obsessively self-aware out of fear of hurting someone. But I only hurt myself this way. My toes are so sore from tiptoeing around everyone. I'll need a wheelchair soon. Should I just run over everyone with it and shout, "Get out of my way!" No. That would be going backward. I need a medium. A middle path between living righteously and self righteously.

We took a sharp right turn, and I got a smell of her hair. Cigarettes and Coconut.

I smell like the top of a newborn's head. Fresh and new to this whole "socializing" thing, even though I'm 19 years old. You see, that's what happens when introverts come out of their rooms. We don't know how to act because we've stayed recluse for so long. Then, we go out and act a fool, and then we go home and never go back out again because the last time was a nightmare. The cycle goes on like this until you can find someone who lifts up that veil from over your eyes and says, "I like you. I like your weird silences and your over-analytical thoughts, your dumb jokes, and music. So sit down, take your jacket off and relax."

Andres leans back from the passenger seat to talk to me, pulling me out of my head. But my left hand still has that mental pen going. I can barely hear him over the music, and he talks fast and slurry because he's always stoned. He has dreams of moving to LA to pursue an acting career. It would be easy for him to pick up and go because all he owns is a sick long board, a permanently full jar of pot, and an overbearing amount of confidence. He asks me, "So when are you gonna try shrooms?"

I know he's talking to me, but I do a quick eye scope around the car just in case he's not. He is.

"Uhh, I don't know, I'm too young for that. I needa let my brain develop more first."

Why did I say that? I smoke pot like my Monte Carlo smokes up in the winter, and I pop pills like a candy addict.

He laughs at me, "What? No, you're not."

See, why do I say things I don't mean? I sit in my room all day and analyze my life for hours with questions and ideas. I start when my eyes open, and I conclude when I pull the covers up and drift into sleep. I write a story for my life, proofreading and kinking out all of the errors. I don't stop until it all makes sense in my head, and the last sentence has a nice ring to it. I'm used to long, thought out open-ended answers. So when I'm asked a simple, straightforward question, my brain stutters and thinks, "A B C or D?"

He goes on with a grin from cheek to cheek, turning back at me, "That's crazy, you can take these at any age. First time I tried them, I was 14. Their eye opening."

"My eyes are too open as is."

And then the whole car laughed like I said something funny.

All of my friends have told me that I am intimidating upon the first impression. It's funny to me because maybe they look at me the way I look at Essie. I look over at her as she stares out the window. What would she confess?