Out of My Mind

by Pat White

  “It’s fine.” I grab my backpack. “I’m keeping J.D. Can I go now?”

  Burke leans back in his chair. I ignore his concerned expression and clench my jaw to keep a lid on the anger.

  “Sure, go ahead,” he dismisses.

  J.D. stands.

  “Not you, Pratt. Sit down.”

  “So much for lunch,” J.D. mutters.

  I rush out of the office. The bell rings and kids pour into the halls. I motor past the Commons where I know my friends will be waiting for me.

  They don’t feel like my friends. I don’t feel connected to anyone.

  Except J.D. Pratt.

  My God, I am losing my mind. I should have asked Lisa the assistant for some serious drugs, focus drugs, or memory drugs, or something, I don’t know.

  Walking aimlessly through the halls, I find myself standing outside the art room. It’s empty except for Mr. Cooper.

  I wander inside. “Hi, Mr. Cooper.”

  “Catherine. Did we have an appointment?”

  “No, I just wanted to look at the drawings to get some ideas for my sketchbook.”

  “Sounds good. Well, I’m off to lunch.” Mr. Cooper smiles and leaves the room.

  I amble to the pencil drawing I’d admired yesterday. I don’t know why it affects me so deeply. It both comforts me yet fills me with intense melancholy.

  I drop my backpack on the floor and step closer, staring and admiring. Wondering…

  Nothing in my “new normal” life makes sense. I struggle to sequence correctly, I forget if I’ve taken my meds, and I misplace things on a daily basis. Yet here, staring into the eyes of the doe, a deep understanding fills my chest. A quiet calm soothes me.

  Am I losing my mind? I don’t care. I’ve found something that makes me feel whole and at peace.

  If only I could feel this way all the time.

  Without thought or intent, I find myself climbing onto the counter and reaching for the pushpins that secure the sketch in place. I remove one pin, then another. It’s like I’m in a dream: I’m here, but I’m not. A part of me cries out that I’m stealing, that girls like Catherine Westfield don’t take things that don’t belong to them.

  Another part of me aches with a kind of need that makes my fingers tremble. I can’t stop the trembling, aching for something so badly my throat tightens with emotion.

  I need this drawing.

  I’ve gone from being the most popular girl in school, to a brain-damaged abomination, to a thief.

  And I just don’t care.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  I freeze at the sound of J.D.’s voice. I’m so busted.

  Chapter Eleven

  “It’s crooked,” Catherine said.

  It looked to J.D. like she was about to steal his drawing.

  “You’re not supposed to touch that.” He stepped up to the counter and eyed her. She had a faraway look in her eye, like she was lost and confused.

  “Sorry, I was trying to…” She kept staring at the sketch. “Fix it.”

  The room went strangely quiet. He wanted to talk to her like a normal person, only he didn’t know how. Survival demanded he bury his social skills and isolate himself.

  Besides, what would he say? Thanks for not getting me kicked out of school and keeping me on as your school slave? Or why the hell are you trying to steal my sketch?

  Instead he clenched his jaw, unable to utter a single word. Then he noticed her trembling hand as she tried pushing a pin into the board. The girl was going to stab herself.

  “Move,” he said.

  She climbed down from the counter and he finished positioning the pinning the print. It was one his favorites. He’d named it “Desperate Choice.” He’d never shared the title with anyone, but found himself wanting to share it with her.

  “About last night,” he started. He figured this was his chance to explain. “I really am glad you’re okay.”

  She didn’t respond. He glanced over his shoulder.

  The classroom door swung shut as she escaped into the hallway.

  She couldn’t stand being around him yet she’d kept him from being transferred to another school. This girl was bi-polar, or psychotic. Either way, he didn’t need the complication. His life was hard enough.

  He sat on the counter for a second, considering her behavior. Something was definitely off about Catherine the Great yet no one seemed to notice but J.D. It’s like they all saw what they wanted to see: their perfect princess back without a scratch. No one paid attention to the choker necklace covering her scar, or the fact she avoided making eye contact. He wondered if the sunglasses were for light sensitivity or if she was hiding something.

  Her tantrum in Burke’s office reminded J.D. of a Billy meltdown. The kid would randomly explode, having bottled it up for too long. The constant anxiety and fear of living with an abusive father and not being able to tell anyone would finally get to his little brother.

  Whatever Catherine was hiding, she surely wouldn’t confide in J.D. Hell, she wouldn’t even talk to him unless it was to bark an order. But then, why demand he stay on as her note taker?

  “Stop thinking about her,” he muttered.

  He grabbed his backpack and headed for his next class. Hesitating at the door, he glanced over his shoulder.

  It suddenly struck J.D. how similar the doe’s eyes were to Catherine’s. Correction: Catherine’s eyes after the accident. Something had definitely changed because of the brain trauma.

  Not his problem. His goal was to take notes and stay out of jail so he could protect Billy from the old man.

  Other than that, he didn’t care about Princess Catherine or her drama. Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, buddy.

  * * *

  J.D. managed to make it through the afternoon without being beaten to a pulp. Greg glared at him in the hallway, but the dumb jock kept his distance. He wouldn’t risk losing his position as a middle linebacker on the football team no matter how much he enjoyed abusing kids at the bottom of the food chain.

  Not that J.D. couldn’t take him, he could, but he wouldn’t risk more black marks on his record. He had to stay clean and make it through his last year of high school.

  More like make it through the week.

  It was the last period of the day and he headed for Coop’s art class, J.D.’s safe place, his sanctuary. There was no threat of Dad cracking him with a glass pitcher, or Detective Ryan grilling him about where he’d been between six and six thirty last night.

  Being in the art room, surrounded by drawings and inspirational prints by the masters, gave J.D. the chance to breathe for a while.

  He liked assisting Coop. The teacher would nod at J.D. to walk around class and offer to help students. The younger students, the ones that hadn’t heard about him, accepted it willingly. During those few minutes J.D. actually felt a human connection, a connection that would end the minute they found out who he was. Then they’d refuse his help, usually by turning their backs or shaking their heads.

  They wouldn’t even speak to him.

  Settling on the back counter, he flipped his sketchbook open. It landed on his drawing of Princess Catherine with antennas sticking out of her head. He smiled to himself and decided to try again.

  Only this time he’d start with her eyes.

  Coop began his lecture on shading. J.D. glanced up and didn’t see Greg Hoffman. He must have gotten kicked out of class. Sweet.

  Then J.D.’s eyes connected with Catherine’s, or at least with her sunglasses. She was staring at him like she wanted something. His heartbeat sped up.

  Taylor placed her hand against Catherine’s cheek and guided her attention back to the front.

  J.D. clenched his jaw. Taylor treated her like a child caught staring at a war veteran with a missing arm.

  Whatever. Catherine didn’t seem to mind. Then he noticed her shift away from Taylor. Huh.

  “J.D.?” Coop said with a nod. That was J.D.’s cue to wander the room. “J
.D. Pratt is an extremely talented artist. Flag him down if you need help.”

  “We won’t,” Taylor said. A few kids chuckled.

  Out of respect for Coop, J.D. wandered through the class, but Taylor had set the rules with her little snark: no one should talk to or acknowledge J.D.

  As he approached cheerleader Clarisse she turned her back on him. Taylor nodded her approval.

  Like he cared.

  J.D. went back to his spot in the corner. Coop glanced up and offered J.D. a sympathetic shrug.

  J.D. didn’t need the guy’s sympathy. He didn’t want it. He just needed to keep his head down and finish high school.

  “Wow, you must all be natural artists if you don’t need help with your first project,” Coop said from the front. “Okay, ten minutes and we’ll move on.”

  “Ten minutes isn’t nearly enough time, Mr. Cooper,” Taylor whined.

  “This is an exercise in getting the essence of your idea on paper. We’re not making masterpieces…yet.”

  J.D. picked up his sketchbook and flipped to a blank page. Only, nothing came. With a sigh, he closed his eyes. What the hell was his problem? It had been a pretty good day. He hadn’t been kicked out of school, Hoffman was no longer in art class and—

  “I need to draw her eyes.”

  He snapped his eyes open at the sound of her voice. Catherine stood too close, crowding his personal space, holding a sketchbook in one hand and a pencil in the other.

  “I’m really not good at this,” she whispered, glancing down at her blank paper.

  He didn’t know what to say. She was humbling herself? Asking for his help?

  “No one starts off good,” he recovered. “It’s like learning to walk. You fall a lot before you figure it out.”

  She smiled. An ache rippled through his chest.

  “Falling, great,” she said. “I should have brought a helmet.”

  Was she joking with him?

  “Well?” She pinned him with her shaded eyes. “Can you help me or not?”

  “Sure.” Like he could deny her anything? The girl whose life he’d changed forever?

  She shifted onto the counter beside him and glanced across the room at “Desperate Choice.” Her floral scent drifted to him, filling his mind with ridiculous fantasies of sitting next to her at the park, balancing sketchbooks on their bent knees and drawing the Cascade Mountains in the distance.

  She pressed her pencil to the paper and sighed, but didn’t draw.

  “I’m scared,” she whispered.

  “It’s just a drawing. Don’t be such a drama queen.”

  “Jerk,” she snapped, and tried again.

  Good, he could deal with an angry Catherine, a fighting Catherine. Instinct told him that the fragile version was his kryptonite.

  “I don’t know why I even bothered asking you.” With rigid fingers, she drew an arc for the top of the eye.

  “Wait.” He placed his hand over hers. “Relax your fingers. Let the pencil rest like this.” As he positioned her fingers he realized how incredibly fragile they felt in his hand.

  Fragile and trembling. Again.

  “Are you okay?” he whispered.

  She pulled her hand away from him. “I’m so tired of people asking me that.”

  He put up his hands. “Sorry.”

  She drew an eye that looked like a flying saucer. With a frustrated rumble in her throat she scratched an “X” through it. “This is too hard.”

  “If you said that when you were a year old you never would have walked, much less been a cheerleader.”

  “Very funny.” She smirked, an adorable expression that etched itself into his mind.

  “Try again.” He nodded toward the page.

  “Can I burn them when I’m done?”

  “You can do whatever you want.”

  For a few minutes they worked on their drawings. He roughed out a sketch of the Cascade Mountain range and she drew eyes all over her page.

  “Do you look at something when you draw or do you see it in your head?” she asked.

  “It depends.”

  “On?”

  “My mood, I guess.”

  “What about when you’re in a dark mood?” she said.

  “You mean like ninety-five percent of the time?”

  She actually smiled. “Yeah.”

  He was about to answer when Taylor pranced up waving her iPhone. “Greg’s texting. He’ll be waiting for you after class.” She leveled J.D. with death ray eyes.

  “Okay, thanks.” Nibbling at her lower lip, Catherine was completely focused on her drawing.

  “What are you doing?” Taylor tipped her head.

  “Practicing.”

  “Looks like a bunch of amoebas,” Taylor said.

  Catherine ignored her.

  “Come on. Practice up front with me,” Taylor said. “We need to talk clothes for Andrew’s party.”

  “I’ll be there in a second.”

  When Catherine didn’t look up, Taylor narrowed her eyes, turned and marched away. She got back to her table and whispered something into Clarisse’s ear. Clarisse glared at J.D. and Taylor frantically sent a text. Probably an S.O.S. to Greg: Catherine is being seduced by Juvenile Delinquent Pratt.

  “I guess it’s better,” Catherine said, oblivious to her friend’s disapproval.

  “Yep. Look.” With his pencil, J.D. pointed at the arc above the eye. “It’s not as round as the first one. You figured out an eye isn’t shaped like a basketball.”

  She reached out and placed her hand over his. He held his breath. Couldn’t move. He couldn’t remember the last time he was touched like this.

  He glanced at her eyes, masked by the dark glasses. She seemed fascinated by the connection of their hands. She went so still, so quiet. He thought he could hear her heart beating.

  Then he panicked. Was she having some kind of mini seizure? He’d done his research. He knew TBI victims could suffer from random seizures.

  “Catherine, are you okay?” The words escaped before he could stop them. Idiot, she just told you she hates that question.

  She snatched her hand back and her cheeks flushed bright pink. “Thanks for the help.” She hopped off the counter and hesitated, not making eye contact. “But no. I’ll never be okay…”

  She walked away, the unspoken part of her sentence plunging into his heart like a knife: Because of you.

  Chapter Twelve

  J.D. had made it through the first week of school without being suspended or thrown in jail. He hadn’t said more than five words to Catherine after their “moment” in art class. It was weird. Random. Out of character.

  As J.D. changed for P.E. his eyes never stopped moving, his senses alerted to potential danger.

  Luckily Hoffman had P.E. the period before him, so he couldn’t accidentally pummel J.D. in the face with a soccer ball.

  A few of Hoffman’s friends were in J.D.’s class, but they pretty much ignored him. Without their leader they were lost.

  J.D. was sitting on the bench tying his shoes when he overheard Hoffman’s cocky voice echo from the other side of the lockers.

  “You got the keg?” Hoffman said.

  “My brother will drop it off at nine.”

  “Is she coming?” a third voice asked.

  “I’m picking her up,” Hoffman said, “and laying her down.”

  J.D. stood. He couldn’t mean…

  “You’re finally gonna nail her?”

  “Absolutely,” Hoffman bragged.

  “Yeah, yeah,” a few of the guys hooted.

  “She wouldn’t give it up before. What makes you think you’ll get in her pants now?” another kid asked.

  J.D. couldn’t stop himself from stepping closer to hear Hoffman’s answer.

  “Have you talked to her since the accident?” Hoffman started. “She was a stuck-up prude before. But now? I’m gonna nail the retard.”

  “You sonofabitch!” J.D. charged around the corner and slammed Hoffm
an into the lockers. They both went down, swinging and kicking, the group cheering them on.

  Out of his mind. Yep, J.D. had completely lost it, blinded by rage at the thought of a trusting girl being manipulated and abused by a bully.

  They rolled and punched, J.D. getting the dominant position on top. “You are such a prick!”

  He slugged Hoffman in the jaw, pain searing across J.D.’s hand and up his arm.

  Two of Hoffman’s friends yanked J.D. off.

  “What the hell is going on in here?” Coach Snyder said, shoving kids aside.

  “Pratt attacked me,” Hoffman accused.

  Snyder glared at J.D. “That true?”

  “He’s a sonofabitch,” J.D. spat.

  “Take him to Burke’s office,” Snyder said.

  Hoffman’s football buddies dragged J.D. out of the locker room and into the hallway, dorky gym shorts and all. Whatever. He was completely screwed.

  Damn it. What was he thinking? He couldn’t protect Billy from jail.

  J.D. wasn’t thinking. He’d acted on instinct, an instinct to protect Catherine.

  Dumb. Stupid. Idiot.

  J.D. ignored the stares of students and the pain burning across his hand. He knew never to hit like that. The jawbone was one of the hardest bones in the body and would do more damage to the aggressor than the victim.

  But all he could think about was Hoffman seducing Catherine and Catherine thinking it was about love, when in reality it was about conquest.

  Greg Hoffman was incapable of love.

  Like J.D. was an expert? Maybe not, but he knew manipulation wasn’t a part of it.

  The football jerks led J.D. into Burke’s office. Burke was on the phone and motioned for J.D. to sit down. The guys shoved him into a chair and waited. Burke finished his call and leaned back in his chair.

  “What happened?”

  J.D. didn’t speak.

  “He attacked Greg Hoffman,” the big guy, Pete Striden said.

  “You two, give your statements to Mrs. Anderson. Have Greg do the same. I’ll talk with Mr. Pratt in private.”

  The left the office, closing the door with a deafening thud. Burke narrowed his eyes at J.D.

  “I have no idea what your deal is, Pratt, and you know what? I don’t have time for this. I have other students, good students that need my attention.” He picked up the phone and pressed a button. “Edith? Call Detective Ryan and tell him to come get J.D. Pratt.”