This Is My Brain in Love

by I. W. Gregorio

  Priya smiles and busies herself with pulling out some sheets of printer paper to sketch a storyboard on. “What can I say? Jos is my bestie.” She fidgets with a pen for a while, leans forward until she’s close enough that I can see the flecks in the iridescent blue eyeshadow she’s wearing, blinks, then leans back again like she was repelled by a magnetic field. “So, what is it that you wanted to do with this video?”

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about what the A-Plus brand is. It’s a different place to eat than, say, a Panda Express at a food court. Of course, it’s not going to be fancy Chinatown dim sum, either. That’s a different thing entirely, not that most of the people here in Utica are that familiar with that. A-Plus isn’t quite ‘Authentic’ with a capital ‘A,’ but it’s real food made by real people, like Jocelyn’s grandmother, who loves to cook. What I’m hoping viewers will see in this video is the sense of family that you get in the restaurant. That love. I mean, that single shot you took of everyone sitting around after the day, eating? Wow.”

  As I talk, Priya stares at me with an intensity that has me worrying if I have something on my face, but she smiles when I mention the tracking shot, and blushes. “Jocelyn didn’t tell me you were a film nerd, too.”

  “Oh, God, I’m totally not. I just remember her pointing out that technique in something we watched together. She says I watch too many superhero movies and is trying to reeducate me,” I explain. “Anyway, what I’m trying to do is make the viewer love A-Plus as much as we do.”

  “So, I’m not sure if this is what you had in mind, but I put something together really quickly using the vids you sent me.” She clicks on a new file, which opens up into a longer video that she’s cobbled together with some music in the background. Except the music isn’t at 100 percent volume, so you can still hear the sounds of the restaurant. It’s amazing.

  “That’s fantastic!” I say, and I’m so excited I lean over to cover Priya’s hand with my own. Priya beams. “What you did with the overlay and the cuts is exactly what I—”

  And then another déjà vu moment:

  Crack

  I’m sure it’s a gunshot at first and break away from Priya. It takes just a fraction of a second for a vise to close around my chest, and the world closes around me.

  CrackCrackCrack

  The sound is too close, and I realize it’s someone pounding on the Venkatrams’ window with something hard, like a rock. My hands are already up, the gesture automatic. Because if my mother has told me once, she’s told me a thousand times: Always remember to show my hands.

  Then my eyes focus on the figure outside—it’s dusk, so it takes a second to parse out the person’s features from the reflection of what’s inside.

  “Jocelyn?” Priya calls out, squinting.

  After a second, I can see it, but I can understand why it took me so long to figure it out. Because it’s Jocelyn like I’ve never seen her before: mouth twisted downward, eyes pinched as if in pain, forehead knotted up as if she’s going to cry.

  Vaguely, I’m aware of my watch buzzing, warning me that my heart rate is elevated.

  Five seconds in, five seconds out.

  That’s about how long it takes for Priya to drag Jocelyn in through their side door, and it’s not enough time. I’m still a hyperventilating yard sale, a fully activated fight-or-flight system at your service.

  “Hey, are you okay?” Priya is saying to Jocelyn. Priya’s got her hand out, as if to steady her, but Jocelyn shies away and ignores her question. Instead, she turns to me, and I greet her with joy the way I always do, but then feel my smile crumbling when she doesn’t smile back.

  “What are you doing here?” she asks, her voice like a slap.

  “We’re just going over some of the footage. I… I had some ideas for a video to put on the website. Kind of like a trailer.”

  Jocelyn’s face curls in on itself even more. “You guys didn’t even bother looping me in?” Her voice breaks at the end of the sentence, and the disappointment there triggers my Mayday response.

  “Well, you… you seemed busy,” I stutter. “Preoccupied.”

  “How would you know? You haven’t even seen me for more than ten seconds in the past two days.” It comes out like an accusation, and the way my mind works, of course I grind myself down with what I must have done wrong. I should have reached out. I was wrong to give her space. If I had been real boyfriend material, I wouldn’t have let her push me away.

  “But that’s okay,” she continues. “I understand. After all, Priya is so talented and I’m such a loser.” The words are meant as a sneer but the pain behind them is so obvious, they don’t have an edge.

  “Hey. Hey, Jos, don’t do this,” Priya interjects gently.

  “Do what?”

  “That thing you do…” Jocelyn stiffens and Priya stops herself, tries again. I can almost see the years of friendship weighing the conversation down, making every word, every inflection mean more than I can comprehend. “Don’t put yourself down like that.”

  If anything, it makes Jocelyn angrier. “Oh, so now you’re my life coach again? Is the Great Priya Venkatram going to tell me how to dig out of my shithole of a life?” She turns on me. “Is that why you’re here, Will? To get some free therapy?”

  She’s needling me, but she should know better than that. No one’s going to hurt me anymore by suggesting I need counseling. “Nah, Priya invited me here because that’s where all her editing software is.…”

  Jocelyn turns back to Priya, a look of disbelief on her face.

  “You have got to be fucking kidding me. You used your line?”

  Priya blushes. “I told you, it’s not a line,” she protests. “It’s totally legit.… My laptop is, like, so slow when it runs those programs.”

  Jocelyn rolls her eyes. “So you put on some makeup, bring your prey into a room with mood lighting.…” She gestures to the dark wood paneling and low-watt lamps, and then her expression contorts. “Well, if that’s the best game you’ve got, I guess I shouldn’t get too worried. It’s not like it’s ever worked before.”

  The shot’s not directed at me, but I feel the hit anyway. Jocelyn’s always been sarcastic, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen her be truly cruel. I don’t expect it to be so devastating being on the opposite side of the court from Jocelyn, staring down her serve.

  I so do not want to play this tournament, and I signal this by making a feeble attempt at the universal stop sign. “Hey, guys, I think everyone should just take a step back and calm down.” I turn to Jocelyn. “I get that you’re upset that we didn’t tell you we were meeting, but…” I can think of all the different ways to phrase what comes next: You’re overreacting. You shouldn’t make a mountain out of a molehill. We meant well.

  Everything that first comes to mind makes her seem like the unreasonable one (But she is, an unhelpful voice in my head supplies), and even I’m not such a kamikaze conversationalist that I keep flying in that direction.

  Jocelyn, on the other hand.

  “What, Will?” she challenges. “But what?”

  Since I started working at A-Plus, and, obviously, since we kissed, Jocelyn and I have shared a lot of glances. Every one of them has been almost as good as a touch—okay, maybe not quite as good—in the way they set my nerves tingling with amusement, or warmth, or just plain joy. The way she’s looking at me now, though… If she were a bird, she’d be the kind that ate her own eggs.

  I move to rub my wrist and realize that my palms are clammy with sweat. My watch buzzes again, and I swipe it silent without looking.

  “You look nervous, Will,” Jocelyn says, piercing me with those cannibalistic bird eyes. “Do you have something to be anxious about?”

  I’m trapped. If I tell Jocelyn what I really think, she’ll go off the handle. But if I hedge she’ll think I’m hiding something. I swallow once, twice, three times and lick my lips, hoping that if I do, the words will come.

  Finally, Priya takes pity on me and jumps
in. “Jos, why are you being so mean?”

  Something feral blazes in Jocelyn’s eyes, and she turns on Priya. “Just use the word you want to use. Just say it. Ask me why I’m being such a bitch.”

  “Okay, you asked for it.” Priya’s voice gets shriller. “Stop being such a bitch. Will was just trying to make a good video for your restaurant.”

  “And of course you had to be all altruistic and help, right? The perfect excuse to move in on my boyfriend…”

  What? No. That couldn’t be. I swivel my head to Priya, and she looks pissed.

  My watch buzzes again, twice, and I barely register it. I’m too busy thinking back to how I was surprised that she was wearing makeup on a Tuesday night, when I’d never noticed it on her before. Then there was how she pulled my chair so closely next to hers that I had to adjust them so we were farther apart.

  How could I be so stupid? Is this all my fault?

  My breath is coming in short gasps. I try to count, but my lungs won’t pull air. One, two, three, and I’m suddenly wheezing, choking on acid.

  The world tunnels, grays out at the edges. I can feel my chest fluttering, trying so hard to deliver that oxygen, but failing, falling short the way everything…

  “Will? Wait, what’s wrong?” Priya’s facing me so she’s the first one to see me flailing for the desk when my knees buckle. As the room spins around me, Jocelyn turns, too, and I feel the vertigo thick and dark in my throat as her scowl morphs into something more uncertain, then melts into fear.

  There’s a roaring hiss in my ears, and I hear her words as if from a distance. “Oh my God. Will, are you okay?”

  I can’t feel my fingertips anymore. Everything is sepia toned and creeping darker, but there’s no helping it: I gasp out a laugh. And my last thought before I pass out is, isn’t it obvious that I’m the furthest I could possibly be from being okay?

  This Is My Brain on Guilt

  JOCELYN

  Will doesn’t so much faint as crumble onto the Venkatrams’ rug. The fall is slow enough that I catch his head before he hits the ground, and my first thought is, This is the first time I’ve touched him in weeks. I’d forgotten the texture of his hair, the smoothness of his skin.

  “Dad! Help!” Priya’s shout, though, brings me back to reality pretty quick.

  I just broke Will.

  For a moment I just sit there with my hands cradling his head and think about how I’ve never understood how heavy a person’s head is. It just seems so easy for the neck to hold it up, but it’s only when a person’s passed out on your supposed best friend’s dad’s office floor that you realize that it’s basically a bowling ball held up by a lollipop stick.

  Meanwhile, Priya’s freaking out for the both of us. “Oh my God. Oh my God. I got a first aid badge in Girl Scouts, but I don’t remember what we’re supposed to do? Do we do chest compressions first? Or mouth breaths?”

  “He’s still breathing,” I say, still numb. “I think the first thing we’re supposed to do is call 911.” Maybe the thing that strikes the most fear in me is how lax Will’s face is, erased of any expression. While Priya calls for help from the landline in her dad’s office, I can’t stop myself. I take his hand in mine and fumble at his wrist until I find his pulse, closing my eyes when I finally feel it, steady and firm.

  “I’m so sorry,” I whisper. Then I turn to Priya, who’s still giving out directions to the ambulance. “I’m so sorry, Pri,” I tell her.

  She doesn’t respond, just puts the phone receiver to her chest. “They say to lay him on his back and raise his legs. Loosen any constrictive clothing.” She listens to the dispatcher again. “No, he’s not bleeding,” she says. “Oh, hey, he’s waking up.”

  I turn back to Will, and his eyes are blinking open and closed, deliberate, like he’s checking to make sure the muscles still work. They’re unfocused, blank. Then, in a heartbeat, he gives a start, his gaze sharpens into terror, and he turns his head, eyes darting, scanning the room and trying to place his surroundings.

  “Hey, Will. It’s okay. It’s Jocelyn. I’m here. We’re in Priya’s house. There’s an ambulance coming.”

  “What?” He gasps and struggles to sit up. “No, I’m fine. You don’t need to do that.”

  “Will, you just passed out,” Priya says severely. “I swear to God there were, like, ten seconds where you weren’t even breathing. They’re on the way. Give me your parents’ number so I can tell them to meet us at the hospital.”

  “No!” Will scrunches his face, as if to reset it. “I’m fine, guys, I’m breathing just fine. Look, my lungs are great.” He takes in a huge breath, puffing his mouth out like a fish, and lets it out. “Panic attacks aren’t actually life-threatening,” he says, sounding like he’s reciting something from a book.

  When the EMTs come in, they find that his heart rate is okay but say that he still needs to be checked out by a doctor. They cart him out in a wheelchair even though he insists that he can walk out by himself, and they tell us that we can meet him at St. Luke’s if we want.

  “I can drive you both,” Mr. Venkatram offers. Priya ran for him just after she got off the phone with 911, and he was the one who ultimately contacted Will’s dad. He asked me if he should call my family, too, and I said no. They’re used to me sulking in my room and probably won’t even notice I’m gone.

  We pile into the Venkatrams’ Ford Explorer, Priya taking shotgun, leaving me alone in the back seat like a kid who’s been told to sit in the corner and think about what they’ve done.

  Let me tell you, my head isn’t the most inviting place in the world right now.

  All the life-and-death, having-to-call-911 shit hit the reset button on my anger, which is great in that, yay, no more feeling like I’m Hulking out on my supposed boo and BFF, but also bad because once the fury’s gone, all that’s left is guilt and pain and me wanting to hit myself on the head, repeatedly. Seriously, spying on my best friend and boyfriend and assuming that they’re cheating on me? It’s not like they were kissing or anything.

  Up in the front seat, Mr. Venkatram’s grilling Priya for details.

  “What did you say was going on when he fainted?”

  “We were just looking over some video footage.”

  “Maybe he had a seizure or something.”

  Priya just hums, and my stomach prickles with guilt over what she’s not saying, over what she’s hiding for me. I don’t deserve her. I don’t deserve Will.

  When we get to the emergency room there are four people waiting in line just to check in. Mr. Venkatram waves us over to where there are two empty seats in the almost-full waiting room. “You guys sit. I’ll go find out where Will is and when we can go see him. Then maybe I’ll go get some coffee. It might be a long night.”

  Priya and I trudge over and squeeze ourselves in between an elderly man who’s been there for so long that he’s fallen asleep and a woman with a lethargic toddler draped over her shoulder.

  We sit in silence for a while. The automatic door to the ER opens twice, and I catch a glimpse of stretchers and people milling around in scrubs and white coats. The TV in the waiting room is on CNN and I lose myself in the scrolling captions. More forest fires in California. Gridlock in Washington. The follow-up to a college admissions scandal. I try to numb myself with other people’s problems, but it doesn’t quite work.

  The AC is jacked up to high, and I twist my hands together, trying to rub in some warmth. When I glance over at Priya, she’s scanning the room, and I would bet a million bucks that she’s making up backstories in her head, casting the people in the waiting room as characters in her Great American Movie.

  “What do you think?” I whisper, jutting my chin out in the direction of a man with a bloody rag tied around his hand. He’s wearing work boots that are chalky with dust. “Handyman who was sleeping with his client. Attacked with a chef’s knife when her husband walked in on them doing the nasty on the kitchen counter?”

  Priya huffs, and her mouth twists
into a not-smile. “Have you got cheating on the brain, or what?”

  I look at my hands and wish I could just disappear, but there’s no running from this. I bite my lip and sigh. “I’m sorry things got out of hand. I wasn’t… like, clearly I wasn’t thinking. My brain was like that old Keanu Reeves movie, what was it, the one you made me watch where he’s on a runaway bus that will explode if it goes under fifty miles an hour?”

  “Speed. AFI Thrills list.”

  “Yeah, that one.

  “That’s what it felt like. Completely out of control. Like, if I stopped to, I don’t know, work things out, I’d explode with jealousy.”

  Priya bites at her fingernails, searching my face. She sucks her cheeks in like she’s just tasted a lemon. “Well, as you so kindly noted, it’s not like there’s much for you to be jealous about,” she says bitterly.

  And oh, I feel sick to my stomach when I remember the things I said to her. They were like targeted missiles directed straight at her worst insecurities.

  I am such a shit friend.

  “Pri, you know that was all BS.… That was just the crazy speaking. You know I’m crazy, right?” I say it like it’s a joke, a parody of the way people say that they’re “reclaiming” the words “crazy,” “insane,” and “bonkers.” I say it like it’s the most central truth of my life. It’s the first time I’ve even hinted that I might suffer from mental illness.

  “That’s not an excuse,” she says sharply enough that I feel it in my gut. “You can’t say stuff like that to people, then apologize and expect them to forgive you right away.”

  “I know.” My voice comes out wheezy now, because my throat is closing up. I feel that all-too-familiar pressure in my sinuses that means I’m going to cry.

  Yet another thing I can’t control.

  “Pri, I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I say with a gasp. The waiting room blurs, and I sniff loudly in a valiant attempt to stop the snot dripping down my right nostril. I fail and have to stand up to grab a tissue from the hand-sanitizing stand by the reception counter. My nose blowing startles the little girl in her mother’s arms and she starts to whimper.