The Infinite Noise

by Lauren Shippen

  Honestly, how did anyone expect me to be adjusted and not filled to the brim with neuroses with role models like these?

  “I’d love to come see you compete sometime.” Annabelle smiles, all teeth and no spark in her eyes. The tension hasn’t left my mom’s hand and the air in the whole room is thick with stress. Did I miss something? Mom and Annabelle’s monthly spat? Did my dad say something dumb? Or is it me? I’m not doing a good enough job of pretending to be human and they’re starting to notice and soon the weight of their collective concern is going to fall from the sky and crush me. I have to get the situation under control.

  “Um, yeah,” I say, doing my best to inject enthusiasm into my response and almost certainly failing. “Yeah, we’ve got a competition next month sometime.”

  “Son”—my father’s stern voice cuts through the tension before layering on more—“are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Yeah,” I repeat, “I’m totally fine. Sorry, I’m just a little distracted today.”

  “Fun plans for your Saturday?” Annabelle asks, her smile finally warming her eyes. She winks at me and I want to appreciate it—want to goof off with my aunt in these rare moments when she lets her hair down—but it just makes me flinch.

  “Uh, no, not really.” I shrug before my whole body involuntarily seizes up in panic. I’m supposed to see Caleb tonight. He’s coming over. He’s coming over to my house and I haven’t even asked my parents about it yet because by the end of school on Thursday, a damp cloud had descended over me and I’ve spent the last seventy-two hours wallowing in it.

  The conversation at the table has moved on—Mom and Dad are talking about one of their newest areas of potential research and Annabelle looks deeply interested in a way that makes me think she isn’t only looking for weak spots in my mother’s pride. There’s no further inquiry about my weekend plans because “um, no, not really” is par for the course when it comes to the life of Adam Hayes. My parents don’t expect me to have friends. They’ve tried—getting me to sign up for more extracurriculars, offering to let me throw small (read: very pathetic) parties at the house—but they know a lost cause when they see it.

  “What about Caleb? What’s he doing this weekend?”

  How much time has passed? Did they finish talking about work so soon? I look up from my plate again to see three pairs of highly intelligent adult eyes staring at me. I replay the last thirty seconds of my life, trying to remember what was happening around me as I was being pulled further into the dark spots of my body.

  Conversation came to an abrupt halt—my mom cut my dad off as he was saying something. But not to interrupt something—to make him stop talking. Because I’m here. They must have been discussing some of their top secret stuff and then remembered that I’m also present and put the kibosh on that. Damn, I should have been paying a lot more attention.

  Now I see my mom’s question for what it is: a desperate attempt to change the subject while there are minors present. I should never have told her about Caleb. Except I’ve been to his house and we hang out in the coffee shop and the park and my mom knows I almost never go anywhere. If I’m not around here or at school, she can guess where I am.

  “Um,” I start, knowing I need to say something. Guess I should just jump in with both feet. “I actually invited him to come over and hang tonight, if that’s okay.”

  My parents beam. It’s like a switch gets flipped and light comes on in their faces. My body summons up the energy to be just a little insulted by that when it occurs to me that this is the first time I’ve had a friend over in … years. It’s been years. So, yeah, okay, they have every reason to look happily surprised.

  “But I don’t know that we’re doing that for sure,” I blurt, wanting to dampen their expressions so I don’t have to be blinded. “We didn’t make any concrete plans or anything.”

  “Well, text him,” my dad laughs. “Make concrete!”

  “Who is this person?” Annabelle asks, rolling her eyes at my dad ever so subtly.

  “He’s a friend of Adam’s.” My mom grins. “Very nice young man. Football player.”

  “Mom, what?” Panic seizes me again. “How do you know that? You haven’t even met him.”

  “Your school isn’t very large, sweetie,” she says, matter-of-fact. “It wasn’t hard to look him up. And I assume he’s a nice young man because he’s friends with you.” She doesn’t even give me the courtesy of looking ashamed at how embarrassing literally every part of that statement is. I want to crawl under the table.

  “Ooh, football player.” Annabelle smirks. “Is this nice young man a potential paramour?”

  Now I really want to crawl under the table. My mom and dad exchange one of their Looks, this time with a disturbing twinkle in their eyes. Oh god, am I that obvious? Of course I am. Everyone and their mom (including mine) knows that I have a crush on Caleb. Apparently, the only person who doesn’t know is the boy himself.

  “No,” I say, blushing, “it’s not like that, we’re just friends.”

  A few more speculations about Caleb’s character are made and then some general commentary on how nice it is that I’m bonding with someone from my class. I nod and grimace through it, but the moment I see an opening, I lie about needing a shower and bolt upstairs.

  I do need a shower, but the thought of it exhausts me. Turning on the water, getting undressed, getting in, washing my hair, drying myself off, getting dressed again. It’s so much work. Too much. Instead, I reenter the cocoon of my bed, with no intention of ever coming back out again, even though I know Annabelle will want to catch up more at some point. I spare a second to wonder how long she’s staying today before even that takes too much energy.

  The brief flashes of panic I felt at the thought of Caleb during breakfast have worn off, leaving an empty shell behind. I’m tired on a primal level. I’m tired in a way that makes me feel like I am carrying the missed sleep, the physical toil, the mental anguish of all of my ancestors. I should text Caleb now and tell him that he can’t come over tonight, tell him that I’ve got homework or family time or I’m too depressed to function.

  I can’t say that. I know I can’t tell him the truth. Because that’s not how we work as a society. We don’t have the liberty of telling each other, “Hey, I’m having a depressive episode so I’m sorry for being distant or weird or useless or making myself bleed. I wish I could say that this is a one-time thing and will never happen again, but it isn’t and it will. I don’t want to be around you right now or during those times at all, but I would love if you took care of me and sat silently in the corner of the room for when I need someone to hug me. You will get nothing in return except for maybe my friendship when the cloud lifts and I can be human for two seconds. Hope that’s all good with you!”

  But we don’t say that. We say, “I’m fine.” We say, “It’s nothing.” We make excuses that we know aren’t true and that they know aren’t true but we both pretend anyway like we’ve all agreed to have this collective hallucination together. And it gets us nowhere.

  There’s a tiny, weak voice in the back of my head that’s saying maybe Caleb would understand. I want to believe it. And it’s true, Caleb is a surprisingly … sensitive guy, but I don’t think we’re at the point where I can just dump all this stuff on him.

  Then again, will I ever get to that point with anyone? What does that look like? Do my parents tell each other about all their ugly, self-loathing thoughts, the times when even taking a sip of water feels like climbing Mount Everest, the feeling of sharp tension that comes with being around other people? Do they even feel those things?

  Maybe they do. Maybe they did. Maybe this is normal and every person my age feels like this. Maybe this eventually goes away. Maybe I’ll wake up one day and be Daydream Adam, excited to take on the world. I’ll roll over in bed with complete ease, smile at my husband, whistle while I make coffee, and go to a job that I love and never want to hurt myself ever again.

  That same
voice telling me I can trust Caleb is whispering these dreams to me. Like a little spark in my chest, frail and flickering, causing me to hope. But it’s no match for the vaporous black cloud that permeates my lungs. The cloud throws the spark into darkness until all that’s left is an echoey voice murmuring, “It will always be this way. You don’t get to change this. You don’t get to leave this behind. You will remain in this oppressive nothing. Always.”

  31

  CALEB

  Adam’s house looms over me like a storm. I shake it away, chalking it up to the overcast sky affecting my mood, and walk up the front path to the door. A blue mist snakes out of the house, wrapping its way around my head, muffling my ears and threatening to choke me. I swallow around it, closing my eyes as I try to adjust. This is Adam’s. I think. It’s heavier, more present than ever before, but it feels like him.

  I knock on the door. No answer. I knock again before noticing the doorbell button next to the mailbox attached to the front of the house. I push it, hearing the chimes through the closed door. No answer.

  This might have been a bad idea. Adam invited me to hang out when we smoothed things over on Wednesday, but I didn’t see him the rest of the week and it’s dawning on me that just showing up at his house without hearing from him is sort of a strange move.

  God, what if he’s not even here? The sun is starting to go down, making it feel like it’s much later than it actually is, and my hands are stinging in the cold. I shove them into my pockets just as the blue haze gets thicker—it’s not a fog anymore, it’s a wave. Breathing functions are hard to access for a few seconds and I struggle to maintain my balance, as the feeling is almost a physical force pushing me backward, away from the door.

  This was definitely a bad idea.

  There’s a shuffling sound coming through the door and I see a shadow in the window. Either someone is coming to answer my knocking or I’ve interrupted a serial killer in the middle of a spree and this night is about to take a turn. The wave—roiling, hot-cold, suffocating—has set my teeth on edge and made my eyelids heavy. Despite the chill and decreasing daylight, there’s a part of me that wants to lie down right here on Adam’s front stoop and go to sleep forever.

  The turn of the door handle wakes me up a bit and a familiar dark-haired head pokes around the corner. Adam’s curls are more of a mess than usual, and it makes my stomach twinge. I want to soothe his hair, make it look less crazed, but I also want to indulge running my fingers through it. He looks like an odd, black-and-white version of himself—sapped of color, full of contrast; circles under his eyes, his freckles black against the unnatural paleness of his dark skin. He squints at me around the door like he’s looking into the sun and it makes me itch, the blue getting into my blood vessels and making me skittish.

  My system is rejecting whatever this is instead of slotting it into place like usual. It feels different—bigger and more unruly. I push through it to try and focus on what’s in front of me, the reality of the moment. Adam’s long fingers curl around the edge of the door as he pulls it open wider and it’s like the door was a barrier between us, keeping his emotions at bay. Now it all rushes in, the suffocating blue with the bitter taste of nervousness.

  “Caleb,” Adam croaks, “what are you doing here?”

  “Sorry.” I throw up my hands in a placating gesture, like I’m trying to calm a spooked woodland creature. “I thought we were hanging out, but if this is a bad time…”

  “Shit,” he breathes, “I meant to text you. I’m sorry.”

  His words are apologizing for not texting but the strain in his voice makes it sound like he’s sorry for something much bigger. Black sludge seeps out of him, mixing with the blue wave, creating a slow whirlpool that numbs me as it sinks into my skin. As I watch him press his eyes closed, I realize what that uniquely sharp sludge is—he’s disappointed in himself. He thinks he’s let me down.

  “It’s okay,” I assure him, “we can hang out tomorrow if you want—”

  “No.” He steps over the threshold as if to stop me from leaving. “No, I mean, you’re already here. You might as well come inside.”

  “Are you sure?” I ask.

  “Yeah.” He nods sluggishly and turns back into the house. I follow slowly, worried that if I step in the wrong place, I’ll drop into the whirlpool and drown. The house is dark and quiet, making the wave that’s pressing down on me even stronger. But I’m soothed by the lack of light. These feelings rushing through my body don’t want to be seen.

  Adam turns to me, hands stuffed in the front pocket of his hoodie, and I feel the familiar butterflies. But they flap wearily, like they have delicate wings that will be torn to pieces by the sludge if they move too quickly. I want to ask Adam what’s wrong, why he’s feeling this way, but before I can—

  “Do you want anything? Water, or…” He trails off and then pulls one of his hands out of the hoodie to rub at his face. “Sorry, I’m a little out of it, it’s been a long day.”

  “Everything okay?” I ask, even though I know the answer is “no.”

  “Yeah, it’s fine,” he lies, and I don’t even need to feel the buzzer of nervousness to know he’s not telling the truth. “My aunt was over today for, like, the whole day and she can be kind of intense so it was just tiring.”

  “Is she still here?” I ask, even though I’m getting the impression that no one is here. Not even Adam, really.

  “Nah.” He shakes his head. “She and my parents went to some event for a charity they’re all involved in or something. I don’t know, I wasn’t really paying attention when they told me about it.”

  “I get that.” I snort and Adam’s lips twitch like he wants to smile but doesn’t have the face muscles to pull it off. I rock back and forth on my heels, not sure what to do. This should be awkward—the two of us standing silently in his front hall with all the lights off—but everything’s too dampened for me to feel weird. I just feel sort of … numb.

  “Um.” Adam’s voice breaks the silence, too harsh for my ears. “Wanna go upstairs and watch a movie or something?”

  “Yeah,” I agree, “that sounds good.”

  As we walk up the stairs, I think about how I was hoping I could finally show Adam how to play Madden, but now even the thought of picking up a video game controller exhausts me. When we enter Adam’s room, I don’t have the energy to look around. I’m in a place I’ve thought a lot about in the past few weeks—wanting to explore Adam’s space, learn more about him, understand him—and all I want to do is lie down on the floor and stare at the ceiling until I fall asleep.

  I get pretty close to that wish. We sit sideways on his bed with his laptop between us, watching something on streaming. I think it’s funny but I keep zoning in and out. I’m losing time. I don’t know if I’ve been here for twenty minutes or two hours. I don’t know how many episodes we’ve watched or even if what we’re watching has episodes.

  Adam’s body is warm next to mine, our shoulders barely touching as we each lean slightly to get a better angle on the screen. It should comfort me, being this close to him. It should excite me. But the warmth is dulled by the steady stream of sadness coming from him. That’s what it is. It’s sadness. Not the vague, general sadness that sometimes lurks around him, distinctly his but not especially dangerous. This is enormous. There’s a thick, soupy fog gathered around both of us, so large that I’m not even sure Adam is there. There’s only fog.

  It’s bigger than him and bigger than me and I’m starting to worry his parents are going to come home from their fancy dinner to find our mummified corpses on his bed.

  * * *

  “… Caleb?” A soft voice is calling to me but my eyelids are too heavy to open. The voice says my name again and my neck spasms, caught in an awkward angle. I lift my head and open my eyes to find Adam’s face startlingly close to mine. My eyes drink his face in, my whole field of vision filled with the brown warmth of his skin, his hair, his eyelashes, his eyes, and then my brain catches u
p and I jerk backward.

  “Sorry,” he says, face crumpling. “I just—I have to go to the bathroom and you were…”

  He gestures to our relative positions and I realize that I’d fallen asleep and somehow ended up with my head on his shoulder. My face heats as he mumbles, “So … be right back,” sliding off the bed and leaving the room.

  I blink a few times, shaking my head to clear the fog. How long was I asleep? I’m still tired all over, but calmer. Sleep can do that for me—detox other people’s emotions and leave me at a baseline of my own feelings. I do a mental and physical check—my body is a bit sore from falling asleep sitting up (I must have dozed for a while), but the fog is a little less thick. It isn’t gone, just … plateaued.

  My thoughts are interrupted by Adam reentering the room.

  “How long was I out?” I ask, stretching my arms out in front of me.

  “Only, like, half an hour.” Adam shrugs, climbing back onto the bed.

  “Fuck,” I exhale. “Sorry, dude.”

  Everything about this is so weird. I’ve been here for hours and we’ve said about a total of twenty words to each other. I’m feeling like a bad friend but also like Adam is being a bit of a bad friend by not telling me what’s going on with him. But I don’t know if that’s what people do. Is sitting in silence and then falling asleep normal friend behavior?

  Adam is queueing up something else on his computer, very pointedly not looking at me, and I’m suddenly filled with anger. I know it’s irrational, but I’m ticked off that Adam hasn’t even made an effort to talk to me. If he didn’t want to hang, I gave him an out. He didn’t have to invite me in just to ignore me.

  “What the hell is going on with you?” I ask before I can stop myself. Shit. This is why Dr. Bright keeps telling you to check in with your own emotions, Caleb. So that when they come rushing back, you don’t say stupid-ass things.