The Infinite Noise

by Lauren Shippen

  Caleb’s body starts to relax throughout that little monologue and he’s looking at me hopefully, as if now that he’s explained his therapist and his diagnosis, I’m totally on board and completely able to grasp everything he’s saying.

  “So…” I process out loud, “you feel the feelings of everyone around you and it’s sort of like mind reading but also you think those feelings are yours sometimes?”

  “Pretty much.” He nods. “I mean, it’s a little more complicated than that probably, but that’s the gist. It’s not mind reading, I promise, but it’s … I don’t know … I know a lot about people now.”

  That makes my heart beat faster in fear. If this is true (and I’m really starting to believe this is true), I might be in real trouble here.

  “Why are you telling me this?” I ask, getting to the important question. I’ve spent a lot of time pestering Caleb about whatever perceived secrets I thought he might have, but he’s always been reluctant to cave. Why now?

  “Because you’re my friend,” he states, and my breath hitches at the intensity of his gaze, “and I want to tell you things. I need to tell you things because it’s not fair that I know what you’re feeling all the time and wasn’t even telling you about it.”

  “I’m sorry, Caleb.” I shake my head. “I’m having a hard time believing this.”

  “I know,” he says, “but it’s true. And there’s a little part of you that knows that. I know you’re nervous and scared right now, but you’ve also got that tiny little glimmer of confidence. You trust me.”

  “Yeah, I do,” I concede, “but this is really next-level weird.”

  “You don’t have to be mean about it.” He pouts.

  “No, sorry,” I blurt, “I’m not trying to be insensitive, I just—This is a lot, Caleb. If you really can feel all of my feelings…”

  “I can,” he asserts. “Like, right now you’re nervous and scared and all that, but you trust me. But also there’s that little pool of, like, sadness, I guess? I don’t really know how to describe it, it’s so big sometimes. Like when I came over last month—it was really big then. Like a massive wave that turned into a storm or something. And it’s weird that I know that stuff because you haven’t told me and I have a feeling it’s kind of a big deal, so I felt bad not telling you I knew.”

  I’m starting to get dizzy despite the fact that I’m sitting down. Caleb is looking at me as he says this and it’s like having my chest wrenched open and my soul read. He knows that I have depression. He doesn’t seem to know exactly what it is—or he doesn’t want to say—but he knows. According to him, he’s felt it.

  “I—” I start.

  “You don’t have to explain yourself,” he interrupts, sounding panicked. “I’m not trying to make you feel bad or anything. I’m just—I’m sorry that you feel that way. I know how hard it is.”

  “Because you feel that way when I do?” I ask, heart sinking at what I think the answer might be.

  “Well, yeah, sort of,” he says, “but it’s not like you’re making me sad or anything, it wears off when I’m not around you. And I still feel my own feelings, you know? Wait … why are you … relieved?”

  Caleb is squinting, his head tilted like he’s trying to listen to something far away.

  “Um, I—I don’t know that I am,” I stammer, before actually giving it some thought. “I guess … I guess I’m glad there’s an explanation for why I always feel like I’m missing something around you. You throw me off sometimes and that never happens, with anyone. This fills in that blank a little bit.”

  “Good.” He smiles. “That’s good.”

  “Yeah…” I trail off, my mind working at a million miles a minute. This is real. Caleb really can feel my feelings—all of my feelings. And it seems like he knows what they are even before I do. Which means, that earlier …

  “Oh god.” I cringe, thinking about our moment on his bedroom floor just twenty minutes ago. And so many moments before that. He’s known this whole time. He’s known that I have a massive crush on him and that’s why he’s always so weird during those times, because he snaps out of it and realizes that he doesn’t feel the same and changes the subject and oh my god, I’ve never felt so humiliated in my entire life. And now he’s going to feel that and I have to get out of here.

  “Adam, why are you feeling … embarrassed?” he asks, sounding uncertain. “I’m the one who—”

  “I have to go.” I stand up quickly, edging away from Caleb like the distance will keep him from feeling my embarrassment. Is that how this works?

  “Wait, what?” Caleb stands also, stepping toward me, and I try not to flinch back.

  “I just—I need some time to process.” I start to turn away so I don’t have to look at Caleb’s puppy-dog face, but he grabs my arm, so that I face him.

  “Are you—are we okay?”

  “Yeah.” I nod, trying not to show my hurt. At least it seems like he still wants to be my friend. “Yeah, we’re fine. It’s just a lot. But I’ll see you on Monday, yeah?”

  “Yeah.” He drops my arm, looking like I’ve just told him Christmas is canceled.

  I mumble a good-bye and take off down the street, trying not to break apart at his unspoken rejection.

  38

  CALEB

  My whole body is buzzing with nervous energy as I knock on Dr. Bright’s office door.

  “Caleb, come in—” I don’t even wait for her to finish opening the door before I’m bursting through it, pacing back and forth in her office.

  “Sorry, I know I’m early, but I just couldn’t sit around my house anymore.” There are massive waves of worry coming off of Dr. Bright but I’m too tied up in my own feelings to pay it much attention.

  “It’s fine,” she says, closing the door and gesturing for me to sit down, which I completely ignore in favor of pacing more. “Caleb. Are you all right?”

  “No, no, I am not fucking all right,” I spit, the pacing making me more agitated, which just makes me want to pace even more.

  “Does this have to do with Adam? I got your message that you were planning on telling him this weekend.”

  My mind rewinds to Friday, when I left that message, and it feels like a hundred years ago. God, I was so optimistic then, so hopeful that Adam would believe me when I told him the truth and then we’d finally fucking stop dancing around this thing that I know both of us feel, but instead I got halfway there and then it completely blew up in my face.

  I don’t even try to hide this from Dr. Bright.

  “Yeah, yeah, I did that. Last night.” I’m nodding furiously as I walk back and forth in her small office and I know I must look like a complete maniac. “And it did not go well.”

  “Caleb, why don’t you sit down and tell me what happened.” She gestures again at the couch and her outstretched arm sweeps a cool breeze of calm over me.

  I sit. And I tell her the whole damn thing.

  * * *

  Out of all the bone-headed things I’ve done in my life, texting the guy I like while in the middle of a therapy session is probably one of the more idiotic.

  Telling Dr. Bright everything actually really did make me feel better. It was good to get everything off my chest, but also, as we’ve just established, I’m a fucking idiot.

  Adam was embarrassed. He believed me, but he was embarrassed. How could I have not seen that? He does like me and he was freaked out that I was telling him I could feel his feelings. Like Dr. Bright just said, he probably thought I was telling him I knew he liked me and was letting him down easy.

  “Caleb, what are you doing?”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Dr. Bright lean forward, resting her elbows on her knees, her curiosity bubbling out and curling into my nerve endings. I focus in on my phone, trying to come up with the perfect words that will rewrite the last twenty-four hours.

  “Communicating,” I reply, my thumbs moving quickly over the touchscreen. A drop of black-sludge disappointment d
rops into the whirlpool of curiosity-concern, rippling outward and making my fingers stutter on the keyboard.

  “I meant in person, or a phone call,” Dr. Bright sighs. “Not texting.”

  I want to snap at her that she should have specified when saying I needed to communicate more, but I’m too filled up with my own anxiety about all the ways I could screw this up. All the ways that I could not only lose my shot with Adam, but lose him as a friend.

  “Yeah, well”—I look up at Dr. Bright, hoping she’ll start to understand—“I can’t go to school tomorrow without fixing this, and Sunday is his study day so I know he won’t want to come over tonight. This’ll just have to do.”

  I hear how whiny and pathetic I sound, and I do everything in my power not to cringe. Dr. Bright’s face crumples and she sits back again, her eyes swiveling up to the ceiling like she’s just completely given in.

  “Very well.”

  For some reason, that feels like permission to send the text I’ve typed out, but I’m still freaked about saying the wrong thing and totally blowing it.

  “Okay,” I start, hoping that Dr. Bright will tell me I’m doing the right thing and it will all turn out fine. “I’m saying, ‘I’m sorry that I upset you yesterday. But you need to know that I like your feelings. All of them. So you shouldn’t feel weird or anything about the fact that I can feel them. Because it doesn’t have to be weird.’ How’s that?”

  It is not my normal policy to read my texts to a grown-up, but this feels like a desperate situation, and Dr. Bright’s advice is what got me into this whole “feelings” mess in the first place. I wouldn’t have ever gotten to know Adam if she hadn’t suggested it.

  That thought makes a rock of fear drop to the bottom of my stomach. I don’t want to think about that. I don’t want to imagine what my life would be like without him.

  “You’re going to send it regardless of what I have to say about better forms of communication, aren’t you?” she says wearily, and in a weird way, that gives me the confidence to take the leap. I can’t lose this. I can’t even risk losing this. And if stuffy Dr. Bright thinks I’m being impulsive and dumb, I’m probably doing exactly what I should be doing.

  “Yep.”

  I send the text.

  39

  ADAM

  I’m sorry that I upset you yesterday. But you should know that I like your feelings. All of them. So you shouldn’t feel weird or anything about the fact that I can feel them. Because it doesn’t have to be weird.

  What in the hell am I supposed to do with that?

  My heart is in my throat and I can’t feel my fingertips. I think I might actually pass out. Wrapping my head around Caleb’s confession last night was hard enough as it is. It shouldn’t be possible—it shouldn’t have been so easy for me to believe. But I do. I totally do. It makes so many things make sense.

  But this doesn’t make any sense. What on earth is he trying to say?

  The screen is blurring in front of my eyes and my head is swimming trying to parse out this problem. I feel dizzy and confused and …

  Hopeful. I have hope. Hope against hope. Confusing hope. It can’t be. But I have to know. My phone still sits in my trembling hands and I realize that minutes have passed and I haven’t responded. I need to get it together. I can’t lose this chance.

  I text back.

  How is it not weird? It’s so weird. And humiliating.

  Just because I have hope doesn’t mean I’m going to make an ass of myself. I’ve already revealed so much by just spending time with Boy Wonder—I can’t expose myself more. I need more information.

  My phone buzzes.

  What do you have to be humiliated about?

  Apparently, all plans I had to keep my dignity are completely hopeless. Looks like we’re going to drag everything out in the open. I was trying to protect my soft spots, curl in on myself, but Caleb insists on breaking me open.

  Come on, you must know by now. If you can really feel everything I feel, then you must know. No point beating around the bush about it.

  But that’s exactly what I’m doing. I don’t want to say it so he’ll have to.

  I get up from my desk chair and start pacing my bedroom. I’m being too harsh, too prickly. But Caleb knows me, he knows that this is who I am. He can’t expect to vague-text me and not get hostile texts back. Right?

  To be totally honest, I wasn’t sure. Sometimes things get really muddled and it was easy to confuse that with my own feelings.

  Oh, goddammit, there’s that hope again. I start to compose another text, saying god only knows what, when my hands—still shaking—stop themselves. We’re getting nowhere like this.

  Here it is, Adam. Now is the time to be brave. Now is the time to jump in and say what you feel and find out how he feels. This is your moment.

  I slump down on my bed, the nervous energy of the past ten minutes dissolved like wind sucked out of my sails. I’m not this person. Caleb is. Caleb is the guy who defends the weird kid in the hallway, his non-date at the school dance; the guy who always puts his apple slices on my lunch tray because he doesn’t like them and he knows that I do. Caleb is the guy who is terrified to give an in-class presentation but will never cower in front of a bully. And who am I? I’m nobody.

  Something righteous and indignant flares inside of me. That’s not right. I’m more than this. I don’t have to be the sad kid who sits on his bed, staring at his phone, wishing he could say the things he wanted to say. I don’t have to be the guy that aces classes but can’t even carry on a conversation with his parents or muster the strength to get out of bed some mornings.

  The fingers on my free hand curl into my comforter as my other hand clutches my phone, staring a hole through it like that will give me answers.

   … it was easy to confuse that with my own feelings …

  What does that mean?

  The righteous fire glows stronger in my chest. I’m smart—top of my class, will probably be in the running for valedictorian next year. I see a difficult problem and I solve it. I figure things out. That’s just how I work. But I cannot for the life of me figure Caleb out. That is unacceptable.

  Before my brain can communicate with my hands, I’m hitting the little phone icon next to Caleb’s name. The ringing stops and he doesn’t even have time to say hello before my mouth takes on a mind of its own.

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” I shout, far too loudly and completely at odds with the small, hopeful-nervous person I am in my bedroom in this moment.

  “What do you mean?” Caleb’s voice sounds tinny and tight and it makes my heart clench. I try to stay focused—get answers, Adam. Puzzle it out.

  “What feelings would you have to be confused about?” I demand. This is it: the heart of the matter. A clear question will yield a clear answer. That’s how it works.

  “Well, like,” Caleb stumbles, “when I’m feeling something and another person is feeling the same thing, I can’t tell what’s coming from them and what’s coming from me.”

  Okay, so apparently, that’s not how it works. I want to be patient, want to understand that Caleb is operating off a totally different system than the rest of humanity. He’s bound to have a different way of processing, communicating. I should be sensitive to that.

  I’m not.

  “Caleb, I swear to god, if you don’t start making sense in the next ten seconds—”

  I’m pacing the room again, unaware of ever standing up, my hands pulling at my hair as Caleb’s voice shouts out of the speaker from where the phone sits on my bed.

  “I like you too, okay?” It’s loud and stops me in my tracks. “Yeah, I could feel something from you but I was never sure because I was always feeling it too. A lot. So you can stop being an idiot and feeling embarrassed, because if anyone should feel embarrassed it’s me, the guy who’s been so stupid about you that it broke my fucking superpower!”

  My heart surges and I stumble forward, leaning my hands on the
bed where I placed the phone, bending over it like getting closer to it will be the same as being able to see Caleb’s face in this moment. I want to tell him, “Finally, yes, me too, where are you, I’ll come there,” but my stupid brain cannot let me have one good thing for even one tiny moment.

  “But…” I start, not consciously knowing where I’m going with this, “I didn’t think you—how the hell did I not know you’re gay?”

  It’s not the right thing to say at all. He just confessed actual feelings for me, I’m pretty sure, and here I am harping on sexuality like some sort of senior citizen, but it also feels like an important question to ask. I’m so terrified. If I fool myself into thinking that this could be something …

  “Oh.” Caleb wasn’t expecting that question either. “Um, I don’t know that I am.”

  My heart doesn’t even drop; it just up and vanishes. There it is. I expected it, I saw this coming, but it still hurts so much that my breath catches in my lungs. I was wrong. I read this whole situation wrong and I am shattered.

  “Oh, right, sorry.” I can’t let him hear how crushed I am. “Never mind—”

  “No, no it’s, um…” He pauses and my heart returns in full force, fluttering madly, counting each second of silence before he says, “Not that I’m not into—” He pauses again and I’m going to completely lose my mind—

  “It’s just you,” he breathes, “I like you.”

  * * *

  My stomach is in knots as I pace back and forth. At least I’m not in my bedroom anymore. Turns out Caleb was texting me from his therapy session, so I’m frantically wandering the park near his house, waiting for him.

  I’m waiting for a boy. I’m waiting for a boy who texted me in the middle of therapy because he couldn’t wait any longer, because he wanted to fix things between us. I’m waiting for a boy who likes me and, yes, who likes me like that. I think. I hope.