Chapter Twelve | Total Zombie

♫ Total Zombie by Day Wave

I think I'm avoiding having to be alone.

Which is kind of funny, considering I've been alone my entire life. Maybe it's just because I'm not used to have so many people around that aren't related to me in any way— Atlas and Milo and the rest of the group, Olivia, Logan, and doctor Hyde's talk group. I know it's a part of growing up, I just never expected it to change this quickly.

Still, it's important to have some me-time. In between class and my next meeting, I purposely round the block instead of cutting through it, on my own. Well, not entirely. Logan's on the phone that I press between my hand and my ear. I seem to be extra uncoordinated today, but that happens sometimes. I try not to dwell on it.

"I'm sorry," he apologizes for the thousandth time. "I really meant to text back, and call, but I've just been busy."

Two weeks have gone (flown) by. Whereas my first official week of classes was surprisingly social, the two weeks following it has been more of a stress-inducing period of time. I got to discover the insane speed I'm expected to keep up with when it comes to schoolwork, and in my spare time I committed to helping Milo paint a living room wall forest green and haul a TV up the stairs of the Capitol. It's painful to admit, but Logan (read: Logan ignoring me) hasn't crossed my mind that much at all.

"I get it," I say as I cross the street, trying to match my strides to the ones of the person in front of me: a short, bald man in a suit. "Moving on. What's been happening? How was that party?"

"No farm animals were harmed."

"Funny."

He sighs. "It was good. I mean, classic party. I never thought I'd be a fraternity bro."

"Are you? A fraternity bro?" I pull a face. If it took a few weeks of not speaking to me for Logan to join a fraternity in my absence, I have to admit I don't know him as well as I thought I did.

"No," he laughs. "But I kind of had an image of fraternity bros in my head, you know? And now I see it's just a stereotype, and I'm realizing I might be more similar to them than I initially thought. Anyway, the past few weeks have been the start of everything, so finding time to talk to people was just really hard."

"It's cool. But maybe next time put that into a text, so people don't think you're trying to shake them off of your pant leg or something."

"I will. So, what are you doing today?"

"I have a group meeting again today." I shrug, but then realize he can't even see me.

"Again? You had one last time we spoke."

"Yeah, it's a weekly thing. That's what you get when you don't respond to my texts for that long." Okay— maybe I'm more offended about him not getting back to me than I tried to tell myself. But if there's anyone who can handle my passive aggressiveness, it's Logan. It took us two years to get to this point, after all.

"Sorry." He draws the word out this time, more playful than apologetic. "Can you meet today? After, maybe? I'll buy you something, because I feel like my sorry's aren't quite having the effect I intend for them to have."

I release a breath as the administration building comes into view, the purple NYU flag waving in the soft wind. "You don't have to get me anything, but I'd love to meet with you later. My meeting's ending at five."

"Administration building?"

"Yeah, do you know where it is? I can send you the address."

"No, I know where. I'll meet you at five, then," he smiles as he says it, I can hear it in his voice.

"See ya." I hang up the phone and shove it into my book bag, brushing stray hairs from my face as I walk up the stairs and into the lobby of the administration building, this time navigating my way to the conference room with a lot more ease. It's almost three, so I'm not as early as I was last time, but it doesn't make me anxious. I now know the people there, and I also know they won't look at me weird when I walk in. It alleviates most of my stress.

I recognize Josh, Rashad and Anita inside. I didn't really get to talk to them last time, but they seem nice. In the name of expanding my horizons socially, I smile at the three of them and sit next to Josh, unwinding my scarf.

"Nova, right?" Rashad asks me, and I nod. He's Afghan, I know, and has a little beard and a tall, broad form. He also looks way older than me because of it, but he has a kind smile that immediately comforts me. Usually older guys freak me out, but I don't feel like that around him at all. Maybe because I know he has ankylosing spondylitis and I know we're in the same boat. Or it's just his smile. Either way, he radiates a comfort that's hard to find in strangers. "Hyde says we're going out today."

I pause in my movements, holding the scarf mid-air. "Out where?"

The three of them shrug simultaneously and I sit back, leaving my coat on. Within minutes doctor Hyde strides in, more people following close behind. I spot Isla and Emmy, who both come to sit with me, but no Philip today.

As the room fills up, Hyde presses his hands together and puts his fingers to his lips. He swiftly turns and points to Zahara.

"Zahara," he says. "Have you had lunch today?"

Zahara blinks at him. "Um, no. I just got out of class," she tells him awkwardly.

"Isla, you?" Hyde moves on, turning on his heel to meet her eye.

"No."

"Josh?"

"I haven't, either," says Josh.

Hyde puts his hands on his hips. "Let me rephrase. Raise a hand if you had lunch today."

Emmy's the only one who tentatively raises a hand above her head. "I had M&M's just now. Like a whole bunch of them. And a RedBull?"

Hyde sighs. "No, honey, that's not a lunch," He says, gently. He glances around the room, waiting for more people to speak up, but no-one does. "Alright, I'll feed you kids. Come with me."

He stalks out of the room and a confused group (significantly smaller than it was last week) follows after him, even more confused when he pulls a see-through box of chalk from his office and then leads us outside, down the sidewalk.

Usually, when I walk in a group of people, I can barely keep up. My legs are far too uncoordinated to match the strides of normal ones and I have to think, really think, about every single step before I take it.

I always assumed it was normal. I'd come home at the end of the day and be utterly exhausted and couldn't for the life of me understand why no-one else struggled even a little bit, until I had a talk with my new guidance counselor in my freshman year of high school, told him about how I was always tensed and trembling and always had to actively think through how I moved, and he said, "Nova, that must be so, so incredibly exhausting." And I thought about it and discovered that yes, it was, actually. Especially now that I knew it wasn't supposed to be that way.

This group is far slower, much to my joy. Hyde's walking alongside Josh at the front, I know Emmy's in her leg braces and Anita brought her cane, and Isla's in her wheelchair, too. This is the first time, I think ever, that I've been able to keep up without someone deliberately slowing down for me.

"How's he going to afford feeding all of us in Manhattan?" Emmy sidles up to me, grinning. "I went to a café once, saw the prices and immediately made a U-turn."

I laugh at that, shifting my gaze to Hyde, who's stuck his hands in his pockets and is nonchalantly leading us farther and farther from the administration building, towards Washington Square Park. "I mean, he's a licensed therapist who doubles as a professor at a prestigious university. I don't really think money's that much of an issue for him."

"True," says Emmy. She looks back at me. "So, how have the last two weeks been for you?"

"Stressful. Did you know we have a presentation for Writing 101 next Monday?"

I don't have that many contacts in my year. Actually, aside from Milo, Emmy, Olivia and Logan, I don't think I know any first years at all. It means I've been kind of navigating school on my own thus far, and when I have questions I don't really know who to ask about it. I take the opportunity, though, now that Emmy asked.

"Oh my, that's next Monday? I thought it was at the beginning of November," she gasps.

"It's Halloween this weekend. It's insane, but the beginning of November has arrived."

I have to admit, even I was shocked at how fast time was going. The fall semester started in late September, the first few weeks have been our October, and now we've got our first national holiday moving towards us at the speed of light. It's hard to keep up with.

"I'd rather be dead than give a presentation in professor Stew's Writing 101 class," says Emmy. "I mean, I would already trade my life for a bell pepper and a jar of pickle juice, and I'm allergic to both."

"Stew's the mean one, right? You have him for your writing class, too, then?" I ask, laughing at her last remark.

"Yes. I think he hates me and I only talked to him once," Emmy replies.

I shudder at the thought of my first official class this year. Professor Harvey Stew was the one I asked about Hyde's email, and like Emmy I'm also convinced he's not that fond of me.

But then, there's always teachers like that, the kind that only likes the perfect, flawless students who ask enough questions and give enough right answers and then leave them alone outside of class. If you're disabled or need even a bit more help than the rest, you're basically treated like their mortal enemy. Much to my luck, I've had teachers like that forever, and none of them were subtle about how much trouble I was to them.

Up until now, the presentation has kind of remained at the back of my mind (forcefully), but if I want to impress professor Stew to the point where he'd consider giving me a generous grade, it's not something I can afford to avoid any longer than I already have.

I'm about to tell Emmy I agree with her when Hyde steps onto a bench at the street side and turns to the group. "I'm getting you sandwiches," he announces. "Any allergies?"

"Bell peppers and pickle juice," Emmy tells him. The others shout out some things, too, and soon he's disappeared into the deli we've stopped outside of.

"So, are you just allergic to pickle juice or pickles, too?" I ask, genuinely curious.

"Just the juice. I don't get it, either," she answers with a laugh.

We wait on the curbside as Hyde gets everyone our sandwiches with Anita, Zahara and Rashad's help. I notice that aside from them, only Josh, Isla, Emmy and I are here today. Maybe the rest of the group figured it wasn't really necessary, or they just couldn't be here. Either way, I don't mind that there are less people present. It's more intimate this way, and I think that intimacy is something Hyde intended there to be for us.

"Has Hyde told you what's with the chalk?" Isla asks Josh, who's carrying the see-through box of street-chalk in his lap. She's in her wheelchair today, too, and has her back to the deli's wide windows as we wait.

"I don't know. He spoke to me in keywords. I asked and he went, "art, self-expression, joy"." Josh shrugs. "I'm guessing the street-chalk is for none other than chalking the street."

I look up at the sky. Regardless of the cold, it seems to be a softer kind of day. I've learned New York weather is pretty unpredictable, but it's still the east coast. If you think it's not going to pour (and even if the weather report reassures you it won't), you're usually wrong.

We finish our sandwiches on the curbside of the street, and then Hyde pulls the box of chalk off of Josh's lap and raises it in the air. "Pretty self-explanatory," he says, "but we're going to be chalking the sidewalk. Josh, Isla, you two help me do the wall?"

Josh and Isla nods as Rashad confusedly raises a hand. "What are we supposed to create? And won't we be in the way?"

Hyde tuts at that and slaps a hand onto his shoulder. "There are no rules. I want you guys to approach this as if you're kids. I don't care if you draw genitals or the Mona Lisa, as long as you have fun with it." He sees us hesitating to get down to the floor. "Come on! You're not so damaged by adulthood that you're afraid to get your pants dirty, are you?"

"I'm damaged enough to not look forward to doing the laundry later," says Emmy. She pauses and then shrugs, dropping down onto her knees in the middle of the sidewalk. "But fuck it."

"That's right! Fuck it!" Hyde exclaims, getting down himself.

"Aren't you a bit old to curse?" Isla asks.

He pauses, turning to her with squinted eyes. "How old do you think I am? I'm forty-six."

"So, middle-aged. That's old."

"It's young enough. Grab some chalk, young lady."

I probably haven't touched street chalk since I was eleven, and even then it wasn't something I did on a sidewalk in a busy city, but once I get over the idea that my clothes are getting all filthy, it's actually quite fun. There are even a few others who join us, complete strangers, and while we get plenty of curse-words thrown our way, people mainly walk around us or cross the street.

"Are you doing anything for Halloween this weekend?" Josh asks Hyde. "You have kids, right?"

"Yes. Five of them. They're all under thirteen years old, so I'll probably spend all evening outdoors with them, trick-or-treating," Hyde answers, smiling fondly.

I remember the picture frame in his office, hanging right over his PhD. It was him, his wife and all of their children. I didn't count in that moment, but five children are a lot. My parents love my siblings and I, but they already complained about having three— which is my bad, I've been told I was unplanned. My Dad usually says, "unplanned, but never unwanted". Still, I've always felt bad for them.

My parents had a perfect daughter and a perfect son, close in age and best friends, and the perfect beach house and the perfect dog, and then as if it's some sick joke this picture-perfect image got disturbed by an unplanned third baby that costed them hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills for eighteen years because she couldn't even come out right.

They used to have everything, and I sometimes feel like I took it all away from them.

"Nova." Emmy nudges me.

"Hm?" I look up, and a few expectant pairs of eyes are on me. "I'm sorry, did someone say something?"

"We asked if you have plans for Halloween," says Rashad.

I readjust my seating position. The pavement is getting uncomfortable, but I don't want to sit on my knees and ruin my jeans. Hyde was right when he suggested we're too 'damaged' by adulthood to sit on the ground like when we were kids. I like art, but I love these jeans.

"I have a gala on Friday, but it isn't Halloween-related," I answer Rashad's question.

"A gala?" Isla emphasizes. She turns to me fully, away from the wall she's doodling on. "Who invited you to a gala?" She doesn't say it in a condescending manner, and I fully understand the confusion. Isla knows this is my first year in the city, and that I don't know that many people, so it must sound incredibly random.

"My friend, Atlas. It's an unveiling of some sort, I'm not entirely sure. All I know is that it's in the Chrysler building and it's fancy."

The group grows eerily quiet. Even Hyde seems speechless for a moment.

"You've been invited to the Wilder Macarevich unveiling by Atlas Wilder himself?" Anita asks then, ludicrous.

I try to ignore them all gaping at me and nod. I know that Wilder Enterprises and Macarevich are world-renowned technology companies, but I always assumed that Atlas, Milo and Maxwell were famous the same way Bill Gates' kids are: you recognize their last names, but wouldn't instantly make that connection. I didn't, when I first met them. Maybe it's because of the roles their fathers play in New York in particular. They're household names.

I look over at Emmy, who's sitting closest to me, and seek out her gaze. She blinks rapidly at me. I quickly look away again. "Um, anyway..."

"Nova," says Isla, dropping her chalk and coming to sit next to me. "You have to understand the gravity of what you just told us. The Wilder Macarevich unveiling is New York's most anticipated event since twenty-seventeen, and I'm saying that knowing full-well Adele's releasing an album soon."

I chuckle at the Adele comment, but no-one else does, so I clamp my mouth shut.

"I mean, the guest list has been carefully curated for months. Nobody except the state governor, and probably the president, know what's happening at that unveiling. And Atlas Wilder invited you, personally?"

I hesitate. "Yes."

"Well, what are you wearing?" Zahara squeals. "And don't say your old prom dress or something. You need couture."

"I don't have the money for a couture dress," I tell her, shaking my head. I was actually going to wear my old prom dress, but I think telling them that now would throw them into a fit.

"Can't you ask Atlas? I mean, you can just imply that it was super nice of him to invite you but you don't have the money to get a fancy dress. I bet if you bat your eyelashes he'll give you his credit card..." Emmy trails off. The other girls laugh, because we all know that's called manipulation, but they still look at me as if I'm supposed to say yes.

"Stop giving me that look. I can't do that."

"Just shoot him a text asking about the dress code then, you don't have to imply anything. Wait, give me your phone," says Isla.

They're getting way too excited.­­­ Anita and Zahara are practically bouncing and Emmy and Isla are closing in on me. I shoot Hyde a look that hopefully says, 'help me please', and he raises his hand.

"Alright, alright, settle down, girls. I'm sure Nova will figure out what to wear to the ball." He winks at me. "Let's change the subject. I have another question. How do you guys feel about growing older? You know, we're sitting here coloring, so I feel it's a fitting thing to ask."

The mention of 'coloring' prompts the girls to return to their chalk, and soon we're all back at it. I'm still kind of thrown off by their reactions, though, but then I don't know what I expected. Atlas told me the state governor and mayor were attending, and he handed me the invitation in an envelope with my name calligraphed on the front in gold when he could've easily sent me an email or a text. I've had the past two weeks to realize how serious this actually is, and instead I've been thinking about how I could accessorize my old prom dress. This one is on me.

"It's kind of freaky," I hear Rashad say, and I don't look up from my drawing to face him. "But I don't think that's, like, specific for people with disabilities. It's freaky in general."

"What's so freaky about it?" Hyde asks him.

I see him shrug out of the corner of my eye. "It feels like I'm running out of time. I don't know."

"Who else thinks growing older is freaky?"

"I can't imagine anyone doesn't. Especially when you're in the middle of it like we are and you're just kind of realizing that so much is already behind you," Josh says. The others mutter in agreement.

"That it's never coming back, too," Isla adds. "That you'll never be taken care of again the way you're used to and comfortable with, and that it's so inevitable. Like aging is a cage and there's no way out. I think, if I'd think too much about it, I'd go insane."

"I already do sometimes," Zahara chuckles. She sits up and puts her hands flat on the ground, leaning onto them as she studies her drawing and addresses the group. "I have moments where I just sit in my dorm and cry about it a little. I used to hate being treated like a kid, but now I look back and realize that I'm not as innocent and young as I used to be, with such an eagerness for life. I'm not just losing my childhood, you know? I'm losing who I was then and I don't want to."

I ponder joining the conversation for a bit, still reeling from the news about the gala, but talking is what I'm here for.

"I think I'm more scared of what's coming with adulthood than I am of losing my childhood."

Hyde turns to me, but I don't look up from my drawing. "How so?"

I shrug, pressing my piece of chalk into the street. "Sometimes I think I was made to be a child. When I was younger I couldn't really imagine myself as an adult. And then, when I grew up I kind of just linked that to my incapabilities. Like, you never see an adult that can't do their makeup or something— at least, I didn't. It just didn't click in my head. And now that it's here and I'm alive and I'm growing older, I feel like I'm just really unprepared. Like I should've planned more and did more and practiced more instead of believing that I'd cease to exist or be dead when the time came."

The chalk breaks in my hand.

I've been pressing it onto the pavement with such force that it cracked (and sort of crumbled). I spread my fingers, dropping the chalk, and flex them. When I look up, everyone's staring at me. My cheeks grow warm.

Maybe I've overshared just a little bit.

Hyde wordlessly hands me a new piece, but I avoid his gaze— and everyone else's— and turn the chalk over in my hands.

"What kind of incapabilities did you link adulthood to?" He asks, his voice light.

I'm glad he doesn't ask me about the dead thing, because that's a whole other thing I don't think I can talk about in such a casual setting.

"Um." I swallow. This doesn't have to be so serious, I think to myself. Just be honest and don't be weird. Answer the question. But I can't help but feel like the conversation just got a thousand times heavier, and it's my fault. This is why I try not to open up to people unless they ask me to in a safe setting. I always tend to think people don't want to hear what I want to say to them.

"Getting married, like sliding a ring onto my partner's finger, or feeding them a piece of cake or toasting gracefully with a full glass of champagne. Hosting people at my house and offering them a drink and then bringing it over to them. Dealing with clients when I'm in the work force. Buttoning a shirt when I get dressed up all fancy. Feeding a child that I might one day parent with a spoon, or cutting their little fingernails, or picking them up from a crib or doing their hair or brushing their teeth. Having a fancy dinner with someone I like without shaking and spilling. Wearing heels and painting my own nails." I still don't dare to look up. "I'm not... I don't think I'm normal enough for these everyday things. But they're a part of life, right? I'm supposed to be able to do them."

"Who says you can't, though?" says Isla, and I almost forgot she was there. "Have you ever worn heels before? Or slid a ring onto someone's hand? And even if there are things you physically can't manage, that's okay. You just find another way to get the same result."

"But it'll look and feel weird."

"How it looks is nobody's business," Hyde responds, raising his eyebrows when our eyes meet. "And I know it doesn't seem like it, but you have more control over how it feels than you might think. Your mindset is the thing that tells you whether something feels weird or crazy or whatever, but most of all..." He ponders over it for a minute, pressing his chalk-covered hands to his thighs as he sits.

"You can spend your entire life trying to be someone you're not," he then says, raising and dropping a shoulder in a half-shrug. "Or you can spend your entire life growing comfortable in who you are."

"Besides," says Anita, who's been quiet this whole time but now speaks up to address me. "I assure you that whoever you get married to won't care how you get that ring onto their finger, as long as they can call you their wife when it's all over."

"And there's no right or wrong way to care for a child so long as you don't abuse or neglect them," Zahara adds with a gentle smile.

"That's true. My aunt has a tremor and twin babies and she's doing fine," says one of the strangers, a blonde girl with the brightest blue eyes I've ever seen, who just sat down with us when she was walking past. She's writing the name 'Zachary' in bold blue letters but pauses to give me an encouraging nod.

I wonder what she thinks this is— a forty-six-year-old man and a bunch of college kids drawing on the sidewalk with chalk. Or maybe she thinks we're all a bunch of strangers, too, having deep conversations for no reason on a regular Monday afternoon. The idea makes me want to laugh.

From there on, I can't make out that many words. Isla's saying something to me, as is Emmy, as are the guys, Anita and Zahara and the girls I don't know in the back.

I feel myself choke up and swallow feverishly. "Thanks. That was it."

Emmy throws her arms around me and I'm too emotional to care about the chalk she's getting on my coat. "I'm bad at comforting people so just take this," she says awkwardly. And then, "You'll be a great adult, by the way. I'm glad you made it to here."

And that makes me cry.

All four girls walk me back to my dormitory at five. It's already getting dark and I literally ended up crying, so I can only assume they'd feel bad if they left me to walk home on my own. I let them into my dorm, where Olivia's sitting at her desk working on a paper and gives me a surprised look at the crowd I brought with me.

"Sorry," I say sheepishly as they pile in. "I cried and they wouldn't let me go home alone."

Olivia's eyebrows shoot up. "She cried?" She asks, directing the question to Isla, Emmy, Zahara and Anita, who all nod at her at the same time. "What happened?"

My phone rings loudly just as they're about to respond, and I excuse myself to the bathroom to pick up, my stomach sinking when Logan's name flashes on the screen.

We were supposed to meet at the administration building at five. And I forgot.

I press the phone to my ear the way I did two hours ago, a flat hand against its back. "Logan," I start. "I am so sorry."

"I take it you're not at the administration building, then?" He asks.

"I'm at my dorm. We went out today and then after it ended some girls came back with me and it just completely slipped my mind." It's pretty shitty that I've been giving him such a hard time about not contacting me, and now I'm ditching him when he tries.

"It's cool. We'll meet some other time," Logan says. "Don't worry about it. I'll text you, okay?"

I release a breath. "Yeah, okay. Thank you."

A long tone echoes in my ear, signaling he's ended the call, and I swallow to get rid of the lump in my throat, returning to my dorm as I stuff my phone back into my pocket. The girls are still there and turn to me when I walk in.

"What?" I ask, hand shooting up to my face in case I have something there.

"It's decided. We're taking you shopping tomorrow," Isla announces. She holds up her phone and I can vaguely see an Instagram DM conversation, but it's too far away from me to read. "And Atlas Wilder is paying for your dress, as you're his date."

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