door was closed. And I was left sitting there all alone.
Just me and my thoughts.
I thought of Suzie, thankful that she wasn’t in that class to witness my meltdown. But then I realised that she knows everyone and will totally hear about it anyway. Some of the kids probably even caught it on their phones. I’ll be a meme before the last bell, I thought. It will almost certainly haunt my existence right into high school. I’ll be known for ever as “Picky Pickings” and taunted for sport!
My heart was racing. My thoughts were totally spiralling away from me. A therapist once tried to teach me how to reframe my thoughts while deep breathing, but I had my own unique take on that exercise. I slumped over in my own lap, squeezing my head between my knees, inhaling and exhaling and trying to focus. Trying to regain control of my own brain.
A thought spiral. One push down that slippery slope and my brain will just spin faster and faster until I feel totally out of control. I’m getting better at slowing myself down now, but back then, I thought it would never end. It was like falling into a bottomless pit. I was a mess. I was furious. I was mortified. I was really sad. I had a chance to be normal – or at least to seem normal – and I’d blown it. I’d totally blown it. It took less than a day for my new life in my new school to become just like my old life in my old school.
At some point, a grumpy, wrinkled receptionist who smelled of butterscotch and air freshener came back from the copy room and found me slouched down and dejected. “The new kid is back already,” she announced to Principal Waters, who opened his door, smoothed out his jarringly plaid trousers, straightened his jarringly plaid matching tie, and took me into his office to give me a pep talk about fresh starts and adjusting to a new school and giving myself a chance.
But I had zoned out and couldn’t focus on anything he said. I had entered my standard post-panic recovery period. I felt numb and couldn’t manage much more than to nod and mumble back a perfunctory “Yes,” and “Okay,” and “I will.” I’ve learned that adults need to feel like they’re being heard even when they have no idea what they’re talking about. It makes them feel good and it earns you some peace and quiet a lot faster.
“I’ve seen your file and I just don’t want you to have the same problems you had in your previous school, Steven,” said Principal Waters, leaning forward on his desk. “Do you prefer Steven or Steve? Or even Stevie? I’ve always liked Stevie. But I’m a big fan of Fleetwood Mac.”
I had no idea what he was talking about, but he clearly expected an answer, so I opened my mouth and told him way more than anyone needs to know: “My family used to call me Stevie because it’s cute to do that when you’re a little blob of nothing and no one takes you seriously. But eventually I formed a personality and I guess it wasn’t cute any more. So, they started calling me Slim – as in ‘Slim Pickings’. I think they meant it as a term of endearment, but I think they also thought it was funny. It doesn’t bother me, except when it does. But I’m easily bothered. And I don’t know, I guess if you were looking for something that wouldn’t bother me, it would be slim pickings, so they call me Slim Pickings. It’s really not even that clever. But it’s my name now – so I guess you can call me that too.”
And Principal Waters stared at me slack-jawed for a moment. Like a lot of people I try to talk to, he had no idea how to respond to me. I think we were both happy that my dad burst in at that moment. “Hey, Slim,” he said with an air of wariness and disappointment I’ve grown accustomed to. He had on a suit, so I knew he must have been on his way to (or pulled out of) an important meeting.
He’d barely introduced himself to the principal when my mom rushed in, all frantic and full of questions. “Slim? What happened? What’s the problem? What … are you doing here?!” She skidded to a stop when she realised Dad was already here. “Dale, it’s my day,” she continued as she pulled out her phone to double-check her schedule. Mom is the queen of checklists and schedules, even though she’s been all over the place lately.
Dad rubbed the stress stubble that seems to have become a permanent fixture on his face and replied, “Does it matter any more? I got pulled out of work for this.”
Mom couldn’t help but correct him: “We both did.”
Principal Waters sent me back outside to the lumpy chair and shut the door. I couldn’t hear what they were saying but I could see Mom and Dad having a serious conversation with him through his frosted window. It actually looked a lot more like couples therapy than anything else, and it was making me feel anxious again. So when the grumpy receptionist wasn’t looking, I slipped outside so I could breathe.
That worked – for about thirty seconds.
“Way to go, Booger Boy,” said Lucy as she walked up to me and shoved her phone in my face. My life literally flashed before my eyes. Or the most recent episode did. My meltdown had, in fact, gone viral before the last bell. “My new friend Maya sent this to me,” she explained. “Luckily it was after she introduced me to the whole soccer team and I got invited to their sleepover this weekend. Otherwise it would be super embarrassing for me,” she added. Because of course she had already made new friends.
Lucy’s technically my little sister, but it’s weird to call her “little” since she’s almost as tall as I am. “Younger” is more accurate. She’s only ten, but according to that horribly awkward sex education class in my old school where sweaty Mr Felcher stuttered his way through a lesson on puberty, boys hit their growth spurts later than girls.
Most comparisons between us tend to fall in her favour. Lucy’s strong where I’m scrawny, she’s focused where I’m distracted, and she has an effortless sort of poise about her while I have an effortless sort of dork about me. To paraphrase Dad when he didn’t know I was listening, “She’s got her poop together.” Except he didn’t say “poop”.
BRRRRING! The last bell rang and kids were purged from the school like vomit, which is what I felt like, considering everyone was still laughing at me. “Hey, Bestie!” shrieked a girl I quickly deduced was Lucy’s new best friend, Maya Rodriguez, which seemed impossible since they just met today. Maya raved on and on, “I love your jeans, and your bag, and you have to send me a link to those cleats you got so we can all get the same ones for the team. The sleepover this weekend will be so much fun!” As if I needed a reminder that Lucy did not have the same problems as me.
“One day and you’re already insta-famous.” I turned to see Suzie laughing at my video, and cringed out of deathly embarrassment. “Don’t worry, Slim,” she told me in that soothing voice of hers. “Last year I went viral after sitting on a chocolate pudding cup in white trousers. I was ‘Suzie Skidmark’ for weeks. But the news cycle moved on. Your fifteen minutes of fame will be over fast.”
And that’s when I realised she actually wasn’t laughing at me. She was just smiling at me. Like I wasn’t a total freak. She pulled out one of those organic, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, sugar-free, all-natural snack bars and took a bite like everything was totally cool and completely normal. I didn’t know what to say but I desperately wanted to say something so that she’d stick around. My mouth made words that sounded like, “IS THAT GOOD?”
I kind of shouted it really loud and fast and probably turned bright red. “I, um … I like snack bars too,” was my totally smooth follow-up. My mind spun like a buffering laptop as I registered her signature scent. When I snapped out of it, I realised she was in the middle of telling me, “… and they’re made with whole, natural ingredients, which my dads say are much better than all those chemically processed snacks. They’re thinking of selling them in the wellness centre, which means I could eat as many as I want! Not that I would because it’s all about balance, right?”
I think I nodded my head. “I only like all-natural ingredients. I really, really hate any chemically processed products!” I said-shouted. I didn’t care that I didn’t even know what I was talking about. I was talking to a girl. And not just any girl – Suzie Minkle with those bright eyes and a smile that maybe I helped put there.
“Ha!”