The Rest of Us Just Live Here

by Patrick Ness

We’ve got a lot in common: a thing with anxiety we don’t really like to talk about, best friends who we kind of love more than any girlfriend or boyfriend could really compete with,

other people who think Fox News is too liberal and build bunkers for their guns.

Nice enough, never mean, but always the ones who end up being the Chosen One when the vampires come calling or when the alien queen needs the Source of All Light or something. They’re too cool to ever, ever do anything like go to prom or listen to music other than jazz while reading poetry. They’ve always got some story going on that they’re heroes of. The rest of us just have to live here, hovering around the edges, left out of it all, for the most part. Having said that, the indie kids do die a lot. Which must suck.

And fine, he and I have messed around a few times growing up together, even though I like girls, even though I like Henna, because a horny teenage boy would do it with a tree trunk if it offered at the right moment, but you’re going to have to hear this the right way when I tell you that I love exactly three people in the entire world, excluding whatever this is with Henna.

We’d all met in the office and told the vice principal—who, like all vice principals, is genetically Nazi—what we’d seen.

Our vp was so mean

She hates having people watch her eat, though, so I make a point to look away, as do Henna and Jared.

Real Alzheimer’s is nothing like that. Nothing. It’s terrifying and annoying and so sad you want to kill yourself.

but when you choose your family, you get to choose how it is between you, too. This is how we work. I hope you get to choose your family and I hope it means as much to you as mine does to me.

I know how much you worry about shit. And what’s also important is that I know a big part of that worry is that, no matter what group of friends you’re in, no matter how long you’ve known them, you always assume you’re the least-wanted person there. The one everyone else could do without.”

“I know how you worry that you need me as a friend more than I need you.”

Satchel goes into hiding at an abandoned drive-in with fellow indie kids Finn, Dylan, Finn, Finn, Lincoln, Archie, Wisconsin, Finn, Aquamarine, and Finn;

Everyone knows the indie kids don’t use the internet—have you noticed? They never do, it’s weird, like it never occurs to them, like it’s still 1985 and there’s only card catalogs—so

It’s like when adults say world news isn’t our worry. Why the hell isn’t it?

“Not everyone has to be the Chosen One. Not everyone has to be the guy who saves the world. Most people just have to live their lives the best they can, doing the things that are great for them, having great friends, trying to make their lives better, loving people properly. All the while knowing that the world makes no sense but trying to find a way to be happy anyway.”

He’s more than my best friend, really.” “You love him.” “Yeah, but not like that, I don’t think. He’s gay, but it’s different. It’s like he’s my family, except better, because I’ve chosen him.”

“If you have to have someone tell it to you, how can it be true? How can you not just be the damaged one who needs reassurance all the time?”

They’ve all got other lives. Jared’s got all this family stuff, Mel’s dating a doctor, Henna’s going to Africa. And what do I have? I have them. I don’t have anything else.” “And that makes you feel like you matter the least.”

If I were to ask Melinda whether you were the least wanted, I doubt she’d answer like you have. Meredith, too, and I would bet money that your friend Jared would say the same.” “They’re just being nice.” “All of them? All the time?” “Because I’m the broken one.”

feel like I’m at the bottom of a well. I feel like I’m way down this deep, deep hole and I’m looking up and all there is is this little dot of light and I have to shout at the top of my lungs for anyone to hear me and even when I do, I say the wrong thing or they don’t really listen or they’re just humoring me.” “Because they couldn’t possibly care about you.” “. . . It’s hard to feel that. They tell me. They show me. And I still don’t feel it.”

“Then why in heaven’s name are you responsible for your anxiety?” “. . . Because . . . What?” “Why are you responsible for your anxiety?” “Because it’s a feeling. Not a tumor.”

I don’t think your self-hatred is fake. So why do you think it’s fake?” “I don’t.” “Don’t you? Doesn’t a part of you think you’re making a big deal out of not very much? That if you were somehow not so weak, you could be happy and free just like everyone else?” “. . . Kind of.”

“Maybe if you were a real friend instead of an endless bag of need, I’d have told you about Nathan first. Did you ever think of that?”

“Don’t pity me,” I nearly snap. “Jesus, why does everyone–”