The Rest of Us Just Live Here

by Patrick Ness

The rest of us just have to live here, hovering around the edges, left out of it all, for the most part.

She’s played their biggest song, “Bold Sapphire” (by Bolts of Fire, get it?), exactly 1,157 times. I know, because I checked, after begging my parents for mercy from having to hear it a 1,158th. We’re all a little obsessive, us Mitchell kids.

“What am I looking at?” he asks. I point to my fingertips. They’re wrinkled and cracked. “Eczema.” “And?” I turn off the cabin light. “I washed my hands seventeen times this morning after taking a piss before history.”

There’s so much crazy in this world, my counting and hand-washing and door-locking and checking and tapping can seem like raging mental health by comparison.

There’s a bunch of huge churches clustered together, trying to blend in with all the family-themed restaurants, because salvation is as easy as chicken wings, I guess.

He’s French Canadian and no matter what he says, he always sounds like he’s dying of boredom.

What happens to you when you get older? Do you just forget everything from before you turned eighteen? Do you make yourself forget?

Adults. How do they live in the world? (Or maybe that is how they live in the world.)

We work at Grillers, a steakhouse for cheap dates. The kind of place with all-you-can-eat shrimp, all-you-can-eat fries, and all-you-can-eat cheesy toast, which, to be fair, is really awesome cheesy toast.

“Even when I know it’s stupid. In fact, knowing it’s stupid, knowing that I’ve already washed my hands a hundred goddamned times, actually makes it worse. Because knowing that and doing it anyway is like . . .” I don’t finish.

She handed control of Mel’s diet over to Mel four full months before the schedule suggested. Mel asked if I would help her, and I have, every day since.

This is all past. This is the part of your life where it gets taken over by other people’s stories and there’s nothing you can do about it except hold on tight and hope you’re still alive at the end to take up your own story again. So that’s what we did. Me, Mel, and Meredith all moved on, and we’re the stories we’re living now. Aren’t we?

I’m choosing my own story. Because if you can’t do that, you might as well just give up.

You see how lucky I am? Knowing that people love me? So lucky. So stupidly lucky.

Then my mom claps. She actually claps. “Your mother’s going to be a United States congresswoman,” she says. “In Washington, DC!” “Your son is going to have a permanent scar down his cheek,” Mel says.

My parents finally put Grandma in a home after she poured boiling water down her whole left side because she couldn’t identify what a pot was.

I know how crazy this is. I know the feeling that I haven’t washed my face “right” makes no sense. But like I said, knowing doesn’t make it better. It makes it so much worse. How can I explain it? If you don’t know, maybe I can’t,

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

“Hey,” I say. They say “Hey” back. It’s kind of like verbal tag, isn’t it? Hey, here I am, are you here with me, Yes, we are here with you, and everyone feels good because “Hey.”

They want us a bit dumb and a bit afraid. Which for the most part, I think we are.

“What do you do when your dreams are about to come true?” she asks. “No one ever tells you. They tell you to chase them, but what happens when you actually catch one?”

“Mike,” she says, warning. “The mistake of every young person is to think they’re the only ones who see darkness and hardship in the world.”

Mel watches her, hands on her hips, brush in her hand. “She won’t miss this when I leave. But that kind of makes me even sadder that I’ll have to stop.”

We share our craziness, our neuroses, our little bit of screwed-up-ness that comes from our family. We share it. And it feels like love.

all in fashionable stubble with fashionable lopsided hair that manages to weirdly suggest that they’re both thirty years old and fifteen years old at the same time—bask

You’re getting obsessive.” “Of course I am! Have you met me?

“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.

Jared said he thought I always made myself the least-wanted person in the group, but he told me that wasn’t true.” “You didn’t believe 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?”

“Feelings don’t try to kill you, even the painful ones. Anxiety is a feeling grown too large. A feeling grown aggressive and dangerous. You’re responsible for its consequences, you’re responsible for treating it. But Michael, you’re not responsible for causing it. You’re not morally at fault for it. No more than you would be for a tumor.”

“You realize I’m now going to obsess about having a tumor.” “I’m sorry. Ill-chosen words.

“I wonder if realizing you’re not sure about stuff is what makes you a grown-up?” “Lots of adults seem really sure about things.” “Maybe they’re not grown-up either.”

“For someone I’ve never dated,” Henna says, rising, “you feel entitled to way too much jealousy.”

None of us has eaten for about eight hours and the steaks smell so ridiculously good, we hover in the main room like incredibly serious hyenas.

“She knows, doesn’t she?” “Yes.” “Does everyone?” “Yes.” “Oh.” “Mike–” “No. No, I, um . . .” I don’t know what to say. Because this is what hurts me.

“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?”

“A God of Cats with a degree in mathematics.” Jared shakes his head. “My usefulness will know no bounds.”

“I think it’s just a high school that burned down. I don’t think it’s a metaphor at all.”

“Everything’s always ending. But everything’s always beginning, too.”