The Infinite Noise (The Bright Sessions, #1)

by Lauren Shippen

Where do these guys find the time to be bullies?

he’s smiling and I’m smiling back and time feels frozen and full of possibility.

They think I should smile more, have more friends, hurt myself less. And I do. I do hurt myself less. That should be enough. I shouldn’t have to be legitimately happy on top of it. I’m in high school. No one’s supposed to be happy. If kids aren’t hurting themselves, they’re usually hurting someone else.

Dr. Bright tells me that being tired isn’t a real emotion, but I don’t buy it. There’s a certain kind of tired—a bone-deep weariness—that definitely qualifies as an emotion.

Why is it that, for the past week, every time I walk into a room, he’s staring at me?

I don’t feel threatened when I catch him looking at me. I feel … Never mind. Not a productive train of thought.

We don’t always have to love ourselves in order to receive love from others. Sometimes that’s how we learn to love ourselves.

Maybe if I stay in bed long enough, I’ll just cease to exist.

You’d think that knowing what people feel all the time would make you closer to them. But it doesn’t work like that. Instead, sometimes I feel this canyon between me and everyone else and I worry that, no matter what I do, I’ll never be able to reach across it.

Mouth, meet brain. Brain, meet mouth. You guys should get to know each other a little better.

His eyes are soft and fond and I want to crawl under this bench and freeze to death.

you’re stuck with a funhouse-mirror version of yourself living inside of you.

it’s like his feelings make my own feelings make sense to me.

I would very much like to evaporate now, please.

Oh god, stupid hope, what are you doing here? Go away go away go away—

He didn’t make things better, necessarily—he didn’t chase away the clouds when they loomed heavy and dark over me—but he did make it easier to ignore the impending storm. Caleb makes me feel clever. He makes me feel interesting.

I hate this time of year—waking up in darkness, coming home in darkness—the whole world made small and cold and claustrophobic.

The thought of having a voluntary conversation with another human makes my stomach roil. The thought of simply being near another human makes me want to crawl underground.

Adam’s emotions clear out everything; they quiet the infinite noise of the world and let me find the yellow parts of me that hurt.

I’ve never wanted to kiss anyone more. Oh. Oh.

I could roll over. That would be so easy. Just roll over, open your eyes, reach one hand out to grab your phone. That’s nothing. You can do that. You don’t even have to leave your warm blanket cocoon. Turning my body one hundred and eighty degrees is completely impossible. I’m too tired. I didn’t get enough sleep. I got too much sleep. I should go back to sleep. If I have school, my parents will come get me. I should get some rest. I don’t.

I don’t have the energy to be anxious. A blessing and a curse.

One of the most famous lines and, in my opinion, kind of the wrong question. It’s not “to be or not to be,” Hammie—you are. Whether or not you like it. The question is how?

I’m tired on a primal level. I’m tired in a way that makes me feel like I am carrying the missed sleep, the physical toil, the mental anguish of all of my ancestors.

I know I can’t tell him the truth. Because that’s not how we work as a society. We don’t have the liberty of telling each other, “Hey, I’m having a depressive episode so I’m sorry for being distant or weird or useless or making myself bleed. I wish I could say that this is a one-time thing and will never happen again, but it isn’t and it will. I don’t want to be around you right now or during those times at all, but I would love if you took care of me and sat silently in the corner of the room for when I need someone to hug me. You will get nothing in return except for maybe my friendship when the cloud lifts and I can be human for two seconds. Hope that’s all good with you!” But we don’t say that. We say, “I’m fine.” We say, “It’s nothing.” We make excuses that we know aren’t true and that they know aren’t true but we both pretend anyway like we’ve all agreed to have this collective hallucination together. And it gets us nowhere.

Maybe this is normal and every person my age feels like this. Maybe this eventually goes away. Maybe I’ll wake up one day and be Daydream Adam, excited to take on the world. I’ll roll over in bed with complete ease, smile at my husband, whistle while I make coffee, and go to a job that I love and never want to hurt myself ever again.

“Why is this so hard?” he groans. “What?” “Being a person.”

I want to chalk it up to gay panic.

Oh, hey brain. Nice of you to rejoin the party, but could you give us a second, please?

He’s doing that thing again—looking at me like I hold all the answers. Like I am the answer.

“No, come on, I want to know,” I plead, like the masochistic idiot I am.

You keep me green.