Solitaire

by Alice Oseman

Rebecca Allen is probably my only real friend at the moment. She is also probably my best friend.

“My name is Michael Holden.”

Nothing. I am a vacuum. I am a void. I am nothing.

My laptop is my soulmate.

I’ve come to realize that I’m far more of a blog than an actual person.

She’s in love with Microsoft Excel the way I’m in love with Google Chrome.

everything I wish I was. Confident. Outgoing. Happy.

But in reality, Nick is actually the human embodiment of a golden retriever puppy, as well as being Truham’s rugby captain and a genuinely lovely person.

Having a boy in your social group is the equivalent of having a house with a pool, or a designer shirt with the logo on it, or a Ferrari. It just makes you more important.

you’re going to drown in the abyss you have imagined for yourself.”

“There’s a time and a place for being normal. For most people, normal is their default setting. But for some, like you and me, normal is something we have to bring out, like putting on a suit for a posh dinner.”

I don’t ever remember not being serious. As far as I’m concerned, I came out of the womb spouting cynicism and wishing for rain.

That’s my major problem with school. I really don’t do anything unless I actually want to. And most of the time I don’t want to do anything at all.

It’s probably weird to fall asleep in this sort of situation, but I’m starting to not really care about stuff like that anymore.

but he only self-harms when he’s at his absolute worst. It’d been nearly three months since that last happened. I thought therapy had been helping. I thought he was doing better. I thought— “I was doing so well,” he says, and then he lets out a sad little laugh.

Even lying in bed is stressful.

He grins. “Just because something doesn’t matter doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing.”

I don’t know why, but I start to feel quite sad. It’s not my normal type of sad, you know, the unnecessary and self-inflicted pity party sort of sad, but it’s a sad that’s kind of projected outwards.

“You know, if you want to be happier, you have to try. You have to put in the effort. Your problem is that you don’t try.” I do try. I have tried. I have tried for sixteen years.

I did not think Michael could be so serious about something, or so angry. It’s like watching your dad cry.

do. If this were a film, I would be there, I would be the hero stopping this false justice. But this isn’t a film. I am not the hero.

I say this much too angrily. I don’t want people to be worried about me. There’s nothing to worry about. I don’t want people to try and understand why I’m the way I am, because I should be the first person to understand that. And I don’t understand yet. I don’t want people to interfere. I don’t want people in my head, picking out this and that, permanently picking up the broken pieces of me.

“Don’t you think the snow is beautiful?”

“It’s just cold. It’s romantic, I guess, but it just makes things cold.”

I don’t really feel sad. I don’t really feel anything.

wrist. “Do you think that, if we were happy for our entire lives, we would die feeling like we’d missed out on something?”

Nobody is honest, nobody is real. You can’t trust anyone or anything. Emotions are humanity’s fatal disease. And we’re all dying.

“Some people aren’t meant for school,” says Michael. “That doesn’t mean they aren’t meant for life.”

All I know is that I’m here. And I’m alive. And I’m not alone.