Gregory with the Green Shirt

TW: minor profanity

I feel their eyes on my green shirt and worn-out black pants.

And my shaggy, shaggy hair.

I lower my gaze, because what I don’t see won’t bother me, shouldn’t bother me. So I keep walking in the same circle near the exam hall. Not nearly enough. Not nearly enough.

I look at my phone. 16:43. My heart starts beating fast, or faster than it has for the past hour. I’m always like this on days like these. I have to be.

I get a text from my mom asking if the taxi driver drove me here on time. I don’t reply. I can’t reply. Anything, anything can be put against me.

I catch the scent of musky cedar-wood, and look up to see a blond guy. I’m mesmerised. This is not the time for this. I look at his biceps. At his golden curls. At his clothes.

I look down at my pants. My hideous pants. I feel a familiar tightness in my chest. I lower my shirt to hide the rip at the top.

One more hour and I’ll be looking gorgeous. This is nothing. The grade will stay with me.

I scratch the back of my head. Hard. I pace around.

I think back to my dad yelling at me for wearing this before leaving the house. I scoff. He doesn’t get it. No one gets me but this shirt. I can’t look good when I take this test. I’ll be distracted.

I toy with my hair. I’m allowed to do this. I did it last time and did great. I accidentally pluck a hair. Fucking hell.

“Hey, how’s it going?”

I look up at... some guy from my class. I nod, fast.

“You studied well?”

Oh God. He doesn’t shut up. I nod fast again and keep pacing in a circle. He lingers next to me. I can’t talk to him.

I carefully calculate my one-word answers, or laughs. I don’t say anything. Anything can be used against me.

If I talk to him I won’t do well. Talking to people makes them better than you. You have to ignore them, in times like these.

I look at my phone. 16:59. It’s time. I pace around three more times. I take a deep breath and walk towards the exam hall, before noticing my cousin Jack from afar.

What is he doing here?

No. No. No.

He wasn’t here last week for math. He wasn’t here. Last time he was here, it was the fucking Basic Chemistry 84/100 exam.

My heart drops.

I rush towards the exam hall before he can reach me. I sit in my usual seat.

We haven’t spoken. I can pretend I never saw him.

The mind sees what you show it.

If I just convince myself I never saw him, what can my brain do?

Nothing.

They start giving out the papers. They take a long while to reach my column, but I don’t let myself relax. I stay on edge. Relaxing means slacking off. I can’t let myself slack off-no way in hell.

-

I finish early. I feel free. I feel eyes on me and feel so smart and gorgeous. I turn in my paper and leave the hall.

I walk outside. I see Jason from class.

“Hey, Greg! How was it?”

I can’t say great. Great means I’m too confident and the universe will punish me. I’ll be betrayed by my own confidence.

You should never be confident, on days like these. You should always feel less and be on edge. That’s the only way you get to the top. To my top.

So I calculate what I say to Jason.

“Mhm. Yes. I want chocolate. Wanna walk with me to the market?”

“I did great! The last exercise was so easy.”

I avert my eyes.

We walk to the market.

-

I feel eyes on my pants. I see a lot of pretty guys on the way. It’s fine, this was just for today. I can look gorgeous when the grades come out. I will look gorgeous.

And so the week that follows is just me alternating between pacing my mom’s room in the L-shape around her bed and lying frozen on my own bed, because if I don’t do anything, the universe wouldn’t have anything to hold against me.

-

I’m ecstatic when the 98/100 comes out. I rush to my mom.

“Mom, I got a 98! 100, basically!”

“Mhm.”

“Highest in class!”

“Thank you, God.”

She’s right. Thank you, God. For everything.

No. Wait. My mom thanks God. My brother Mark thanks God. Mark is stupid, he doesn’t get good grades. Thanking God is for stupid people.

No. No way in hell.

I got this because of my rituals. I got this because I deserve it.

-

The next exam, I get bitten in the bum by my rituals, because I am actually extremely anxious. Nothing is right. The weather, the students. My gut. My gut knows.

It knows because when I enter the hall, I find Marly from class seated in my chair. My chair.

I don’t know what to do. I eye the room.

I walk up to her. “Hey. I am very picky about seats haha! I like sitting next to the door. Can you sit somewhere else?”

“Yes. For sure.”

She eyes my pants as she’s talking. I keep moving so the focus shifts. She changes seats and I settle down. I exhale. Phew.

I look around the room. I see Patricia in the back. She looks amazing, and she’s wearing amazing clothes, and she’s… eyeing me weirdly? What a weirdo. She’s not going to do well. You can’t look good and do well. This is what it takes. They know nothing of my magic.

-

My magic, as the story usually has it, betrayed me this one time, because when the grades come out and I see the 89 next to my name and a 93 next to Patricia’s, my stomach drops.

What?

I must have done something wrong. I am an idiot. A fucking idiot. It’s because I told the girl to switch seats. This is not abracadabra! My rituals help me stay focused, but they are not my everything. Stupid, stupid boy. I leaned in too hard on my rituals. I deserve this. The universe is punishing me.

Tell that to my stomach. And my heart. Frantic and so fucking annoying. The gloom threatens to creep in but no. No way in hell.

-

Upon exiting the hall after yet another exam-this time MCQ, though, so the behaviour is different, since I can speak in solving courses but not in MCQ courses, I’ll be distracted, no way on earth-I stumble upon the blond guy I like.

The university is empty at this time of the day.

He’s talking to some girl. I keep walking around like a creep waiting for him to notice me so that he falls in love, or whatever.

When he does, though, he looks at my pants. Looks away. Smiles. She turns and looks too.

My heart starts beating fast, and I stumble towards the bathroom. Closing the door behind me, I look at myself in the mirror. My lips start trembling.

Stupid. Stupid boy. Who the fuck is gonna fall in love with this. The guy thinks you’re hideous.

But I needed to deserve the grade. This had to happen.

I fumble for my phone and call my mom.

She picks up on the third ring.

“Gregory? How did you do?”

“Mom. I am not feeling good.”

“Did you not do well?”

“I did great. Can Mark come with my jeans and grey sweater?”

She doesn’t answer. I know what she’s thinking. I hang up.

It’s fine. It’s passed. I’ll be looking gorgeous in no time. No time at all.

-

On the ride home, we pass a car by. It’s a guy, my age. He’s driving a very pretty car.

I don’t know how to drive.

Would he think I am pathetic?

I always put off driving because it never fit my rituals.

-

Back home, while having lunch late in the evening, the gloom seeps in. It’s slight, but it’s there.

I scroll Instagram and find pics of guys. Pretty guys. Guys with muscles. Guys with cars. Guys with pretty hair. I open my camera and look at mine. My chest tightens.

It’s okay.

I stare at Mark on his console. At my cat, on the couch. At my mom.

I love my life. I am thankful.

Car or not, I am first.

-

The conviction I had wasn’t that stable, apparently, because the next time I get an 85, it is a disaster. Guess why? Because the entire class got 90s. Except this fucking idiot.

I keep plucking hairs and pacing around the room.

I fumble for my phone. Anything. Again, I see guys. Pretty guys, sexy guys. Guys with cars. Guys travelling, living life.

I see my cousin’s story, at some fucking concert.

He got less. He got way less.

But you got more. Then what? Are you happy now?

I am happy. I have to be. This is my only solution. This is my only way of living. Nobody gets that. I would fail if I lived like these guys.

But you got an 85 now. Not even a good grade. You could have gotten it without the rituals. You are not that stupid.

I didn’t go out the entire week before the exam because it brought me bad luck. For what. For fucking what?

I must have done something wrong. What did I do wrong?

I think about all the clothes I want to wear that would make me look so much better than these guys. I think about driving.

I sit up and look in the mirror. I look at my face. At my hair I’ve been wanting to cut for a long time. It’s so long now. Long and unkempt and so very ugly. And it’s all over my face. I haven’t cut it ever since I got a 99 in sophomore year. I couldn’t. All my smarts would go away. I got so many good grades, lived so many good memories with it. It’s been through so much with me. It’s been through so much with me.

My base would shatter. I have nothing to support me except this. My hair, my shirt. My everything.

I think about the question I ask myself. Philosophical boy.

Am I happy now?

My phone lights up and starts buzzing. My friend Alexandra’s name pops up on the screen. I pick it up.

“Hey baby, we’re going to Celio’s in an hour. Wanna come?”

She blabbers about the whereabouts, but I continue staring at myself. I hang up.

I am not used to this. What is happening.

Disaster. Total disaster.

I start laughing. I laugh so loud.

I hear my mom call my name.

“Gregory. Your aunt is waiting in front of the building. She needs you to give this file to her.”

“I look awful, Mom,” I yell.

I get up and open the door to find her standing. She looks at my hair and makes a disappointed face, then goes and tells Mark to do it.

I don’t know what it is about this moment, but something shifts in me. I gulp. I go to my sister’s room and knock on the door. I find her lying on her bed.

“Can you cut my hair?”

-

I stand above the sink as my sister starts cutting. So much hair falls. Hair that stayed with me for years. My chest is trembling, and a thousand shivers run over me. Was this the right decision?

I look at the sink. Overflowing with hair. This is terrifying for me.

My sister’s voice cuts through the silence.

”Don’t worry. We’ll put them in a bag.”

-

The week that follows, before leaving for yet another exam, I stare at the green shirt in my closet and pick it up. Just as I’m about to go on with my usual ritual, my cat enters the room. I look down at her. A moment passes. Two. I take a deep breath.

I put the shirt back.

I sit half-naked and hug my cat. For a long, long time. I’m stalling, I know I am. I don’t want to decide. My heart quivers, and I hug my cat tighter.

In my head, when I thought of the day this would happen, the gloom lifted. I wait for the gloom to lift.

The clock ticks.

I’ll be late to the pacing, I think. I sigh.

I can skip the pacing this one time.