Free Teach Me by R. A. Nelson

think about anything that takes me away from thinking about Him.
    God, it happened. It did.
    I’m sugar-shock frantic by the time I get to school.
    Mr. Mann is sitting with the other teachers in the lunchroom.
    He’s swinging his fork, legs thrown out casually, ankles crossed. I’m desperate to talk to him, hear his voice, confirm by some semaphore or sign the connection between us. But approaching the teacher tables today would feel like running naked through the mall with my hair on fire.
    I hope he can see me.
    I watch his mouth move as he talks, eats, smiles—how beautiful. Now it’s my mouth too, in its own way. I have laid claim to it. My lips, my teeth, my tongue. How can he be using all of them without touching some part of me?
    But today, in this new light, I’m not sure of anything. The space between us, the emptiness, the distance, could be a guarantee last night was a dream—no, a fever. Maybe if I—
    “Where’ve you been?” Schuyler says, plunking down on the plastic seat next to me, making it go schooch on the floor, pinching my arm. “Listen.”
    He’s gushing about something that happened five hundred million years after the Big Bang, the beginning of the universe, perfectly certain that I care. His hair is shaped like a bell with only one side, a living entity separate from the rest of his body. But he’s so cute in a Schuyler way. Red barbecue chicken gore stuck to his teeth, Vlad the Astrophysicist.
    “So before stars, galaxies, quasars could form, the temperature drops in all that empty space and it starts snowing!” he says. “All over the universe! Hydrogen snow!”
    I sit in my own empty space, the one-half meter of nothingness around my chair, let his voice flurry over me.
    The gabble of voices around us makes me feel like I’m in a nuthouse. Excuse me, an asylum. My mouth paradoxically hurts from too much attention and too little. I can’t stand this lack of control, this ache that can’t be instantly addressed, only magnified by all the other aches around me.
    Each moment away from him feels like a slippage, a backsliding into the miserable kiddieland where I lived before. I have to be active about this or I will lose him forever. I don’t care how crazy this feels. I only care that I—
    He stands up.
    “I’ve got to go,” I say.
    I grab my tray and rush after him.
    I catch him beside the garbage cans. He smiles, but not too hugely. “Carolina.” This is the only name in the world for me anymore. We scrape our trays with ultra-deliberateness.
    “Hi,” I say.
    “Hi. You don’t have to whisper.”
    “Hi.”
    “I’m happy to see you too.”
    “I still can’t believe it. I’m trying to make myself believe. Intellectually I know. I know that it happened. It’s just—it ’s just so good.”
    “Yes. It happened. It did. I thought about it all—”
    Somebody comes by. Mr. Mann says hello, glances around nervously, hunching over his empty tray as if deciding on a last secret bite of something that is already gone. It isn’t safe here; I can tell that’s what he’s thinking.
    “Of course. Of course it happened,” he says. “You were there.”
    “I was there!” I’m sounding so stupid, but right now I don’t care.
    “But where were you this morning? I missed you in class.”
    He missed me! He was thinking about me at the very same time. We have to talk about this. I have to remember it so we can. And try to get the time just right. The exact moment. Crazy. This is crazy.
    “The dentist,” I say. “I’m sorry! I couldn’t help it! He says I need to get my wisdom tooth out. Great.”
    “Don’t be sorry; it’s okay. Really.” He lowers his voice. “The lucky bastard. That means he gets to see you again. Maybe I’ll be sick that day.”
    This makes me smile as though I might never stop smiling.
    “Any cavities?” he says.
    “Nope,” I say. “Well, one.”
    “Where?”
    I start to touch my chest right where my shirt is buttoned. “Here,” I want