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My dad acts like nothing out of the ordinary is going on. He goes for his three-hour bike rides. He spends hours tinkering with the computer. Our conversations don’t go beyond him grilling me about how many miles I’ve run this week to gear up for cross-country season. Same as usual.

Sometimes I wonder what Matthew would’ve looked like. Would he be prematurely bald like my dad, or have perfect teeth like my mom? Would he have Bethany’s flawless complexion? Or would he be scrawny like me?

I see college guys with Greek letters on their chests and I wonder if he would’ve celebrated with them. Or would he have celebrated his birthdays alone? Like me.

I know I wasn’t planned because Gladdie told me so on my fourteenth birthday. In her uncensored senility, she informed me between bites of Carvel ice-cream cake that I was a "wonderful surprise" for my parents, who never thought they would "have the heart to try again." Of course, this was just a nice way of saying I was a mistake.

I think Bethany always considered me competition. A brother would have been a different deal. Maybe that’s why we’ve never gotten along. But it’s safe to say my parents were happy to have me—more so after I made it past the one-month mark. But sometimes, when they go overboard on the groundings and other assholic parental gestures, I can’t help but think they’re trying to "save" me because they couldn’t save Matthew. Maybe that’s the real reason why they’ve been particularly harsh since Heath OD’d. It’s not that they were afraid his bad habits had rubbed off on me, as I had thought. No, Heath’s death probably reminded them of their own loss, one they don’t want to experience again.

I think too goddamn much.

One thing I know for sure, if Matthew had lived, my parents would’ve been a lot more vigilant with birth control, thereby eliminating the possibility of a "wonderful surprise" like me. This knowledge comes directly from my mother, who refers to three or more kids in any family as a "litter." So I’m sort of grateful for Matthew’s death, which is an evil thing. A go-to-hell type of thing, if I believed in hell.

Right now I feel guilty to be alive. Why? Because I’m wasting it. I’ve been given this life and all I do is mope it away.

What’s worse is, I am totally aware of how ridiculous I am. It would be a lot easier if I believed I was the center of the universe, because then I wouldn’t know any better not to make a big deal out of everything. I know how small my problems are, yet that doesn’t stop me from obsessing about them.

I have to stop doing this.

How do other people get happy? I look at people laughing and smiling and enjoying themselves and try to get inside their heads. How do Bridget, Manda, and Sara do it? Or Pepe? Or everyone but me?

Why does everything I see bother me? Why can’t I just get over these daily wrongdoings? Why can’t I just move on and make the best of what I’ve got?

I wish I knew.

the eighteenth

Last night was catastrophic.

Cataclysmically catastrophic.

In fact, the only reason I’m writing about last night at all is because I think it’s important from a purely historical perspective. I want my descendants to know what event cinched the last strap on my straightjacket.

About halfway through my shift, Manda came charging up to my stand as fast as her platform sandals would carry her.

"Can you get a ride home tonight?"

"No. Why?"

"Well there’s a huge blowout on Carteret Ave. tonight."

"And?"

"Aaaaaaaand," she exaggerated, as though my grasp of the English language were worse than Woody’s. "We want to go."

"We being … ?"

"Me," she said.

"And?"

"Sara."

"And?"

"Burke."

"Did you ever think that maybe I might want to go too?"

"Puh-leeze, Jess," she said. "You never want to go anywhere."

She was right. I never want to go anywhere. I had avoided going anywhere all summer and look how happy it had made me. I was more depressed than ever. Maybe some good old-fashioned mindless debauchery would do me some good. Liquid lubricant was just