Chapter 5 - Rock

When you’re six years old, you don’t have much in life to worry about besides listening to your parents and having fun with friends and figuring out your future out.

Several things I know I want to be in my future – rich, married with a family, and a doctor. Not necessarily in that order.

Besides figuring my future out, I’ve gotten into the habit of trying to figure myself out. Whether it’s journaling or taking personality tests.

I’ve gotten knee deep into personality tests. There’s not much I can do on the computer without adult supervision and parental controls, so I just look up personality tests on the Internet.

“I don’t want to be ENFJ, I want to be ENTJ like you!”

Mike’s annoyed. I can literally see his forehead vein pulsing. He gets like that when I get whiny.

I looked up the Myer Briggs test recently, and I found out that I’m ENFJ. I showed it to Mike and he took it too and scored ENTJ, the Commander.

Mike thinks I’m INFJ. But I’m 77% sure than I’m 77% an extrovert.

I like being an extrovert, and I like being intuitive, and I even like being judging as long as it’s not judgmental. But what I don’t like is that I’m a feeling type.

“I don’t want to be a feeling type, I want to be a thinking type!”

I know despite my protests, that I’m a feeling type. I cry almost every day. Sometimes it’s just a small tear here and there, sometimes it’s flat out sobbing.

Mike says I’m like rain, a drizzle on some days and hurricane the next day.

He does this thing when he pretends to be a weather channel anchor and monitors my mood with the meticulousness of a data analyst.

“Today it’s cloudy with a chance of meatballs, everyone! There’s 71% chance of rain and a 7% chance of drought. And…that’s a wrap on Sam!”

He projected this out in front of the classroom in front of everyone. I thought it was so funny and I laughed and laughed until I cried.

That’s basically me.

Mike hates it. He doesn’t like that I have a wide emotional barometer and makes fun of my moods. He thinks I have a mood disorder, he likes to look up psychological disorders in his free time. He likes to dabble in the dark side of life.

“I think I want to be a psychologist, actually. I want to dissect people’s brains and figure out how they work.”

I shudder. I don’t like psychiatrists. Or psychological and mental illnesses. Psychology seems almost occult to me. My brother likes to watch psychological thrillers and they creep me out.

“Be a neurosurgeon then!”

“Why don’t you be a neurosurgeon?”

“No, I want to be a cardiac surgeon like my mom.”

“I don’t want to be a neurosurgeon, or any kind of surgeon, I hate surgeons.”

And he huffs and stares at the computer screen, looking at pictures of brains and looking darn right pleased with himself.

I know for a fact that I’m going to be a cardiac surgeon. The probability of my being a cardiac surgeon when I grow up is 97%.

As you can tell, I like the number 7. 7/17 is my birthday, and Mike likes to shove that piece of fact in my face, every so often.

Mike and I both like numbers. We’re the best at math in our class, and we like to test each others’ multiplication and addition skills.

“14124 plus 14234 equals”

“28358” I say without missing a beat,

“144 times 145”

“Um…” Mike pauses for a minute and then says

“20880… that one’s hard, I gave you an easy one.”

“Cooo-rrect!”

The kids call us nerds, but I’d rather be a nerdy genius with Mike than a regular first grader without him.

“Anyway, we need to do more things on the bucket list.”

“Let’s do the zoo one. I want to go to a zoo with you.”

“Don’t forget Six Flags. I think that one should be first.”

“Ok.”

I don’t like the idea of rollercoasters, and I’ve never been on one in my entire life. What goes up must come down, and I don’t want to take my chances that I’ll fall out of my seat and end up dead. As much as I’m not scared of heights, I don’t like the turbulence of a rollercoaster ride would be suitable for my stomach’s well being.

As in, I get motion sickness a lot and I’ll probably throw up after riding a rollercoaster.

I’ve never been to an amusement park with Mike, and I know that Six Flags in New Jersey has a zoo too. So we can kill two birds with one stone if we go to Six Flags.

“All right, let’s go! I’ll ask my parents and we can coordinate.”

“Sure.”

That weekend, I ask my parents if we can go to Six Flags, and they agreed. Just like that. I go to school on Monday and ask Mike if his parents agreed too.

“I can’t go… they said I’ll get a heart attack if I go on the rides.”

“That sucks. My parents agreed. And Ms. Freedman gave us these free tickets too. I can’t believe we’re not going to use them!”

“You can go without me.”

So I did.

As I predicted, rollercoasters aren’t fun. I wasn’t going to ride one, but my brother tricked me into thinking this Hogwarts train was actually a train and not a rollercoaster. I figured out something was weird too late when the “train” started climbing upwards a slope. And then it shot down, and I lost the contents of my stomach.

I screamed and screamed until I turned green.

The water rides were fun though. They were the best part of the trip, and I remember wishing Mike was here to have fun with me.

Oh well.

But just as I was thinking that, I bumped into Mike and his parents at the zoo.
“WHAT? I thought you weren’t coming!”

“What, and turn down free tickets? These are expensive!”

Mike didn’t go on any of the rides except the carousel and the go-karts. But we went to the zoo together and pet some llamas and goats.

“Another things off of the bucket list.”

“50 more to go.”

In the last month, Mike and I managed to do 50 things off of his list. We ate 1 whole pizza by ourselves, we made ice cream from scratch, we baked a cake, and we learned how to dance the waltz. And etc.

“Let’s do a sleepover next.”

“Think your parents will agree?”

“Maybe. I’m dying after all.”

Mike’s parents agreed after a week of manipulating their emotions by crying and screaming and sobbing and whining. Evil mastermind in disguise, Mike sure has a way of getting his own way, most of the time.

I was pretty excited to see Mike’s house. And play with his baby sisters. They’re really cute, still in diapers. I really liked seeing them crawl on the ground and wiggle their legs in the air.

“They’re so cute! I want one.”

“They really are cute.”

Mike smiles at me and I felt a twinge.

I’m turning red.

This is the first time I’ve actually turned red around Mike. Usually I felt some heat in the inside of my body, but my face never turned red. I feel like crying too.

My eyes watering, I turn away from Mike and get my journal out. I need to write these feelings out.

“What are you doing? You’re at my house, you can’t just journal, we have to have fun! Let’s play some games.”

I put my notebook away.

“Ok.” I say.

We decided not to play chess, we play too much chess at school anyway. Mike has checkers and cards and Monopoly! And other board games.

“I never played Monopoly before!”

“You should try it, it’s really fun making money.”

“Oooh. Let’s play.”

Mike opens the board game set and we sit down on the rug.

“Just us two?”

Mike shrugs.
“Might not be as fun, but it’s still pretty fun.”

Mike didn’t invite any of the other kids to the sleepover. I’m his best friend in school, he said.

I was over the moon when he referred to me as his best friend. I thought the same way about him.

“Monopoly is really fun.”

“I know right?”

We finish playing and it’s time to go to bed. Mike’s room has two twin beds, so I didn’t have to bring a sleeping bag. Which was good because I don’t have a sleeping bag.
“You know what else is on my bucket list?”

“What?”

“Sleep on a bunk bed with you. I don’t like that we’re so far apart.”

I giggle.

“I would be on top of course. And you would be on the bottom.”

I stop laughing. That sounded weird, like he was insinuating something.”
“Mike,” my tone growing serious. “We’re only six years old.”

“Who’s counting?”

“God.”

“Geez, I wasn’t implying anything. Take a chill pill.”

There was a moment of tense silence, and I just laughed and said,

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Sam, just because I wrote on my bucket list that I wanted to have sex before I die doesn’t mean we’re actually going to do it now.”

I stutter,

“You want to have sex with me.”

“Yeah. But we’re only six years old. I hope I live to be a teenager, and then we can have sex.”

My face a tomato, I start counting in my head.

Six. Seven. Eight, Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen.

Maybe we’ll have sex when we’re 13. Actually that’s a bad number.

Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen.

“Sixteen.”

“Sixteen candles? Like the movie?”

“No, sixteen. Let’s have sex when we’re sixteen.”

“You don’t know if I’m going to live until we’re sixteen, Sam!”

“Stop rushing the process, we’re only kids. Did you seriously invite me to a sleepover to have sex with me, we’re only six years old!”

My voice growing higher and louder, I jolt upwards in my bed. I’m freaking out, I have a bad feeling about sleeping in the same room as Mike now. I want to leave.
Did Mike seriously manipulate me into having sex with him?

God will punish me if I do anything like that. I’m only six years old. And not even married.

“Sam, calm down. You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?! I’m not doing anything.”

My breath’s growing fast and I feel like screaming. I start punching the pillow.

“You’re freaking out. Don’t freak out.”

Mike pulls off his covers and comes to me. He wraps his arms around me, giving me a big warm bear hug.

It’s calming me down. My brother does the same thing to me when I freak out like this at home.

I felt safe now. Mike feels comfortable and he feels safe, and I’m not remembering anything bad anymore.

“Thanks.”

“Let’s stay like this for a while.”

“No sex.”

“No sex.” Mike echoes.

I relax my body and put my head on Mike’s shoulders.

“You’re like French fries. Yummy and starchy and comfy.”

“Did you just compare me to a food?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s funny. If I’m a potato, then you’re a to-ma-to.”

“That’s funny.”

Another moment passes and I put my arms about him.

“I hope you live.” I say.

“… me too.”

-

There were many other times like these, when I needed to calm down, and Mike’s presence calmed me. He was stable, slow and steady, and I felt safe around him. He was comfortable and warm and steady, and I needed him. He was my rock, and I was the hurricane around him. He couldn’t be uprooted, while I had no roots. He grounded me when there was chaotic emotions in me and around me.  

I didn’t know what I had until I lost him. I lost my rock. And I can only pray to God that I will get him back one day.