Missing the Big Picture by Donovan, Luke (great book club books txt) 📕

house and thinking that somebody is there, but you can’t see anyone. I remember being nervous that our government teacher was going to collect our journals and that I didn’t even have a notebook. I then heard Eric’s voice say, “You don’t have a notebook.”

A couple of days after I started hearing Eric’s voice inside my mind, Carmine started deleting my e-mails. He blocked my instant message name, making it impossible for me to communicate with him online. I was disappointed and confused. I was very lonely in high school and just looked forward to having a friend, really.

A rational person would assume that if two teenagers communicated via the Internet, then they could actually speak in real life. But the big roadblock to me being friends with Carmine was Eric. Eric loved playing games. My mother used to tell me that she realized boys had the same drama as girls, so I should forget the stereotype that boys are simple creatures who just adjust their testicles from time to time.

For the rest of that week, every time I saw Eric, in both physical education and government classes, I thought that I could communicate telepathically with him. Sometimes when I didn’t even hear his voice, I was convinced that he was able to share my thoughts. I remember thinking over the weekend, What is going on? I still was too afraid to tell anybody.

On that Monday, not only was I hearing Eric’s voice in my mind every time I saw him, I was now also hearing Carmine’s. While walking into sociology class, I heard Carmine’s voice once again in my mind. In reality, he wasn’t speaking—he was just walking the halls, and we made eye contact.

Unfortunately, some people who hear voices claim that the voices tell them to commit harmful acts or talk them into having delusions of grandeur. When I heard Eric’s and Carmine’s voices, it was like I was having conversations with each of them. They weren’t commanding me or telling me to do strange things. High school gossip, girls, school, teachers, mutual friends—these were the only things that I heard the voices talking to me about. That is why I was so convinced that I was actually facilitating the communication. I was smart enough to know that talking telepathically and reading minds has never been scientifically proven, but I would never deny that I was talking to them through our minds. It just wasn’t in government or gym; any time I saw Eric in the halls, I would hear his voice in my head. I would call it the “range.” If either of them was in the hall at the same time as me or I saw them somewhere, immediately I would feel the white presence and know that Eric or Carmine had access to whatever I was thinking. The “white presence” was how I described what I would see in my mind each time I heard the voices.

About one week after I began hearing Eric’s voice, I remember sitting in AP Chemistry class working on a lab project, when the white presence again came to me. I didn’t even know why I took AP Chemistry. At the end of my junior year, I wanted to get into the best college I could, and I thought taking an advanced-placement science class would give me a greater edge. I didn’t want to be a pharmacist or an engineer, and I didn’t even like chemistry; I was just torturing myself because I thought it was the right thing to do. The class had only thirteen students—twelve seniors and one junior—all of whom were extremely intelligent. There were only three boys in the class, and we were all spread out around these big tables, on which we would also do our experiments. AP Chemistry was my eighth-period class, and for ninth period I either had lab or a free period, depending on the day of the week.

On this particular class day, we were doing lab work. About halfway into the class, I once again heard another voice in my mind. I knew it was a male voice, and I could hear it snickering and laughing. I had been thinking about some of the girls in the class and how I felt like I didn’t belong. Of the students, everyone had either an A or B average, and I was barely getting a C. Plus, many of the girls were gorgeous and seemed to excel at everything they did, and I was so socially awkward. Mr. Bean had more game with girls and better social skills than I did.

I knew both of the other boys in the class, Tyler and Gary. We had all been in the same Boy Scout group in elementary school together. Tyler’s mother was the den mother, and I would go over to his house on Monday nights for scout meetings. We went to the same church, and our parents were friendly with one another. Tyler was definitely one of the popular kids at Colonie. He set his own legacy by being one of the few Caucasians on the basketball team. He was not only a jock but a scholar as well. He was very into rap music and liked to label himself as “ghetto.” He always wore a hat and jeans to class, like he was auditioning for a hip-hop video.

After I began hearing laughter, I looked at Gary to see if his body language would convey that something was happening between us. But Gary was doing his work and staying focused and not looking at his lab partner’s boobs. Then I heard Tyler laugh, and I thought to myself, Oh, it’s Tyler I’m chatting with.

Although we weren’t talking at all, I was convinced that we were. It was the same thing that was happening between Eric, Carmine, and me; now I also thought that Tyler was involved. On the way home, confused about what was going on, I decided to buy something to distract myself