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

was mean afterward. He would constantly call me a “freak,” “pathetic,” or “weird.” The sad thing was that I still wanted to be his friend regardless.

CHAPTER 6

OOPS, IT HAPPENED AGAIN

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.

—Ann Landers

On Sunday, April 7, I heard Rich’s voice on four different occasions. Rich started to ask me what I thought of Bruce, and when I said that he was “all right,” Rich was surprised. His voice said that he was used to hearing Bruce complain that his roommate was weird, strange, and too silly for him. From what I was hearing in my mind, Rich portrayed Bruce as somebody who really hated me.

Even though I began to hear Rich’s voice, I was still able to function at school and work and continue hanging out with my group of friends. I didn’t tell anyone that I was hearing a voice in my mind. When the voice first surfaced, I was distracted by hosting an overnight guest. At my work-study job in the admissions office, the assistant director had asked if I would mind hosting a prospective student. My overnight guest, Pete, and a friend, drove from Syracuse to Geneseo. After I showed him my room, he wanted to smoke marijuana and find some parties. To Pete’s disappointment, everybody I knew had to stay in and study, as college was not always the party scene as portrayed in college flicks.

So Pete and his friend decided to make their own party. At eight that evening, only a few hours after meeting me, Pete decided to split ways and hang out with his friend in another suite. Pete said he’d come back in a couple of hours, but he never did. After a few hours, I started to worry: how bad is it to host an overnight guest and lose him? I never got in trouble, but it was clear that my guest just wanted to party.

As of April 16, I was still hearing Rich’s voice in my mind on a daily basis—sometimes three to four times a day. I decided to tell somebody. I didn’t want to go running to my mother because I knew she would get frustrated, worried, anxious, and maybe even angry. Plus, I didn’t want to go back on the medication again. I had gained weight on the Zyprexa and didn’t want to go back to feeling tired all the time. I couldn’t keep this strange experience a secret, so I told my second mother, my Aunt Eileen.

Unlike Dr. Roberts or my mother, Eileen was more open-minded and didn’t just yell at me to take my medication. When I asked Eileen if she thought this could actually happen—two people communicating through their minds—Eileen couldn’t even give me a sound answer. My mother told me that I could have all the boys whose voices I heard come over and tell her that we were talking telepathically, and she still wouldn’t believe it. Dr. Roberts shared the same opinion. Dr. Roberts told me that talking telepathically with somebody had never been scientifically proven, and that if I took the medication, it could calm all the activity that was happening in my mind. Despite spending hours with Dr. Roberts and my mother telling me that what was happening in my mind was all an illusion, I was utterly convinced that I was having a conversation with Rich—just like I thought I was having conversations with Eric, Carmine, and the others only months before.

Even though I told my Aunt Eileen in confidence, my mother found out anyway. She was initially disappointed because I made tremendous progress in my life since starting college. I was happy and having fun. The only problem was that my grades could have been a little higher. She told me that if the problem persisted, I should go back on my medication. I then started taking the medication again after my mother told me to do so. As much as I hated taking the Zyprexa, I hated hearing voices more, so I did decided to start taking it again. Still, the medication alone was not my only plan to make the voices in my mind stop.

I had a new approach to ending the voices. Rich’s voice was the most talkative, and when we were communicating, he said that he loved doing this. Most people remember the topics they discuss with others. As if I was having a real conversation, why not just talk to Rich about what I thought we were communicating telepathically and see how Rich reacted? All the voices in my mind were very clear, just like real-life conversations. I decided the next time I saw Rich in person, I would mention what I heard in my mind and see what his reaction would be.

One day I coincidentally ran into Rich on the way back to class, and I decided to bring up the topics we had discussed in my mind. In my mind, we talked about everything—mostly Bruce and other people from our dorm, but also Rich’s classes and his high school. He once told me that the first woman he had a crush on was Paula Abdul, and I said that I liked Heather Graham. When I brought up these girls to him in person—both odd topics because this was before Paula Abdul made a comeback on American Idol and after Heather Graham’s days on Austin Powers and Boogie Nights—Rich acted confused as to why I was talking about them.

After my real-life conversation with Rich, I began wondering whether Dr. Roberts and my mother were correct. Was Rich’s voice a complete creation of my brain, and my mind was just playing tricks on me? Or, was Rich just trying to torment and frustrate me? It felt so real, this voice in my mind. Through telepathy, I learned about Rich’s first girlfriend,