yes, we’re all a little crazy

She sits alone and people watch her.

They watch her out of the corner of their eyes, noticing the way she holds herself, the way she doesn’t smile, the way she sits with three pens laid in a neat row in front of her… and I wonder why does she need three for only an hour of lecture?

She looks up and catches my eye and I excuse myself from my group of friends, picking up my backpack and shuffling over to sit next to her.

She doesn’t say anything.

But her weary smile portrays a thankfulness she isn’t the only one being watched.

I ask if I can borrow a pen, nodding at the three in front of her and she picks one up slowly, fingers trembling and I see the quiet fear in her eyes.

Lecture proceeds.

I notice the way she picks up a pen, writes in neat, almost perfect handwriting, and places it back on the table, lining it perpendicular to the next one, a half-inch in between the two… complete organization.

After class, I hand back her pen and tell her, “If you ever need help studying, let me know.”

She nods, slipping the pen in her backpack before turning to leave.

Later, my friends, half-jokingly ask me, “What was that all about? Ditching us for Miss Crazy like that?”

I shrugged.

I didn’t have an answer.

Days pass before I see her again outside the nursing lab, face red, tears streaming, rocking back and forth, back and forth and I sit next to her and ask if there is anything I can do to help as she shakes the bench we sit on.

She wipes her tears, looking unashamed at me, “Will you just go through the procedure with me? I can’t ever remember when it’s time to put on the sterile gloves versus the non-sterile gloves.”

So we go through it, not once, not twice, but maybe ten times.

Her name is called and she goes to test so I sit alone on the bench and wait the long minutes until she returns, watching as students come and go.

She finally returns.

She stands before me, telling me she may have only missed one point and she thanks me time and again for studying with her before we part ways.

The following week in class, I sit next to her again and a few of my friends talk to her, careful to skirt around the incident, talking only of day-to-day things instead of school.

“Want to grab a coffee?” Her request surprises me but moments later, we sit at high stools at the Caribou Coffee in the school.

“I’m not crazy,” she tells me and I laugh, nervously spewing the first thing that comes to mind. “It’s okay. We’re all a little crazy. I know I am,” I tell her.

“How so?”

“Have you ever noticed the way the students watch me?”

She nods.

“You and I are a lot alike. I’m the guy who caught a medication error that could have killed the patient. You’re the girl that made one mistake that could have killed a patient. So we’re watched. Maybe for different reasons, but I know what it’s like to feel eyes on you every time you sit in class.”

We sip our coffee in silence.

“I’d rather be watched because I was smart, not because I’m dumb.” Truthfully blunt words slip from her mouth.

“That’s the funny thing,” I said, “I’m no smarter than any of the other kids in class. I just got lucky that day I caught the med error. Since then, I’ve been singled out… given the tough patients by my teachers, asked the hard questions in post-conference, and the list goes on…. but here’s the thing. People remember you by your biggest moment, whether that moment be good or bad, that’s the moment that sticks in their mind. So keep looking for a chance to change your moment. And I will too.”

That moment came two days later.

She bumped her way down the long row of chairs, face beaming and she slips her graded test onto my desk.

I silently show her mine.

She whoops, a shrill scream escaping and the class turns to watch us.

And then, I blurt, “You beat me?! By one point?”

She high-fives me, and then one by one, my friends high-five her and someone says, “About time someone beat him.”

After the commotion dies down, I tap the empty desk next to me, “You need to sit here. So I can keep an eye on you, and peek occasionally at your notes.”

Returning with her backpack, she lays three pens out, perfectly straight, a half-inch between them. Dipping back in her backpack, she hands me a pen.

“Because I know in that chaos of highlighters, you don’t have a pen,” she smiles at me, nodding as I scrounge for a pen.

I laugh.

“Like I said, we’re all a little crazy.”

-Duane Scott