"IS GATSBY GREAT? In what way?"

Jessie was standing in front of me, holding a Grade 11 Literature textbook. Seeing Raph standing beside her reminded me that he and the Grants were such opposites to each other, kind of like how Val and I were. They both stood out, however, with their striking looks: the Grants with their olive skin, brown hair and green eyes, and Raph with his dark skin, black hair and charcoal eyes.

Meanwhile, the other Grant — also known as Jake — basically made the living room his home and propped his feet on the couch. I couldn't tell if he was relaxing or sleeping.

I was sitting in the carpet with my notebook, racking my brain for answers.

"How might he not be great?" Jessie continued. "Does his greatness evolve over the course of the novel? What is the difference, in this text, between perceived greatness and actual great — "

"Jess, stop. You're going to give her a headache," Raph muttered. "God, you're giving me a headache."

"It says here in the book! What am I suppose to do?"

"Summarise it. It's not that hard."

"Well, how about you try it?" She complained. "Since you seem to know everything, Mister-I'm-Accepted-In-Every-College-In-The-Whole-Damn-Universe?"

"You really want to start now?" Raph's voice had risen. "And I haven't been accepted yet!"

"Hey guys, can we order some pizza?"

"NO!" They responded at Jake's interruption.

Jessie sighed. "Emily, just answer the — "

"I think Jay Gatsby was great in a different way. His greatness didn't develop over the course of the novel — he was already great in the first place. When you hear something like "the great Gatsby," people usually assume it's a magician. Well, it's similar like that. Gatsby was able to create a new identity for himself when he needed to be someone else. I think the title refers to Gatsby being a performed character. I also think Nick thought he was great because of his restless and undying love for Daisy. No matter what bad things Gatsby did, Nick still respected him because it was all did for love. So, yeah. I do think he's great."

One, two, three, four, five.

Five seconds of silence.

Then Raph slow-clapped. Jessie joined him.

Clapping for the answer, or the fact that I was able to say every word of every sentence without it being slurred? It made me feel better if I imagined they were clapping for both.

"Well, personally," Jake muttered. "I think the title was meant to be ironic. Gatsby was a great pretender. Everything about him was fake. He lied shamelessly. His mansion was just an act. Even Nick said — "

Jessie punched him in the shoulder.

"Ow!"

. . .pretty hard.

"That. . . was one great answer," Jake said cheerfully with an over-exaggerated smile, still rubbing his shoulder.

Jessie smiled victoriously. "I agree, Jacob." Then she looked at me and softened. "We should take a break. I want to work on the decorations for Christmas, anyway."

Christmas. Mom and I were never really big fans of the holiday; we'd just buy a tree, watch Christmasy movies, drink hot cocoa and tell each other stories. We didn't even buy each other presents; like I said, Mom's problem with "gifts." So as you could see, it wasn't quite extravagant in the house

December. God, had it almost been a year since I got the Thing? Time really flew away when you were home schooled by twenty-year-olds and regularly surrounded with your crazy, hyper neighbours.

Jake frowned. "We have two weeks before Christmas."

"Exactly! We don't have much time!"

Jessie, Jake and Raph all moved at once towards the door, but when I followed them by rolling down the wheels, they glanced back. Raph's eyes widened.

"Oh, no," he stepped forward, stopping me. "We'll get the stuff. You can stay here. Plus, it's snowing. You wouldn't want to be like last time, do you?"

Jake snorted and I sent daggers through him. We all remembered what happened last time: Mom was pushing my wheelchair as we were the last ones to get out of the house. We were about to follow the Grants to their house for a friendly gathering. It wasn't anything new actually; ever since my "fall in baseball," we'd had a few of those.

Unfortunately, the snow was getting thicker than we thought. A few steps was enough to leave me stuck, and we've only just passed the front porch. Mom couldn't push or pull it any further.

Mom and Jessie were settling on an agreement when, out of nowhere, Ollie came out of the house and scooped me in his arms. He said something about "damsels in distress" but I could barely concentrate — his arms were around my back and legs, and my arms were wrapped around his neck.

Hey, don't look at me like that. It was either that or letting myself fall and freeze to death.

"Alright," I grumbled to the three older Grants.

Fifteen minutes later, the door opened, the three of them holding a lot more stuff than I'd expected. I pushed myself towards them, my hands gripping the wheels.

Jessie saw what I was doing. "Em, you can just sit back there and relax. We're going to you."

"No, seriously," I protested. "It's no problem."

I rolled myself towards them and fixed my gaze on the Christmasy stuff. "Are you guys going to put up mistletoes? I love mistletoes. I mean, they can be quite over-the-top sometimes, but making them is really — "

"Emily, watch out!"

I was too focused on them that I didn't realise the front of my wheelchair was getting too close to one of the legs of a table near the front door. The table wobbled, but thankfully nothing —

The sound of broken glass silenced the room.

I looked down. The snow globe that we bought in Disneyland — when Dad was still around — fell right in front of me, shards of sharp glass and knick-knacks covering the floor.

"Watch your step!" Jessie warned, running towards the kitchen to grab a broom.

Like I was going anywhere.

Jake pushed my wheelchair further down the living room while Raph tried to gather some of the pieces together before anyone had the misfortune to step on them. After Jessie and Raph cleaned up the mess, they joined Jake in the couch and stared at me, like they were waiting for some kind of reaction. Then, Raph asked in a quiet voice, "Are you okay?"

I'd been quiet for the last few minutes. I kept staring at the spot where the snow globe used to be, next to our family portraits and some other souvenirs.

There were a lot of ways of how I could reacted. I could've cried. I could've been angry. I could've said nothing, like I was doing in the first place. But instead I laughed.

I laughed really, really hard. Like, you know those types of laughter where your eyes got blurry and your stomach started hurting? Yeah, that kind of laugh. It started out small, and then suddenly I just couldn't find myself stopping. At first, the three Grants laughed with me, almost hesitantly. I could see the confusion in their eyes, but they decided it was a some sort of a joke.

But when they realised I didn't stop laughing — it was a long time before I did — they started to give me looks. Looks that either said, are you okay? or are you insane?

Jessie touched my shoulder. "Um, Emily?"

I was losing my focus. My body was still shaking hysterically. "Hmm?"

"You, uh. . . alright?"

"No!" I giggled.

"Dude, she sounds crazy," Jake whispered.

"Shut up, Jake!"

"Is something funny?" Raph stepped in. "Did I. . . or we. . . say something funny?"

"No, you didn't!" I let out, with my bubbly laughter. What the hell was wrong with me?

Raph, Jessie and Jake all looked at each other. Then Jess asked quietly, "Emily, how are you feeling?"

"Angry!" I bursted with giggles. "I'm feeling angry and sad and lonely! All of you guys can do anything you want, whenever you want! Me? I'm stuck with this stupid wheelchair! And you guys actually think it's tempora — "

I stopped. I didn't even realise what I was saying. I was so close admitting that I had the Thing. And I was pretty sure one annoying Grant was enough.

I scanned their faces again, and God help me, they looked sorry. For me.

"You don't sound angry," Jake slowly responded, for the first time.

"I don't even know," I chuckled. "I don't know why I'm laughing."

________

"Merry Christmas!"

Mom and I were greeted right after we stepped into the Grants' house. Since both of our families weren't big on celebrating the holiday, we (more like in the parents) decided it was "fun" to celebrate it together.

We all gathered in the Grants' living room, and it didn't surprise me that their Christmas tree was even bigger than ours — it looked enormous. The whole area was decorated with red and green decors, as well as mistletoes and Santa-looking bears all over the place. It felt kind of terrifying because I felt like the Santas were watching me. 

Ho, ho, ho, I can see through your soul!

Couple of hours later, we opened up our presents. I was shocked to see what my present was from the Grants: a whole DVD set of Sherlock, and not only the one with Benedict Cumberbatch, but almost every version — The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes back in 1970, that movie with Robert Downey Jr., and they even got me some of the books.

I instantly looked at Oliver and I knew, that if I could stand up, I would've ran across the room and tackled him with my happiness.

My Christmas present for Oliver was what probably every baseball fan wanted — a jersey with the autograph of one of the famous Yankees this year, Alex Rodriguez, which happened to be his favorite. Ironically, as I was searching through the old Yankees' teams now and then, I discovered Lou Gehrig, who coincidentally, had ALS, too. Actually, he was the first famous person to have had it, which made a lot of people calling it the "Lou Gehrig's Disease."

I just thought that bit was interesting.

Anyway, I had ordered the Rodriguez jersey online, and s expected, Oliver actually screamed and hugged me until I couldn't breathe.

When everyone else were opening their presents, though, I felt a nudge on my shoulder.

"Woods," Ollie whispered. "I gotta talk to you."

Suddenly feeling nervous, he pushed me towards the kitchen where we could have some privacy. The others noticed but didn't say anything, probably preoccupied with Home Alone 3.

Once we were alone, he went right to the point: "Jake said you had a little episode the other week?"

I gulped. I knew he would tell him! I specifically told the three of them not to mention anything to anyone, especially to Oliver. Damn Jake. "I thought we were celebrating Christmas."

"I'm not feeling Christmasy anymore when my best friend lies to me."

I stared. Why did he have to play the best friend card? He knew it always worked on me. "Fine," I huffed. "I had this. . . episode, as you call it. It's called the pseudo-bulbar affect, or so Dr. Grey tells me. It's when the patie — " I wanted to avoid the word. " — er, I mean person, experiences episodes of uncontrolled and inappropriate laughter or crying. I don't know why it happens. It just does."

He blinked, not expecting an answer like that. "Jake mentioned you had a bad sense of humour."

I chuckled. "Usually the person isn't happy or sad at all."

"So you laughed because you weren't happy?"

I shrugged, my throat constricted. I didn't want the conversation to go further. We were here to celebrate a holiday; not mope around and talk about unhappy feelings.

And "unhappy" was an understatement. I was also angry. At myself? At the world? At the Thing? I didn't know. Could be all of them.

"Wait a minute." He looked pointedly at me. "About the pseudo-something affect. Is it curable?"

"Don't worry. Dr. Grey gave me some drugs that he claims will help, and it did. And even if it did happen, it's not like it caused me pain or anything."

"Alright. . ."

"Come on," I urged, snapping him out of his own thoughts. "Let's get back before your mom makes us wear Santa hats."

Jake, as you know, was wearing this huge, hideous Santa hat — and that was because he made Mrs. Grant mad. I didn't want to share the same fate, because did you see the hat?

He smiled weakly. "Alright." He went behind me and began pushing. "You know, school isn't the same without you. I have no one to taunt and tease anymore."

I rolled my eyes even though I knew he couldn't see me. "You have Tom."

"Tommy does not have any feelings and has heart like a stone. He's no fun."

A laugh escaped me.

"Anyway, how are the Three Stooges? Are they any good?"

"The Three Stooges" was now our nickname Jessie, Jake and Raph. Don't get me wrong, they weren't stupid at all — well, Jake could make a tiny little exception — but it was more referred to the dynamic of those twenty-year-olds.

I snorted. "If you mean that they're incompatible, confusing, loud, and likes to argue a lot, then yes, they're pretty good."

He was probably smirking by now. "Seems like I'm not the only one suffering."

Even though I laughed along, I couldn't help a nagging thought in my mind. Seems like I'm not only one suffering. It was true that both of us were suffering, but we were both thinking the same thing:

I was suffering way, way much worse than him.

The last few lines got me a little sad. I can't even imagine being in Em's position. She really is a strong character.