One
xxx
It's hell when the antidepressants run out.
Day one is all right. You go to the gas station and grab a few things you're out of, even pausing to smile at the cashier. Climbing the hill back to the apartment only produces the slightest wobble in your head.
Day two is worse: the vertigo is setting in, limiting you to your bed and the couch. It's happening far faster than you'd anticipated. At 6 PM you realize you haven't eaten anything. A bag of cookies makes things much better.
By day three, there's hysteria, a flood of relief that you're going to be just fine edged with despair as you stand up to go to the bathroom and hit your head against the wall. You find your cell phone and call your sister, although you dream that you did and don't actually dial the first letter of her name into your contacts list until the next morning. She sounds busy, uninterested, and you realize you're crying. She says she'll try to get you some medication as soon as she can.
On day five, your head is pounding, your ears ringing so loud it sounds like the hum of a refrigerator. You try to lie down and dream of someone knocking at the door. At two in the morning you get up and get a glass of water. Your head feels fuzzy, but the rest of you feels better.
On day six you open the door to find a pile of newspapers and junk mail. You sit down with it all at the table and try your sister again. There's no answer.
There's a blocky page of advertisements halfway through the paper, a lot of used cars and some free poodle puppies. There's also a job opening; something about a restaurant offering weekly pay. You down a glass of barely-expired orange juice and try to convince yourself that it's a message. Your finger gets cut pretty badly, but you manage to snip the ad out, letting it flutter to the floor as you stumble to sit in the shower for an hour before going to bed.
You don't know what you're going to do.
It's 4 AM when you wake up - or you think so, until you realize you're slick with putrid sweat and the sun is burning through the blinds. There's a voicemail from your uncle, saying they miss you and he knows things have been tough but that you're a Schmidt, and Schmidt men are never defeated by their heads. It doesn't sound like he knows you got fired from the construction company, although maybe he does, since he seems to be bashing you again for needing medication to feel normal. You realize how stupid you were for believing your boss when she said you'd be a manager by September.
You're startled to find that the microwave mac and cheeses you bought at the gas station are sitting on the table, right where you left them a day (a week?) ago. You make three and finish one before you start to feel ill. The room starts spinning and your ears are screaming, and you do the math and decide lying down is worth more than putting the rest of the macaroni in the fridge for later.
It's day eight, and you're sobbing uncontrollably when you wake up, so hard that there's saliva dribbling down your chin and your voice is gone. You dreamt that your mother came to visit and that she saw you for the first time like you really are, almost thirty and damaged beyond repair from your fiancée leaving and jobless and scared and tired.
You think somebody was coming to visit yesterday, but they didn't. Then you remember that somebody maybe knocked a few days ago.
After sitting upright on the floor for a while, trying to figure out whether the room is shaking or your head is just funny, you think you probably dreamt that there was knocking just before waking up. Your dreams always were the weirdest early in the morning.
Thoughts are all spinning and skipping off every sound. It takes effort, but you grasp onto the idea that things were once better and that they're still getting worse.
You're picking at the dried macaroni with a fork when you notice the newspaper clipping on the floor. $120 for a week of work.
Enough for rent.
Enough for your medication.
You dial the number with shaking fingers and stare at the scrap of paper as it rings.
This is my why-Mike-took-the-job headcanon. If you've ever gone without your medicine for a few days, trust me. It's enough to make you think you're a little crazy.
Other drabbles/mini stories on the way. :3