15.) Insanity
Am I insane?
The question hangs in the back of her mind; a stain, an imprint, a scratching clothes-tag against her skin that she can't quite pull off. That label, printed in black ink all over her old files. Mentally incompetent. Which is really just a euphemism for 'crazy' and a crappy one at that, since euphemisms are supposed to make her feel better, but this one is worse.
Incompetence she'd always expected, but at fifty, not fifteen.
She's often thought about it. That simple, beguiling question. It's become like a blackened apple in her fruit bowl, or a broken Christmas card blaring a tinny rendition of Jingle Bells from under a stack of wrapping paper in late January. Once interesting, novel, even beautiful; but now it's festered and decayed into a tumour, clawing its way into her brain.
(Except this is worse even than her real brain tumour, because this one can't be cut out with any scalpel.)
Even now, half a life later (and the records for the first half wiped clean), she always returns to the same answer.
"I don't know what insanity is."
Only difference is that now, she has far more reference points.
Her mother's always been her first thought, and just as quickly eliminated. Insanity can't be that detached, that clinical. Wires fraying, electricity circling in maddened loops and twisting her limbs into frenzied, hideous dances - that was all that was happening to her mother; changing light patterns on an MRI screen. Insanity couldn't just be an electrical fault; at least, she hoped. If she was little more than a defective android, then nothing was worth anything.
Her father, even? Condemning himself to a wife with a genetic grenade hooked up to her nervous system, to a marriage with an expiration date, to a life that would never quite be his again, even after she'd gone. To hospital appointments and sleepless nights and pitying glances. And sacrificing his children to the same fate...surely that was the definiton of insanity? Madness, coupled with bad choices? Surely to be insane you have to do something immoral. Like her. She'd chosen to light the match, chosen to watch the flames bite at her bedroom curtains, chosen to listen as her brother and father gasped awake and sprinted outside, chosen to look on impassively as the fire ate through the silent gap that used to be her mother's bedroom -
Memories. Guilt. Shutdown. Reset. (Familiar protocol.)
No, he wasn't insane, she decides. He was in selfish, callous, shattering love - and while insanity and love may have striking similarities, her cynicism doesn't quite stretch to believing them one and the same.
Her thoughts wrap around an equally familiar face. One she surgically removed from her life almost a decade ago (she was getting too close) and hasn't seen since; Krista Keylock. Her first love that hadn't just been play-acting, hadn't just seen her as a blue-eyed trophy fit for display. She'd seen that Thirteen was broken, feral, destructive; yet she'd actively sought her out, knowing that the pain was inevitable. She'd swept her off her feet and made her so dizzy that she'd been stupid enough to not spare Krista the heartbreak.
Logic and self-preservation - she'd shut off her most fundamental instincts, just for the thrill of the chase and the warmth of another person in her arms, at least for a while. Is that insanity?
Possibly, Thirteen reasons to herself, but love and lust are slight...grey areas. Krista was a spiralling adrenaline junkie, but she wasn't without rationality. She saw the train coming, but figured it was worth it. That she was worth it - that love was worth it.
She owes her everything for that.
Thirteen closes her eyes, trying to distract herself. This always brings back burningly raw memories, of a different her with a different name and a cut-glass stare, strapped to a bed, the dictionary definition spinning wildly in her head. Insanity. Noun. Derivations, etymology, this makes no sense, Latin root, synonyms, how can I fit into eight letters? Harsh phonetics, connotations. After a long time repeating it, it scrambles into nonsense; an insignificant arrangement of curving lines. Help me, help me, help me -
Screaming at the door, other arrangements bouncing off the walls back at her. Nobody listening. They did help her eventually, of course, but not quite enough - or quite soon enough - to take away the bitter taste.
Thirteen thinks of her colleagues and smiles to herself. None of them are quite insane, but they all personify aspects of the concept. House, and how he could escape his misery at any time, but he's too scared that he'll lose what makes him special if he's happy. Foreman - she smiled slightly to herself - who let her in, gave her a glimpse of who he was, then panicked and shut her out with arguments and smug looks. Sweet, self-destructive Cameron, magnetised by pain and unfulfillment. Damaged, happy-go-lucky Chase; sailing through life, refusing to let anything matter (because that would mean he could screw it up). Taub, constantly breaking the one thing in his life that didn't need fixing; his marriage. The list continues, and will continue as long as there are medical schools and thyroid tumours and humanity.
What about that girl they treated? Valerie? Sure, she had Wilson's disease, but there was more than that. She couldn't help her psychopathia, but she could help how she acted on it. Nobody forced her to screw over her colleagues or cheat her husband out of his money, but she did. Choice. Immorality. The disease had to shoulder some of the blame, but what lay under the disease clearly had some electrical faults of its own.
That was as close to insanity as she could imagine; having broken sectors, gaps in the wiring, but also choosing to act negatively on them. Hence sociopath mass-murderers were evil, but sociopathic introverts channeling their energy into Minecraft marathons were not.
But where does that leave her?
The 'gaps in the wiring' part, she can tick off, obviously. Not only the Huntington's, but emotional damage, self-destructive personality type...her shrink made a list, which she doesn't feel like revisiting. But she hasn't hurt anyone - not intentionally, not in a long time, and not anymore. So she isn't insane. (The 'yet' echoes tauntingly at the back of her mind.)
She's resolved to herself so many times; that is my one boundary. I will never intentionally cause harm to someone, ever again. I will never have to look into someone's eyes as I cause them pain. I won't even kill dying patients. That will not be on my conscience.
Her thoughts are interrupted by the phone ringing. She gets up, startled, and reaches for it. Barely anyone calls her anymore - she doesn't tend to give out her number, except on drunk nights out, and the one-night stands know the rules. It's a dead-end audition. No callbacks.
She sighs, picks up the phone.
"Remy."
She takes a second to register it, then her heart freezes in her chest. That voice...
"...Damien?"
Silence. Panic stabbing through her, cold as ice.
"Help me."
