My ears were still ringing when I woke up. I don't think I screamed out loud this time though, so I'd say that's an improvement. The thing about being crazy, is that you can't let anyone else find out that you're crazy. My parents don't like it when I refer to myself as crazy, but when it all comes down to it, that's what I am. That's why I could start my own pharmacy with all of the meds they have me on. I don't tell them that the drugs don't work. I don't tell them that I hide the pills under my tongue and spit them out when I go to the bathroom, but then again why would I? They'd probably just prescribe me more pills.
You see that's their solution. Drugs and pills. Hallucinations? Here have some more antipsychotics. Feeling particularly anxious? 50 mg of Zoloft. Depressed? 30 mg of Prozac. Nightmares still persisting? Take some more Prazosin. They think they can just inject you with their drugs and then you're good as new, like a car with broken parts. Take it to the shop and fix it right up. But I am not a car. And you can't fix what started off broken.
I sat up, only realizing then that not only had I slept in the same clothes from the night before, but I had slept upside down in my bed. My feet curled up under my pillow, as I ran my hands over my legs, smoothing out my jeans. A dark red splotch on my calf caught my attention, as images from my nightmare came rushing back to me. The blood dripping from that girl's mouth. The girl, so mangled she was almost unrecognizable to me. Almost, but not quite.
That's how she always looks whenever she appears in my nightmares. But I guess that's just what happens when you see your best friend's dead body. That is why we moved, after all. To "escape the bad memories". But they could move me to the other side of the world, and I would never escape the bad memories. They've burned themselves into my mind forever, etched on the backs of my eyelids. I shook my head, as if to rid my mind of its current train of thought, before standing up and walking to the bathroom. My hands ran over the cool metal of the shower faucet, turning them on and letting the steam fill up the bathroom. I stripped my clothes off, leaving them in a pile on the floor before getting in and letting the warm water wash over my face.
A loud knock on the door made me jump back, knocking over the entire rack of shampoos and conditioners.
"Everything okay in there?" My mother called out, trying the handle on the door only to find it locked.
"I'm fine. Everything's fine." I called back, muttering curses under my breath as I picked up the fallen bottles and trying my best not to slip and crack my head open. I hated how jumpy I had been lately. All of the doctors say it's normal after what I've been through, but that doesn't make me feel any better about it. I missed how I used to be. Before the nightmares and hallucinations, before the panic attacks, before death and destruction seemed to plague my life.
"Well don't forget your first day of school is officially tomorrow, but this morning you have an appointment with the guidance counselor." So I could tell the school how fucked up I was and they could take pity on me. Right.
"Do I have to go? I'll be fine tomorrow, I don't need to see a counselor or anything." I yelled back, slowly turning off the water and stepping out of the shower, wrapping my towel around my shivering body.
"This is not up for discussion, you know that. We need to inform the school of your…condition." I rolled my eyes, doodling absentmindedly in the condensation on the mirror.
"Whatever."
"So get ready. We're leaving in 20." I waited until I heard her footsteps vanish before sighing and yanking out the blow dryer from beneath the sink. Within fifteen minutes, my hair was dry and brushed, I was dressed in a white t-shirt and skinny jeans, and I was pulling on my boots. My mom walked in just as I was pushing my arms through my cardigan, the car keys dangling from her hand.
"Ready?" she held them up and tried to smile. I couldn't help but roll my eyes. "Hey, don't give me an attitude. This is for the best, you know that. Do not embarrass me in front of your new peers and faculty members at school, understood?"
"You're coming in with me? I didn't realize being a nutjob warranted a 24 hour babysitter." I pushed my way past her through the door and into the hallway, making my way to the kitchen. I heard her hurrying after me as I opened the refrigerator door, grabbing a bottle of water and slamming it shut.
"You are not a nutjob! How many times do we have to tell you that? My daughter is not crazy!"
"Then I really hope you have another daughter, because if you're making me go to yet another counselor, clearly you think I'm crazy." I grabbed my bag off of the couch and swung the front door open, stomping down the steps to the car.
"You've been a part of some unfortunate events, that does not make you crazy!" I heard my mother's aggravated tone from behind me.
"I'm pretty sure the hallucinations and night terrors do though." I spun on her before opening up the passenger side door and angrily shoving myself inside the car. The rest of the car ride consisted of my mother arguing about how I wasn't crazy, just "unlucky", and me not so subtly ignoring her. Before the "accident" as everyone likes to call it, she would have been the first person to call me crazy. She already called me every other insult on a daily basis. She never thought before she spoke, and while I knew she loved me, part of me wasn't sure if I could ever forgive her for some of the awful things she had said to me.
When we finally pulled up in front of the school, my mother and I had settled into a silence so thick I was half wondering if this was another hallucination. We made our way through the winding halls, past the vibrant blue lockers, nothing like the dull green ones at my old school. We managed to find the main office without ripping each other's heads off, and I held the door open for my mom as a sign of peace. She walked in without so much as a thank you. I bit my tongue and followed her in.
"Hi, can I help you?" A woman with cropped red hair and a face with sharp and severe features greeted us.
"Hi, my daughter is new here and we have an appointment with the guidance counselor."
"Oh you must be…Mrs. Moore. Nice to meet you, my name is Mrs. Argent. The guidance department is right through that door."
"Thank you very much Mrs. Argent. Come on," I smiled feebly at Mrs. Argent before following my mother through the door. Another woman sat behind a desk, this time a kinder looking woman, with warm brown eyes and soft curls.
"Hello there, is there something I can help you with today?"
"Yes, hi. My daughter has an appointment with Ms. Morrell."
"Oh you must be the Moore's! How are you doing? Has the move been hard on you? I remember when I moved out here it was exhausting adjusting to everything and all that, but once you settle down, Beacon Hills is simply wonderful." She shot my mother a radiant smile and then seemed to notice me for the first time. "Oh you can go ahead and have a seat sweetie, Ms. Morrell will be with you in a minute." The woman smiled politely at me and I returned the gesture, making my way over to the row of uncomfortable looking chairs. I sat down in one, a few seats away from a girl who looked about my age, with bright red curls. She sat with her legs, clad in blue tights, crossed, and she wore bright pink gloves over her hands, a small confident smile on her face. Suddenly her expression grew serious, her lips drawing into a thin line as she stared off into space. She stayed like that for a bit, the look on her face a mix of horror and fear. She blinked hard, as if waking herself up and turned her head towards me. I turned my attention back to my mother, who was still in front of me making small talk with the receptionist.
"Just what do you think you're looking at?" she asked, her voice trembling the tiniest bit. I shook my head, pressing my lips together.
"Nothing." And just like that, any traces of the unsureness, the vulnerability, the haunted look in her eyes, was gone.
"You think I'm weird? That I have some issues?" Her green eyes bore into me, making me feel like a small child being scolded for stealing a cookie.
"I didn't say that."
"It was what you were thinking though, wasn't it? Well I'm only here to get my parents off my back. Where as you, it seems, are here with your parents. So clearly I'm not the one with the issues." She tossed her hair over her shoulder, turning away from me. I narrowed my eyes as my hands bunched up into fists at my sides. I hadn't even officially started school yet and I was doing just wonderful with making friends.
"No, of course not. You're just here to talk to the guidance counselor about next week's tap dancing class. See if she can help you work on your shuffle ball change, right? It's not because you have any issues in need of counseling or anything." Her head snapped up, and she looked at me from out of the corner of her eye.
"I'm not so sure I like your attitude." She huffed, crossing her arms across her chest.
"You don't have to like it. You just have to deal with it." I said, mimicking her posture.
"Do you have any idea who I am?"
"Someone obviously admired for their sparkling personality and charm."
"Okay hon, the sarcasm is getting really old really fast." She deadpanned, the defensive tone gone from her voice.
"Sorry, old habits die hard."
"I am the most popular girl in school. Or…at least I used to be. The last thing I need is for everyone to find out I'm seeing the school psychologist because my parents think I'm nuts." Her eyes pleaded with me to understand, and suddenly I wasn't looking at this stuck up princess with a major attitude problem. I saw myself. Only a few months ago. Stuck in a bad place in life, with things I couldn't control, or explain happening around me. Sometimes no matter what you do, the crazy finds you. "So please, just…please don't tell anyone you saw me here." Her voice brought me back to the here and now, and I looked up and smiled at her. Probably the first genuine smile I'd given anyone since being in this new town.
"Well, I don't even know your name, so you don't have to worry about me." She smiled back at me, a little nervously, so I added "I know what it's like. To have everyone think you're crazy. It sucks. Your secret's safe with me."
"Lydia."
"What?" I asked, my eyebrows scrunching together.
"That's my name. Lydia Martin." She held out her hand to me and I took it, somewhat apprehensively. I'm not sure what I had done to earn a change of heart from a girl who didn't seem to accept many people into her life. But it seemed that she no longer wanted to maim and kill me anymore at least. I opened my mouth to speak when the door to the counselor's office swung open.
"Ryan Moore?" she called, looking at me. I stood up, picking up my bag from the floor.
"That would be my name."
"…Ryan? Isn't that a-"
"A boy's name, yeah." I nodded, walking backwards towards the woman I was expected to pour my heart and soul out to for the next twenty minutes.
"Hm. It has a certain je ne sais quois about it. I like it." She smiled as if please by her new discovery. "You'll see me later." She waved as I stepped into the office and took a seat in one of the leather chairs. The room looked like your typical high school office, inspirational posters lining the walls, a bookshelf here or there, picture frames arranged neatly at the front of the desk.
"So. Ryan. My name is Ms. Morrell. I wish we could have met on better circumstances." She smiled sympathetically at me as I wondered what a "good circumstance" to meet with a school psychologist could be. Did she mean "less tragic"? That seemed more appropriate. "Your parents called last week and informed us of some of the events, but I wanted to talk to you specifically about what happened." I narrowed my eyes at her, gripping the armrests a little harder than necessary.
"Are you gonna try and diagnose me too? Prescribe me some more pills? Can you even do that here?"
"Do you want me to do that?" She asked, her face as neutral as Switzerland itself. One of my favorite past times was reading people, seeing their emotions dance across their face, interpreting their body language. Not only did psychologists rarely give you anything to go off of, but they analyzed you instead. I didn't like having the tables turned.
"No." My gaze was hard, and I reminded myself not to break for this woman. They would not put me on more pills, they would not try and tell me I'm crazier than I already know I am.
"Then what do you want?"
"I don't…I don't know. The nightmares to stop? To stop having to see counselor after counselor? For everyone to stop looking at me like I'm a liability?"
"What do you mean by that?"
"I don't know, when people find out that sometimes I see and hear things that aren't really there, they label me as crazy. But then when they find out why, they look at me like I'm a kicked puppy. The reasons don't excuse the results."
"Is that why you don't tell people you're suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder?" Her tone is soothing, gentle almost. But I still flinch at the words.
"You can give it a name if you want to. But either way, no one chooses to be crazy. So I shouldn't be treated differently just because my circumstances are different than someone else's." I set my chin, staring at Ms. Morrell's shoes.
"That's an interesting way of looking at it. It sounds like you knew someone who suffered from your symptoms but who did not have PTSD. Is that true?" Her face flashes through my mind as if I had seen her fifteen minutes ago. The image is so clear I can almost reach out and touch her. The dark brown hair, the porcelain skin, the deep green eyes.
Blood, blood, blood, all covered in blood.