Child, if you do not fight, you will die.
“I’ll die anyway!”
Then save yourself.
“I can’t….I can’t!”I cry.
Scorching tears flood the corners of my eyes and spill back into my hair as they finally pin me.In unison, my demons and I howl as pain roots deep in my left thigh.Kate swats her claws and bares her teeth again.Liz shrieks while holding her face as if she took the brunt of the force.
Useless beings.They have invaded me for most of my life and suddenly they can’t—no, theywon’t—help.Kate kept me alive when my uncle strung me up like livestock.She even protected me at the hospital, from…Elias.
Elias.
“Elias!”His name’s a sob from lips too broken to beg anymore.The cavity my heart resides in barely holds it intact now as I fray into pieces.
“Please…please!Don’t…don’t let them put me under.S…save me from th…e d…dark.”
Shhhhhh, Sunshine.I’m here.I’ll always be here.
Chapter one
Sunshine
Twelverowsfromtheinstructor’s desk, podium, and chalk-smeared blackboard, where my classmates steer clear—I roost.I’m at the furthest point away with my back to the wall, where no one can dream of sneaking up on me.
It’s not that I don’t want people near me, because I do.It’s just…they don’t want anything to do with me.They’re annoying, too, always clicking their pens until I’m ready to snap their necks to make them stop.
Some girls chew on their ends or the caps, calling it self-soothing behavior before accidentally sucking ink into their mouths.They gag on the pigment and resins which makes me giggle—I like seeing them choke.
Then there are the gum chewers, the bro-types who sit on their phones with videos playing loud enough to hear without pissing off the professor, and the girls who spend most of the hour applying makeup and smacking their overly-glossed lips.All of them are neck-deep in their own worlds, wasting time on campus doing any and everything but classwork: fucking, getting high, going to jail, sleeping in, gaining weight.
What I’d give to be a normal burden on society like them.Instead of trips to my therapist, losing track of time, and waking up the oddest of places, I could be ordinary.
Late to class, boy crush, alcohol indigestion, no medication regimen, “is my period late?”kind of average.But I’m not; I’m so far from it, I might as well be in a different hemisphere or on a foreign planet.To function without going off the rails, I have to eat pills like I’m pouring them out of a Tic Tac container—God forbid I miss one.I have nothing to trade for normalcy and there’s not enough money in the world to buy it—therefore, it’s best I keep a little distance.
This is my favorite class: Psycho-pharmacology.The study of how moods, behavior, thinking and sensation are affected by medications and chemical elements.
I find it fascinating how drastically different the brain works when alternate substances, both illegal and legal, are introduced.It’s also interesting how one set of synthetic ingredients can have a complete opposite effect on two different patients with the same mental disturbances.Obviously, there are adverse reactions which may manifest such as a advanced psychosocial breakdown and deterioration of cognitive function—a separate interest of mine.On the opposite side of that spectrum is what all providers aim for:the improvement of life and functionality.
That’s the basics; what truly has me by the throat are the long-term effects for patients who have family histories of diagnosed psychological disorders and other minor mental health problems.For example, my mom.She has abandonment issues, family trauma, and sexual assault trauma—events that can shatter the mind.My uncle, on the other hand… There’s always been something wrong with him, from what Dad discovered in his super weird, half illegal, “I wish your uncle was dead” research.
Fuck, I hate calling him that.It makes my skin crawl knowing there’s blood relation between him and I—scum that spoils the ground he walks on.He’s delusional, hears voices, violent, awkward in social settings, and more.He and my mom couldn’t be more different in symptoms and treatment, despite having the same mother.Unfortunately, I’m in a similar boat—I’m a schizophrenic sociopath.My dad?He’s just as screwed up but he hides it better, using holistic methods to keep him out of a shrink’s office and smother the flashbacks I hear him shouting about at night.
This class hits like a semi-truck.I sit here a few times a week, trying to understand how patients react to medication while fighting the three nutcases living in my head.
There’s always been something wrong with me.My parents noticed it first but I was oblivious, believing the things I saw were fine and not abnormal.It became more noticeable when I’d ask other little girls in my class if they could see the blood-lady or the one with chains.They’d scream and run to our teachers to tattle, then they would call my parents.I felt so alone when no one would sit by me at the lunch table, seeing other kids swap their snacks, laugh and giggle.
The playground was the worst.I watched a few kids swing as high as they could, jump out of their seats, and fly like kites through the air before landing in the sand.One day, I wanted to do the same thing—fly—but when I landed, I hit the ground with a harsh huff.The boys laughed at me, girls snickered and ran away, and no one helped when blood-caked sand stuck to my hands and knees.
The scary ladies were always there.They never picked me up and dusted me off, gave me attention like Mother would or told me it was okay.They glared, waiting for me to get up.Their expectant silence weighed heavy on me until one day I stopped trying.I gave up hoping to make friends.No one would look at me when the scary ladies were there; it was like I stopped existing and it stung.
Did I tell you I was adopted?I mean, I’m with my biological parents now—when I’m not on campus—but I was adopted at birth.I was their perfect baby, fresh out of the womb, still had the white stuff on me and my birth mom’s blood.Smelling like amniotic fluid and a clean soul.They took me home, gave me everything they thought I needed, and made sure I was taken care of.All until the lady in black showed up—the day I changed forever.
The memory’s vivid: it was warm outside as the sun beamed through the trees, leaving dappled shadows all over the ground.I was trying to catch the rays while twirling around in my pinkest dress, lined with white flowers and the tiniest sparkles in the center.Mother and I were at the park by our house, one a bit more modest than what I live in now, playing in the late springtime air.The dirt had dried just enough that when I whirled around, it dusted my toes through the pale-yellow straps of my sandals, matching the muted color of my hair.
Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I can still hear the other kids there.They ran all over the place, screaming with joy and excitement while dodging swings, leaping off of the merry-go-round, and running up the hot metal slide.I wondered why they wouldn’t go down it the normal way but I found out quickly.Climbing to the top, I sat down and felt the burning sear on the back of my legs and my bottom as I went down.Mother rushed to me, picked me up from the dirt at the base of the slide when I started to scream.It hurt so bad, my skin turned red and took forever to cool down despite the shade.
I haven’t touched a slide since.The merry-go-round made me feel nauseous, I couldn’t hold my weight up on the monkey bars, and didn’t understand the concept of hide and seek.So, I played alone.I spun around and around, hoping to catch the light and beamed into the sky like a UFO, coming up with what I thought their language would sound like, then the next thing I knew, I could hear it.