“I don’t think you’re helping.” I reached over and took his shot without looking up at him. I wasn’t supposed to drink much on my medication. I rarely had more than half a glass of wine when I did indulge. It was depression that drove me to swallow the fiery liquid, and depression that shrugged at my brain when it told me that was a dumb move. Shut up, Brain. “It’s not that. Von’s my friend. I tell him stuff. I trust him with secrets none of these people know. I don’t care that he’s with Katrina. I care that he sold me up the river in front of the guys just for a laugh. It’s like he wanted me to know for sure he wasn’t into me, as if that wasn’t clear already.”
Danny eyed the empty glass in my hand. “That’s rough. It’s how Von is, though. You think you know who he is, and then he turns into something else.” He lowered his voice. “Von’s self-control won’t last forever. One temptation could push him over the edge, and then he’s gone. He knows he’s temporary, and you’ve got permanence written all over your face.”
“Is that supposed to be a compliment?”
“I think so.”
I stacked the shot glasses, too despondent to respond. “I’m going to turn in. I’m tired.”
“Want me to kick everyone out? This doesn’t seem like your scene.”
“Why would you say that?” I asked, my smile so forced, it could barely be classified as such. “It’s almost like you’re implying that my friends have no idea who I am and don’t give a crap about me, so long as I let them play and drink as long as they like here.”
I didn’t expect sympathy from Danny, but I got it in the form of a softened expression and an awkward pat on the back that I’m guessing he thought meant, “I get it, kid.” He took the glasses from me. “I’ll take care of it, and send them all home.”
“Don’t bother. I’m going to bed. If I cared, I’d do something about it.”
“No, you wouldn’t. It’s like you’re afraid to take up space in your own life.”
I stood, not wanting Danny to be the calm, wise one in the conversation. “Goodnight, Danny. Thanks for the drinks.”
“Don’t mention it, kid.”
Kid.
I poured myself a cup of Gabby’s punch that I usually didn’t take more than a sip of. This time I added rum to my cup and downed the glass as quick as the harsh burn would allow.
I hadn’t seen Von, and hoped he had already left with Katrina, who was also gone. I made my way to my bedroom, visible to my friends but somehow still invisible. I was miserable, and no one was a safe enough place for me to talk to about it, except maybe Ollie, who was dancing with Gabby in the living room. Her eighties hair band music blasted through the house, and she had a genuine smile on her face when she beamed up at my brother.
I was ready to discard a portion of my bad day and chalk it up to “things I should’ve known better”, but a noise was coming from my bedroom.
My bedroom was off-limits. It was the universal rule. I had white carpet I didn’t allow shoes on. I had a bed that was made perfectly, and I didn’t want dirty coats thrown atop it. It was my safe place.
I slowly opened the door to my room and stumbled back in horror, my hand over my mouth to muffle my noise of distress. Von and Katrina hadn’t made it home, but they’d made themselves at home in my room. Katrina’s gold blouse was unbuttoned, and Von’s hands were having a field day in the land of her comfortable D-cups. His shirt had been strewn on the floor in a fit of passion. He was sitting on my bed, as if it was the perfect place for a solid run to second base.
They looked up at my entrance, Katrina giggling and moving off of straddling Von’s lap to button up her halter. “Sorry, Bait. We’ll take it to my place. I know you don’t like people in your room.”
It was my one rule. I had one rule.
I looked at Von, who was doing his best to act like nothing was wrong at all with him making out with a woman on my bed. In my room. Her shoes on my white carpet. His drink on the nightstand. I didn’t let food or drinks into my room. I don’t care if that’s weird, it’s my room. It’s my one safe place where I can be weird. It’s allowed because it’s my room. Everything in the world is messy, but knowing that there’s one place that’s clean and mine helps me get through all the times where I can’t wash my hands three times, like I need to. The room tilted as the alcohol picked an inopportune time to hit me, but I held steady as I clutched the doorjamb.
“Get out,” I whispered. “This is my room.” It wasn’t a statement; it was a plea for Von to break out of his jackhole mindset and care enough to realize how much this hurt me.
“Alright, alright. Come on, Von. We’re going, Bait. Don’t worry. You tired, kid?”
“Yeah. See ya.” I kept my gaze fixed on my bed as Von stood with decidedly less bravado, zipping up his jeans. There were germs crawling all over the sheets now. I could feel them taking up space and crowding me out of my own room. They had to go. I moved to my bed and took off the top sheet, throwing it onto the white comforter with blue stitching they had kicked to the floor. Like, onto the floor. I started at the corner, untucking my blue fitted sheet from the mattress and balling it up with clumsy fingers to be washed.
“Give us a minute, Katrina. I’ll meet you at your car.” Von closed the door, shutting out the loud noise, Ollie’s friends and his own BS with slumped shoulders. “That was out of line. I shouldn’t have brought Katrina in here. It’s your room. My fault.”
I didn’t say anything. Really, what was there to say? I took off the mattress pad and then picked up my pillow, but Von snatched it from me before I could remove the pillowcase.
“Would you stop a second? I said I was sorry. Out there at the poker game, I took it too far, yeah? You were all busting on each other, and I thought we were just joking around.”
“My body is not a joke!” I yanked the pillow back and tried to pry off the pillowcase with fumbling hands that couldn’t find the upside of anything at the moment. Stupid Danny with his stupid shots.
“You’re right. I was a jerk. Complete wanker.”
“Beto doesn’t know what my thighs look like, and I didn’t want him to ever know. I didn’t trust him enough to show him the ugly parts of my body, but I trusted you! Like an idiot, I trusted you.”
“Hey, I love your thighs,” he said sweetly, his eyes going back to the compassionate ones that had shared secrets with me too many nights to count. “No part of your body is ugly.”
I bashed him over the head with my pillow. “Shut up! You don’t get to comment on my thighs or my scars or any of it. I don’t care what you think. Go be with Katrina. She’s perfect! I’ve seen her in a bikini, and she doesn’t has a single smark on her. Enjoy.” The alcohol had turned on me and jumbled my words, proving that neither Von nor rum were my friends.
Von’s voice was even, which made me even more frustrated. “I have every right to go back to Katrina’s place.”
“Did I stutter? That’s what I just said!”
“Then why are you acting like I’m cheating on you? Ollie scared the daylights out of me with his intentions speech. We’re just friends, October. Nothing more.”
I pretended to cry dramatically and then shouted, “Fine by me! And you know, I’ve got a whole roomful of friends out there who know next to nothing about me, except how much I love my bedroom and need it to be mine. You’re s’posed to know me the best, and you did this?” The room tilted, but I was able to blink gravity back into its proper place. “You called her ‘Peach’!” I shouted mournfully, hating myself for admitting to him that he’d sliced my vulnerable spot.
“I said I was sorry! Jeez! Overreact much?” He exhaled loudly at the fact that I was still wrestling with the same pillow, and jerked it out of my hands. “Let me do that. I wouldn’t want you sleeping in germs. Who knows what kind of amoebas and STDs Katrina and I spread all over your precious sanctuary.”
“You don’t get to look down on me for this! I earned a clean room! I earned the right to go to sleep in a place I feel s
afe.” My heart was pounding, and I could hear the rush of blood pumping in my ears. The alcohol was hitting me harder than I anticipated. “I bought this house with money I worked for! I lived in garbage before this! I don’t have to sexplain myshelf to you,” I slurred, stumbling over my words.
“Yes, you have the right to be crazy. Well spotted.”
It was a well-aimed slap in the face from him, smarting where I was exposed. “I’m not crazy! Gimme that.” I snatched the pillow back.
“I said I would do it!” Von grabbed the pillow and ripped it out of my stubborn hands, reeling backward as he fought to regain his balance.
It happened too quickly, but somehow I saw it all in slow motion. The pillow flung backward, Von’s arm reaching back longer than either of us anticipated. The edge of the pillow brushed the glass of rum and coke Von had poured himself and brought into my room. The room he knew I didn’t allow drinks in. The beverage started to tip, and I couldn’t get there in time. My entire life crashed in time with the cup as it toppled off the stand and soaked my pure white carpet.
The world stopped spinning, and all I saw was the brown taking over my life. The garbage had found me, no matter how hard I tried to make myself clean.
34
I’m not Crazy
Von’s hand over his mouth and mumbled apology did nothing. It was ruined. My perfect room I’d waited and worked my whole life for was ruined. The brown splatter soaked into the pure white carpet, dying it permanently and murdering my safe place.
I rounded the bed and dropped to my knees in front of the stain. My tears broke loose and fell over my hand. I tried to stuff my sobs back into my body so I didn’t have a meltdown in front of Von, who stood there like an oaf.
It was broken. It was all broken. All the walking through a world of mud, and then a country of dirt, and sleeping on the ground was okay because this room was untouched. I didn’t have to worry about this one space in my world, and now it was gone. Everything solid would be forever shattered if I didn’t have this one place to take me in, to make sense to me. Now it was gone, and I felt gone with it.
Von fell to his knees beside me and wrapped his arms around my body. He tried to still the rocking I hadn’t realized I was doing. “I’ll fix it. I’ll get the stain out. It’ll be alright, love. I’ll make it better.”
I couldn’t hear him enough to understand his words. I could barely think, and as the panic set in and tightened my chest, I could hardly breathe. I felt him pulling stress off me in waves, but it was only a drop in the bucket.
He’d called me crazy, and I was.
I screamed through my hyperventilation and bashed my forehead to the wooden nightstand over and over, holding myself as I cried out my pain. Von promised me all the ways the world would be right again, but he was wrong. The world was broken and stained, and no matter how hard I tried, I didn’t fit in anywhere. I had no safe place, no haven that would have me no matter what my mental state turned out to be.
I was crazy, and crazy people always ended up alone.
I don’t know how Mason heard me through the music and the animated chatting, but he ran into the room amid Von’s nervous cussing and my panicked gasps for air. My esophagus felt like it was collapsing in on itself, and I couldn’t get a full breath. I frantically tried to tear off the bandages on my arms to rip at the skin that burned with an unquenchable itch beneath. Von kept switching between holding me tight to stop me from hurting myself, and releasing me to try to calm my breathing. “Get Ollie!” Von cried, frantic. “I can’t calm her down!”
When Mason came back with Danny, Ollie followed in on his heels. “What happened?” Ollie demanded. Then he came closer and saw the horror on the carpet. “Oh, no. Shit. Oh, shit.” He grabbed at his hair, his eyes darting around as he went into Superman mode. “Danny, Mason clear everyone out of here, but keep the music blasting until they’re all gone. This second. Party’s over. No one sees my sister like this. Not even Gabby.” They were good soldiers and obeyed without hesitation or question. Ollie dropped to his knees, pushing Von out of the way so he could turn me to block my line of vision, shielding me from the stain. “October? Can you hear me?”
When my brother’s face filled my scattered gaze, my panic finally had a place to put itself. I pawed at his shirt with desperation and fought through my hyperventilation to tell him the awful thing that happened to my perfect place. “The carpet! All of it… It’s ruined!”
Ollie’s face was stern and simultaneously kind. He was in control when I was spinning. “Who am I?”
I couldn’t get in a breath to gather up an answer.
“I’m your brother. I can fix anything. You don’t have to think about this at all, because I’m here. I’m right here, and it’s going to be okay. Who’s always taken care of you?”
I wanted to answer him, but my lips felt fuzzy and clumsy, and I couldn’t find the oxygen to form words. I tore at my skin like a rabid animal as I sobbed incoherently.
“No, no,” he scolded gently, wrapping his arms around me. “Don’t hurt yourself.” All the things I couldn’t reconcile threw themselves at me, and I couldn’t hold up my end of the fight anymore. I was lost, and didn’t want to be found in the mess. “October!” Ollie shouted, and I realized he’d been talking to me for who knows how long, and I hadn’t heard a word.
Danny came back, his eyes wide as he tried to keep up. “What can I do?”
“Hold her down so she doesn’t hurt herself,” Ollie instructed. “She’s got medicine for when this happens, but I have to find it. It might take me a few minutes. Is everyone gone?”
“Mason’s clearing out the last of them. How do I…”
“Like a strait jacket. Hold her from behind, or she’ll break loose. She’s a fighter, and she doesn’t trust you.”
I felt Danny slide onto the ground behind me, sandwiching me in with Ollie. I panicked at the claustrophobia and started to buck to break loose from the double hold. “What? Wait! No, Ollie! No! Don’t get the medicine!” I begged, tears streaming down my face as I bucked in Danny’s and Ollie’s arms. I was on my knees, so I couldn’t get much momentum. “No! I’m all better! I’m better! The doctor said I was better!”
“I know, sweetie, but you’re not as better as you need to be. I love you. I’ll be right back.” Ollie stopped short before he let go of me, his forearms tightening. “Judge? Man, I don’t know what you’re doing here, but you’ve got to leave.”
Hot tears of shame and panic raced down my face. Of all people, I didn’t want my friendly arch-nemesis to see me like this. I didn’t want Judge to see the mess I was. “No! No, no, no! Don’t let Judge see the carpet!”
“What’s wrong? She sounded strange on the phone, so I came over to make sure everything was alright.” He rolled up his sleeves as he stood in the doorway of my bedroom. “What do you need?”
“I need you stay on the porch and make sure no one comes back inside. October’s sick, and I need to handle it.”
“I’m not sick! It’s the carpet that’s wrong! I’m fine! I’m fine!” I shouted, my face red as I struggled to free myself.
Ollie let go, and Danny secured his arms around me from behind, bending my arms so I had to hug myself. His knees enclosed around mine as he pulled my back tight to his chest, his chin positioned just above my shoulder. “No! No! Help! I’m not crazy! I’m not crazy! I can be normal! I can do better!” When I couldn’t break free of Danny’s grip, I let out a horrible scream that scared even me.
Danny was trying to keep his voice calm, but I couldn’t make out a word of it through my gulping sobs. I was in a world unto myself, and not even Von kneeling in front of me where Ollie had been gave me any sort of peace. I couldn’t stop the pain that roiled inside my helter-skelter brain. He cupped my face to keep my head from thrashing, and I felt his stream of pulling trying to force me to come down from the anxiety I knew I’d never escape. I felt the layers of stress leave me, but the only dent it made was that I wasn’t hyperve
ntilating as much, so I had more air to scream with.
Mason ran into the room. “Bliss her out, Von! Move! I’ll do it if you don’t. What even happened?”
Von and Danny exchanged wary glances. Then Von finally looked into my unfocused eyes and nodded. “I’m going to pull a little harder this time, hani. It’ll all be okay soon.”
“It was perfect, but now it’s broken,” I choked out.
“Move, Von,” Ollie ordered before more than a few waves of calm were shot through me. Ollie shoved Von out of the way and took the cap off the needle I dreaded.
“No, Ollie! I’m all better! I can do better! It’s the carpet that’s broken, not me! I don’t want the medicine! I’m normal!” I sobbed, barely able to see him through my haze of tears that felt never ending. Judge came back into the room, following Ollie’s lead. He knelt at my side and coiled his arms around me, helping Danny hold me still. I’d needed him so many times throughout the years. To have him come back right now felt like karmic payback for all my sins. “Don’t do it! Don’t do it!”
Judge’s deep voice was the home I’d been ripped from, but never stopped needing. “I’ve got you, baby girl. I’m right here.”
Before I could figure out a way to break free from Danny and Judge, Ollie shouted, “Hold her still!” and jammed the needle into the outer flesh of my thigh.
The drugs were quick, pushing an ocean of nothing atop me. It wasn’t panic. It wasn’t peace. It was nothing. The stain on my carpet was nothing. Ollie shouting down at me as I was lowered to the ground like a limp noodle was nothing.
I finally wasn’t crazy.
I was nothing.
35
Scaring People with my Crazy
My dreams were choppy, moving in and out of focus like a broken record that was determined to get through an entire song. Philip’s face finally found me in the chaos of the mishmash of scattered landscapes and stuttering colors. He centered me to the earth when he put his hands on my cheeks. “Why is everything like this?” he asked loudly to compensate for the vacillating reality that kept shedding light on us, only to take it away a few seconds later.
Tempt (Terraway Book 4) Page 19