Chapter 3
“You better get your act together young lady?!” My mom screamed up the stairs as did the classic teenager act of slamming my bedroom door shut. The pictures on the wall shuddered. I only listened for a few seconds as my dad tried to calm my mom down before I paced over and threw myself on my bed.
I need fresh air, I thought as I reached over, unlatched the window lock, and forced it open with some effort. The cool, late summer breeze swept across my face with its arms of comfort that would embrace anyone, whether you were on the top of the world the scum of the earth, which is pretty much how I felt right now.
I wasn’t upset about getting punished, because I deserved it. I was angry with myself for doing nothing but making mistakes and make my parents regret adopting me. No wonder my birth parents didn’t want me.
Without warning a wave of pain came at me head on and immediately I gripped the edges of my pillow with unnecessary force, fighting the tears as I buried my head into the goose feathers. My diaphragm was so tight it felt as though any second one of my ribs would give to the pressure there by causing me physical pain as well. But I fought it, and after some time I won. Slowly but surely my chest relaxed and I could breathe again as my tired hands released their death grip on my pillowcase, the seams relieved of the stress. And more importantly my eyes were dry.
As I lifted my head up and a cool breeze laced its fingers through my hair, my conscious started trying to console me.
Well things have been worse, it started saying. But then again how would you know since you went into a coma and when you woke up didn’t remember anyone or anything other than your name.
I shook my head and it drop into my pillow again.
Sorry, it said. Waking up some old wounds, am I?
“It’s fine,” I said out loud, and then blinked when I realized I was talking to myself aloud. Just a tad strange.
Not sure how to cope with the thought that I may indeed have an actual problem I turned my head to the side and breathed out slowly, closed my eyes, and hoped that shutting down my mind for a while would help clear it of the obviously stress related self talks.
You can’t just run away from things like that. The voice sounded patronizing.
My eyes popped open. Here was when I seriously began to wonder if I was okay. I sat up and forced my brain to focus on the most random things, just to see if I was capable. I thought of how A=B and B=C then A=C and other things of the sort and when I concluded to the fact that my brain functions worked just fine I wondered if this whole time I had been asleep and it was all part of a dream. Even though I wasn’t really that enthusiastic about it, I analyzed the voice in my head. It wasn’t audible, no more than a thought in your head might be, and it didn’t sound like a man or a woman. Perhaps it all was a dream.
Apparently I had been sitting on my bed and thinking about this for over an hour because the next thing I know my dad is knocking on my bedroom door and telling me dinner was ready. I peered over at the clock that read 5:07. At first I questioned my eyes rather the clock. And just to make sure I wasn’t going dyslexic I wrote out my phone number. It looked normal. It was only until I had spent so much time questioning my sanity and my mom yelled for me did I settle on the fact that maybe it was the clock that was wrong, not me. That or maybe it was right and I had in fact spent over an hour on my bed diagnosing myself.
“What was taking you so long?” My mom asked impatiently as she cut a piece of bread in two and gave the small half to my brother Dominic.
“Sorry,” I said, trying to act normal, when in reality I had slid so far beyond paranoid that I don’t think I could have sat in a courtroom and not pleaded guilty. The strange thing was, or should I say one of the strange things, was that I didn’t even know why I felt this way. It wasn’t like they could hear my thoughts and realize I was having a mental crisis right now. I made sure to keep my voice controlled and level as I continued. “I was just going through my schedule for tomorrow in my head and didn’t know if I was missing something?” I bit my tongue when I heard the question on the end. But it sounded like a normal thing to say, right?
My mom raised her eyebrow. “Okaaaay,” she said slowly. “Well next time write it down or something because we need to talk.”
I didn’t look at her as I pushed my spaghetti around with my fork. I already knew what we were going to talk about and debated with myself if I should to tell the truth and provoke their anger or tell them what they wanted to hear so they’d be appeased. Neither of the two options sounded much better than the other.
“Your mom and I are worried, Ashe,” my dad said, his voice bring a sweet relief to the unsteady silence.
I felt a surge of frustration pass over me, zipping to my tongue which was locked and loaded within an instant, but I abstained from lashing out only because it was my dad who was always the more compassionate of the two.
“Your teacher says this is becoming a severe issue that needs to be addressed,” My mom said, repeating the words that Mr. Crock undoubtedly left on the answering machine in her office. It was like he was using her as a doll and speaking through her. “And I have to say I agree with him.”
“So you think I’m nutty too?” I asked, not really caring that I may have let the bitterness slid off my tongue.
“Of course not!” my dad chimed in. “We just—”
“I didn’t ask you, dad!” I snapped, feeling the ball of pressure finally caving to the stress and exploding. “I asked her!” I whipped my head around to my mom.
“Hey now, don’t get all upset,” she said, putting down her fork. “No I don’t think you’re nuts but I do think that, well, when you went into that coma that wiped out your memory I think it may have also slightly impaired some other of your brain functions.”
I felt my mouth fall open, so much so it put strenuous pain on my jaw.
“I’m not calling you mentally retarded or anything,” she explained, reading my face which was all too much an open book. “I’m just saying that there’s a possibility that maybe your ability to cope with real life situations is…lacking.” I could see in her eyes that she truly thought she was right.
“You have got to be joking,” I said before I had time to think about it. “I’m done.” I threw down my fork noisily on my plate that was half full as my parents looked at me in shock. Dominic appeared unnerved. Before they could have time to react I got up and practically tossed my plate in the sink, completely disregarding the crashing sound.
When I passed under the kitchen arch I heard my dad call, “Ashe!”
I almost stopped where I was because I was totally caught off guard: he didn’t sound angry…he sounded concerned. Before I got too wound up in the always wavering emotions I shook it off and continued pacing to the stairs, skipping steps as I ran up to my room.
Once I was in the confines of my room, the lavender walls unbearably quite, an idiotic feeling thrashed my ego as I realized I had just proven their point. It felt so stupid it seemed to affect every part of me; I could barely move. I stood there, with my back against the door, facing a looming dread of having to return to my previous train of thought, not having the luxury of being distracted by other people and their petty discrepancies. I started to wish I had never stormed out of the conversation now for several reasons, not just one. What a humiliating fact; a fact that slapped me in the face a good number of times before I became conscious enough to take those few steps to my bed and fall face down into the plush comforter.
The light outside was slowly dying; I knew this not because I was looking out the window, I actually hadn’t moved from my face down position, but the dusty light reflected off the buildings across the street and became a soft glow in my room.
My ever thinking, ever questioning, ever battling mind seemed to have either taken pity on me or was just plain tired, because it was merciful enough to allow me have a moment’s peace for once in what felt like ages. It was then, instead of worrying what was going on upstairs in my brain, I got to acknowledge the primitive aches and stains of my body. It was like the mental vacation of a lifetime.
My eyes felt heavy — I was tired. My stomach growled — I was hungry. And…the base of my skull hurt? That was weird, I don’t know what was causing that. Maybe all the strain my poor brain has had to deal with lately?
I didn’t think much of it. To be honest I was too worn-out to worry about it. Turning over on my back I massaged the tender spot as the light breeze swept over my face, ruffling my hair and freeing strands of my bangs that stuck to my forehead.
I closed my eyes and realized for the first time how dry they were. Closing them felt nice. Taking deep breaths, I sort of began to doze off. When I could sleep I could just relax, not worry, not care.
In my drowsy state I became vaguely aware of my conscious in the back of my mind. It wasn’t talking, just sitting there, observing. It was a strange feeling, the wall that seemed to separate me from an abstract form of my imagination in the very recesses of my brain. The constant whispering of thoughts that didn’t seem to flow directly from me but indirectly from a hidden source were always echoing in the white noise of the background, never really paid attention to. Until now.
Why? Of all times and of all places, why now? I was already having enough problems with the world and practically everyone in it. Being mentally unstable wasn’t exactly what I meant when I asked for a miracle.
“Beggars can’t be choosers.”
I opened my mouth, about to concur, when my eyes flew open and my jaw snapped shut. That voice hadn’t come from me.
