All in my Mind

XXVI.

I don't think I talk about my feelings very well, so let's talk feelings.

It felt like someone had dug a hole into my chest. I don't mean that metaphorically. I mean that if you told me I was being reduced to blood and guts and gaping bleeding chest wounds, I'd believe it. It felt like I was being tortured beyond repair. It felt like it was a real festering thing sitting open and raw across my sternum.

I don't know how people recover from it. I genuinely don't understand. Am I just incredibly weak? Was it because my brain was already turning soupy when the trigger event hit? Why do some people adjust and others melt?

Parker was mad at me for how I disappeared by the way. It's my understanding that he was sitting in a classroom on the opposite side of the school. I heard they could hear bangs over there, but that nobody was having to witness the massacre. He didn't have the same experience that day that I did, and I don't blame him at all for that part. It's not his fault he didn't suffer like that, but it means he just didn't understand it.

So when I didn't come back to school, and when I turned my phone off, and when he really just never saw me again, he was upset. Addison was his best friend too. He'd lost a best friend too, and then I'd abandoned him. I think that's why he showed up at the community college looking for me.

I had a particular challenge with that though. I had only been speaking to a secluded group of people. I refused to go to the therapy that my mom set up, and so my communication was limited to my mom, Emily, and chats after class with Ozzy. That meant I had no idea how out of touch I'd become. My conversations were circular and dark and confusing and I barely registered it.

When Parker showed up, I really tried for him. He might not have realized how hard I was trying.

"Hey asshole," he'd called when he saw me walk out of the building. That was a term of endearment for him, I think.

I'd responded by looking up in alarm as if he were liable to viscously attack me. I didn't like being yelled at and walking around the wide open college campus already made me nervous.

Then I saw him, and I wish I'd been able to relax at that, but I hadn't.

Parker walked right up to me infront of the school building I'd just exited and gave me a rather aggressive hug, which made me tense up badly. I didn't hug him back.

"Where have you been?" He was demanding. "What happened man? You haven't returned my texts in months and nobodies heard from you!"

I just nodded along like that was somehow an answer. With one hand I was aggressively ripping apart a cuticle like it would help. Mostly, I was counting cars as they drove by and trying hard not to look as sick as I felt.

"Alexander," Parker had pressed.

So I looked up at him and tried to feel normal. I tried to think of the most normal thing to say. I really fucking tried.

"I've just been sleeping," I said, which was actually true because... well, lithium.

"You've been sleeping," Parker repeated. I didn't know exactly how to describe it at the time, but now I know that Parker was in slight disbelief over an answer like that. "You dropped out of highschool and didn't ever contact anyone ever again, so that you could sleep?"

I said, "I didn't drop out."

Because I didn't. I'm not a highschool drop out. My diploma came in the mail. My transcript said I had all A's. My mom said the enrollment person at the community college had been very confused about why my excellent transcripts were being applied to junior school instead of a university.