All in my Mind

XXX.

Why don't I just tell you what I did then? It's about time, isn't it? Time for the details?

I was cold.

It wasn't winter by the way. It was September. The temperature was 69 degrees exactly outside. I know this because I checked the thermostat atleast every 15 minutes for a while. I was also sweating. That tended to happen when I was pacing like that. I was pacing like that a lot. The dog hated it.

Another key detail: I wasn't alone. You remember the girl right? The key thing was that I was cold and I was pacing and the girl was there. She was not helping.

"Maybe you're going to freeze to death," she suggested.

She suggested that a million times. It was a pervasive and scary statement. She didn't need to say something like that to me. I really didn't understand why she'd do that. She'd been so quiet and kind before. She'd been helpful. Maybe her suggestions had been dangerous, but at least I hadn't felt like she was intentionally trying to hurt me.

I didn't know why Addison would act like this. I didn't even feel like she was Addison anymore. The people at the hospital had suggested that maybe the ghost or the demonic being or whatever she was wasn't actually my friend. I knew that was true. I knew she was a chemical reaction in my brain gone wrong. I knew she was just "the girl." I knew that.

I knew.

But when my mom had asked me if I was okay to be alone for a few hours, I'd said yes even though I'd been seeing flashes of her in the corner of the room all day. I said it even though we both knew I'd given up on all the meds again. She was willing to believe me because I hadn't tried to hurt myself since before the last hospitalization, and I hadn't had more than a few panic attacks throughout the summer. Never mind the fact that my dog hadn't seen more than our culdesac on short walks and quick trips to the pharmacy to refill pills I wasn't taking since sometime in May. That just made me feel guilty.

My mom did have another child though. Emily was newly healthy and it wasn't fair to keep her cooped inside away from the world just because I wasn't able to go. Emily deserved that. She had already missed enough of her life being sick.

Things between Emily and I were strained. It was my fault. As a side effect of slowly going nuts, I'd become a very bad brother. She'd been behind in school for years because of her illness, and summers were where she did the bulk of her catching up. Except I refused to help that summer. I was too busy wallowing in my room thinking about how miserable I was. I didn't have the patience to communicate. I was refusing to sign when speaking to her, instead letting her stare at me confused as mumbled responses got lost in the air. I feel the most guilt about that. What kind of asshole does that to a deaf child? Honestly? I think even Hoggle was starting to give me dirty looks for my complete disregard.

In my defense, I think I was jealous of her. In my head, I thought I imagined I'd rather hear nothing instead of the whispers that followed my every move. It was like I had a ghostly choir in my head serenading every step I made. Every thought echoed. The random gunshots were especially hard to ignore.

So the day they left to go to a movie, I was cold. My mom gave me a quick hug. My sister gave me a dirty look that I deserved even though the night before she'd left a poorly decorated cupcake on my nightstand as a peace offering that I ignored. Then I was alone with the girl that definitely wasn't my dead best friend... and Hoggle.

And the boy. He was there too, and I think he was maybe part of why I was letting it all get so distressing because where the fuck had he come from? I was almost more upset to see him than I was to see her, even though she was being objectively mean and he seemed to be the nice one.