Chapter Two

I was up and down all night. I prayed every time before I looked at my clock that it would be eight in the morning. Each time, I was disappointed. When it reached 6 o’clock I finally gave up and just stayed awake. I wasn’t getting any rest anyways. Always just as tired as when I fell asleep. When it was finally time for them to open, I called right away.

They managed to get me in for that day. Thank God.

*~*~*~*~*

I walked into my psychiatrist’s office and sat down in one of the cushioned chairs she had in front of her desk. My leg bounced as I waited for her. I had bags beneath my eyes and I didn’t put on any makeup to cover it. I was never really one for makeup anyways. I only wore it on special occasions.

"It's been three months since your last visit, Ms. Baxton," a raspy, baritone voice said as a tall, middle-aged woman walked through the door of the small office I was in. The sound of heels clicking against the tile floor was the only sound heard as she waltzed over to her desk and sat down in the rolling chair. She crossed one leg over the other, leaned back, and folded her hands in her lap as she stared at me with cold blue eyes. She slowly examined me with those same eyes. “You look like a wreck.” She then leaned forward some and took off her glasses that were attached to a brown beaded necklace.

I glanced down to my Converse shoes. I couldn’t look her in the eyes right now. “Yes ma’am. I know,” I muttered.

“How have you been sleeping recently?” Her hands were folded on her lap right now. She had freshly done nails in a deep red, I noticed.

I looked back up from her nails and to her face. “Not well, Mrs. Baker,” I said. I was always honest with her. I wanted help which meant I was going to cooperate to get it.

"So, what's made you decide to come again after so long?" she asked. It wasn't said in a mean way, it was just blunt and straightforward. It was one of the reasons I actually quite appreciated her. There was no fake sympathy or decorated words with her.

I sat silent for a moment, rubbing my thumbs together nervously as I put my thoughts together. "It's gotten worse, Mrs. Baker. The wolf...I'm seeing it when I'm awake now. He even spoke to me..." I trailed off, raising my eyes to look at her after I was done talking. She had already put her wire framed glasses back on and started to type notes on the computer that was in front of her. Her dark red nails were clicking aggressively on the keyboard.

"Is this recent, or has this been going on for a while?" she asked, never looking away from the computer.

"The sightings while I was awake are recent...it just started happening last week. But, the dreams have been happening almost every night for almost a month now," I answered.

Again, more clicking could be heard from the keyboard. "Okay, Ms. Baxton. Have you been taking your Clozapine daily?"

I looked down as I spoke, "No ma'am..." I couldn't look her in the eyes, as I didn't have a good reason for not taking it other than I hated that I had to take it. A soft sigh was heard as the clicking stopped. She then took her glasses off once more to look at me, letting them dangle around her neck.

"Emelia, why haven't you been taking it?" her voice was concerned, and she continued to talk after the question. "Was it the side effects? Or is there another issue with the medicine?"

I shook my head. I took a breath before I looked up again to answer. "No, other than the dizziness, the side effects were manageable. I just..." I trailed off for a moment, before continuing to talk, "hate that when people find the medicine they treat me differently..." I admitted, finally.

The woman sighed softly again, her voice softening. When her voice was quieter, you could really hear the abuse of decades worth of cigarettes. "Lia, you have schizophrenia. You take antipsychotics to suppress your hallucinations. That's all there is to it. If your friends treat you differently, then they aren't really your friends," she said, keeping eye contact with me the entire time she spoke. My chest felt warm and I could feel my face heat up. I knew this already.

"I know, I know...but I have a hard enough time making friends..." I sighed. "This doesn't feel like my schizophrenia...it feels different from when I was a kid." I explained. There was no way all of this was in my head. Right?

The woman nodded, starting to type again on her computer. "Lia, when you heard the voice, did it sound like it was another person talking to you or like it was inside of your ear?" she asked. These were the routine questions for me.

"Inside of my ear. I had covered my ears to try and block it but I could still hear him clearly. It wasn’t like the crowd of people at all. It was way different," I answered, rubbing my thumbs together again. Of course, saying it all out loud it really did feel like I was a crazy woman. Click, click, click. Her fingers moved rapidly as she listened.

"Okay, and how would you describe it when you saw him?"

I froze for a moment. How would I describe it? "Well, the wind always blows when I see him...I get goosebumps and it's always in the trees. Like it's stalking me." I internally groaned. It really did just sound like my hallucinations again. It was hard to describe, but it just didn't feel the same. More clicking.

"Okay, I'm prescribing you a stronger dose of Clozapine. I'm sure the new hallucinations are caused by not taking your medicine like you should. Do you want me to send it to your usual pharmacy?" she asked. I nodded, feeling defeated.

She then stood up, walking over to me and placing one of her wrinkled hands on my shoulder. "Don't worry. I believe that you saw and heard everything you just described. I'm sure it's frightening seeing a hallucination after so many years of not seeing one. That's why I'm trying to help you. Do you have someone else who knows?"

I shook my head. I haven't even told Freya since I met her three years ago. "No..."

The woman nodded and spoke again, "Then you should probably tell someone. It helps if the person around you can confirm what's real and isn't real for you."

I silently nodded and stood up too. I looked up to her and gave a soft smile. "Thank you Mrs. Baker."

When I left the building, I pulled my phone out of my back pocket. I chewed on my bottom lip for a moment before I sent Freya a text.

Do you want to go get some lunch?

Not a moment later my phone dinged. It was Freya.

Absolutely! When and where?

*~*~*~*

I met up with Freya at the local café and waited for her in the parking lot. When I saw her walking my way, I started to walk towards her to meet her in the middle. Her curly hair was put up into a high ponytail held by a pastel blue scrunchy. The baby hairs framing her round face and natural colored makeup accentuated her soft features. Her dimples appeared deep into her cheeks when she saw me and walked over. "Mellie!" She stopped when she was next to me and once again craned her neck to look up at me. "Let's go inside! I'm starving," she said, her small hand grabbing my elbow and dragging me inside.

Freya was the energetic type. She was always bubbly and never met a stranger. It was one of the many things I loved about her. In fact, that's how she was three years ago, too. She was a freshman when I first met her. I was a sophomore. She boldly picked me out and asked me for directions to her classes and I was never able to shake her since. Even later that same day she had found me and started having a conversation with me like we were childhood friends.

Once we were inside, she found us a table to sit at that was tucked away into a corner. A waiter came and handed us menus and took our drink order before disappearing again. Freya began to look over the menu, softly humming to herself as she did.

I started to get a little nervous. The whole point of meeting up with her was to tell her about my schizophrenia. Would she start distancing herself from me? Would she call me crazy like all the rest in the past? Would she even believe me? I chewed on my bottom lip and hid my face behind the menu.

Of course, with her working on her English major to pursue journalism and being perceptive to every little detail, my nervousness was seen through. "So, are you gonna tell me what's on your mind or am I going to have to drag it out of you?" she asked, never looking away from her menu.

I froze for a moment and sighed. "I really can't keep much from you, can I?" I then set the menu down and took a deep breath. "This isn't something I just tell people, because most of the time it comes back to bite me in the ass," I started off, fiddling with my thumbs again.

Freya, seeing that it was something important, also set her menu down and gave me her full attention. Her emerald green eyes never looked away from me as she waited patiently for me to continue on. It felt like I was confessing my feelings to a middle school crush, my heart was racing inside of my chest and my palms were sweaty.

"I, uhm, when I was little, I was diagnosed with schizophrenia. I sometimes see and hear things that aren't really there..." I spoke quietly, my voice almost a whisper. I felt my cheeks heat up and I could tell I was blushing. In my twenty-two years of life, I had never told anyone directly about my disorder. It was always that they found out one way or another.

She was quiet for quite a few minutes. I started to get nervous and my thoughts started to run wild again. She doesn't believe me. She thinks I'm crazy, doesn't she? Is she trying to find a nice way of breaking me off? I looked away from her, unable to keep eye contact with her. Finally, she spoke, "Okay. So, what can I do to help?" Her voice was the same as ever.

I looked at her and my jaw almost hit the ground. "You- You...believe me?"

She laughed, her gap tooth appearing once more. "It's taken you three years to tell me something like this. If you were gonna tell me something because you were wanting attention, you would have done it around the time we first met. Of course I believe you."

I let out a sigh of relief as the pressure of anxiety lifted off of my chest. "Thank you, uhm, there's not much to do to help. My doctor said it would be good for someone to know so they could tell me what's real or not if I start having any hallucinations or anything..." I answered sheepishly. I picked my menu back up and started to look it over again.

Freya nodded and grinned as she simply replied, "noted." The twenty-one year old female also picked her menu back up and the rest of the lunch date went by like nothing had ever happened. I felt relieved. It was the first time someone still treated me the same after finding out about my disorder. I almost wanted to cry because I was so happy.

*~*~*~*

Once I got home, I set all my stuff down and pulled the newest prescription out of the pharmacy bag. I stared at the label and gave a defeated sigh. I made my way to the bathroom, grabbing the old bottle and flushing the pills down the toilet. It was something I had always wanted to do with them. Now though, I had new ones to replace them in the mirrored cabinet so it didn't bring me the satisfaction I wanted out of it. I closed the cabinet, looking at myself in the mirror for a long while. I had bags beneath my eyes from lack of sleep, my pale cheeks making the dark circles seem even darker. I looked away from the mirror and headed to the living room. There was a door that held a small storage closet beneath the stairs that I opened and pulled a box out of.

The box was full of photos of me when I was younger. I sat down with my legs crossed and pulled out stacks upon stacks of photo albums. I wasn't here for these. What I really wanted was the manilla envelope that was at the bottom of this box. The envelope that held my adoption folio. I finally was able to dig it out amongst the piles of albums, delicately opening the flap and pulling the contents out.

The pages inside were slightly yellowed, showing its age even though the ink on the paper was still legible. I was reading through the papers that described what I was like when I was three-years-old. They were things I read over thousands of times in the past in hopes I would remember something. Most of my memories from that time were gone, locked away in a little box somewhere in my mind. So, I tried to remember by reading these. It never worked, of course. When I realized once again I wasn't going to suddenly remember anything, I started to put the pages back into the envelope.

I pulled open the edges to easily put the pages in without causing any damage to them when something caught my eye. A photo I had never noticed before rested at the bottom of the envelope, hidden away in the dark crevices. I frowned softly, wondering how I had never noticed it before today. I reached my hand inside, gingerly pulling out the photo and flipping it over to look at it.

The photo was of me when I was about two or three years old. My light brown hair pulled up into pigtails. I was wearing a thin chain around my neck that had a small charm on it. I couldn't tell from the photo what the charm was, but it was circular. I smiled softly to myself as my fingers lightly traced over little me. That smile suddenly faded and fear crept into my heart when I noticed something else in that photo.

Next to me, stood a young boy I had no recollection of. He was a little older than me; he looked about six or seven. He had black hair that was messy from playing outside. His cheeks were dirty but he still had a large smile on his face as he had his arms wrapped around me in a big hug. He almost seemed like a big brother in a family photo. Except, that wasn't what caught my attention. What had caught my attention was the color of his eyes.

The boy next to me had bright, greenish-brown hazel eyes.