CHAPTER NINETEEN: INSANE

I'm like a druggie. And he's my drug. Can it last? Or is it, like any addiction, doomed to consume me, body and soul?
-Melanie A. Smith

People aren't as simple as we think. 

People adore addicts though, for being just as simple as we seem. They fill warnings with stories of us, and tell people how not to become us. They define themselves by not being us. 

You know what an addict is? 

Hopelessness. 

Hopelessness and greed. 

Addicts are guilt in a packaged form. 

Addicts force regular people to be smarter, to make better decisions, to be better. People are better than addictions. 

They pick the strongest addictions from the weak and they make a wall between us and on that border wall a sign reads "You'll never be this bad. Get over it." and it makes some people bury themselves under the bricks the addicts on the other side knock down in an attempt to escape -to be worse in the only way they know how. Even as people curse us addictions, they admire us. Seek to become us, in some ways. 

You've never seen a TV show about normal people, but there's hundreds that have addiction spread across the screen. 

There are much, much more complicated things to be in life than an addict. 

But it can't get worse than a person, I've discovered.

"I know it's silly but I can't sleep." I confess to Jem. "She's keeping me up, memories of her anyway. And she's living in my safe space. She's here and neither my body or mind know how to handle how wrong that feels. I want to do something and my mind's not letting me do it and just...I want to scream. And do something. But I don't know what it is, which is one of the reasons I should scream. Just scream. At the top of my lungs."

We're on the roof, it would be easy, and nobody would hear.

"Why don't you?"

"Because it wouldn't be productive, but I'm not being productive anyway and I want to do something useful but I'm not useful," Now I could cry. "And I've just been sitting in my office and listening to the same song over and over again."

Trying to nap this feeling off didn't work, because I couldn't keep my eyes closed for five seconds without catching myself staring at the wall, not knowing when I opened my eyes.

He's silent now, just letting me rant but his hazel eyes of never leave me.

It's been almost a month since Kace and Micah have left, I get to see my friend in two weeks but I have no clue when the demon will make another appearance.

While their absence hit me like a truck of hurt, making a rather large hole in my heart that they're supposed to be, she keeps trying to find ways to be around me.

She shows up when I'm with the girls doing something or playing board games with Willy and Sam. For the most part I ignore her, then run away and have a panic attack. When me and Zach got to talking, she joined the conversation. I walked away, so she grabbed my wrist.

Flinching, I pulled myself out of her grip so hard that she scratched me.

I bled.

My life is wrong.

It's wrong and I'm not quite sure how to make it feel right again. Jem is helping, so are all the residents that I'm still helping. So are my cats.

I miss losing chess games. I miss getting my ass kicked in a fight. I miss walking in to see Kace sprawled out like a cat reading. I miss Micah racing me on the track and winning every time.

I miss them.

And I hate it.

Knowing that Micah will come back, that he promised to, helps. But there's no way to know if he actually will be allowed to get enrolled at my school.

Or if Kace will show up.

If they've forgotten about me, if they want to.

It makes me sick, nearly physically sick, to think this might be how Savannah felt when I left her. When I stopped answering calls and texts, when I cut off communication. If me blocking her and deleting my social media hurt like not laughing with Kace. If me telling my parents not to let her come around, even for the holidays hurts like not having flour fights with Micah whenever he bakes.

I find myself feeling bad for her.

Feeling guilt.

Shame.

Like I am simultaneously doing something bad and becoming somebody worse.

"I feel so overwhelmingly broken." These words surprise even me, but with one look at my best friend has me sliding down against the ledge, holding myself as my mouth opens to say something- -to scream- -but nothing comes out.

I am broken.

As humans we don't die silently. We die screaming, crying. We don't go without a fight.

As addicts when our human side dies our mouths are covered and our hurt is silent.

Humans die and addictions take their place.

Addictions are quiet.

Drugs don't talk back.

Humans weep but addictions never shed a tear.

This is why, perhaps, I didn't see her crying, why it's so important for Micah to, why I can never seem to stop.

"If you could talk to her," Jeremiah's voice is gentle as he sits in front of me with his legs crossed, his knees bumping into mine. "And I mean a civil conversation, if you had time to tell her anything you could and she'd be forced to listen, what would you say?"

"That she destroyed me." My reply is instant, as I've had roughly two years to think about the answer to that question. "I'd tell her that the way she treated me was abuse, how it made me want to kill myself. How I think that's why she burned every suicide letter I wrote that had her name on the first page, because she knew that too. I'd tell her how that wasn't okay."

"Go on." Jem urges me.

"She'd finally know how selfish of her it is to set me back to the place I was before I learned how to be myself, it's selfish." My lips quiver, and Jem grabs my hands in his as they start to shake, helping me stay calm. "You're selfish, I would say. And I wouldn't let her interrupt me."

"Good." My amazing moron of a best friend nods. "Your words are important."

This, I nod to and agree with. "I'd tell her how I hated every second of loving her. I'd say how scared of her I was, how I still am. Maybe I'd show her the scars." Pausing I gulp, looking up to see his look -he looks...proud of me. "She would call them ugly."

I feel insane in a sane world.

Jeremiah smiles, and it's comforting. His smile is the one I needed to see right now, my best friend's smile, the one he's given me since the day we me. "They're beautiful." He says.

It makes me laugh.

"If you're a therapist...you understand depression, right?" He asks me, I'm not sure if he wants me to explain myself to him when asking me this or if he's trying to get me to understand myself.

"The way I see depression, suicidal depression especially, is like a leech." I say, and realize that either way, no matter what his agenda is or if he even has one at all, it's helping.

"Leeches?" Just from his expression alone I can tell Jem is disgusted by the comparison.

"Leeches. I, personally, am disgusted by them. Some people who have got them stuck to the bottom of their foot before get water shoes, so it doesn't happen again. Some people have never been in a place leeches even exist, even if they've been in dark water. Others have actually stood in the same mud you might have, but they didn't get leeches. Some get them so often they keep salt in their back pocket, just like others scrape them off with knives." Pausing to think for a second, I wonder if I'm actually making any sense. "Some will spend hours peeling them off by hand. A few people might even say it's not too bad having leeches stuck to the bottom of your foot, because they only suck out the bad blood -so aren't they used to help some people who are already in physical pain anyway? But before the leeches, there wasn't any pain where they're now attached and sucking out the very thing that keeps you alive. But it does hurt now, and the leech's bite stings and bleeds even after they're gone." 

"So depression is like leeches," Jem says this definitively, nodding along to his words. "And as far as I can tell they're draining you dry."

"Got any salt?" I quip, making him laugh.

"You're salty enough on your own AJ."

"Hey! You little-" Shrieking I scramble out of the way of Jem's tickling hand, but he only grabs around my ankle and pulls me across the floor to him. "This is abuse!"

Snorting, the moron drops his hold on me -letting me collapse against the floor with my legs pulled over Jem's.  "Not that I expect you to feel fine in seconds, but are you better now?"

I smile, "Yeah Jem, I am. Thank you, for being here for me."

"'Course," Jem plays it off, but we both know this conversation is exactly where it needs to be. "If I wasn't around, who else would annoy you?"

"I dunno. The president, probably."

"Oh!" His cackle echos around us, making me giggle. "Ain't that a knee slapper."

Because it would be simply rude not to, I reach down and slap his knee that's closes to me. "It is now."

"You're such a weirdo."

"Says the dork."

"Fugly."

"Lameass."

"Bitch."

"Jerk."

Pausing we make eye contact before blurting "Assbutt!" in unison, prompting a round of explosive laughter in both of us.

As best friends we fall perfectly in sync, so much so that it can get a little creepy at times. Peggy has to stop us when we're telling a story sometimes, because we finish each other's sentences without noticing.

The way we bounce off of each other, make each other smile -it's something I never want to lose.

A best friend was something I didn't want to have twice, not something I craved, not something I thought of as good, as pure.

Jem has proved me wrong, and I'm grateful every single day that moron has the guts go be as gloriously annoying as he was when we met.

Going through life I don't require much, I can live without a lot even if going without makes me uncomfortable. Even if it makes me sad, and lonely.

But the one thing I don't think I could live without is Jeremiah.

He's the only person who I've given my heart to that hasn't crushed it, that is always there for me. When I don't understand myself, he does.

With every laugh and hug Jem proves to me best friends are a good thing.

Even if we're just watching horror movies together and he's clutching to me, I don't get scared that he'll hurt me. When I accidentally break something of his or mix his smoothie wrong, I don't panic thinking he'll scream at me. I know he won't push me to do anything I don't want to.

Our trust is mutual, and it's amazing to me, how soundly I have found myself in another person.

But this person is good.

"Wake up fuckhead," I chirp at Jem, slapping him in the back of his head with my book. "It's your best friend, and you have to feed my cats."

"Gah! AJ, you scared me. Holy hell, I think you just gave me a heart attack! You could kill a man, the man being me, waking him up that way." Startled, Jem clutches his heart, acting faint.

He's fine, just dramatic.

Smiling innocently, I sit next to my best friend where he fell asleep on the couch. "How do you know that wasn't my plan all along?"

Giving me a half assed eyeroll, Jem sits up and stretches. "You're afraid of being alone, and digging my grave would be a nightmare for you. It's like you repel dirt, so the one time you're covered head to toe in grave soil the police won't even have to find where you buried me to lock you up."

Now I'm the one rolling my eyes, "It doesn't work that way. No victim, no crime. I'd get away with it."

"Nah," He shakes his head. "You'd turn yourself in and even pay for my funeral."

I find myself pouting, simply because I know he's right and honestly it makes me a little mad that I couldn't get away with murder. Huffing I stand and walk to my fridge, pulling out a mango smoothie.

Mangoes taste better than drugs.

You can only learn that the hard way.

After seeing Kace again, my mood has lifted to a point where I'm almost normal.

Kace is doing good, better than I thought he would be while readjusting to normal life. I send him book memes, and he sends me anything funny he sees about mangoes, dinosaurs or therapy. There are a lot more therapy memes than I thought there were. We don't really text though, but what we have is enough.

Once a month, for an hour, we get to be friends.

And, much to his dismay, Kaleb-Alexander Forest has found himself a few friends.

Proud doesn't even begin to cover how I feel.

Seeing someone like Kace going from a struggling, thinking he was broken alcoholic smoker to the person he is now, that's why I got into therapy.

Looking back in 60 years to the people I've helped- -the thank you letters I've gotten, the people I've given redemption to- -it will be so easy to see that I've lived a good life. A fucked up, complicated and messy train wreck of a life but a good one none the less.

One of my first real patients that I had was a 19 year old girl, just two years older than I was. Anabella thought life didn't have a plan for her, she was scared and depressed and alone. And she thought the world would be a better place if she wasn't in it.

Then Ana came to me and tried a mango smoothie and was hooked from the start.

Ana was a depressed, self harming teenager who thought life had nothing to author and was wondering how painful it would be to kill herself.

But just this fall, merely two months ago when school started, I received a letter in the mail.

There was a card attached, Ana with her husband and two kids, twins and she's laughing into her hands as the boys try climbing up their dad -not even attempting to stay still for the picture.

I'm happy, she wrote. And I would have never stuck around to meet the people I love if it wasn't for you and the lessons you gave me.

So Ana thanked me for never giving up on her, even when she screamed and threw a fit.

Of course I wrote her back.

The entire time I couldn't stop thinking about how unreasonable it is someone has to thank another for that. How it should be in our nature to help others, to keep them afloat even when they want to drown.

It's our duty to keep humanity alive, to show others that everyone is important.

Humans don't want to go quietly, we want to scream at the top of our lungs as we die and leave bruises on the ones that kill us because that's the only way someone will notice when we aren't alive.

If nobody knows that you're alive, you're not.

After all, if a tree falls alone in a forest does it make a sound?

Yes.

It does.

And the sound is like an addict's cry being muffled as they're broken down.