Page 4 of Monstrous

“Maybe I should just come for a visit. I can make those cream cheese brownies you like. We’re overdue for some bonding time.”

She probably thinks my insistence to be alone is some kind of effort to be strong. And in part, it is.

I really don’t feel like cleaning the house, at least, not this time, on the off chance she decides to show up to check on me. Or have to explain to anyone the processes of my daily life and what it takes to cope with Walker’s loss on the reg.

I’m not good with boundaries, at all. Telling Mom to back off had taken a lot out of me and breaking down now will probably make me feel worse.

They diagnosed me with PTSD a few months after the murder because of what I’d seen, with perhaps a little bit of schizophrenia thrown in there for good measure. The doctors believe the voices are just shattered pieces of my own psyche.

Who am I to tell them no?

I just take the pills with a glass of water and struggle through the haze.

“You really don’t need to drive all the way up here,” I say to Mom, swinging around on my butt to stare at the rest of my room.

It’s a bloody wreck. That’s what it looks like. The same kind of wreck that’s in my mind, manifested into reality. I haven’t picked up my clothes in a literal month and when you add the crumpled paper to the mix it’s a wonder I can even see out the window.

“Are you sure?” Mom asks again with a hint of pleading in her tone.

“Of course I’m sure. Although I appreciate how willing you are to drop everything to come and spend time with me. I love you.”

“Us Fortunes have to stick together,” she tells me. I recognize the smile in her voice despite the disappointment. “You know I’m always here for you, whatever you need. Are you, uh, going to go to the memorial service tomorrow?”

I shake my head again.

Going to the memorial is a dangerous idea for me. Just as dangerous as the voices in my mind. The doctors will rethink letting me out into real society and label me unstable if they know the absolute truth about what I hear.

But I continue to draw when no one is around, and I take the pills that turn me into a zombie of my former self. They make me “normal.” They also stop the jeers and questions and reminders of what happened to Walker.

The pills steal my art away. It’s the price I have to pay.

I’ve been simply unable to draw anything of worth in the years since. I’ve shriveled into static and the voices fade away into white noise.

“Sorry, no. It’s too hard. And I’m sure they won’t want to see me again,” I reply finally.

“Mari…they’d all love to see you. You were such a big part of Walker’s life.”

I know. And he was a big part of mine. But none of that matters now that he’s dead.

We finish the conversation before I say goodbye and hang up, grabbing hold of the pill bottle and staring at it until the tiny black script blurs.

They make me normal.

Normal… Whatever that means really.

They make me an acceptable part of society. At what cost?

At the cost of all these scraps of unusable paper. The umpteen pages I’ve ruined.

And I’ve been taking them for way too long. I’ve been blocking my creativity and walking around like a zombie, for what? To keep myself from feeling the depth of this pain? It’s been a long seven years and I’m sick of it.

When I head into the bathroom before bed, I dump the whole lot of them down the drain with a flash of victory.

I’ll be fine.

It’s been a long time since I’ve had a problem. A long time since the murder. If I can’t handle myself at this point, then I’ll need a hell of a lot more than pills to fix me. Drugging myself is one thing; actually helping myself is another.

I watch the water swirl the pills into nothingness before they disappear. Yes, I’ll be fine.

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