Can’t sit still, can’t focus, can’t even show up half the time, and so far behind that I looked practically illiterate.
Evie tutored me, got me to where I should be, then called and checked in every few days when she went to college. Like she was my mom.
Things changed when we moved in with my now stepdad, but a lot didn’t. My mom was still sick. We still didn’t have much, even if we had more than before. At least my mom could take her meds again. At least I saw her out of bed more than once or twice a week. At least she smiled again.
But I still had to spend three and a half years of high school in a place where the other kids hated me, didn’t understand that I wasn’t broken, just had lived a different life than they had. How many of them had shoplifted meals for their families?
More than I knew, likely, but the shopkeepers out there probably just looked the other way, knowing the family, knowing they needed the food. Unlike me, where I had to learn to be good, great even, just to stay out of the hands of the police.
I slam my hands against the sides of my head, wishing I could knock the sad away. The feeling that I’m one mistake away from destruction. Mine or someone else’s.
Clara’s.
But haven’t I already done that? Haven’t I destroyed her life?
She said there were pictures of us boosting cars.
Us.
Because I talked her into joining me. Because I can’t be alone right now without the damn buzzing inside of me trying to find a way out. Like now, weeping on the floor, the urge to crawl under my bed to hide overwhelming.
But I’d be hiding from myself.
And no bed can do that.
My monster would crawl under there with me.
No escape. Not right now.
And I don’t know how to get better. I don’t even have words for what’s wrong.
My mom took me in after the teachers in that small town told her I was broken. I got a prescription for Adderall and was told to come back when I was grown, because there was more broken, but they couldn’t tell me until I was an adult.
Like that isn’t ominous.
I never went back.
And after I left home, I stopped filling my prescription. First on accident, then on purpose.
This person was me. The one the teachers called broken. That the kids made fun of.
And I found tools that helped—alarms, cold showers, moving my body, and meditation.
I could still be me, the me that makes dumb decisions and laughs about it. The me that loves breaking into a dark space and taking what strikes my fancy. The me that rides the high of life, who lives for adventures and shitty choices.
The me that’s an amazing thief.
But even that isn’t working right. I can’t follow directions, even good ones, smart ones.
Stealing is becoming boring. Routine even.
And if that’s true, what’s left?
Where do I put all this goddamn energy that boils under my skin, steals my thoughts, pushes me into dangerous situations?
Crying alone in the dark of my room isn’t the answer.
But I don’t know what is.
