Schizo

Part Two

From that day on, we were inseparable. I felt freer and happier than ever as I let her into my life, shining like the angel that she was for saving me. Every day was spent together laughing, talking, joking, holed up in our dorm rooms with no one but each other; occasionally there was fighting only to end up desperately clinging to each other and apologizing profusely for every tiny offense. No matter what happened, we couldn't seem to stay apart.

It was about three months after the day I left that place that I finally allowed us to take things further physically. She'd wanted to for so long, begged me to, but I didn't for fear of the voices returning as I let my guard fully down. I already knew I loved her; I think I fell in love with her the very first time I kissed her. And it was that day, when we finally crossed the bridge and came together as one, that she told me she loved me, too.

This girl who'd come into my life the very moment I needed her most loved me, but I was absolutely certain she'd never love me as much as I loved her.

She was good for me.

Our time together was blissfully happy and full of as true of love that ever existed, but there were bad days, too. There were days the voices got a little louder, regaining the control they'd been deprived of for so long. It had been about a year since I left that place, a year together with Sadie, when I missed my first medication.

Don't take it.

The voice had been fighting to break through the haze the medication caused for so long. All it had taken was one morning when Sadie had to leave for class early for me to listen to it, skipping my morning medication that was so vital to controlling the voices. That single ounce of control I gave back blew me over, and it was as if I'd never taken medication in the first place.

You're free.

Don't take them.

The pills are poison!

That one day led to another, and another, when finally an entire week had gone by without my pills. I lied to Sadie because the voices told me to. I told her I took them before stashing them in my pocket and flushing them down the toilet.

Don't take them.

The longer I went without the pills, the more I resented Sadie for trying to make me take them. Off them, I felt more alert, more energized, more alive. I felt things I hadn't felt in a long time and hadn't even realized I was missing because they had been suppressed for the last year. The world seemed clearer, brighter, bigger.

Too clear.

Too bright.

Too big.

The euphoria didn't last long before things became distorted, morphing into terrifying images only I could see that haunted me day after day. As the world shifted around me, the voices grew stronger, angrier, more violent. It was one day when Sadie came back from the library and stopped at my dorm that it happened for the first time.

"Hey, Harry," she'd greeted with a smile. She crossed the room and ducked to press her lips against mine as she always did only this time, I didn't feel the happy warmth I usually did. I felt hatred.

Get her off.

Hurt her.

My body reacted to the words before I could process them, shoving her backward so hard that she fell to the ground. Her eyes widened in surprised as she winced and glanced up at me in shock, eyes searching my face desperately as realization dawned on her.

"How long have you been skipping your meds?" she asked, careful to keep her voice even.

She knows!