The Girl in the Red Sweater

---- Yes! The long awaited chapter 3 is finished, I'm very happy to say. Thank you for the support loves, I'm sure Boo appreciates it. I hope you enjoy reading this chapter as much as I did writing it.

I don't eat after that, I'm not even slightly hungry. My mother’s distraught expression is enough to keep me full for days, but not a satisfied full; a sick full. I want to vomit. Partially because I know there is nothing I can do to help, but mostly because I know that I am the main source of her pain. My mother, essentially the world’s most perfect being, deserves much more than a dysfunctional wreck like me. But she still loves me, and I can’t even begin to find a way to show her how much I love her back.

Then I remember my father and I's argument. If you upset your mother one more time… the words echoe mystifyingly. Had my father actually given a shit about my mother? It's a miracle, one with strings attached, but a miracle. I know very well that there are reasons behind his threat aside from just my mother’s well-being, but still. At least he made the gesture. I begin to, for the first time in years, feel a slight gut-churning pity for the old man.

As I sit on my bed, cursing his name, my head begins to throb. I need my medication. Not the medication for my disorder, but my other medication. The medication I'm hazardously addicted to.

I stumble, almost drunkenly, to the hallway bathroom as I throw open the medicine cabinet and grab hold of the familiar blue and white bottle. Without thinking, I pop two pills. When the headache doesn't fade immediately, I take a third. I know very well that my thin body will stand little against a hazardous overdose, but I don't pay any mind. The painkillers may become my killers, but as long as the headache’s gone...

What I’m currently using isn’t very strong, but we have a lot of it. My mom is a nurse, so she has quite the arsenal of aspirin and such. She even snuck me some Vicoden for a time, despite the risk of getting caught. The thought of her risking her career to feed my addiction did little to ease my guilt. I remember the day she brought me that bottle. My head and body aches had become much more profuse. That was also about the time when I had started exploring the acts of intentional, physical harm. When I was alone in my room, I would often hug and claw myself while banging my head against the baseboard. Taking the Vicodin automatically relaxed me, but as soon as I showed signs of becoming dependent, my mother took me off.

That didn’t keep me from becoming dependent of these drugs however.

The mild aspirin may not have been half as satisfying as the Vicodin, but it was enough to keep my pain (physical and emotional) at bay. I feet myself lucky. I don't have to sneak these pills out of my mom’s med cabinet or purchase them illegally. I just have my mother bring them to me. But it is still illegal either way. I tried to talk my mom out of it, but she refused to see me in pain. As you can see, I am much more than just bipolar.

I’m addicted to painkillers, at risk of having my mother sent to prison, at the hands of an emotionally and physically abusive father, and, according to the doctors, practically insane.

Now my headache is gone, but my stomachache isn’t. After lifting the seat, I vomited into the toilet, relinquishing my stomach of the little food it already contained. The headache returned.

I flush the toilet, brush my teeth and pop two more pills before returning to my room. My father is gone now, and my mother is most likely asleep, so all was quiet. The silence begins to stifle my headache, aiding the painkillers in their process. Blindly, I grope for my sketchbook and rustle through the sheets of my bed for a stray pen or pencil. After finding each utensil, I begin to mindlessly draw a meaningless shape on the paper. There is no point to it, only angst. As the sketch progresses, my strokes become more and more intense. Intense enough to the point where the tip of my pencil snaps mid-line. I'm about to snap the pencil in a fit of fury until a sound pierces my ears, interrupting my action.

A voice. A voice of harmony vibrating in my ears. It is coming from outside.