Secrets Chasing

Chapter Sixteen

"Please hear this: There are not 'schizophrenics.' There are people with schizophrenia."
- Elyn Saks

"What did your mom have?" I question him, propping myself up on the ball of my rustic feeling elbow, feeling the rough edges and dried up layers of skin brush across the fabric of the couch. 

"She had the Devil in her head." Oliver smiles.

"I'm being serious." 

"Schizophrenia, Taylor." Oliver's beautiful smile falters and suddenly he can't look me in the face. 

I can't blame him. I probably wouldn't be able to look at myself either. 

"Do you think I'm--" I can't bring myself to say the word schizophrenic outside. It's a more horrifying word than addict or always.

"I don't know, it's just voices. If you do have it, then I wouldn't look at you any differently. I would know that you are stronger then anyone else in this hell hole of a town for dealing with the devil himself." 

"If I go to a phyciatrist, would you go with me?" I question him. I couldn't ask Kaden. It would give him another reason to add to his list entitled: One Thousand Reasons to not Date Taylor. And I couldn't dare ask Merideth. She would be more in denial then any of us. 

He nods, brushing his loosely fallen hair out of his eyes with deep intensity held inside, "I'll even dress up in a bowtie and a button down shirt." 

I grab his hand. 

Everything is going okay.

"We can think of it as a bit of secret chasing." I smile wide.

Oliver squeezes my fingers.

"What secret are we chasing, Bishop?"

"You're going to chase down and discover the bowtie, clean-cut prince charming, and I'm on the chase to see if this is what's wrong with me." I breathe in the air in a new way. A way that holds new beginnings. A way that feels as if these lungs belong to someone else. 

"Let me tell you something, young lady, nothing and I mean nothing is wrong with you. I see you in the library, nose deep into a book. You get lost in the words. I don't see scars on you or you screaming at the walls in the hallway to shut up, I see you lose yourself in literature and that is the most beautiful image." Oliver starts off with a gruff voice that softenes as he continues.

I feel the tears collect in my eyes, and I refuse to let a single one drop. I'm not certain if I could believe another good-looking, too good to be true, type of boy. Once upon a time, I remember being fourteen and falling in love with a seventeen year old boy. Strong, tan, muscular, and very seductive.

How did those punches feel against your tiny little figure?

He loved you.

You need someone more like him.

"Sometimes I can't be strong." I breathe out a whisper of words.

Oliver releases my hand, only to wrap me up in his arms, "I know."