The Infinity Trilogy

Chapter 2

“You can’t tell me what to do anymore,” I said, narrowing my eyes at him.  “I can do whatever I want.”

I had no clue what had gotten into me.  First the hallucinations with the water and then the fire in my palms.  Maybe my increasing anger issues were part of it, too. 

“The hell I can’t tell you what to do!” Dad yelled.  I could see the vein in his forehead pulsing along with his growing anger.  “You live in my house.  I can tell you what you can and cannot do.”

I snorted, rolling my eyes.  “Yeah, well, according to you guys I’m not going to be living at your house anymore.  You’re going to send me to live with the crazies!”

“God, can you guys stop fighting?” Alex yelled, throwing his arms up.  “You’ve never fought before!”  He looked at Mom and Dad.  “Can I just get a minute with Lola?  That way you all can calm down.”

Mom nodded, looking at me with tears in her eyes.  She and Dad made their way out of my room, looking over their shoulders at me before Dad shut the door behind them. 

The tears that had been welling up in my eyes finally spilled over when I looked back at Alex. 

“Alex, don’t let them send me there!” I cried. 

A pained expression appeared on his face, just like one did anytime I cried.  He strode over to the side of my bed, sat down where Mom had been, and took me in his arms.  He let me cry on his shoulder for a few minutes before leaning back and taking my face in his hands. 

“Everything’s going to be fine, okay?” he said, looking me straight in the eyes.  His brown eyes, which were just like mine, were looking at me with sadness, pain, and anger at the situation.  “If you have to go to Rutherford, you’ll only be in there a few weeks.  This is what they told Mom and Dad.  And in those few weeks, they’re going to try to get you on a routine with medication.  You’ll be back home after that and everything will go back to normal.”

I groaned and leaned my head against his shoulder.  “If the hallucination wasn’t caused by the fever, what do they think I have?” I asked. 

I felt him wince and wrap his arms around me again.  He didn’t say anything as we sat there.

“Alex?”

“Schizophrenia,” he said.  “They’re saying that you possibly have schizophrenia.”

“No, I don’t!” I said, sitting up quickly.  “I don’t have schizophrenia!”

He winced when I said it.  “Lola, it’s only a possibility.”

“But I can see it in your eyes,” I said, looking at him.  “You think I have it, too.”

“Well, with what Caleb told us about what happen in the cafeteria…you starting screaming about D.C. looking like a war zone…”

“But it did!  I saw it!” I said.  “It did look like a war zone.  There were fires and bodies of people everywhere.  The others that were still alive were screaming and running for safety.  There were guns shooting and bombs going off…”

As I kept going, I could see the look in Alex’s eyes go from sadness to a look that said I was completely crazy.

I did not want to be thought of as crazy.

“You don’t believe me,” I said, cutting myself off.

He looked uncomfortable, like I said exactly what he was thinking.  “No, it’s just…”

“Don’t try to explain.  You think I’m completely crazy now.  Now that I told you what happened, what I saw, you really do think they should put me in the ‘loony bin’ as you so wonderfully put it,” I said, voice rising again.