All the Best People Are | ✓

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I'm not crazy. My reality is just different from yours.
~Cheshire Cat
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Listen to this cover of Crazy by Melanie Martinez. I loved this song so much before, and after listening to her cover I can safely say my life is complete.  Hope you like the chapter!
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Whenever I had a happy flashback, there was always a darker one to dim the bright light in my eyes. There was always a sad one too. This was just one of many.

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"What did the doctor say?" Dad asked Mom when he thought I'd left. I was just around the corner when I heard that, and my ears perked up immediately at the sound of a serious conversation. 

Mom bit down on her lower lip and stared down at the ground, unblinking. She was trying her hardest not to cry. I knew that look; that was a trick I used all the time to avoid creating a scene. 

"Kath,"Dad called softly and, catching her broken expression, said no more and gently placed his hand on her shoulder. A tear slid down her cheek. "They said something was wrong with her," she finally choked out. Dad's face paled. 

"Th-they said she might be-" She broke down once more into a fit of sobs. Dad rubbed her back to calm her down. "They said she might be schizophrenic." They both looked into each others eyes with so much sadness that I felt tears blurring in my vision as well. 

Mom started to cry again and I was starting to grow horrified. I'd never seen her so upset before. She was the optimistic one out of the three of us and was always the one to put us in cheerful spirits. 

When I came home crying from school she'd always give me a huge pep talk about how bullies never benefited and how I shouldn't be let down by what others said. Whenever Dad came home with some big work issue she'd order his favorite food and we'd have a family game night to help him cool off. She was always there to make us feel better, so seeing her so sad made me feel as though Dad and I had failed to do what she'd always done for us. 

To make matters worse, Dad started to cry too. They both held onto each other for so long I thought they might collapse if they let go. Dad finally got his act together.

"She's only five, Katherine, they can't be so sure," he said, wiping away his tears and mustering up as much confidence in his tone as he could; but he wasn't fooling anyone. 

"My dad. It's because of my dad. I never should've had kids," Mom sobbed, clutching onto Dad's shirt for support. He looked her in the eye. "It isn't your fault, okay? There's no way you could've known. They took a risk even having you and you were alright!" 

Mom sniffed then thought about it for a moment. "But what if-" Dad placed a finger on her lips and continued to rub her arm. "Stop. By saying anything more it's like we're wishing we never even had Skott,"Dad's voice cracked and a tear slipped down his cheek. "But we love her."

Mom gave him a watery smile and hugged him even tighter. "She's ours. A part of us. I don't care if she has imaginary friends ten years from now, Matt. I will always love my daughter."

And twelve years had gone by.
But she stopped loving me.
How easy it was to break away and just forget about all those promises.

I never understood the entire length of that conversation, but one thing I knew for sure was that I wasn't a normal kid. There was something wrong with me. All those many doctor appointments and therapy sessions were to make me better, but I didn't feel a single change. I still didn't know what exactly it was that made me different, but I stuck out like a sore thumb everywhere. I'd apparently lost my mind. I was seeing things. I was mad. 

The thing is, I didn't see things. I didn't believe in ghosts or angels and I preferred to think logically as opposed to creative. The only thing I was even minutely creative about was painting. And even then I knew when to stop diving into  my canvases to escape reality. People said I had a huge imagination, but honestly, I knew when to distinguish between books and real life. I thought I was  normal, but unfortunately, I was the only one who thought so.

That day, my parents had said they loved me. But as years went by, times changed and it felt like all of those were memories from a parallel universe. They didn't feel real because of how quickly those three words were taken back and only madness lingered around me. 

That day, my parents said they loved me. But that was also the day I stopped loving myself. 

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When the flashback was over, I couldn't stop shaking. My teeth were chattering, my hair stood on end. My heart was beating faster than the speed of light and I felt like I'd stopped breathing altogether. 

Leo pulled up closer to me on the lawn and took my hand in his. "Wow, your hands are freezing!" He exclaimed, his eyes widening dramatically. I smiled. "When I'm scared my hands have a tendency to become really cold." 

We sat in silence for a few minutes, just staring at the house in front of us from our spot on the lawn. I turned towards him. "You know... They say your biggest fear is the thing that made you die in your past life," I remarked with a wistful sigh. 

He snickered. "So you don't believe in love but you believe in past lives?"

I scowled at him, at a loss for words.

Leo looked at me from the corner of his eye. "So what's your biggest fear?" He asked softly. I noticed how he'd avoided saying anything about himself.

I dodged his piercing stare and played with bits of grass. "I have social anxiety," I confessed, still not looking up. I could feel him staring at me. He squeezed my hand and didn't say a word. I hadn't been more grateful.

"So I take it this didn't work?"He asked, referring to the house. I shook my head and went back to plucking grass. "At first the idea seemed pretty smart." I sighed once again and looked up to face him. "But now there's no love left to believe in."

He jumped to his feet. "Time to get moving then. Don't want to be late," he said,  lending me a hand. I took it and got to my feet, dusting the blades of grass off the back of my jeans. 

"You're really not going to give up on your belief, huh?" I grinned. He smiled back. "No, but you are because I'm going to show you something so wonderful you're immediately going to fall in love with it."

I rolled my eyes. "We'll see about that."

We walked along the sidewalk towards the next house on Memory Lane, and I had never been this unprepared for something my whole life when I saw what was staring back at me. 

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A/N I hope you liked this chapter! Please vote, comment and share if so❤
~Via