Stay With Me (Come Back to Me #2)

Chapter 13

Addie looks at me with those beautiful blue eyes and points at the stairs. "There's one upstairs, third door on the left." She points to the hallway. "Or there's one near the front door."

I forcefully nod my head and get up. "Be right back," I mutter.

Before anyone can say anything, I book it, all while trying to act normal.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

I take the steps by two, frantically hoping no one is in the bathroom so I can lock myself in it for however long need be.

I'm at the second door when I realize I'm not going to make it.

Throwing my shoulder against the second door to the left, I crank the handle to the door and burst into the dark room, slamming the door behind me.

In the darkness, I let my mind go, saving myself some energy by letting the partial seizure take over my body.

The aura of fear in my gut becomes potent. My head becomes fuzzy and confused as to where I am, stealing whatever conscious movements I have – everything I do is subconscious. I don't know how I make it to the foot of the queen-sized bed or how my hands have the capability of gripping the white quilt. Or how I manage to bite my bottom lip until I taste blood, just to make sure not a single noise escapes my lips. But it all happens.

I'm unable to figure out how long it lasts, but when my mind returns to its consciousness instead of depending on subconsciousness, I feel like I've been slammed with a semi-truck. Sometimes I wonder why I'm so tired after having one, but the doctor's words always come back to haunt me.

"Nerve cells, called neurons, in the brain create, send, and receive electrical impulses, which allow the brain's nerve cells to communicate. Anything that disrupts these communication pathways can lead to a seizure. The brain is a highly complex electrical system, powered by roughly eighty pulses of energy per second. During a seizure these energy pulses surge, becoming as rapid as five-hundred per second."

No wonder I'm tired. My brain basically just ran a freaking marathon.

I drop my face into my hands, fighting back the oncoming tears.

It seems as though I'm not allowed to be happy; that every time I feel remotely normal and like I belong, the world disagrees and decides to use a shock doctrine on me and scare me back into place.

I flick on the lamp beside the bed. I'm never going to fit in. Unless there's a magical cure for epilepsy, I'm fucked.

A tear slips down my cheek.

Epilepsy is like terrorism of the brain – you don't know when it's going to strike, where you're going to be, who is going to witness it.

Epilepsy changes people like me. It sculpts us into someone who understands deeper, hurts more often, appreciates quicker, cries easily, hopes desperately, loves more openly, and lives more passionately.

Epilepsy makes us feel like we're a huge burden on friends and family who drive us places since we are unable to do so ourselves.

It does so many things that many people will never understand.

Looking down, I trace my finger over the long scar running perpendicularly along my wrist. I squeeze my eyes shut, remembering the day I tested the razor blade against my skin.

That day, I couldn't handle all the emotions I had bottled up inside me – I needed a release. New pain to make me forget about the current pain.

Not only does epilepsy make us prone to accidentally harming ourselves, but it also fills our heads with unwanted, dark thoughts.