An Odd Kind Of Wonderful

Chapter Twenty-One

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
"There's someone in my head that's not me." (Pink Floyd)

    It feels ridiculous that I've ever actually been in a psychiatric hospital. I know it was less than a week ago, but it's fading from memory more quickly than I thought I'd allow it—Joel and Raisa, those two unbelievable beams of confusion, cut through the gloomy early morning, like the rays of sunshine that pass through my Venetian blinds every sunrise in my bedroom. It feels ridiculous to even think that on my medical record, the mental illness box is ticked, and underneath that in the 'please specify' box there's the official diagnosis of depression.

    Depression—having been said so many times in front of and behind me before—doesn't sound like a word anymore.

    "What's the thinking face for?" Raisa asks, softly, voice like something small and harmless.

    "Just thinking." I reply, which isn't a lie.

    Joel smiles, and ducks down to ruffle my hair. "Proud of you, bud."

    "Thanks." I grin back. It's a real grin, and it feels good. "Please never call me 'bud' ever again."

    "Noted."

    There's a bit of a pause, but I don't find myself shifting from foot to foot—it's a silence that's necessary, and part of what's just happened just as much as the actual event. "Where now?" Joel interrupts it, but he's so quiet he may not have spoken at all.

    "I'll drive." Volunteers Raisa.

    That, perhaps, may have been a bit of a weird sentence, I think to myself, and soon enough it's become a weird reality, seeing fifteen-year-old Raisa behind the wheel.

    "Can you drive?" Joel raises his eyebrows.

    "I used to ask my dad all about driving. It used to make him so mad he'd have to pull over and yell at me to stop. But now I know what everything does and how it does it." Raisa explains. "Now get in."

    "There are cops everywhere." I say.

    "I'm an arsonist on the run, remember?" Joel adds.

    "Do you have a hat or something?" Raisa asks with a straight face.

    "What?" Joel says.

    "Do you have a hat," Raisa reiterates slowly. "Or something."

    "Yeah, I heard you, I just—"

    "Please let me drive, Joel, please."

    "I don't see what a hat's got anything to do with it, I only want my car in one piece. She's been through enough shit tonight, I reckon."

    Despite this, Joel dutifully fetches a hat, and the first label I think of putting to it is 'cowboy hat'. It has a gold-sequined star on the front and has upturned sides, with a dip in the middle. Raisa puts it on, and then we're off.

    -

    Somewhat unbelievably, we don't run into the police officers. Raisa flicks off Joel's hat the second we pass them—though I think our espionage's success is more due to the fact that the officers were busy with an intoxicated driver parked sideways rather than Raisa's disguise. But you've got to allow certain things.

    Also, quite astonishingly, Raisa is an okay driver. We take the wrong turn twice and then have to loop the block again, at which point Joel digs a street map out of the glovebox.

    "You had a street map this whole time?" Raisa whisper/screeches, like you would at a ghost.

    "Yeah." Joel replies monotonously. "All cars have a street map."