Polaroid of a Girl [George Daniel]

Congratulations, Mary Jane

HEY BABIES. I only partially edited this, I'm sorry for any mistakes I may have missed. I really hope you enjoy this story! Love you all.

Mary Jane was anticipating summer in an almost obsessive way; to feel the small of her back stain in sweat, to feel the cool, damp grass on her bare feet; to steal her mother's wine and pills and lie alone on their porch swing, looking up at the stars.

Other than that, she really had no plans.

She had been home for two days; two agonizing days of her mother tugging at her clothes, making sure she was eating; her stepfather making joke after joke that she couldn't even pretend to laugh at. In some uncomfortable and senseless way, she missed Madeline Walker. Not the person, you see, but the hospital. The person has been dead longer than she'd been alive.

Mary Jane missed her bedroom at the mental hospital--the pea green walls and sterile smell, the group therapies, the consistent and flawless routine. She missed being powerless, yet always finding reasons to fight a battle she'd always lose. She missed Barbie, a female orderly whose name could not be further from the opposite of her tall, broad-shouldered and almost masculine build; her red hair in an uncomfortably tight bun.

There were three incidents during which Mary Jane had "had an episode", or, in better terms, completely lost her shit, and Barbie had to stick her in the ass with a giant needle filled with drugs that made her mouth constantly open and drooling, her limbs like jello, and her mind blank for the majority of the day.

Mary Jane absolutely loved that feeling. Because when she was so fucking high she couldn't roll over, she couldn't think about her past. Or the fact that she had zero friends, sans Betty, who didn't really count because she met her in the hospital anyways. Or the fact that her boyfriend Mike, though cute, was about as exciting as a piece of wet cardboard.

Also, Madeline Walker is an all-female hospital, except for two orderlies, who were honestly no stronger than Barbie. And Dr. Metaxas, who was of Greek descent and handsome, but she thought a homosexual, because he wouldn't increase her sleeping pills, even when she flirted. Maybe he wasn't. Maybe Mary Jane just couldn't respect the fact that some men genuinely wanted what was best for her.

"Honey," her mother had said the morning before Mary Jane was sent to Madeline Walker's about an hour away. "We know that it's a little far. But we just didn't want there to be any distractions."

Mary Jane had been lying in a hospital bed, tubes grotesquely stabbed into her veins, after an attempted and damn-near successful suicide, and her mother was worried about her fucking crazy boys in the institution.

Her mother was probably right, honestly.

"And how old are you?" Dr. Metaxas had asked the day after she'd arrived.

Mary Jane pulled her knees to her chest and looked at him doe-eyed as she sat in her temporary room, the bruises of her IVs still literring her arms. "Seventeen. I'll be eighteen on June 1st. I've answered all of these questions already."

Dr. Metaxas had a square jaw and glasses thicker than her mother's skull. "I know, dear. This is for good measure. And how are you feeling at this moment?"

Mary Jane was scared, sore, and crawling out of her skin with the need to escape life altogether. "What the fuck do you think? I tried to kill myself two days ago and I can't even do that right. I feel horrible."

The man in his early forties was eerily calm. He had seen so many girls like Mary Jane before. Young, pretty, intelligent girls overwhelmed by their mental illnesses. Dr. Metaxas knew that Mary Jane was a complex person, and he quite liked her. Most importantly, he knew that she was not beyond saving.