I Swear I'm Not Crazy

1. School Daze

Song: Circus for a Psycho -Skillet

6 years later

"I will ask one more time today, Eleanor. When did it all start?" the doctor asks. Again.

"I already told you," I say, rolling my eyes, tracing my finger absent-mindedly across the table between us. "You asked the same thing last week. And every week before that. I started seeing the symbols six years ago, when I was seven. I tried on my great-great-grandfather's glasses. I fell and something fell in my eye, and I've been seeing the symbols ever since. My story hasn't changed since the first time you asked, Dr. Cranston."

The doctor sighs, like he always does. He thinks I'm lying. Or that I made my own reality or something. I mean, come on. I'm thirteen, not five!

"Maybe we should up your medicine dosage. You have been taking it, haven't you?"

I pause. "Well..."

"Eleanor," Dr. Cranston presses.

"No," I admit, deflating in my chair. Then, before he can get angry, I rush out, "But only because every time I take it, all it does is make me nauseous and dizzy. It doesn't make me quit seeing the symbols. Sometimes it even makes them more vivid."

Dr. Cranston rubs his temples the way Dad does when he has a headache. He doesn't look at me. Just gets up and leaves. I hear him enter the next room, where my parents and big brother, Sam, are.

"As far as I can tell, she hasn't improved any," I hear Dr. Cranston saying. "She admitted to not taking her medications. Have you considered sending her back to the Memorial psych ward? They may be able to reach her in a way I cannot."

I tense, pulling my legs up and to my chest. I don't want to go back. Not there. I only got out a couple months ago and still have nightmares about it. The doctors there are mean, and they never listen to what I have to say. They would hurt me and strap me down to the bed, running test after test while I was wide awake.

~~Flashback~~

"Make it stop!" I beg as a male nurse straps me down. "Please, please, make it stop! Please!"

"Shut up, Witwicky," the nurse spits, slapping me hard across the face.

But I can't. The symbols are flying around my mind. I have to get them out. But I can't, not while my wrists and ankles are strapped down.

"Let me up!" I yell. "Let me up! I'll do anything! Just let me get them out of my head!"

My yelling turns to nonsensical screaming as an electrical shock passes through me. The nurse has begun his testing. They only test me when the symbols are flying. It seems to go on for hours. The pain and the symbols never stopping, the straps digging into my wrists and ankles, leaving bruises.

I can only manage to whimper as the pain diminishes, and I shake uncontrollably. I just want to be out of this place. For good. Please, someone get me out!

I hear music blasting from outside, and turn my head to face a window. I can see a beat up yellow car driving away, the lyrics fading. But I hear them. A message for the broken.

"When you've been fighting for it all your life
You've been working every day and night
That's a how a superhero learns to fly
Every day, every hour, turn that pain into power"

The next day, I overhear the female nurses saying that the nurse who tested on me the day before had been in a car accident, and the other driver had just driven off like it was nothing.