Goodnight Moon

18- Excuse Me?

It takes about all of my strength to get out of bed on Monday morning. Not only am I in a craptastic mood but I’m exhausted as well. Lake left a little after pulling the “I’m not going to hurt you again” card. And then after Lake left, I went back to my room and moped for a little while but then I called my dad and we talked for hours about my mental stability and if I should go to therapy or not. I finally was able to convince him that it won’t be necessary. Anyway, after talking to my dad, I had to talk to Adan for another few hours because he talked to my dad and he’s now worried about me too.

When I get downstairs after putting Max up in his room (he’s feeling much better today) wearing white jean shorts and a blue Captain America shirt with his shield symbol on the front, I go over to the cabinet with all of our medicine and stuff inside. I don’t know why it’s in the kitchen and not the bathroom where most people put there drugs but most of the stuff is aspirin and some left over prescription drugs from having strep throat and there’s a few from when Adan got his wisdom teeth out. I don’t know why they’re still in there but nobody ever throws them away. In the middle of the whole mess, there’s a plastic little orange container that holds my prescription depression medicine. I only convinced my dad that therapy wasn’t necessary if I started taking my depression meds again, which is stupid but it’s better than therapy.

I’m not allowed to drive after taking them though, so I put the container in my pocket so that I can take them once I get to school. I’m not stupid enough to take them into the school or anything, I’ll just leave them in my car.

The drive to school is way shorter than it usually seems and it’s probably because I’m seriously dreading going to school. I’ve avoided Leda all weekend and she finally stopped trying to text me but I know that she’s going to either start to profusely apologize or yell at me for ignoring all of her texts. I’m not particularly excited for either possibility.

I park in the parking lot and pull out a bottle of water and the bottle of pills that I put in my purse before leaving this morning and take a deep breath. I don’t want to do this but I know that my dad will call me and ask if I took the pills. I could lie but I’m a terrible liar and he’ll know right away that I didn’t actually take it. I also hate lying to my dad.

Just as I’m tossing the pill into the back of my throat and chasing it with some water, the passenger door to my car flies open and Lake appears, sitting down in the passenger seat of the car.

I close my heavy eyelids for a moment before swallowing the water, putting it in the cup holder and then I take a deep breath. When I’m finally ready to open my eyes again, I look up and he’s still there. I was kind of hoping that he was a figment of my imagination but that obviously isn’t the case. I really don’t want to deal with him right now.

“What do you want?” I wonder softly, trying not to sound rude or anything. I’m sure that I don’t come off rude though- just exhausted. I’m too tired to be angry at anything or anybody- even Lake Quincy.

“I thought you weren’t going to take those pills,” He ignores my question and motions towards the orange bottle half full of pills and then he looks up at me with a concerned frown.

“Yeah, well I’m not depressed or anything but it’s either this or therapy,” I explain. I know that I don’t have to explain anything to him but I just feel like I should. Or I’m just too tired to care. I don’t have any reason to not tell him this stuff anyway so it doesn’t really matter.

“Is this all because of me?” He wonders, a guilt ridden frown so deep into his face that I think it may cause permanent wrinkles in his face. “Because of the party?”

“No,” I say quickly with pursed lips. “It’s just… I mean, it’s a lot of things that just feel like they’re resurfacing right now. My mom, my dad, Adan, Steven, Leda, I feel like I’m feeling it all over again like it’s the first day and it just sucks.”