1. Chapter 1
Chapter one
Sunshine
Twelve rows from the instructor’s desk, podium, and chalk-smeared blackboard, where my classmates steer clear—I roost. I’m at the furthest point away with my back to the wall, where no one can dream of sneaking up on me.
It’s not that I don’t want people near me, because I do. It’s just…they don’t want anything to do with me. They’re annoying, too, always clicking their pens until I’m ready to snap their necks to make them stop.
Some girls chew on their ends or the caps, calling it self-soothing behavior before accidentally sucking ink into their mouths. They gag on the pigment and resins which makes me giggle—I like seeing them choke.
Then there are the gum chewers, the bro-types who sit on their phones with videos playing loud enough to hear without pissing off the professor, and the girls who spend most of the hour applying makeup and smacking their overly-glossed lips.
All of them are neck-deep in their own worlds, wasting time on campus doing any and everything but classwork: fucking, getting high, going to jail, sleeping in, gaining weight.
What I’d give to be a normal burden on society like them. Instead of trips to my therapist, losing track of time, and waking up the oddest of places, I could be ordinary.
Late to class, boy crush, alcohol indigestion, no medication regimen, “is my period late?” kind of average.
But I’m not; I’m so far from it, I might as well be in a different hemisphere or on a foreign planet.
To function without going off the rails, I have to eat pills like I’m pouring them out of a Tic Tac container—God forbid I miss one.
I have nothing to trade for normalcy and there’s not enough money in the world to buy it—therefore, it’s best I keep a little distance.
This is my favorite class: Psycho-pharmacology. The study of how moods, behavior, thinking and sensation are affected by medications and chemical elements.
I find it fascinating how drastically different the brain works when alternate substances, both illegal and legal, are introduced.
It’s also interesting how one set of synthetic ingredients can have a complete opposite effect on two different patients with the same mental disturbances.
Obviously, there are adverse reactions which may manifest such as a advanced psychosocial breakdown and deterioration of cognitive function—a separate interest of mine.
On the opposite side of that spectrum is what all providers aim for: the improvement of life and functionality.
That’s the basics; what truly has me by the throat are the long-term effects for patients who have family histories of diagnosed psychological disorders and other minor mental health problems. For example, my mom.
She has abandonment issues, family trauma, and sexual assault trauma—events that can shatter the mind.
My uncle, on the other hand… There’s always been something wrong with him, from what Dad discovered in his super weird, half illegal, “I wish your uncle was dead” research.
Fuck, I hate calling him that. It makes my skin crawl knowing there’s blood relation between him and I—scum that spoils the ground he walks on.
He’s delusional, hears voices, violent, awkward in social settings, and more.
He and my mom couldn’t be more different in symptoms and treatment, despite having the same mother.
Unfortunately, I’m in a similar boat—I’m a schizophrenic sociopath.
My dad? He’s just as screwed up but he hides it better, using holistic methods to keep him out of a shrink’s office and smother the flashbacks I hear him shouting about at night.
This class hits like a semi-truck. I sit here a few times a week, trying to understand how patients react to medication while fighting the three nutcases living in my head.
There’s always been something wrong with me.
My parents noticed it first but I was oblivious, believing the things I saw were fine and not abnormal.
It became more noticeable when I’d ask other little girls in my class if they could see the blood-lady or the one with chains.
They’d scream and run to our teachers to tattle, then they would call my parents.
I felt so alone when no one would sit by me at the lunch table, seeing other kids swap their snacks, laugh and giggle.
The playground was the worst. I watched a few kids swing as high as they could, jump out of their seats, and fly like kites through the air before landing in the sand.
One day, I wanted to do the same thing—fly—but when I landed, I hit the ground with a harsh huff.
The boys laughed at me, girls snickered and ran away, and no one helped when blood-caked sand stuck to my hands and knees.
The scary ladies were always there. They never picked me up and dusted me off, gave me attention like Mother would or told me it was okay.
They glared, waiting for me to get up. Their expectant silence weighed heavy on me until one day I stopped trying.
I gave up hoping to make friends. No one would look at me when the scary ladies were there; it was like I stopped existing and it stung.
Did I tell you I was adopted? I mean, I’m with my biological parents now—when I’m not on campus—but I was adopted at birth.
I was their perfect baby, fresh out of the womb, still had the white stuff on me and my birth mom’s blood.
Smelling like amniotic fluid and a clean soul.
They took me home, gave me everything they thought I needed, and made sure I was taken care of.
All until the lady in black showed up—the day I changed forever.
The memory’s vivid: it was warm outside as the sun beamed through the trees, leaving dappled shadows all over the ground.
I was trying to catch the rays while twirling around in my pinkest dress, lined with white flowers and the tiniest sparkles in the center.
Mother and I were at the park by our house, one a bit more modest than what I live in now, playing in the late springtime air.
The dirt had dried just enough that when I whirled around, it dusted my toes through the pale-yellow straps of my sandals, matching the muted color of my hair.
Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I can still hear the other kids there.
They ran all over the place, screaming with joy and excitement while dodging swings, leaping off of the merry-go-round, and running up the hot metal slide.
I wondered why they wouldn’t go down it the normal way but I found out quickly.
Climbing to the top, I sat down and felt the burning sear on the back of my legs and my bottom as I went down.
Mother rushed to me, picked me up from the dirt at the base of the slide when I started to scream.
It hurt so bad, my skin turned red and took forever to cool down despite the shade.
I haven’t touched a slide since. The merry-go-round made me feel nauseous, I couldn’t hold my weight up on the monkey bars, and didn’t understand the concept of hide and seek.
So, I played alone. I spun around and around, hoping to catch the light and beamed into the sky like a UFO, coming up with what I thought their language would sound like, then the next thing I knew, I could hear it.
Mother wasn’t looking when a little boy came up behind me and shoved me over.
Sharp pains shot through my palms and up my arms when I hit the ground with a clomp.
I looked up to see who did it, to find who I would tell my mother about, and that's when I saw the chain-lady.
The woman in black was holding the irons with a hard fist, leashing the other in place as she thrashed and gnarled, fighting for her release.
Ready to chew the little boy into pieces.
He didn’t mean to hurt me—at least, that’s what I thought—but the chain lady didn’t care. She bit and snapped with black foamy drool that splattered in the dirt, wanting to eat the boy. Just like she does when I feel threatened now—she viciously protects me.
I’ll remember that day forever. Looking up from the ground to see a woman drenched in a terrifying darkness.
She wasn’t wearing pants like Mother would, or gowns ghosts glide around in.
No, it was a second skin so dark it absorbed the light—gobbled it up, held it hostage in the same way she gripped the restraints.
Nearly every inch of her body was covered, from her bare feet up to her neck where it faded in a soft ombré over her jawline—simultaneously haunting and ethereal.
She wasn’t real then, just a figment of my overactive imagination.
My brain had conceptualized fear and loneliness into a being I could place blame on.
When she reached for me, the onyx veneer stretched down her slender arms to five skeleton-thin fingers beckoning me to take her silent offering.
Wind swirled through loose strands of her dark hair as chunks moved like oily snakes before whipping over her delicate face.
Back then, I didn’t know any better. I had no idea who or what she was, but the chain-lady was going to hurt the little boy if I didn’t save him from the monster.
I took her hand and my whole world shifted.
The sun became a black hole, my small body shook and thrashed in the dirt, sending people into hysteria around me.
I had to keep him safe. The lady in black promised me she’d never release the monster and the monster would be mine to control.
To send after people who deserved to be punished for wickedness and to hunt those who harmed me.
I didn’t realize my mistake for several years as I became the monster. I was the unrecognizable and violent being chained to a master.
That day? She took over, watching the bloody one saunter in to keep me young and beautiful, primp and proper, make me appear human-like as the chain-lady puppeteered me.
Her skinless fingers laced through my marionette strings so tight they slashed the muscle left behind and oozed blood down the strands, staining me in the process.
I’ve been controlled, conquered, and owned by ruthless women who I now drug into comas with any pill I can get my hands on.
Since then, I’ve learned their names, mannerisms, and at times used their varying strengths to ensure my survival.
Just ask my parents; they were shocked, but not quite as petrified as Uncle Lucien.
He saw the demon just as I have—her real face, not the one that is the splitting image of my birth mother.
Jezebel had us both fooled. She, for the lack of better terms, put the fear of God into him and we’ve not seen him since.
He may have disappeared but I’m still afraid he will return to finish what he started.
To twist and manipulate me into the very same killer he is—force me to harm my family by breaking their minds and bodies just as mine has been destroyed.
They don’t deserve to be ripped to pieces for existing near me.
Let him try. I’m older now, stronger in more ways than one, and have since nourished the relationship with my voices—somewhat.
Though I sit here because I’m fascinated, I took this class to help me understand myself, and others like me.
For the most part, I’m here to find a reset button, the perfect chemical composition to kill the voices and wipe out memories that leave me in night sweats.
My degree itself? All I simply want is my name on one of those fancy prescription pads, to heal myself, and for my uncle—because if you can’t beat a psychopath, poison him.
I’m kidding—that’s called premeditated murder, and we’re too pretty to gallivant through prison like my mom and dad have. I love them, but that’s two sets of old footprints I won’t follow. Though, Bob Ross did put it perfectly—happy little accident.
“Alright, class. Any questions over the assignment due Monday?” Professor Jacobson asks.
His gray-streaked brows need a trim, resting like a pair of chrome caterpillars behind the black rim of his glasses.
Old, tired eyes glance across the student body, checking for raised hands and seeing none.
Silently waiting for someone to actively engage in discussion and give life back to the classroom has worn him down. I would, but I can’t.
A gum-chewing, cud-grinding, prissy girl from New York speaks up. “Professor, I have a question.”
“Of course, Miss Adams, go on.”
“Do you think it’s appropriate for psychopaths to attend your class, or does the university scrape the bottom of the barrel in order to keep the program funded?” Students giggle at her question.
“I’m not following, Miss Adams. Elaborate.”
She shifts forward, leaning her bony elbows on the coated particle board desktop with a stupid grin.
“Psychopaths shouldn’t have access to the material in your class. It could make them more unpredictable and unstable. So, why is she here?”
Students around her grin and look back at me—this shit isn’t new.
I’ve been dealing with it my entire academic career; it’s easier to ignore it than respond.
What happens if I do and I go too far? Like, hurt someone who only said mean things and who I’d never see past graduation.
I can’t do that. That’s not me, that’s not Sadie.
“I’m not sure who you’re referring to, Miss Adams. To answer your question, everyone is welcome to this material as scientific studies are public record.
Regardless if someone were to enroll in this course, they are privy to information that may or may not improve their mental health,” he answers dryly.
“So, we’re letting psychos treat psychos. That’s not healthy at all—that perpetuates a cycle of misdiagnoses and inadequate treatment. Psychos can’t treat themselves because they’re too fucked in the head to understand what they're seeing and believing isn’t real. That’s negligence, Professor.”
“Miss Adams, this is class. Not a framework for medical or psychological treatment. Perhaps your concerns are misplaced. I’d focus on writing your term paper and praying to the heavens you score high enough on the final exam to pass.
If there were a psychopath in this classroom, they’re the least of your worries. ”
The room bursts with laughter, mostly from the boys. The girls, though, especially Chelsea Adams, look back at me and glare.
Nearly four years here and I still can’t speak up. If I do, some people may never make it home.