Out of My Mind

OUT OF MY MIND

By

Pat White

Copyright 2013 Pat White

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Every day somebody tells me I’m a lucky girl.

Yeah, a lucky girl, freak.

I suck in a deep, fortifying breath and use non-existent stomach muscles to pull my head off my bedroom carpet into another crunch.

“Catherine, you’re not overdoing it, are you?” Mom calls from downstairs.

“No, I’m being good!”

I used to be able to close my door for privacy but since the accident Mom insists I keep it open, just in case.

My body shudders as I attempt crunch number fifteen. I need to hit twenty to prove I’m ready to get back on Evergreen Cheer.

I can do it. I need my life back, just the way it was.

I can’t believe how my muscles turned to mush during my three months at Swedish Hospital including a week in a drug-induced coma. The doctors thought it was the best way to manage my traumatic brain injury.

With renewed determination I pull myself up and touch my nose to my bent knee. My head pounds, my pulse races and I sweat like Bobby McDonald after football practice. Or is his name Jimmy McDonald? Damn.

For half a second I wonder if waking up from the coma had been such a great idea.

“Don’t.” Self-pity is for losers.

But sometimes I can’t help it.

Life was good before my TBI.
Traumatic Brain Injury
. I was on top of the world. My world.

Now, in my “new normal” world, I struggle with the simplest things like focus, short-term memory, and cognitive function. Yesterday I couldn’t remember the word for backpack.

And if anyone knew about that other thing…

“Are you still up for the mall?” Mom calls.

“In a minute!”

After four more grueling sit-ups. I can do them. I
have
to do them.

I need to get back on the squad, resurrect my 4.0 GPA and get Greg Hoffman to ask me out. Please, please, please God. He was about to ask me to prom last spring before my life exploded.

Nothing like having your skull smashed against the pavement to derail your social life.

I ease back down to the floor. School starts the day after tomorrow, which means I have less than 48 hours to be me again, to walk into Evergreen High as if nothing’s changed.

Yet one look at me and it’s obvious I’m not the same girl I was before the accident. My once long, blond hair barely touches my ears, and my jeans hang loosely off my hips thanks to being fed through a tube.

Still, I’m doing a pretty good job of convincing the people around me that I’m the same Catherine Westfield, over achieving honor student and captain of the Relay for Life team that raised the most donations two years in a row.

I inhale and focus on the Maroon 5 poster on my ceiling. Crunch sixteen. I pull my head up off the floor. My body trembles and my eyes water.

“Catherine? You ready?”

Mom’s voice sounds close, just outside the door close.

“Coming!”

One more, just one more crunch and I’ve beaten my record. My stomach muscles burn. I can do this.

“Six—”

“Catherine!” Mom hovers in the doorway with a frown on her normally pleasant face. “Five is supposed to be your limit.”

“It’s fine.” I squeeze my eyes shut. If Mom figures out how hard this is she’ll call the doctor, get Dad all freaked out, and probably keep me from starting school.

I can’t miss the first day of my senior year or rumors will spread about Catherine Westfield, once a leader, popular and smart, now a mentally-challenged basket case.

Loser.

Freak.

No, I’m the only one who knows about the freak part.

I straighten my legs and shake them out like I used to when warming up for the squad routine. I turn my head so Mom doesn’t see me wipe tears from my cheeks with my shirtsleeve.

“I don’t remember sweating this much before,” I cover.

“Then you’re overdoing it.”

Mom comes into my room and extends her hand to help me up. “There’s no rush.”

Not for her.

Standing without her help, I ignore the flash of hurt in her eyes. Can’t help it. I have to start doing things by myself and stop relying on people. I grab my purse off the chair.

“I can give you a ride to school tomorrow,” Mom offers with a hopeful pitch to her voice.

Mom dropping me off in the Electric Lime? Can my life get any worse?

“I’ve got a ride, thanks.”

In the silence that follows, we both wonder if I’ll ever be able to drive again thanks to the possibility of random seizures.

J.D. Pratt should burn in hell for what he did to me. Just my luck that his is one of the few names I can remember with blinding clarity. That and the seconds before his car hit me.

Blinding bright lights.

The high-pitched squeal of brakes.

My choked scream.

Then darkness. For what seemed like forever.

I shove back the memory and glance around my bedroom feeling like I’ve forgotten something. I feel like that a lot lately: forgetful, confused and more than a little anxious.

“Ready?” Mom asks.

“Sure.” I shoot her an “everything’s great” smile and head for the hallway hoping to get past her without a lot of drama. She’s been way too emotional lately.

She blocks the doorway and gives me a hug. It’s tentative and gentle. She doesn’t want to hurt her fragile daughter.

After a few seconds she steps back and studies me. “Catherine?”

I focus on her gold, heart-shaped necklace. I can’t risk making eye contact.

With her forefinger and thumb she tips my chin so I’m looking into her oval-shaped face.

“You are my miracle child,” she reminds me, “so very lucky.”

If I hear that one more time I’m going to spit nails. I don’t feel lucky. I feel cheated, damaged.

I offer another fake smile and focus on the pearly white button of her sweater. I look anywhere but her eyes.

Maybe I’m being a jerk. Maybe I should tell her about—

“Hey.” She dips her head so I have to make eye contact or she’ll think I’m hiding something. Not booze in the front bushes. Not cigarettes or weed under the floorboards in my room. No, this is worse.

I chance a look into her soft brown eyes and start the countdown in my head.

“Your father and I thank God every day…” she begins.

Five. Four.

“For bringing you back to us…”

Three. Two.

Light bursts flash behind my eyes. I’m paralyzed, unable to move or speak. Am I even breathing?

No! I can still count backwards from five, damn it. I have one second left before—

An anguished cry pierces my eardrums but it’s not my voice that sends shivers down my spine. I’m on my knees surrounded by grey. Grey carpeting and grey walls. Huge bubbles float down a long hallway in a myriad of colors. What’s happening?

I glance up and see my petite Mom leaning against the wall moaning like a wounded animal, the sound hollow and terrifying.

My Dad, whose brown hair flies wildly in five different directions, tries to comfort her but she pushes him away. “My baby! I can’t lose my baby!” Her body shakes with gut wrenching sobs.

“They can help her here.” Dad guides her to a chair in the middle of the hall.

“Mr. Westfield?” A tall woman approaches them. She’s wearing light blue scrubs. “The doctor has agreed to admit her.” She hands Dad a clipboard and he signs.

He hands it to Mom. She looks away. He touches her shoulder. She grabs the pen and scribbles her name. With a nod, the nurse walks away.

“Oh, Adam, I can’t stand it! I want my baby back! My baby! My baby!”

My heart clenches with unbearable pain. I have to break the spell, but I’m stuck. I bang my head against the wall. I need out of this nightmare.

“Catherine!” Mom’s voice slams against me.

I gasp, struggling to breathe. I blink a few times to bring the world into focus. I’m back in my room and Mom’s staring at me with a horrified expression.

I went away again. I hate that place, the freak place that leaves me exhausted and confused.

“You had another seizure?” Mom asks, concern filling her brown eyes.

I close mine. Can’t go there again. “I’m fine.”

“What happens when–?”

“I said I’m fine.” I edge past her and escape into the hallway, away from feeling her pain, away from the anxiety ripping through my stomach. Those stupid things seem so real.

I’m not sure what the hallucinations are exactly. They could be buried memories from coma sleep, or maybe it’s my broken brain working overtime to fill in the blank spots of my life. My doctor said a petit mal seizure could happen once in a while.

Whatever they are, they happen when I look too long into someone’s eyes. I call them HULU’s, thinking a nickname will make them seem less threatening. Well, that and they remind me of that website that streams video like my brain streams images.

Disturbing, violent images.

I can’t tell Dr. Sanders. He’d ask for details about when I had my first hallucination, what it felt like and what I saw.

Talk about awkward. How could I tell him I experienced my first HULU while looking into his eyes? I saw the soft-spoken doctor smacking his wife around, which only convinces me I’m certifiably crazy.

I don’t want to be crazy. I want to be normal, the way I was before the accident and the random hallucinations that scare the crap out of me.

“Catherine?”

I hesitate at the top of the stairs but don’t turn around. “Yeah?”

“Would you mind if I moved up our appointment with Dr. Sanders? For my peace of mind?” She steps closer.

“Whatever. Where are we going again?”

“The mall, remember?” Mom puts her hand on my shoulder.

I automatically step away. I can’t stand people touching me. That’s a new thing, too.

“I meant which stores?” I recover. I didn’t even remember we were going to the mall, another wiring malfunction in the short-term memory department.

“Wherever you want to go,” she offers.

“Cool.” I try to sound excited.

I’m terrified, but I can’t let her know that. I get confused sometimes, mix up words and forget things, but I’m still good at faking it and acting normal.

No one can know the truth.

We head downstairs past the glory wall of pictures: me at two in a Halloween princess costume, me performing with the eighth grade dance team. I glance at a few recent pics and make mental notes about what clothes to buy. It seems I’m into skinny jeans and tank tops.

Since my release from Swedish Hospital all I’ve wanted to wear are sweatpants and long-sleeved shirts, sheepskin boots and some kind of hat that covers my short blond hair. I pretend it’s a style thing, but I don’t want anyone to see my scars, even though my hair pretty much covers them.

Well not all of them. I pull the moonstone choker out of my purse and fasten the clasp behind my neck. It falls just right to cover my trach scar.

“Let me get my purse,” Mom says, disappearing into the kitchen.

I head outside into the Pacific Northwest sunshine. Living in Sammamish has its advantages. It feels like we’re in the mountains even though we’re only thirty minutes from downtown Seattle.

I take a deep breath. The crisp scent of pine clears my head and for a second I feel like I can really do this, I can become my old self. Hope bubbles up in my chest and I open my eyes with a smile.

And then I see
him
.

J.D. Pratt is on his front porch across the street, lounging in a chair, writing in a notebook.

I can’t do twenty sit-ups or remember the word for backpack, yet he sits there doing the most mundane things with ease.

Rage claws its way up my chest. I want to hurt him in ways that scare me. Ways that include a baseball bat, a two-by-four and…

I close my eyes and wonder…if I get into Mom’s car, floor it across the street and run over J.D. Pratt, spill his blood all over the grass and leave him with permanent brain damage, will I get my life back?

Will I?

Run him over? Spill his blood all over the grass?

God, what’s happening to me? I never used to think like this, did I?

The sight of J.D. floods my brain with memories, like waking up and thinking I was in heaven and being pissed that I didn’t get to do the whole prom thing.

But I wasn’t in heaven. I was in a hospital bed surrounded by strangers. People were talking at me but the sounds didn’t make sense. I was confused, terrified.