C a p t u r e d

3: Vampire Girl

       

Chapter Three- Vampire Girl

Schizophrenia

1. Schizophrenia is a severe brain disorder in which people interpret reality abnormally. It is a chronic condition, requiring lifelong treatment.. Schizophrenia may result in some combination of hallucinations, delusions, and extremely disordered thinking and behavior.

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  My mind was running ragged. I missed most of my classes. I could barely remember to eat, much less do my assignments.

  It had been a couple of weeks since I got back from the hospital. However, in my mind, the events lingered. It made me feel like I'd only just gotten back. This was the blanket of surrealism that coated my whole life. I was continuously shocked that my roommate could put up with me. At the moment, she was my closest friend.

  I'd never had many friends. My history with them mostly consisted of short stints in elementary school. We would eat animal crackers and talk about boy bands, because the kids in my classes were way too mature to play pretend. But I preferred playing pretend, online games, and being alone.

  I was always the damper on the party, too. I would always convince my friends not to prank-call people or draw sharpie faces on their family while they slept.

  Eventually, I decided that my friends didn't like me. So I made a big stink of things, and avoided them until they stopped looking for me. That was my middle school experience.

  I was a victim-blaming little shit. In freshman year, my bipolar disorder started coming out. I would stay awake for days and smash my phone on the concrete, because how hard could it be to put it back together? I knew I could figure it out. I would steal money from my parents so I could buy all the clothing that I wanted, and then I wouldn't wear any of it. I was convinced I was strong enough to be in the Navy, or pretty enough to be a supermodel. Then, right after, I'd cry constantly and tell my friends about how horrible my life was and how much I hated myself. 

  So everyone began to assume that I wasn't friend material. I sulked for the next four years, but can you really blame them?

  Thinking back on it, I was mortified by how hard I tried to piss everyone off. Because now, in college, I didn't even know how to have friends.

  But Jackie still tolerated me. Like mine, both her parents were wealthy surgeons. From birth on, our families would go on vacations together. Additionally, we went to theaters, theme parks, and everything else under the sun.

  Our parents' weird points of views just clicked. So since I saw her so much, Jackie was basically my cousin. We never shared secrets or had serious discussions. But we were used to hanging out together. And while she saw me through my awkward overalls phase, and I saw her back in eleventh grade, when she always had food stuck in her braces.

  Our parents had both convinced us to go to college in the South. They claimed that it was the new West Coast.

  "New industries there... New opportunities. We all went there when we were your age... Blah blah blah, if you go together we'll pay for your college education."

  So that was why Jackie and I shared a dorm. It was cramped with dirty laundry and textbooks. It also smelled like a million bucks, thanks to the expensive perfume she'd dropped the other day.

  My parents approved of Jackie. Unlike me, she was a vapid socialite. Other than her Lord of the Rings obsession, she was the stereotypical popular girl. With a covertly written check, our college roomed us together.