One Flew INTO The Cuckoos Nest

Chapter Seven

Monopoly is a really weird game. In my book they played Monopoly once and my teacher said it was a metaphor for the ward the patients and McMurphy. I guess she was saying that McMurphy was trying to take everyone's money or something but I think it was a little more than that. She also told us that Monoply originally was intended to teach kids about communism and captilism and all those other government isms. Isn't it kind of scary to think that we're playing a game that was intended to scare us away from monoplies like it's as fun as a harmless little game of shoots and ladders?

I haven't said much since Jenny and I joined the game, but I've been watching. There are three other players and Jenny introduced them all to me. There's Joey, he's kind of like Drake. He's loud but he doesn't swear, he just talks a mile a minute. Jenny says he's got some real advanced ADHD or something along them lines. Then there's Lily who is awfully quiet. Jenny just said she doesn't talk at all. I wonder if she actually does talk but chooses not to like Bromden. Finally I met Brandon. Jenny says he's a cool guy. I guess they're all friends but they seem like an odd group to me.

It's Joey's turn now. I watch him roll the dice and his piece skips along the spaces at hyper speed as he counts numbers out so fast and loud you couldn't keep track. Hell, the kid could be winnin' by cheating and nobody'd be the wiser.
I watch those metal pieces chase each other around like clock arms for a while. I got myself some fine real estate going and set up green houses all along my corner of the board.
I like those little houses. They remind me of the house we used to live in before we moved into town and before I met Jamie. That house was a nice place. Maybe a little rickety but-
"Hey can you pass me the dice?" I look up and my eyes meet Brandon's but I guess my eyes are fuzzed over from staring at them houses I have too long. I can't hardly see the board, or anything with good clarity.
"Hello? Did you hear me? You can hear can't you?" He asks but his voice is starting to bubble and spit like water set out to boil too long.
"Yeah, yeah I can hear! What do you want?" I ask waving off his rising temper.
"I said, hand me the dice freak."
Freak.
With those words alone I feel the volts of electric buzz through the veins of my brain, sparking up painful memories that I fight so hard but they don't go away. They come into clarity all too suddenly, like a deer in a pitch dark road. Everything was riding smoothly but those words start a glowing like wide florescent eyes and it's too late to slam them breaks.
I slam them anyway. But it doesn't save me. No. I fly from my seat through a pane of shattered glass hanging in the air as everything slows down. I can see the stars in those pieces of glass surrounding me. The stars from that night. The night of the freak.

"Jamie wait!" I call out in the pouring rain. My hair is flat down on my head, my shirt sticking to me like I painted it onto my skin.
Jamie stops, her arms wrapped around her shivering and I can't help but worry she'll get sick in this downpour. I want more than anything to reach out. To take her in my arms and protect her. I don't dare move from my spot though. See I learned a thing or two about emotional girls over the years. I don't want to spook her. She'll kick me hard in my softest spot and gallop off to the safety of another boy's arms. Liam's arms...
"Jamie, please. It's me." I say, my voice is cracking in desperation but I use this as a strength rather than a weakness. If I can only convince her that I'm broken without her. If I can just get her to turn around and see the scattered pieces she's leaving behind, I know she'll stay. She has to.
"You are not the boy I met." She repeats. She's been saying that a lot. So many times I'm starting to figure she's the crazy one, not me.
"I am though! I just need you to turn around. Please. Just turn around." I beg so pleadingly I think she can't help but look at me. I feel my face shivering with excitement that I know she'll crack and come back to me. She has to.
I push my excitement down and prepare a puppy face. Like one of them dogs you see on those animal shelter commercials.
Jamie turns.
Something isn't right though. She doesn't melt at the sight of me, in fact she seems to choke in disgust. "No, Ethan. The boy I knew was normal. He was funny, kind, and he didn't kill cats or see monkeys, or hear voices, or any of that! You are not the boy I knew." She says sternly. I can feel my heart cracking in my chest. I can feel it. This time I'm for real. I am not faking it.
"You are a freak." Jamie says as if finishing me off.
She leaves me after that. She doesn't stay around to see the effects she has. I have no choice though, I'm stuck in my skin. Trapped in this crazy fun house of a body that has me switching between made up and concrete realities.
I clench my chest as the blood rises in my throat. Shards of red glass come up in shiny chunks or searing pain. I choke on them, throwing myself onto my hands and knees. I feel the stones of the wet gravel carve into my skin but it is nothing in comparison to the dreadful flow of red vomit that comes from my chest and not my stomach.
That night I watched her walk away as I regurgitated the shattered pieces of my heart in her driveway. I laid down exhausted, still heaving but the flow had run dry, and I swear I could see some of the pieces still beating.
I couldn't stand the sight so I looked up to the sky hoping to open my mouth and rinse out the hurt in the rain. But the sky was crystal clear. Each star looking down on me to remind me how tragic my existence was and is. But that may have just been me, simply being a freak.

Authors note:
OKAY SO I'M REALLY EXCITED ABOUT THIS CHAPTER!!!!! Please feel free to comment, question, critique, vote, follow, and of course WRITE ON!
-TEM