Childish Tendencies

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Whenever I went to the garden, I took only one thing with me: hot chocolate. Jake and I had first bought Water Hot Chocolate on December 3rd, four years ago. Back then, the packet had been a dark black with a single ribbon of rainbow running through it. In fact, the rainbow ribbon is what had attracted Jake to the packet in the first place. (I found out why a year and three months later.) Water Hot Chocolate was the first thing I had cooked. I wasted three entire glasses of boiling hot water and three pints of chocolate before I made a mug of hot chocolate decent enough to serve Jake.

On October 28th, I waited three hours and thirty-seven minutes before Jake returned from what I learnt a month later was his boyfriend's house. I heard the rustle of Jake's feet against the carpet before I saw him. As soon as he set foot in the kitchen, I shoved my hot chocolate into his hands.

"I made it. On my own. It's for you!" Jake looked down at the hot chocolate in his hands. There was just the right amount of milk, the perfect amount of water, but on top, instead of the normalwhipped cream I had used chocolate to make what was supposed to represent a night sky. That was the first time I saw the now familiar look Jake gave me whenever I did something wrong.

The main reason I took Water Hot Chocolate with me, was because it was easy to make. All you had to do was pour hot water (which I carried in a thermos) into a mug, mix it well and then add a topping. I liked adding the topping the most, but only when I was at home. The sky in the garden was too distracting for me to concentrate enough to make a unicorn on my hot chocolate, or even a star. Now that I think of it, the garden was the reason I stopped designing in my hot chocolate.

Mother came home three months after Jake told me that Marcus wasn't only his friend, but his boyfriend. I liked Marcus; he had the oddest eyes I had ever seen. They were golden with a hint of green but when you saw them in the light, like I did on the fifteenth of April, you would see an undertone of baby pink in his eyes. Mostly, I liked Marcus for his eyes, everything else seemed pretty normal about him, (although Jake claimed otherwise before they broke up on the first of February). 

The day Mother came home Jake disappeared. Well, he didn't really disappear - he just wasn't Jake anymore. I still saw Jake walk past me in the kitchen, I still saw his silhouette under the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling of his room, I still heard Jake sing, "Papa Don't Preach" in the shower. I noticed him all the time. Maybe he just didn't notice me.

My throat screams for water but no sound comes out. Where is everybody? I look through my lashes, not able to keep my eyes open. The cuffs around my legs are loose; I can't feel them anymore. I try to lift my arms – no sensation. I can't move. Let me out. I have to get out, but I can't move. The last thing I see before my eyes slip shut is the syringe's sharp point biting through my flesh.

I never listen to music. Something about listening to somebody else sing when I could sing myself, doesn't sit right with me. That was part of the reason I never took music to the garden. I would enter the garden, drop all my bags at the entrance, open up my ferocious hair, remove my shoes and lay down in the center of the garden, where I could see the patch of stars that the trees had not covered.

 

I wake up feeling something hot and wet under me. The injection, having run out of my system allows me to lift my head. What is that? I look around and feel the liquid stick to my heels. Sick. I had urinated the injection out.

Stars always fascinated me. In the garden, I fantasized to my heart's content in the daylight, but as soon as the stars came out, my monkey-mind would disappear. The stars had an affect on me like nothing else could. Whenever I saw them, I couldn't help but part my lips in utter awe. Stars were so prominent, beautiful and yet dangerous at the same time. I felt I could touch them but they were never close enough. They made me lose a sense of time, distance, proximity; something the world's been longing for since it began.

Most people love stars for their beauty; I love them for their danger. They attract you like gold, but once you touch them, you burn to ashes. Their power is their beauty and they can deceive you just by moving closer to you. They light up the entire sky, but at the same time threaten to extinguish your entire world. Stars are angelic beings that all long to see, but none long to touch.

I hardly ever see stars anymore. All I can do is stare at the normal concrete wall and dream. The garden had the best stars. They would taunt me, cascading through the little opening made, close enough touch them and still be so frustratingly unreachable.

I woke up in the garden, an empty cup of hot chocolate beside me, sunlight bright in my face the day Mother told me we were going to take our first vacation. It was November 20th a year ago when I was first introduced to the idea of going abroad. I had run home from the garden at dawn, grass still stuck in my hair, as always to see my family awaken.

"Guess what!" Mother said, faking excitement, "We're going to Saudi Arabia." It took me longer than expected to process the information.

"It's going to be your very first trip out of town!" Her voice rose in pitch. I couldn't hold back the sudden urge to do a back flip as excitement washed over me. I landed square on my feet to see Jake's broken face.

"What is it?" I asked, clueless. He had given me a stern look and shaken his head.

"Vacation, vacation, vacation, vacation." I skipped around the house, singing.

Sometimes I ponder the reason I hadn't known better than to expect a vacation. Jake certainly knew that Mother's only plan was to sell more drugs. 

A nurse comes into the room.

"You have a visitor," she sings.

Jake follows the nurse into the room with a cautious look.

"You guys," I groan, "I'm not crazy."  They plaster smiles across their faces, trying to hide their doubt.

"Of course you're not, darling," the nurse lies. I watch Jake run a hand through his hair in frustration. All of a sudden, I lose control.

"You're lying," I holler, "Don't lie to me." The consistent high-pitched screams that leave my throat bring another nurse into the room. I see her eyes above mine before everything goes black. They're an electric green.