Broken child | Adopted by Elizabeth Olsen

Chapter 9: Mother's disorder

Tessa's pov:

When Lizzie told me about the adoption. My heart cracked. In a good way, I guess. I just felt the bad life's cover breaking into million pieces. It'll all disappear. My old life. All will be gone. I mean, Theo and my brother will stay, but my life will become less miserable with Lizzie being beside me. I'm more than grateful that I got the chance to live happily.

'Something ends, something begins' they say. Yes, I agree. When my mother died, I found a new path. A new path to a better life.

I will get new friends, new family. Chris will become my uncle and Scarlett my aunt. I already love Chris! He's such a cool man. Yesterday, when we played games and baked cookies, I forgot about all of my problems. My mother, the police, school.

It felt incredible to be around nice people, who actually like you and don't wanna hurt you.

Also, I talked with Theo. I promised we'd meet up. Lizzie offered to drive me to his place, but I said it would be too high risk, because police's looking for me. Now, when she wants to adopt me, I guess I could go to San Bernardino...

I need to call my brother today. He'll for sure want to meet Lizzie to see if she'll be a good legal guardian. I'm sure she will be, but I get it. Most importantly, I need to let him know I'm alive! There's a chance Theo told him right after we hung up, but my brother still doesn't know where I am. Theo's a good secret keeper, so he for sure won't say where I am, if I begged him not to tell anybody.

—

I wake up to the sun shining brighter than ever. Finally, a great weather! I turn my head and reach over for my phone then put it down again after I check the hour. It's 8am. I'm not a morning person so for me - it's early. So early. I take a sip of water and go back to sleep.

—

I wake up to the sound of Lizzie telling me it's 10am. I'm so tired. I whine and mumble something through my half-sleep. She leaves me and I drift off to sleep again.

—

I wake up to the sound of Lizzie saying something again. I still wanna sleep! I don't move and just lie there numbly.

"Sweetheart, it's 1pm. Don't you wanna get up, eat some breakfast?" Lizzie asks softly

I don't answer. I want to, but the words seem impossible to be spoken.

Is this an episode?

When I was a little kid, the symptoms of bipolar disorder were extremely visible in my behavior. Since my mother had bipolar, she decided to take me to the doctors to check if I do too. It turned out, I have bipolar disorder. Since she didn't care about me much, she didn't say a word to my brother. He still doesn't know. I was a little kid when the doc got me diagnosed so I was never sure. I think I have it, but I'm still not so sure.

She promised to buy me the meds, but did she? No, of course not. My mother preferred to spend the money on alcohol or drugs, or gifts for my brother.

The episodes were happening and I was just going through them without anyone knowing. Without any help.

They've been times where I would lie in bed all day, then the day after and so on. It could last few days. During those days I wouldn't eat, I wouldn't drink at all or very little, I would take a piss only if I really, really needed to. Getting out of bed, or even - moving in fact is extremely exhausting and it hurts. Mentally hurts. It's the same thing when it comes to the sounds. I could hear a dog barking outside and I would cry because of that. Because in my head, it was too loud.