In My Head ; jenlisa ff G!P {COMPLETED}

13

November 21, 2023

It was somehow decided that Jisoo and I would play tennis on Monday nights. I do not play tennis. Nor have I ever expressed any desire to do so.

This is what happened.

During last week's Academic Team match, it only took a few minutes for my mom to make eye contact with Jisoo's mom to see if Jisoo was okay after her nosebleed. She walked over with Marco in tow and proceeded to rummage through her bag for wet wipes to help mop the blood off Jisoo's face.

My mom still keeps wet wipes in her purse. They usually dry out before she has the opportunity to use them, but on the rare occasion that she can bust one out and wipe something sticky off her hands, she'll turn to me and raise an eyebrow as if to say, See? I told you they'd come in handy.

Whatever transpired between the two moms in that moment, I will never know.

By the time I got in the car, it had been decided that I would spend more time with Jisoo. I tried explaining that that was basically impossible, since she was already in almost all my classes AND on Academic Team, but my mom liked the idea of me hanging out with friends outside school. There was no dissuading her.

Being set up on a "playdate" in high school is not beyond the realm of behavior for my mother, but I still pretended to be shocked and outraged. Even though Marco tried to intervene, my mom was resolute. I would play tennis with Jisoo.

So on Monday, Jisoo and I met at a tennis court near my neighborhood. The first thing I noticed was that she looked skinnier in tennis clothes than she did in her uniform at school.

"Have you ever played before?" she asked.

"Nope."

"Have you ever seen a tennis match before?"

"Nope."

She was unfazed. Jisoo taught me how to hold a racket, and for one hour we hit balls back and forth to each other. She was actually really good, way more coordinated than I thought she'd be, which is probably pretty jerky on my part. When we were done, we sat on the edge of the tennis court for a while, drinking Gatorade. I noticed she was really quiet. It was weird.

"What's up?" I asked.

"Did you just come here because your mom told you to?" she asked. The question was awkward. I'd put it in the same category as Will you be my friend?

"No," I lied. "I've never played tennis before. It sounded like fun." Her face split into this big, goofy grin.

"Same time next week?"

"Sure."

She picked up her bag and walked off the court, leaving a heavy scent of her sunscreen in the air. SPF 500, I'm sure.

And that was it. I don't know if we're just both so completely pathetic that our moms felt the need to set us up, or if Jisoo and I were always meant to venture on this awkward journey of friendship together. But it's okay. I guess.

—
It is not generally my prerogative to bum anyone out. I don't want them to feel like they have to carry my problems around as if they don't already have shit of their own festering inside them. It isn't fair. That's why I always say "Fine" when my mom asks how I am and why I always return Marco's awkward smile with an equally awkward smile of my own.

I do not want to be someone's problem. I don't want to be the reason someone has to change their life.

Today at school I thought about you. Not in a creepy way. I just wondered about the other people you've treated. The other schizos with their disjointed speech and soapy spit bubbles and tinfoil hats. The ones who aren't on ToZaPrex and who no longer see the line between what is real and what is batshit crazy.

About a year ago, when my mom first took me to see a doctor, I was in bad shape. It felt like my brain had been dumped onto a dirty sidewalk, then poured back into my head with bits of garbage and broken glass.

It was surprising how quickly it happened. I was fine, and then I wasn't. The doctor's waiting room was like purgatory: everybody knows they're already dead, but it's such a depressing afterlife it's actually a little scary if you think about it too hard. Exactly like being stuck in line at the DMV for all eternity.

The waiting room is a place I still have nightmares about. Except when I do, I'm chained to one of the chairs and trying to ward off the punches of another patient while my mom watches from behind a glass window because a man in a white coat is trying to explain that I'm too dangerous to approach. I'm screaming and crying, but no one hears me or, worse, no one cares. It's the loneliest I've ever felt.

Anyway, the waiting room only had two or three patients in it. All men. Unless you counted Juria, who was sitting quietly and playing at the Lego table.

One of the men was my age and with his mom. He looked like he was in worse shape than me, which was comforting for some reason. Of course, that made me feel guilty.

Why should the fact that he looked worse off make me feel better about myself? It doesn't matter. There's no escape for either of us. Even our moms know this is true, which is probably the worst thing about this situation.

I'd rather suffer alone.

So the other kid in the waiting room was rocking back and forth and humming to himself. It wasn't a song I recognized, and the tune seemed to change sporadically. His mom wasn't saying anything to him about it. She was reading something on her Kindle and acting like her son was just sitting there not doing anything odd. It was like she knew her kid was being weird, but she would be more than happy to kick your ass if you brought it up.

She had this Xena: Warrior Princess attitude about her that made it perfectly clear that she had been fighting for her son his entire life. It was only when he started pulling at his sleeve that she snapped to attention and pulled the sleeve back, but not before I saw the deep red gashes in his forearms. They looked like he'd been digging for something up to the crook of his elbow.

I was staring, and his mother noticed and glared back, daring me to say something, which kicked my mom's natural protective instincts into gear. They stared each other down for a moment before my mom asked, "Here to see Dr. Finkleman, too?"

The other woman nodded, touched her son's head fondly, and eventually resumed her reading. They were no longer adversaries, just two women fighting the same battle, putting their faith in the same doctor. Cure my child.

I think about that waiting room more than any other spot because it's our gathering place. The place where the crazies go. A group of us, seeing things no one else can see and following orders no one else can hear, because we have no choice. Our truth is different from everyone else's.

I guess I should count my blessings because I could have been born in pretty much any other decade in history and been sent to a madhouse where the patients were caged and baited like animals. Places so breathtakingly evil that you don't have to imagine hell. Asylums were nasty places.

This entry is a bummer, but count your blessings. At least you get paid to read it.

DOSAGE: 2.5 mg. Approved increase in dosage.