how to make a mixtape :: mgc (fin.)

26. clozapine & cumberland state

After the day Scout and I spent around an hour sitting on the muddy ground of a dirty boulevard and simply talking, we've been growing closer. We'd see each other every day, and I even brought a packet of her clozapine so she made sure she wouldn't forget to take them. Although, it was difficult explaining why I had a sedative drug used to treat schizophrenia in my side of the shelf, I somehow managed to narrow through it. I don't remember what lie I told to pass, but I must've told one. Michael didn't question why I continuously left the house at early hours in the morning, and only came back at the dead of night. He didn't question the Benzie dropping me off at the footpath in front of his house, or the taste of blueberry lip balm on my mouth when I kissed him goodnight. He questioned nothing, and I couldn't be happier.

"Here," I say to her, popping out one of the pills into my hand and giving it to her, along with my bottle of water. The powdery residue sticks to my fingers; I wipe them down my jeans. "It's one o'clock."

She hums, taking her medicine and swallowing the water. We're both sitting in the living room, me on the plush white stool in front of the fireplace and her on the couch diagonal to it. It's a carefully planned room, shelves stacked with a few books and fake fruit baskets adorning the sides of the dark mantel. Her house isn't what I expected, after she told me she was schizophrenic. Even before, I expected it to be slightly messier than it actually is. Thinking of art students, I anticipated walls drowned underneath sketches and notes and ideas, and spray painted garage doors and the smell of marijuana lingering in the very essence of her house. I've been listening to too much of The 1975, I think, knotting my fingers together between my knees.

"You don't wear skirts anymore," she observes, wiping the bottom of her chin with the back of her hand. Her baggy military overalls slide down her arms, and she has her shoes up on the couch. She was shivering, before I gave her the pill, but she appears fine, now. Except she's staring at me rather pensively. "What a shame."

I look down at my jeaned legs, tugging at a tuft of black thread hanging out of one of the seams. "Yeah. I mean, it's getting colder, now, so-Scout, what are you doing?"

She's opened the cage for the fireplace, the black rungs pushed to the side. She's kneeling in front of it, her fingers skimming over the livid flame. I stare at her, praying she won't go any closer. She's looking at me, too, but she doesn't retract her arm, or move at all. She stays perfectly still, the embers flickering within her pupils being the only set of life sketching onto her pale frame. I squeeze my hands tighter together, and glance up at the clock. Suddenly, I want to go home. I've never wanted to go home around Scout, but I feel scared. I feel uncomfortable. I want Michael. A sick weight settles at the pit of my stomach.

"Why, the fire just doesn't seem hot enough," she says blandly. Her voice has no emotions in it, and lacks the bounce and energy it usually has. She shrinks back, pulling her legs up to her chest and rocking steadily on the carpet. The sick feeling begins to grow. "I'm freezing. Are you not?"

I chew on my bottom lip, lacing my fingers together. "Look, Scout, I'd better leave before-"

"I didn't mean to scare you." She smiles at me, the same smiles doctors give their patients before giving them their flu jab, or dentists give their clients before drilling into their teeth. Despite it her 'smile' being notorious for displeasure, I still relaxed. Just a bit. "Please, stay. We can go out later on, if you would like."

I nod, pushing my hair back from my face and clipping it back into my bun. The only sound in her modest house is the analogue clock ticking from high up the wall, and the crackle of the flames in the fireplace. Something tells me she never really was supposed to have a fireplace in here - being an ex-mental patient and still needing to be prescribed with clozapine.