Mirrors

Insane

Chapter Thirteen:

Insane

After a year and a half of mistrials and constant battles in the court, Shane was pleaded not guilty through insanity. His schizophrenia had become his defense, his excuse that would prevent him from going to jail. At the time, I was completely against the idea. I didn’t want to walk through the same town he roamed  around in, with fear that someday I would bump into him again. At nine years old, I couldn’t help but feel exasperated—how could a man like him escape justice when he had made my life a living hell? How could I forgive him for creating more tension in school, more eyeballs glaring at me, more foul mouths spitting words that left me in a thorny prison? There was no escaping everyone. It made me cringe every time Dad aked me, “How was school?”

In retrospect, looking at what Shane had gone through had changed my perspective of him. He didn’t mean to do most of the things he had done. He was trapped in his own mind that would betray him in every single aspect of his life. There was no returning back in time in order to change things. He couldn’t be a better brother. He couldn’t be my friend instead of a foe. He couldn’t stop drowning himself in weed in order to numb all his pain. His own mind was uncontrollable, without proper judgement to guide him along his world. To be trapped in that insanity, in that ‘abnormality’ was a curse that he didn’t intend to live with. He was scared, frustrated and powerless. He was as pathetic as I was.

Do I forgive him for that?

I found myself in a small, square room with books lining up the walls. A desk stood with a laptop sitting on top, with names and schedules placed in neat rows and columns in a software. The room was fairly dark, with tints and shades of browns and black. A lady, of about sixty years old, sat on an office chair with a notepad in her hand. She wore glasses held together by a golden chain. It bobbed on her nose, sometimes almost falling off. She wore a three piece suit, professionally put together. A brown jacket partially covered her white shirt. She wore a brown pencil skirt that reached to her knees. Her legs folded as she listened to a young man laying down on a maroon lounge chair.

This wasn’t part of my memory at all. I don’t ever recall standing in this room, nor do I notice anything about it. This wasn’t my memory. But why am I here? I thought. I sat on one of the smaller chairs.

I realized that the young man laying down on the lounge was none other than Shane. He was here to talk to a psychiatrist, which was part of his treatment. I sat, dumbfounded. There I was, listening to the very person I hated for so many years. I was too tempted to listen to whatever he had to say, so I could fish for some of his darkest secrets.

Shane dressed nicely for once; he wore jeans with a belt, a Rolling Stones shirt and a black, unbuttoned vest. He rested himself on the lounge chair, though still full of tension.

“I just couldn’t get over their death. That was when I started acting up,” I heard him say when I realized who he was.

“How did you start going through these sudden changes?” the psychiatrist asked, waiting for Shane to talk so she could jot something down on her small notepad.

Shane shook his head, grimacing. He furrowed his brows, trying to think. “I really have no idea. But I think I started slipping away once I started doing drugs.”

“Was marijuana the only drug you had taken?”

“No,” Shane said, shaking his head with shame. “I tried cocaine once, but pulled away from it. I was just really scared. I think the guilt I buried made me snap.”

“So the guilt—not the drug—made you go through—”

“—Insanity?” Shane interrupted. “Yeah, I guess. That and all the buried emotions I had. It just made me insane to the point of ignoring my actions.”

“And that’s when you started talking to yourself?”

“Yes,” Shane mumbled, suddenly trembling in tears. Everything he had done seem to emerge out into the atmosphere for everyone to see, even when it was only the psychiatrist listening to every word he blurted out—including me. “That girl—I can’t believe I did that to that girl,” Shane mumbled, choking on his tears. “I didn’t mean to. I—I didn’t mean to hurt her.”

“What happen to the girl?” the psychiatrist asked, pulling the crooked glasses towards her eyes.

“I—can’t,” he said, wiping away his tears. “I don’t even think she’ll forgive me.”

Forgive?

“Whatever you did, I think she’ll forgive you if you sought for closure,” the woman reassured.

“You don’t understand!” Shane bolted, standing up with clenched fists. His infuriated eyes weren’t directed toward the woman, but to himself. The shame crawled on his skin, following him wherever he went. “What I did to her is unforgivable! Colton—my brother—told me how bad she’s being treated for it. She’s being bullied. She’s being called a who—!” Shane stopped at his tracks, his mouth wide open. His eyes were aloof, as if he were watching something ahead of him. The images played right before him, which haunted his very soul. And then, he excused himself, leaving the room.

My hands clutched at my thighs. The whole time I felt like I held onto my breath. When I let myself breathe, something wet ran down my cheeks without me noticing. They dropped on my thigh, surprising me. I wiped away the tears, with my head bent low.

It was easy to say that Shane was just talking about me. The harder task was trying to forgive him. He was so pathetic, but healing. He was so angry at himself, but he was learning to forgive himself. He was caught in a predicament that no ordinary person could ever suffer through. Although he was almost powerless, he had enough strength to pull himself out. All he needed and all he sought for was the forgiveness from the people around him. From his family to his forgotten friends. And that included me.

Shane and I were more alike than I thought. We were tainted by our mistakes, our frustrations. We were let down by the people around us, causing us to revolt against expectations. We were in limbo, left in a tightrope between fantasy and reality. I wondered how insanity felt like. How could it have controlled someone so much that almost every action they took wasn’t what they had planned to do? Was it fear? Was it isolation? Was it hallucinations? Was it swirling emotions left buried underneath heaps and heaps of sorrow?

Then, I remembered something about the conversation. They were talking about voices. Voices—they had rolled around me, demanding for my attention back in my ocean world. These voices portrayed different personalities that sought for various things. They tried to overpower me, whispering in my ear. Some were sweet, melodic voices. Some were loathsome demons that frightened me with every word. Their hissing voices kept me coherent, but exhausted. At times it felt as if a snake’s tongue slithered into my ear, whispering gory thoughts into my mind.

Sometimes, I felt as if they did control me. I couldn’t see them, but they could see me. They dragged me around, making my body twitch and shove. They made me believe memories that was never mine to begin with. Their past lives struggled to join with mine; I have no idea why. I was one of them, and yet too unique to compare. I had a grim feeling that they wanted to take over my body. They want to be me. Their souls slammed against mine, though they couldn’t find the strength to possess me. But they waited in the shadows, knowing that someday I’d be too weak to defend myself. I hoped that day would never come.

In a nutshell, that was insanity. Have I been in the pool of lunacy for far longer than I had thought?

It didn’t matter. If Shane pulled himself out, I could too. I would swim pass that surface, swimming above the ocean. It wasn’t a matter of ‘do I forgive Shane’ anymore; no it’s something more than that.

Would I ever forgive myself?