The Bunny Followed Me Home From School Today.

6

"We're not crazy here!"

"What does that mean?!" My mom blurted out, spinning around her face completely transformed from the woman that would usually come home from work, into something I didn't recognize.

We are. Not. Crazy. Here.

"Sydney, I came home and you were lying in the driveway, crying like you were dying! I hardly call that sane!"

"Maybe I was.."I rolled my eyes beginning to fiddle with my fingers under the glass table. Something inside me was dying I smelled it escaping my mouth when I tried to convince her I wasn't crazy. It was a foul smell, but it probably because I forgot to brush.

My mom began to pace around the kitchen, stopping occasionally to pick up stray colorful cereal I'd dropped earlier today, from the floor and countertop island.

"And what's with this bunny?" She calmly asked.

I continued to look down while she accused me of being nuts. That I must not have been getting enough sleep during the night or that these scary movies I apparently watch while she's out, are clearly making me delusional.

Oh, and I never mentioned a bunny.

I stared at her with anger and confusion - how can you accuse your own flesh and blood of being insane? How the hell did she know about a mischievous bunny I never mentioned to her. The crest in her forehead deepened once she caught sight of me, my eyes never blinking, worried I miss a shift in expression that would call her bluff. My attention forever on that pink costumed bunny.

"I think it's best if we go see, Dr. Kathryn." She said pulling her attention from me then onto the floor almost like she had had this conversation before with me and I'd lashed out at her and called her a bad mother for wanting to get me help from Dr. Kathryn. The words flowed from her mouth naturally, as if I knew exactly who she was referring to. I knew a Dr. Lance (pediatrician) and Dr. Chumming (AP Biology teacher).

No, I told myself, I don't know a Dr. Kathryn.

Even though, I refused to see a Dr. Kathryn, there was never a disrespectful moment between us despite the pulsating tension.

Her eyes had become light, as a tears started the fall from her eyes.

"Reese told me what happened the other day."

"It was there, mama. I'm not crazy." It was almost like I was pleading to myself that I wasn't guilty. I'm not crazy.

I didn't know Dr. Kathryn, but she obviously knew my mom because after one click of an email to the doctors we pulled into this massive, fenced prison-like place, nevertheless, beautiful building, oddly resembling the houses in Homewood. Young Gardens Psychiatric Institution.

This definitely wasn't her office, I told myself. There's no way I'm walking into this place and walking out in a couple of hours. If at all. I watched as two giant men escaped the entrance covered in dark brown scrubs, the one on the left pushed a wheelchair outside toward my direction while right side man waited beside the double doors and I turned to my mom who suddenly became timidly quiet.

"Dr. Kathryn said it'll just be a few days, they just want to evaluate you." Mom said, as her words of comfort.

"No." I choked out, folding my arms across my chest.

As I was thinking about how twisted this was of her, my door suddenly opened and the left side man was staring at me as if his big arms, and meaty head would scare me into the wheelchair. "MOM -" I yelled, calmly. "- they're going to screw a hole in my head. And you're okay with that?"

In that moment, I needed the overprotective mom, the one who yelled at parents, the older kids when their children touched Jo and I's dark hair filled with pink ribbons, on the playground or stepped in our community sandbox. That's who I needed in that moment. I've grown up, and I see that, I'm adjusting into this life as a overgrown child but in the meantime I'll need the help of the one I love the most.

Her words were even colder when she spoke again, "Take her."

I looked over at my mom, in those final minutes pleading, that I'd get over the bunny and everything would be alright. Things will be different if you take me home now, I told her. 'I'll never mention that bunny again'. Her facial expression unaffected by the words that I had spoken, by my cry for help - to save me. That's all I wanted. For her, to save me. So, c'mon, mom, save me.