The Bunny Followed Me Home From School Today.

10

"Tell me about you.." Dr. Kathryn had graced her hands over my shoulder before making her way to the crowded desk by the window.

"What do you mean?"

"Who are you?"

Diving right in, aren't we? There was no hesitation in her voice, she wanted to get straight to the point. No games, just the truth. Nothing but.

"According to Emerson, I'm white and privileged."

I chuckle and she frowns.

"I don't know what you want me to say...I've been seeing a costumed Easter bunny. Pink. Walking around in broad daylight and no one else seems to see it. My mom told you that, right?

She still didn't look satisfied with my answer, "yes she did but-"

She paused and looked up at me, examining my face as if who I was was going to be written on my forehead and cheeks. Scarred in my eyes-the bunny and printed on my lips. Where the arch of my eyebrow reveals my memories. Those that are haunting me.

"Why do you feel the need to start there?"

"What do you mean?"

"I asked you about you, and you describe the events of your seventeenth birthday party."

Obviously she's been talking to my mom.

"- why didn't you start with how you feel? What type of things you like to do? Do them with? Who are your favorite people? What do you feel in the darkness? Are you scared? Is that where you believe your life started?"

"That's the first time I ever seen this bunny."

"Are you scared?" She articulates, thumping her pen against the clipboard that's highlighted in yellow, stripes. The only thing that gives this office a little life.

"I'm not here to talk about my fears, " I kindly reminded her.

"You're here because your mother thinks you're in danger."

"Of the bunny, yes, I just said that."

"No-" Dr. Kathryn scouted to edge of her chair, her legs still crossed, examining my face, "you're a danger to yourself."

Interesting. I've been learning so much about myself in the last 48 hours, every since I walked into this facility. They make you crazy here. Young Gardens Psychiatric are encouraging craziness. How can you be afraid of yourself, I've grown up in this body I know who I am. She couldn't possible believe that, that's absurd. I know who I am.

"Listen, Sydney, we just wanna get to the root of the problem." She inches closer to me with her chair.

"The bunny is the problem." I said.

Dr. Kathryn sighed as if she was giving up on me. Already. She threw the pen onto the pad. "Are you angry, Doctor?" Why did I just say that. Dr. Kathryn looked up from the floor her eyes immediately meeting mine, like she had, from a breech in words - uncovered a mystery.

She sat back into her chair, "Have you ever seen this bunny before? Before the party?" She asked.

************************

One by one we were escorted back to our cells, after of dinner, but before I was finally settled in I was directed to the call room where I apparently had a call waiting of me. I thought it was my mother, calling to apologize.

"Syd!" Reese.

"What the hell are you doing in a crazy house!" She yelled. I couldn't get a word in before she started ranting on about what school was like. How her day went. How everyone was looking for me, wondering where I was.

"Your mom came out to the school and asked for your school work..." She laughed, "Ann said you weren't coming back this year."

The phone fell silent.

"That bunny has really done something to you, huh?"

I propped myself up by the phone booth and replied with an obvious yes.

"You gotta get back home Syd. You have to know the truth."

"What truth?"

"About you."

"Is this a game, Reese?"

"Hardly." She spoke with such ease. Every word was effortless, carefully chosen to make the perfect statements.

And, suddenly, with the demand of that word, the alarms blared, old metal slammed and locked, the room turned red. Flashes of light almost blinded me, but I continued to stand in place, phone to my ear. Those words were the trigger.

The nurses ran frantically by, papers were flying and the mad teens were screaming from their cells. I soaked into the brick walls behind me while the phone slipped from my grasp and hung, held on by the cable - waving back and forth, almost like it was saying hi to the devil.