Schizoid

:.Uncertain.:

Start the song in the media. It's Bulls In The Bronx by Pierce The Veil. Thanks to everyone who's still reading, it means a lot. Don't forget to vote and comment. 

"No," Zack says, his eyes misty. "That can't be true... how could we have not known?"

Jenna presses her lips together, leaning back into the ugly-patterned sofa in Zack's living room. The man is sat across from her in his new La-Z-Boy recliner that doesn't match the atmosphere of the tiny studio. His face is in his hands as he cries. Finally, the attorney speaks up. "There was no way you would have known. He was already off to college when the symptoms presented themselves."

"But he's still my brother. And I'm still supposed to know if he's schizophrenic."

"Zack," Jenna sighs, "you've done everything you could do for him. You couldn't have been a better brother-"

"But I could've been a better son. He killed our parents... and Jay and Madison... if I had been paying attention, I would have been able to go get him some help. I went to go visit him nearly every weekend for the first few months. And he was different... Tyler's always gone through his bouts of depression, but he was just so unresponsive... it was horrible. But I didn't think about it much, I just figured that it was him being upset that our parents made him go to college, you know? I didn't think he was-" Zack cuts himself off with a sob. "Oh, God."

"You can't blame yourself for this," Jenna says soothingly.

"I can't? Why not? I knew something was up with him and that makes me just as guilty as the freaking voices in his head," the man cries.

"Voice," Jenna corrected him softly.

"What?"

"There's just one voice in his head."

Zack scoffs. "Thanks a lot, Jenna. Good to know." He sniffles, then gets to his feet, moving toward the door and opening it, letting in the cool outside air. "I think you should leave."

Jenna's shoulders slink down in disappointment. "Zack, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that-"

The man shakes his head. "It's not you, per se. I'm just not in the mood for company right now. I need some time to just think about everything that's happened."

The blonde woman nods in understanding. "Okay," she says, gathering her things and moving out the door.

"Text me if you come across anything important," Zack tells her.

Jenna nods. "Likewise." Zack shuts the door behind her as she climbs into her car with a specific destination in mind.

:.:

Mark sits at his desk with his head in his hands as Jenna bursts through the door without knocking. "Come on in," he snorts sarcastically.

Jenna is fuming. "What do you mean you're uncertain?" she asks, referring to a phone call he had made to her prior that had been her basis for coming to visit him at his work.

"Calm down-"

"What do you mean, Mark?"

The man sighs. "Can you just sit down, please? This isn't very easy to say." Reluctantly, she obeys, pulling out the chair across from Mark's desk and lowering herself onto it. "Okay. So... there are five types of schizophrenia-"

"What does that have to do with the fact that you-" Jenna seethes, only to be cut off by Mark. 

"Maybe if you would just let me finish!" Mark takes in a breath, allowing the tension in the room to ebb slightly before he continues on his previous train of thought. "The first and most common is called paranoid. It's when someone constantly thinks they're being watched, things of that nature. The second is called disorganized. It's when a person has mixed-up, crazy thoughts and speech, neither of which would be coherent to anyone they encounter. Then there's catatonic, where an extremely negative person refrains from speaking and other social situations. Next is residual, where a person basically just has zero interest in life and no will to live. The last one is called schizoaffective disorder, where a person shows both symptoms of schizophrenia and a mood disorder like manic depression... you know, bipolar disorder. Now, usually, it's very easy to categorize a schizophrenic person's type. But with Tyler... well, none of these types really define him."

"What about the last one?" Jenna asks. "Isn't he schizophrenic and depressed?"

"We can't call him schizophrenic unless he fits more easily into one of the first four types. The fifth type really isn't a definition of schizophrenia... it's its own thing."

"So what does all that mean?"

"It means that we really can't be certain that he's really sick." Mark says.

"Are you serious right now? You saw that boy! There's something wrong with him! Why can't you just give him a freaking placement test or something and figure it out?"

"That's not how mental disorders work, Jen. There's no official test to see whether or not someone is schizophrenic. There is something wrong with him... it's just..." Mark trails off.

"It's just what?" Jenna asks, frustrated.

"Well," Mark starts, then pauses, trying to figure out the perfect wording. "When I took the MRI - the scan of his brain - it looked a little... it wasn't normal."

"So, you can see the schizophrenia in the scan?" Jenna asks hopefully.

"No, it... okay, you know how Tyler talks about having been friends with Blurryface? If he was schizophrenic, that wouldn't have happened. At first, I thought he had paranoid schizophrenia; it's the most common type, especially among patients with delusions. But wasn't afraid of Blurryface; he wasn't particularly threatened by him and Tyler never felt like anybody was watching him, he can control his twitch if he focuses on it... Jenna, I don't think Tyler has a mental health issue. I think it's something bigger than that."

Jenna paused for a moment as she tried to piece together what he meant by that. "No. No, he's not one of those freaks. He can't be!"

"In his MRI, there was a foreign being lodged inside his brain. Tyler is not schizophrenic. He's supernatural. Blurryface isn't in his imagination. He's real. Tyler is just the only one who can see him."

Terror ran cold through the blonde's veins. "No. He's not gonna become another Lazarus Lane; another freaking Joker or Harley! I won't let him!"

"Why won't you just use this to help you with your defense instead of trying to fight for something that's not real? You're making everything personal again! Just because you're scared, you're going to keep him from knowing the truth about himself!"

"This has nothing to do with me being scared," Jenna lies. "It has everything to do with the fact that I don't want him to spend the rest of his life in Belle Reve."

"That asylum is the only place that he can get help. He's not gonna be able to march into any old psychiatrist's office and get a cure. That's not how it works."

"Promise me that you won't tell anyone," Jenna says quietly.

Mark's eyes widen in disbelief. "You want me to lie about his results? Jenna, this is the exact reason that I didn't want to help you with this in the first place."

'This is not about me," Jenna says fiercely. "This is about him. If you do this, you're guaranteeing him a spot in Belle Reve - penitentiary or asylum - forever. And that's not fair."

"You want me to lie on the stand? You want me to keep him from getting the help he actually needs because you want to save face? I'm not doing it. You asked for my help, and now you've got it. It's not my fault that you can't handle what's real. I did my part." Mark stands, opening the door. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some paperwork that I need to get done."

Jenna stands, and, for the second time today, is escorted out, hearing the door shut softly behind her.