Because For Rhuine plays off in a mental institution it contains sensitive subjects that might act as triggers to traumatic experiences.
Am I not insane,
For craving a love without pain?
Am I not wishful,
For wanting you here, still?
Am I not naïve,
For believing that you are my reason to breathe?
I can live my life without riches, finery and gold,
But I cannot for one second, believe that your love has grown cold.
Madness, chaos, broken dreams, I can watch my mind slip down that darkened slope,
For in my heart, there's a special feeling,
A feeling called ...
HOPE.
CHAPTER ONE
My name is Madeleine Saltz. Madi for short. I'm just a normal person. You wouldn't even look twice when you pass me on the street. On second thought, maybe you would. See, I'm crazy. And not just the woohoo-look-at-me-I'm-doing-the-chicken-dance, kind of crazy.
The real crazy...
I occupy the dainty little room, number 105, at Green Hill Mental institution.
I have brown hair, blue eyes, and a splatter of freckles on my nose. Like I said, I'm normal, except for the crazy part.
I was welcomed into this world in a storm of shooting stars. My Father use to tell me the story all the time when I was little. I use to cuddle up on his lap and he'd say: "Madi, it was so beautiful. The whole sky lit up with the shimmer of blazing light. And right there in the midst of it all, a tiny wail pierced the air and there you were. All pink and wrinkly, you were the prettiest little thing I ever saw."
And then there is, Rhuine.
The boy with the black swirl tattoo's. Or my imaginary friend (as my psychologist likes to call him). The friggin' love of my life.
Whichever name he goes by, he is the other reason why I'm not quite as normal as I would like to believe.
And here's why...
"Urgh!" The groan of annoyance escapes my throat loudly and echoes around the small study hall. Nurse Teresa peaks up from her file where she is busy sorting out the medication roster. Her eyebrows raise in question.
"It's just not working." I huff my frustration, crumple another page and toss it into the small trash can next to my desk. It's already over flowing, and the excess twenty or so other pages that didn't work, littered the ugly plastic tile floor.
"Maybe you should take a break. Take a walk or something," Nurse Teresa chirps while she eyes me hopefully. Maybe she's tired of my constant whining.
Damn this darn assignment and damn Dr-Pick-my-brain for giving it to me. My psychologist, Dr Piqmabren, I know right, he's just begging for a tease, insisted on me doing this stupid assignment. I'm suppose to write down the events that led to my so called nervous breakdown a couple of months ago. I didn't have a nervous breakdown. The only guy I ever loved disappeared! Just like that, without a trace or note. And then I woke up in a corn field three days later. I don't remember why Rhuine disappeared or why I woke up where I did. But no one believes me. And that led to the nervous breakdown I apparently had four days AFTER I was committed to Green Hill. They have their sequence of events all wrong.
You'd think writing all that down would be easy, but it isn't. I'm trying. I really am. But I'm not a writer and I just can't seem to get it quite right. No words will ever be able to describe Rhuine. Those words don't even exist yet. Some divine goddess of all things sexy and forbidden must create them first.
I suck in a deep breath and grab my phone. Maybe I should go outside for a while. Get some air into my suffocating brain.
"I'm going outside," I call to Nurse Teresa, who jumps in her seat.
I walk slowly across the room. I hate the squeaky sounds my sneakers make on the floor when I place my step wrong.
"Sure," Nurse Theresa calls after me. She doesn't sound so sure. She suggested I take a break, what's her problem now? But then she waves me along with an impatient flap of her hand like she can't stand my freckled face for a second longer. And they say I have mood swings!
The halls are empty but I can hear the other patients through some of the open doors. Most are laughing and talking, others are reading. We are pretty much free to do whatever we like on a Saturday night - except leave, of course, or start a riot. Imagine that, a bunch of loonies throwing their stuff around. I would love to see Nurse Teresa scurry around on her pudgy legs and over grown bosom trying to calm us down.
I freaked out a lot when I first came here, almost started a riot myself, mostly because no one would believe me when I said I didn't have a nervous breakdown. I didn't wander off into God knows where because I was feeling mental! I can't remember why I did it, but I'm sure it involved Rhuine. And as soon as I mentioned him, all hell broke loose. Because no one has ever seen Rhuine, and Rhuine wasn't there to back me up, so I must've lost my mind. They locked me up, and I made it worse by trying to kill myself. They wouldn't let me leave and I just wanted to find Rhuine!
When you are labeled crazy, people tend to not believe you, even the people who are ten times more zonked out of their minds. I mean, hello! We are all crazy here. Believe me, damnit! Your story might even be even worse, but at least I'll try to believe you. You can tell me that you flew to the moon on a golden sea horse to visit the sandman, and I'm sure I'll believe you. Does that make me naïve? No. I know how it feels to be called a liar. A crazy, imaginary friend creating, liar.
A short blonde pulls on the front door and I pause to let her enter first. She gives me a hesitant smile, with just a flicker of eye contact, before she quickly slips past. I shake my head slightly. I have a reputation here, I'm the unpredictable girl. The one who tried to kill herself because of her imaginary friend. And then I had to go make it worse by adding - the one with the temper, to it.
There's this guy here, Joey. A meth head that robbed a toy store, with a toy gun. Why? He has no idea. The day before Joey arrived, Green Hill was buzzing with talk. People here like to gossip just as much as everywhere else. They were all talking about the guy who tried to rob a toy store.
Copyright © 2014 AJ Summer
COMING TO AMAZON, JULY 16TH!!!
