Authors: Quinn Loftis,M Bagley Designs
“Alright, I’ll just plan to meet them, unless you tell me otherwise.”
“Sounds good.” I sit there a moment, wonder if I should invite him in or do I just say have a nice evening, and climb out? I look over at him and as usual, I can’t tell what he is thinking.
“Okay, have a good evening.” I decide to go with the least embarrassing. I start to open my door, but Trey reaches out and grabs my left hand.
“I had a good day Tally,” he tells me and the look in his eyes turns my insides to warm liquid. “Come here.” He tugs me towards him across the bench seat and brings one hand up to cup my face. As his soft, full lips press to mine, I fight the need to get closer to him, to climb into his lap and beg him to let me stay there.
When he ends the kiss, I take a deep, shaky breath and open my eyes.
“You’re really good at that,” I tell him honestly.
“Kissing?” He grins
“Yes.” I feel a rush of blood bloom on my cheeks, and they warm under his scrutiny.
“It’s easy to be good at something, that you so thoroughly enjoy.”
I let out a nervous laugh, because really what do you say to that?
“K, I’m going to go now,” I tell him, as I scoot back over to the passenger side and push the door open.
“I’m going to visit my mom, and then I have work. I’ll text you later,” he tells me. I’m glad for it, glad that he gives me something to look forward to and doesn’t leave me wondering what his next move is going to be.
“Tell your mom I said hi.”
“I will.”
I walk towards my front door and try not to turn around, as I hear him backing out of my driveway. I’ve already made such a fool of myself, drooling over him, and looking at him in awe and wonder. It’s freaking ridiculous.
~
I take a seat in Dr. Stacey’s office and glance around at my surroundings. They are surroundings that I have become so familiar with over time. It’s a place that has grown to be more comfortable to me than my own home and I wonder, not for the first time, if I will ever feel at ease in my house, ever again.
I spent the night before writing in the journal Dr. Stacey had told me to keep. She said that sometimes writing out my feelings might help me see a change in my emotions before they get too far out of control. I asked her what I should write about, I’d never kept a journal before and writing about my day just seemed so redundant. I mean I had just lived it, why do I need to catalogue it?
So, she said instead of writing about my day she wanted me to attempt to write poems about how I was feeling. She didn’t care if they were simple, complex, or rhymed or not. She just wanted me to pay attention to my emotions.
“Hi Tally,” she says as she sits down across from me. She hasn’t changed a bit, although why I thought she should have in the past nearly three weeks that I had been gone was a mystery to me.
“Hey doc,” I smile, and it’s genuine.
“I see you brought your journal.” She motions to the notebook lying next to me on the couch.
I hand it to her and as she opens it she begins to read it―out loud. Great, now I get to listen to her read just how bad my poetry is.
“I am broken, but my pieces have been placed back where they belong,
I am a jumble
d mess of notes, but they are slowly becoming a song.
I am a torn quilt, but the needle has been thread
ed to mend the frayed seam.
I am a dull piece of pottery, but the glaze is being added to create the gleam.
I am in this tired and worn body, though I thought that I was lost,
To finally begin to be repaired is good, but it wasn’t worth the cost.
I don’t want to dance too much, smile too wide, or laugh too hard,
I’ve been dealt a new hand and I’m waiting on that one bad card.”
The silence in the room was suffocating as I watched Dr. Stacey’s face as she read it again only silently this time. When she finally looked up at me, I saw a mixture of emotions on her face.
“You are hopeful, but you don’t want to be,” she finally says.
“I guess that I just feel like that living with this disease is going to be a constant waiting game of when the next shoe will drop.”
She shook her head at me. “It doesn’t have to be that way Tally. Take your meds, come to your therapy, and work on having a support system. If you do these things, you will be able to catch the swing before it gets too far in the opposite direction. Over time you will begin to gage your moods and pick up on when you need your meds adjusted or therapy to increase.”
I glance out the window as if I will find a sign that says Dr. Stacey is right, listen to her. And, I want to believe her, but when you have been where I have, the only thing you can think is that you know you can’t go back. I don’t know that I would survive falling that far again.
“I’m dating Trey,” I blurt out suddenly. Don’t ask me where that came from. It was just one of those things that had been bubbling up and though I tried to swallow it down it refused to go.
Dr. Stacey smiles at me, a gentle smile that said she thought it was a good thing.
“How is it going?” She asks.
“Sometimes he seems too good to be true,” I finally admit, out loud. I didn’t want to say it to Trey. I didn’t want to hurt him.
She nodded, “He’s very mature for his age, but then he has been through a lot in his young age. His father died and that tragedy seemed to trigger the schizophrenia in his mom and he has been caring for her. It can be a very tragic mental illness.”
I couldn’t begin to imagine what Trey had been through, what he was still going through.
“I didn’t want to date him.”
“Why?”
“For the reasons I told you before. I don’t want to be just one more tragic tale in his story.”
She tilts her head at me and looks thoughtful. “In order for you to date Trey, it requires you to trust him to be able to cope with your bipolar disorder.”
I nod.
“And you don’t think he will be able to?”
“He hasn’t seen me at my worst doc. You told me that stress can cause chemicals to get depleted more quickly and that the meds sometimes don’t keep up with that, which means I might crash. How is he going to handle that? And then how am I going to handle how he is handling it?”
“You are worrying about something that may or may not happen. You can’t live your life like that Tally, if you do your life will pass, and before you know it you will be grown and very lonely.”
“You’re so cheery doc, thanks.” I tell her as I roll my eyes. I know that my worrying will do nothing. I know that it’s pointless and maybe that’s why I decided to go ahead and date Trey.
“How is school going?” She completely ignores my sarcasm as she often does.
“The first day was hell.” I tell her about my locker and as I sit there talking about it, reliving the emotions of seeing those blades on my locker something inside me crumbles. I sit there with tears sliding down my cheeks, and I wonder when I will ever sit in her office and not cry. I’m convinced she pumps something into the air that makes a person feel emotionally naked.
“I guess I was hoping that people would just let it go,” I tell her as I wipe my eyes.
“People often deal with things they don’t understand in one of several ways,” she leans back in her chair and lays her hands in her lap, “they get angry, they get scared or they become defensive. Teenagers are especially difficult because you all are dealing with all the hormones swirling about inside of you as you try and figure out who you are. Your classmates don’t understand what they saw last year. They are scared of it, and they are dealing with that fear by being defensive. If they make you out to be insignificant, then they don’t have to be afraid of you or what you have done or might do.”
“No offense doc, but that’s just ridiculous. What they did was cruel.”
She nods, “You are correct, it was cruel. I’m not defending them; I’m just trying to help you understand their motivation even if they don’t know why they are doing it.”
I told her then about Trey and how he had threatened Carter and she didn’t seem surprised by it.
“He is a natural protector. In the Native American culture, the men are the hunters, protectors, and leaders of their tribes. It is literally bred into Trey to be that way. My advice would be to be open and honest with him about your feelings, and be patient with him. Try not to see your relationship in black and white because life is not black and white, it is full of grayish hues.”
“I’ll try,” I tell her simply. She looks at her watch and I know our session is over. I stand and take my notebook when she hands it back to me.
“Keep writing. You are very good at it.”
I smile at her, though I don’t really know how to take the compliment.
“Thanks,” is my brilliant response.
As I’m walking out of her door, she calls my name. I look back at her. “Tally, you’re doing well. Practice being still this week, and make sure you are getting plenty of sleep.”
“I’m on it doc,” I tell her, as I close the door behind me.
~
“Finally!” Candy groans as I step into the hall. I smile at her. “I thought you were never coming out, I mean seriously were you guys trying to come up with a solution for world peace or something?”
“Candy, some of us actually go to therapy and stay for the entire session.”
“Bah, who has time for therapy when there are rules to break, patients to scare, and staff to annoy?”
I laugh as she grabs my hand and starts tugging me towards the rec room.
“What do you have up your sleeve now?”
“Have you ever seen nut jobs do karaoke?” She asks me with a twinkle flashing in her eyes.
“No.”
“You might want to go pee first, I don’t want you having an accident when you’re
rolling on the floor laughing. Actually we can just get you one of those adult diapers.”
“I’m not wearing a diaper Candy,” I growl.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you, when you’re walking out of here with pee running down your leg.”
“I’m going to give you a little test. If you are a patient at a mental hospital and one of the paranoids asks you if all the government spies have been detained,
do you: A) Calmly tell the patient that, yes the spies are all gone and they are safe; B) Tell the patient to leave you the hell alone; or C) Whisper in the patient's ear to be very still, because he is being watched, and then tell him that in order to escape the spies he has to convincingly pretend to be a chicken. If you answered anything but C, stay away from me because I just might take you out at the knees you pansy.” ~Candy
~ Trey ~
As I climb out of my truck, I glance back at Tally, she’s nearly bouncing in her seat she’s so excited. I smile to myself as I walk around to the passenger door and open it.
“Ready?” I ask, as I take her hand in mine.
“Yep,” she grins.
Her eyes widen as we enter the stable and she sees just how nice it is. From the outside, it looks like a simple barn, but on the inside, it’s beautiful
, with shaved wooden posts and cedar stalls, all of which have been lacquered to a lustrous sheen. Mr. Taggert has spared no expense for his horses, but then he has made good money off of them.
“It’s so big,” she says, as she turns in a slow circle, her eyes scanning over
her surroundings. A gentle huff catches her attention as she turns and sees Rosa, a beautiful bay mare, sticking her head out of her stall.
“Who’s that?” She asks me, as she walks slowly towards the horse.
“That’s Rosa, she’s my personal favorite.”
Tally reaches her hand out slowly and holds it just about the height of Rosa’s nose, like she is asking for permission to touch
the beautiful animal. Rosa blows air out of her mouth making the same huffing sound that had caught Tally’s attention, and then raises her head so that Tally’s hand is pressed against her face just above her nose. Tally laughs and turns back to look at me. Her smile is so big, it’s contagious, and I can’t help but return it. I watch as she steps closer to Rosa and lays her cheek against the side of the mare’s face. Her shoulders relax and her breathing almost matches that of the horse.
This is one of the reason’s Rosa is my favorite. They say that horses have an ability to connect with broken people and are often used for therapy
purposes. Rosa could be a therapy horse. She seemed to sense a person’s mood and responds accordingly. In this moment, I know that I am witnessing exactly what a therapy horse does. Rosa nuzzles Tally’s shoulder and lowers her head so that Tally can wrap her arms around the horse’s neck. Tally didn’t hesitate. She buried her face in the black mane and seems to block out the world around her.
I walk over to Lucky’s stall and click my tongue at the horse. He comes sauntering over and
sticks out his huge brown head.
“Hey Lucky, you want to go for a ride?” I ask him as I clip a lead to his halter and open his stall. I lead him over to the tack room and tie him to the hitching post. I gathered the saddle blanket, saddle, and bridle and get him ready. Once he is ready to go I look back over at Tally and see that she is now brushing Rosa’s mane with one of t
he brushes hanging on the horse’s stall, and talking to her.