Fragmented (11 page)

Arms shot up around me, including Raleigh’s raised hand.

Professor Glasglow called on a boy in the back of the classroom.

“Hallucinations are things a person hears, sees, smells, or feels that no one else can,” the student whose name I didn’t know declared. “And delusions are false beliefs—like believing you’re someone else, like a historical figure or something.”

Professor Glasglow rewarded the answer with a bright, even smile. “Good. Hearing voices is the most common type of hallucination. But it can also be present in seeing people or objects that are not there, smelling odors that no one else detects, or feeling like invisible fingers are touching their bodies.”

I began to flip my pen between my fingers like a miniature baton, and my right knee bounced beneath the desk surface. I was aware that all of the other students were focused on the lecture or their notebooks or laptops, but it also felt like everyone
knew
. Everyone knew about my family, but they were being too polite to stare at me.

“Now, negative symptoms are harder to detect because they can often be mistaken for depression,” my professor continued. “Things like the ‘flat affect’ where a person’s face doesn’t move and his or her voice is dull or monotonous. They exhibit a lack of pleasure, a lack of ability to begin or sustain activities. There’s also neglect for basic personal hygiene, needing help with everyday tasks, and speaking little, even when forced to interact.”

My pen flipped out of my fingers and fell to the floor. The sound it made on impact was minimal, but to my ears it might as well have been a symphony of cymbals. I stared at the traitorous pen, but didn’t retrieve it. All I could do was sit and listen to my professor tell everyone about my life.

“The third set of symptoms is cognitive. These too are subtle and nearly undetectable, similar to the negative symptoms.”

I snapped my notebook shut. My pen was still on the floor, but I left it there. I could feel Raleigh’s curious gaze as I shoved my notebook and textbook into my messenger bag. I didn’t need to hear the rest of this lecture; I was already an expert.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Outside of the lecture hall I could finally breath. I threw myself down on the grass in the quad, unaffected by the dampness that seeped into the seat of my jeans and the back of my shirt. I let my eyes close and the sun beat down on my face. When I’d originally signed up for the psychology course, I’d known there was a good possibility that this specific topic would be discussed. But I was a self-educated expert on schizophrenia; I figured it would be an easy grade. What I hadn’t expected, however, was that I wouldn’t be able to stomach a lecture on my family illness.

The sensible part of my brain knew that running out of class had been an overreaction. But the smaller, more permanent section of my brain told me I’d done the right thing. It was the same part that suggested I was the center of unwanted attention whenever I left my apartment and that kept me on the lookout for out of place cars and people. It was also the same section of my brain that required I keep all of those antipsychotics in my medicine cabinet even though I’d never taken a pill in my life. I didn’t even like aspirin.

I tried to empty all of the parts of my brain as I lay on the quad. It was harder to accomplish the task mid-semester. The names of random body parts and psychological models jostled against childhood memories and the reminder that I needed to call my brother.

I knew from my own independent reading that there were three types of schizophrenia: paranoid, catatonic, and disorganized. Paranoid schizophrenia, with its prominent delusions and hallucinations, was the most well known of the three and the manifestation of the illness that most people associated with the disease.

Catatonic schizophrenics displayed a lack of responsiveness to the outside world. Some patients I’d witnessed on visits to the various hospitals my mother had been in over the years would hold themselves in bizarre or rigid postures for hours or do the same motions over and over again or mimic another person’s words or actions in a parrot-like fashion.

The final type of schizophrenia—disorganized—was appropriately named. People with the illness exhibited disorganized, flat, or inappropriate speech. They might ramble about nonsensical ideas, laugh at inappropriate moments, or grimace for no reason. They may look unkempt, dress bizarrely, or take poor care of their physical health. Like many others with this kind of schizophrenia, my mom had had a hard time accomplishing even the simplest goals: showering, dressing, preparing food. When she had stopped showering, we all had thought it was depression. I had been too young to do anything about it, but old enough to realize what was going on. She was misdiagnosed for years until the positive symptoms like the delusions and hallucinations had become more pronounced.

With my eyes still closed, I felt, rather than saw, the shadow of someone over me. “You left in a hurry.”

I opened my eyes and when my vision refocused, I saw Raleigh’s concerned hazel gaze.

“I forgot I needed to be somewhere.”

She frowned deeper. I knew my story was full of holes.

“It didn’t take very long,” I explained, “but I didn’t want to interrupt class by coming back in.”

Raleigh didn’t look convinced. “Do you want to copy my notes?”

I doubted Professor Glasglow had said something I didn’t already know, but I couldn’t tell that to her. “Uh, sure. Thanks.”

She produced her notebook from her bag. When I grabbed onto one end, she refused to let go of hers. “Are you sure everything is okay?” she asked.

“Totally fine,” I lied through my teeth. Seemingly satisfied with my answer, Raleigh relinquished her grip on the notebook.

I reflexively flipped to the notes from today. Raleigh’s handwriting was starting to become a familiar friend. She’d written a question at the top of the notebook page: Why does schizophrenia begin in late adolescence? She had noted several other facts that I was familiar with: diagnoses of schizophrenia occur later in life—around age twenty-five—for women while diagnoses occurred in the late teens for men. Women have a secondary, late peak of onset, at ages forty-five to forty-nine.

I stared at the final note in Raleigh’s notebook: The brains of people with schizophrenia look different than those of healthy individuals. That was new.

“Do you want to come over tonight?”

I looked up from Raleigh’s handwriting. She was staring at me, awaiting a response and reaction.

“I have to babysit.”

“I know. But I was thinking maybe afterwards, if it’s not too late. We could do homework together or something. Midterms are coming up. I thought maybe we could be study buddies.”

“I, uh, yeah. I can do that.” It didn’t make much sense for me to drive all the way out to the suburbs to do my homework, but any excuse to spend more time with Raleigh was good enough for me.

“Are you going to be okay to get back to your aunt’s tonight?” I asked. “I’d drive you, but I have to pick up Sasha from school in a little bit.”

“I’ll be fine,” she said. “I’ll take a taxi back instead of the bus. When my parents see the credit card bill this month, they’ll get on my aunt’s case for leaving me stranded in the city.”

My phone buzzed at the bottom of my bag, rattling against ink pens and spiral notebooks.

“There you go being popular again,” Raleigh said with a wistful smile.

I dug out my phone, half expecting to see Jenn’s number flash across the screen, but my brother Damien’s name appeared instead. “Sorry,” I apologized. “I have to take this.”

Damien had been texting me all weekend, but this was his first attempt at a phone call. I didn’t want to talk to him, but it gave me an excuse to cut short my conversation with Raleigh before she could ask any pressing questions about the real reason I had fled the classroom.

“I should go hail a cab anyway,” Raleigh noted. “I’ll see you later tonight though?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I’ll call you when I’m on my way.”

Damien’s call continued to buzz in the palm of my hand. I answered the phone right before my voicemail took the call. “Hi.”

“Hey,” he replied. “You haven’t responded to any of my texts.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“Mom’s been asking about you.”

His words jolted me. “She has?”

“Yes,” he confirmed. “You need to come down here and see her. How long has it been?”

Not long enough. “I have school, Damien.” I didn’t have time for this. “You know I can’t get away without my grades suffering.”

“I looked up your school’s academic calendar online. You have Fall Break coming up.”

I opened and closed my mouth. He was right. We did have a long weekend break in a few weeks, right before midterms. I’d run out of excuses to continue to avoid that part of my life.

+ + +

“What did you get for number six?” Raleigh asked.

Looking at Raleigh was like gazing at a beautiful constellation.

I dragged my eyes away from her thoughtful hazel eyes and inspected the answer scrawled across my notebook page. “Um, this.” I pushed the notebook in front of Raleigh where she sat on her bed.

Her head bent as she compared and contrasted the response on her page to the answer I had come up with. She raised her head and smiled. “Me, too.”

It’s kind of nice having a smart friend.

Raleigh’s lips pursed. “Smart friend? Nobody else you know is smart?”

I grimaced when I realized I’d spoken out loud.

“They’re smart,” I amended. “I mean, like Kelley knows everything about poetry and literature, and Maia is pretty good in school too, and Lauren, well…” I trailed off and considered my words. “Lauren’s more interested in nail polish,” I settled on. “But it’s kind of fun hanging out with someone who actually
likes
studying as much as I do.”

My ramble was rewarded with a soft smile. “I get that,” she said, nodding. “My friends in high school were smart in their own ways, but they were more interested in climbing the social pyramid than in getting good grades. Cheerleading was kind of the center of the universe.”

“Cheerleading?” I repeated with an arched eyebrow.

“It’s surreal to think about now. But then everything changed when I got to Smith where no one cared that I’d been captain of the cheerleading squad or that I’d dated the quarterback of the football team. And then everything changed
again
after the accident.”

“You dated a quarterback?” Out of everything she’d told me, I could only focus on her past relationship. Even though she continually said things that made me think she was flirting, I’d known it was foolish to harbor any hope that perhaps she was gay, yet this confession sat uneasy in my stomach.

“I know. It’s pretty embarrassing, right?” she chuckled. “But I’m sure you’ve got a few ‘I-can’t-believe-I dated-thems’ in your past, too?”

“Well, my girlfriend broke up with me over text message. So I’m starting to question her maturity level based on that.” I snapped my mouth shut. I hadn’t meant to reveal that to anyone, least of all her. What was wrong with me today? It was like there was no filter between my brain and my mouth.

Her eyebrows rose on her forehead. “Girlfriend?”

I bristled at her reaction. “Yeah. Is that a problem?” Raleigh seemed evolved, but I usually assumed the worst about people, especially coming from a part of the country where being gay wasn’t necessarily acceptable.

“Of course not. Don’t forget that I went to an all-women’s college before I transferred here.”

I didn’t know what she meant by that, but I forced a smile to my lips. Was she gay? Or did she just know a lot of lesbians because of where she’d gone to college?

She leaned closer to me, but it might have been my imagination. “So what happened with you two?”

“I suppose I wasn’t a very good girlfriend,” I admitted with a sigh. “Life got busy and we weren’t seeing each other as often as we had when we’d first started dating. So she dumped me.”

“Had you been together long?”

“No. Just the summer.”

“Still, breakups are never easy,” she sympathized.

I grunted in response. It was actually turning out to be one of my easiest breakups. I hadn’t heard from Jenn since her original text messages from lunch. But Raleigh was right; regardless of the circumstances, breakups weren’t easy.

Before I could dwell on that singular realization, the mattress began rhythmically shaking beneath me; Raleigh was pounding at the side of her thigh.