I sit still in silence for what feels like centuries until I hear my principal speak. “When your mind is full of fog and you struggle to remember what’s real and isn’t Otto, how is anyone supposed to take anything you say seriously?” 

These words from my principal have plagued me for years, it’s not like what he said wasn’t true or anything, but those words cut deeper than any sonnet from my half sober father, stung more than the welts I got from the backhand of my abusive mother. I think the reason these words took me aback so much was that I trusted him, my principal, that is. I trusted him because he listened to me at my worst. He suggested that I do this “exercise,” where every day after I awake, I should write on a little piece of paper that “today will be a good day.” What a load of crap. 

I stand in front of my mirror, it’s filthy, I probably haven’t washed it in years, if ever. I try to give out a little laugh because of how ridiculous that fact is, but for some reason, the sound doesn’t come out so the room remains still, a deafening silence. In the mirror, I see someone with unkempt black hair, thrown all over the place, as if a tornado flew through the locks of someone too disheveled to understand just how bad they look. From this I begin to focus on the rest of the room behind them, the bed behind is torn up completely, although they don’t even sleep for 2 hours a night. A singular red throw blanket, not fitting for a teenager, rests on the floor next to the bed, the lonely stiff pillow lying against the headboard, untouched. A pile of laundry remains dormant in a white plastic basket near the door. 

There are some orange semi-transparent pill bottles in varying heights scattered around the general bed area. One bottle is opened and spilled all over the oak nightstand that sits to the right of the bed, Citalopram, 20 mg, twice daily. Another bottle next to it is Ferrous sulfate, 45 mg, 1-2 daily. These are the two pills I always remember to take, I don’t think I’ve touched the other 3 bottles since I got prescribed to them. I mean, they’re probably important to take, and they’d probably help something wrong with me, but I just don’t feel like taking them, these two pills already make me sick as is. Quickly, a thought passes through my mind, and a roaring wind outside my slightly-tinted cracked window bellows years of trauma.

Before I head for the door, I throw on some raggedy half-clean black clothes that somewhat smell of the remnants of cigarettes and regret. My mom smokes I think, these days I don’t see her enough to be able to tell. I think I remember a time when our family wasn’t plagued with addiction and abuse… when we were all still happy. I created one memory to try to harbor a childhood, and as much of a lie it might have been, I still treat it as one of my memories. It’s something I can grasp onto to prove that my disorder won’t take my memories away, it’s what keeps me sane. It’s the reality I want to believe is real. 

It’s the last day of elementary school and little bundles of energy are bouncing all over our 5th-grade classroom, ambitious for school to be over, and the summer to come. I remember being so excited because after school my parents had promised that once the summer came, we’d go on a road trip together—I mean COME ON, how great would that be to finally get out of our little slice of Maine! I know I’ve been out of town before, and I might’ve just been exaggerating a little bit, but as a kid, sometimes it really did feel like you never left your childhood town. I had two friends, Luis and this one other kid I don’t remember the name of, on the last day of school, these fellas thought it’d be a good idea to mess around with ol’ Otto! Needless to say, it was their mistake. I distinctly remember getting called down to the main office ten minutes before school ended, extremely pissed off—I mean, the kids attacked me after all, why am I getting in trouble? Well anyways, I quickly learned that day that throwing desks at the other students probably isn’t a good idea. Well sooner or later my parents got called in, along with Luis’s and that other kid’s parents, the principal explained what happened to the kids. Her diploma on the wall read “Mary Shoebuckle,” or something dumb like that, I never saw her before that day, and never saw her again afterward, so remembering her name wasn’t all that important. The kids and principal describe it like the kids didn’t do anything, which I obviously did not experience, but whatever. Words like menace, wicked, demon, troubled get thrown around around my brain, and for some reason, all these words these people are saying I believe, even those from my parents. I remember this memory so clearly, like the poking of a sleeping bear that led to my abrupt response, the clang of the metal desk when it reached the floor, my plastic chair crashing into the ground just before I got up and hurled the desk at them. I laughed, so hard, everyone else stared in horror, all the little bundles of energy had stopped moving. It was just me, in my still world, recalling all of this helps me realize that sometimes I miss it, I miss being the only one who knows how to feel.

I slunk down these desolate hallways to reach the winding staircase down to the main floor, the walls decorated with stains and smudges, a lousy paint job was the workings of my father. He may be a rejected carpenter, but he’s still the man I love so dearly, and the breaker of the lady’s hearts too. He always tells them that he has a child at home waiting for him, and sends the ladies running. For how much work he did as a contract carpenter, he sure doesn’t do all that much to fix the holes in our house’s walls, but I’m sure there’s a good reason he hasn’t gotten around to it. As I approach the doorway before the staircase, I’m met with my parent’s bedroom, and I remember something haunting that brings me out of this illusion. 

Each stair has a faint creaking noise, one I’ve come to remember and associate with everyone’s walking patterns. I knew when my dad was coming up the stairs because of how the floorboards creaked, how on the second to last step he’d always step on extra hard so that he didn’t fall because he’d lose his balance further to the top. I remember the one time he did lose his balance on the last stair, and then fell all the way back down, I laughed so hard at that, but I’m really glad he didn’t hear because once he finally got up after falling, he carved a fist-shaped hole into the wall that I very well knew would’ve been in me if he heard me. 

Once I finally reach the main floor, I’m met with the smell of an extremely dusty living room, the plaster on the walls chipped off just a little bit, and at the center of it all is my father in his musty leather armchair he’s had for as long as I can remember, which isn’t saying all that much granted my condition. It seems like he’s been waiting for me because once he hears I’m downstairs he looks directly into my eyes and says: “Otto, go get me a beer from the fridge before I drive you to school today.” My heart races because of how irregular this offering is, this is something I wasn’t expecting since I’ve been told to walk the distance to the school in the next town every day. I stand starstruck, but I don’t stand in place for more than a second or two before I find myself rushing towards the kitchen where his beer is—I don’t want to get yelled at and hear yet another woe. As I walk towards the fridge I wonder to myself: ”It’s only 7 in the morning, why is he drinking so early today, he usually waits until at least 10 o’clock... but I don’t pry because I know what’ll happen if I’m too nosey, and I don’t really feel like hiking to school in the bitter cold with the taste of blood. I grab the lukewarm plastic handle and open the door, all I see is expired milk and a half-empty case of my father’s favorite poison: Stella. I grab a cold, transparent, green bottle from the fridge and begin to head back towards the faded living room. 

After my dad gets his beer in him, he slowly gets up and walks towards the doorway, he looks like hell, probably hasn’t showered in days or shaved in weeks, and thank god I can’t smell him... but a free ride to school is a free ride to school. His extremely humble beat-up pickup orange-red truck resembles the condition of our house. The truck was a double hand-me-down, everything about us just screams poor, even our ancestors. It takes three or four revs of the engine before the truck wakes up from its long rest of about two days when my father last drove his truck to the liquor store to fuel his addiction. The ride to school is a blur, no words were shared, I remember seeing a crow on a telephone pole, how it just sat there as if it was better than all of the people below it, and I remember thinking, ‘that right there is one cool bird.’ I don’t quite understand why we don’t like crows, they’re just existing and leeching off of other people like the rest of us.

As we approach the school, he motions me out of the car and tells me I’ll be walking home after school, I’d much rather walk home than walk to school, so I keep quiet. As I’m shuffling into the school just like the rest of the crowd, some girl taps me on the shoulder and asks if I’m alright. I wonder why, but I realize I’ve been staring in her general direction, so I give out a fake laugh and lie, “Oh my apologies, I didn’t realize you were there.” 

Her face looks puzzled and her response is highly confusing to me, “You haven’t been here for the last three days Otto.” I’m not sure whether this lady is just lying to me, or if I had another episode without knowing. 

I rush to the bathroom and see that everything about me is a complete mess, my hair looks messier than my father’s car, my clothes are slightly tattered and I suddenly realize that everything is not alright, I realized that writing “today will be a good day” was as accurate as I thought it would be, and most importantly I realize that whatever I do, I can’t leave this bathroom. As I stand alone in front of the mirror, I see a reflection of someone that isn’t me, smiling back like a Cheshire cat. I knew that today was going to be a bad day like it always is, and no amount of lies and deception I say will confuse me into believing otherwise.