Chapter Text
She was out, but she didn’t notice. The night before she was having the time of her life, the party was infinite and she was at the height. There were people, people she didn’t know, but were just like her so she didn’t need to. The lights and music made her feel like she had flown high into the sky, away from the ugly lies. She lived in the stars with the angels when she had the truth in her veins and life on her lips, yet she always woke up lost. Lost and living the lie. The lie that was life was pain.
She rolled straight off her mattress and onto the sticky, plastic floor. The light from the windows was too bright and excitable. It leaked vicious and spiteful through her blind’s best efforts, it was probably the reason she was awake. The reason her head hurt.
She wrenched her wrist underneath the mattress, light, thin and browned with body fluid stains. Her fingers felt around underneath. Panic wrenched past the thundering heat in her skull and sick pressing against her eyes when her fingers didn’t find it. Panic grew every second it wasn’t in her hands. She felt fire burst through her lower stomach and an urgency build up in her muscles.
It shouldn’t be this painful, she must have missed a hit at one point. Probably because she was too busy drinking.
Finally, her fingers felt rounded plastic and she felt relief. She let the image of an orange bottle filled to the brim soothe her mind before she pulled out said orange bottle. She didn’t have time to check its contents. She stumbled to her feet, braced against her shoulder as she impacted against the peeling white paint of her apartment wall. She used the wall to help her into the restroom. She got to the toilet only just in time and let out a torrent of pain.
When it was gone, taking every ounce of energy in her bony, screwed up body, she was left with a familiar, horrible pain. Like fire ants crawling through every bone in her body, she felt like she was dying. There was only one thing that could turn it off, thankfully she had it in-
The orange bottle was empty.
She screamed “SHIT”! and threw it at the wall. She buried her nails in her hair, yanking at herself, punishing and soothing. The pain was bigger than her body, in every single nerve she had. Sweat dripped down her hairline, into her hands. She was soaked all the way through her shirt, the one she had on last night. It had puke and alcohol stains on it. Hers? She couldn't remember. It didn’t matter, it was an awful shirt and she was a mess, there was no way she could look nice anymore, not in the shape she was in.
Still she waited until her bowls were completely expelled, or so she thought they were, before she ravaged her apartment for cash.
She hissed while she counted, “-one hundred seventeeen, one hundred eighteen, one hundred nineteen…. Where’s the rest of it”?
Her vision buzzed. How was she so stupid as to not have enough? She swore she had enough. This was way too important for her not to have enough. She was so stupid, stupid, stupid.
She moaned, “Shit shit shit shit”,
She went to the neighbors and knocked on their door. The door opened before her and the person who stepped out… she didn’t recognize.
She swallowed back a wave of nausea,“Hello, um…. I’m looking for Sienna. Is she here right now”? She was shaking uncontrollably. She didn’t brush her hair, she must look insane.
“Who the hell are you”? the large balding man demanded. He had a cigarette between his lips. He wore clothes just as filthy as hers.
She couldn’t recall exactly what her name was for a moment, “I-I live next door. Is she here. I really need to ask her something”. She didn’t feel like hunting it down in the disaster in her head.
This man couldn’t fathom how hard this was. She hated asking money from people, it always opened the void where her ego used to be wider and wider. It sucked, but it was better than the agony she was enduring now.
“She was the person who rented before me”, he grumbled and shifted the cigarette to the other yellowing side of his mouth.
She felt her stomach wrench around in knots, “She moved out”?. How else was she supposed to get money. She needed the money. She needed the next hit.
“That’s right”, he said, “Now get lost”.
He attempted to close the door. Mira flung her hand in between the door and the frame. Thankfully he didn’t slam the door on his new apartment.
She sighed in relief, “Wait. I just need fifty dollars. What if I do something for you. Do you want your dick sucked? I-I can do that”.
She needed the money, but she needed it fast. The pain was worsening. If she didn’t get that hit, she would be on the ground, screaming.
He frowned at her.
“How old are you”? He demanded, looking her up and down.
She forgot again. How old was she. Her birthday was a while ago. Usually she celebrated with stolen booze with friends, but she hadn’t talked to her friends in a long time.
She had been rejected at the bar last night when she showed her ID, she accidentally grabbed the real one she used only when cops came to harass her. She had to go to another club to actually get what she needed with the fake ID she had.
She pleaded, “Does it matter. It will feel nice. It’s a sweet deal, right”? She attempted to reach for him to demonstrate she could do the job well.
Instead she found his foot in her face.
“No way jailbait. I’m not falling for that”. He kicked her away. Her hair hit the other wall before she did. She hated the way it smelled.
She heard the door slam shut and she was out in the too hot winter afternoon. Humiliation drove like a spike deep into her soul, but still, the thought of getting off didn’t cross her mind. It couldn’t. Her mind needed the opioids to function. Without them it was in full panic mode, it was in pain, it was in terror. She felt it clawing at the inside of her skull, trying to get out of her head. It didn’t want to be in this heavy, hot, pain filled body anymore.
War is the only way she could describe it. Her body against her brain, both of them burned each other without the Opioids. She couldn’t remember a time when they coexisted, it was hard to remember anything. She liked it that way, but sometimes she would have liked to know if there were times when she was free. Because she will never be free again.
The door before her creaked open again and something hit her in the leg. She pushed her gross hair out of her face and looked up at the man from before.
“Here. I really don’t want anything in return”, he growled, “Don’t you ever ask me that question again, you hear me”?
she muttered back and forth as she scooped the money off the ground,“Yes, YES, thank you, oh thank you, oh thank you”.
She felt the pill kick in and only then did her thoughts silence, the pain ebbed away and she was safe at last. The war halted, peace reined again.
She glanced at the bottle in her hand. It was only half full, the least amount of pills her seller let her buy. She couldn’t afford a whole thing. She took two. So much more than usual, but she missed her last hit so she felt like she needed it.
She sighed and laid back in her bed, reveling in feeling good again. She wondered if there was a party tonight she could go to, or maybe she should take a break and come up with a way to make more money. Clearly her job wasn’t going to cut it. She needed more pills just to get through the day.
“You took them again, Mira”, a voice said from the back of her room.
Of course she was here to ruin this.
She lowered the bottle and gazed into the dark. The darkness hid her shape, but they let her patterns glow bright and ominous. A single golden eye pierced the dark, set in a shadow darker than the corner she was in.
Mira scoffed, “I did. It’s not like you can do anything about it”.
The eye narrowed.
“What makes you think I can’t”?
She said, “Because you aren’t real, Rumi”,
The barred light slid neatly over a mystically beautiful face and hair the color of lavender. Her gaze was disapproving, but when was it not.
Rumi stepped out into the light. Her yellow leather jacket sat high and proud on her shoulders, patched with all sorts of randomness and strange words. Her coolness dripped down to a tiny little waist and long beautiful legs, a similar body to the one Mira used to have when she was healthy, or so she thinks.
“That’s a mean thing to say to an old friend”, Rumi glared.
Mira didn’t care, she could be as mean as she wanted to Rumi. She was stuck with Mira in the same way Mira was stuck with her.
Mira reminded, “Just an imaginary friend”.
Mira fiddled with her pimple patch again, one of many as her friends rambled on about something. Below her, the creek trickled into a massive pipe filled with cracks. The glimmering water hit the ghost of hidden graffiti that could only be accessed in the summer. Mira wished it was summer, then she wouldn't be here in her stupid school uniform, or her nerves about what her mother would say if she was caught eating her alive.
“Oh yeah, Mr. Leong is such a tight ass. I gave him my homework yesterday and he bitched about it being something my mom wrote, not me. Like, seriously man, who cares whose work it is. The point is it’s done. It’s not like we are going to use history anyway”, Lee Hye complained, a can of soda in his hand stolen from some gas station on the way here. He still had his braces in, but he was a total jock with the muscles and dumb haircut and everything.
“I mean, did your mom do the homework”? Mei asked. She had a million earring holes in her ears and dark pigtails.
“Pff yeah. I wasn’t going to do it so she decided to do it instead”, he chuckled. He flung his half finished soda straight into the creek and leaned back on a large chunk of concrete that used to be part of the bridge. Wild weeds grew up out of the creek bed and over the destroyed rock on the defunct bridge. Around them were fields and farms, some of which were long abandoned, the rest had a bare collection of crops.
“I feel ya”, Shai lin giggled and leaned into Mira’s shoulder. Her arms wormed up her shirt just a little bit. Mira smiled just a little and wrapped her arms around her possessively. Her hair was dyed fake red and she had the widest eyes Mira had ever seen. She was absolutely gorgeous with flawless skin and a rebelliously short skirt.
“Ooooh, so cute”, Leon whistled at them. He had long hair the student council always demanded he cut. Shai rolled her eyes, but her grin was smug. She directed it at Mei who didn’t seem to smile, but also didn’t dote on them like Leon did.
“Dude, I want a hot girlfriend so bad”, Lee Hye complained, “How do you pull a baddie like her”?
Shai shrugged, “Be cute and pretty and confident”. She let out a giggle.
“Oh I can’t do that. I can be cute and pretty, but confident. UGH”, Leon whined.
“At least you have cute and pretty going for you”, Lee Hye snorted.
“You think I’m cute and pretty”, Leon batted his lashes and leaned in. Lee rolled his eyes and pushed him away, almost off the bridge itself.
Mira couldn’t help, but let her mind wander. The things they talked about was so useless and small. Her mother would be furious she was skipping school, she was already dissapointed Mira lost the student council president race. Her brother had succeeded when he was younger than her. She didn’t study for her last test because she was with Shai. She was sure she had failed.
“Hey, you guys want some stuff”? Lee Hye asked. He pulled out a bottle from his pockets.
“Oh, you got stuff, nice”! Leon cheered. He held out his hand and received a pill. The others were each dispensed one until it reached Mira.
“What’s this”? She asked, but didn’t put out her hand.
“Oxi”, Lee Hye shrugged, “My folks have a bunch because grandma is sick and gross. She graduated to the heavier stuff so this was just sitting around. Want some”?
Mira shook her head. She had enough of drugs.
Her phone shrieked her alarm, an alarm she totally forgot about and wanted to keep forgetting about, but she couldn’t. Not if she wanted to remain normal.
Mira sighed, untangled herself from Shai and dug around in her purse until she had a small white bottle in her hands.
“Oooh looks like she has her own supply”, Lee Hye teased.
“What are those? Anything fun”? Mai asked as she popped her Oxi in.
Mira hoped they wouldn’t ask.
“No, not anything fun”, Mira shrugged.
She dipped the bottle down to dispense her daily half dose only to find it snatched out of her hands by Shai.
“Hey”, Mira protested, but Shai rolled out of range and bounded over the tilted concrete.
“Cariprazine”, Shai read, “two doses of three pills a day”.
“What is that for”, Leon asked.
Mira huffed a sigh. She hated telling people about them, she really wished she didn’t have to say anything.
“They are Antipsychotics”, Mira mumbled and curled into herself in embarrassment.
Everyone hooted and ooohed tauntingly.
“Really pulled a good one, didn’t you Shai”? Mai asked.
“Don’t break up with her. What if she stalks and kills you”, Lee Hye warned.
“It’s not like that”, Mira defended, “I’m not that kind of crazy”.
“Oh, then like what are you. Are you a skitz or something. You see demons? Maybe hear voices or something”?
Mira stayed silent. She wanted to hop into the stream and float far away.
“OoooooooooH”, they all hooted.
“Look, I only saw one person”, Mira hufffed, “I had a vivid imagination growing up and… I had an imaginary friend”.
"Wait... you had an imaginary friend too", Leon joked, "Hand over those antipsychotics, dude, I'm behind".
"We all had imaginary friends, that's just normal kid stuff", Mai scoffed.
"Well, I had her for too long and... and I thought she was real", The embarrassment felt like a sunburn over her cheeks, "My parents thought enough was enough and gave me these".
“Wait”, Leon pushed the air as though to halt everyone, “They put you on this stuff. Didn’t you say your folks owned a pharmaceutical company”?
“Y-yeah”, Mira shrugged.
“You didn’t get, like, an actual diagnosis”? Shai asked.
“N-no, not really. I mean they work, I don't see her anymore".
“Dude”, Mai curled her nose, “So you don’t even know if you are actually fucked up or not”?
“She said she thought an imaginary friend was real”? Leon scoffed, “Can’t get nuttier then that”.
Mira couldn’t argue. She wasn’t telling them all of it. Antarctica, the penguins. The first time she attempted sex. All of it was so vivid, she could have sworn it was real.
“Well that’s what these are for, so please give them back”, she begged.
Shai handed them back and recoiled her hand as if Mira were gross. Mira felt her ribcage fill with lead. This always happened. Still, she didn’t have the heart to let people go on and believe she was normal. She would have told them, just not so soon. She had only ditched school with these guys a couple times.
“Even if you are downright batty, it’s still fucked up of your parents to not let you see a professional”, Mai pouted.
“They didn’t want it marking up my record. It’s fine. These do the trick of making me miserable and giving me headaches”, Mira shrugged and popped the dose into her mouth. She swallowed it down with soda.
“Shit, that sounds like it sucks. Come on, try an oxi. It will make the headaches go away at least”, Lee Hye suggested.
“Really, I’m good. Isn’t that stuff super addictive”? Mira asked.
“No”, Shai scoffed, “It’s just pain killers. Sick people take it all the time for their pain. It’s not even the good stuff”.
“Definitely not the good stuff”, Lee Hye snorted.
“It will take the edge off. Plus it's just this one time”, Leon suggested.
“You aren’t a junkie too are you”, Shai taunted.
Mira felt a sharp crack run through her ribcage. It was like Shai slashed a whip against her.
“No”, Mira scoffed.
“Then why not try them. It’s not like you are going to overdose on one pill. Come on Mir”, Shai pleaded. She tucked back into Mira’s space and hovered just out of kissing range. She had the pill she received in her hand still.
Before she knew it, Mira had it pressed onto her lips and in her mouth. She swallowed it easily. Shai kissed her and for the first time in years, she felt wonderful.