writingcamp + My Crazy Love / Mi Loco Amor

Peter the Murder

(La versión en español se publica antes que la versión en inglés)

STeference: Falling in love (will kill you) - Wrongchilde, Gerard Way

My lungs burn, my throat aches and everything in my mind seems to blur away. This can´t be happening. Why does it have to be my mom? Why is she juggling with her own life trying to safe a helpless boy with a mental illness? I can see her through the big, LED screens that surround the psychiatric hospital where she works, above thirty floors. She´s hardly jogging at the edge of one of the building´s design beams, trying to  follow Peter. Even though she stumbles in each step, Peter doesn´t seem to notice, running like a kid over a kerb. I bang my way through expecting crowds of people, doing nothing more than holding their breath. Are they just waiting to see both of them dying? I check at the screens once more before running into the building. Police, doctors. No one can stop me. My mom is about to die for Peter. 

The lack of empathy is the worst illness, that I knew since my father died in a robbery in his way to the capital. When our neighbours and accquitances gave us a gaze filled with pity, I felt like I was a real bug that squirms in the floor, everyone looking at it but no one willing to help. Yes, I was just eight years, my mom had just left her work and my grandmother tried to ripped our lives apart, but their ridiculous, fake compassion wasn´t going to give my father back, was it?

My mom feared to turn destiny into a ruthless victimizer that hated us. Because of that, both of us took a decision: we´d never let anyone to smash us with the gaze of pity once again. Who else did we have but ourselves to go on? I always thought that way, until he appeared. 

I roll over my body and click my playlist on. I´ve ever loved music, how tradegy is compared with the greatest happiness, as both where part of the same thing, like humans have just the possibility to live at the limit, to have nothing or everything. I rise the volume up and start singing out loud.

To tell them how my heart was going crazy. It feels like I got hit by a train.

organ, the heck are you!—I hear through the echo downstairs. It´s my granma, rattling with her walking stick so she can feel she ha all the athority she needs: as I am the minor, it is obvious who is to obey with no hesitation. I try not to care.

What is happening?

Morgan, you kid! she gurgles. 

He said listen, you fool, you´re falling in love again.

—Stop fooling around and bring me at once that stupid med doctor Hans prescribed. 

I push my headphones against my ears and close my eyes. I can imagine myself singing in an opening concert, where I am shinning more than the stars. Everyone is gonna remember me.

Falling in love, falling in love, falling in love will kill you!

—Keep ignoring me and you´ll see what Gertudris Stevens is made of. You´re not gonna remember even your name. You´ll be back into that shy, lil´ lgirl I loved so much, oh, my poor Mor.  You were so special and cute. 

I giggle. I thought granma was already sleep in her cussion, but it seems she´ve being waiting fifteen minutes for me. I bang my way into my mother´s room and crawl under her bed. Besides a embroidered sock there is the ambar little bottle of meds. I wave my hand and finally fish it. 

—You are something, Gerty—I mumble, gathering the placebo pills one by one. Granma is kind of a hypochondriac. Two monts ago she suspected she has a back disease that will force her to go on wheels for the rest of her life if she did moved too much. Though we perform all the necesary studies, there was nothing to worry about, but she didn´t care. Since then she sees herself as a weak and fragile old woman who cannot go upstairs for her meds. Ghost palpitations and waekness threat her life each second. When I step downstairs I see her on spilled in her sofa, with the annoyed expression I´ve alway think she was born with. I give her the meds. 

—Need something else? No? Really? The I´m gonna go to the house of...

—This is not the one—she interrupts, examining the pill carefully. 

—What? I´m sure I picked up yours. Look, it has your name written down. It is you, Gertudris Stevens. 

—Am I?—she asks nervously. Granma´s mental health is quite umpredictable and mom had said that she might be an special, intermitent case of squizophrenia combined with Alzheimer. Even if she feels the opposite, she is clinically sturdy and is spected to life long, perhaps more than mom. I can even remember that time I was ten and she made me ride on her legs as she performed perfect pull-ups in front of her swimming class.

—Yes, you are—I say. 

—I don´t believe you—I sighed. I still know what to do, and it is quite convinient for me.  

—Well, do you want to come with me for a new bottle of meds?  You can check on it as the doctor gives it to you. 

—Are you crazy? I cannot go so far away just to do so—I peered at the wall´s clock. It´s seven pm and he´ll be surely waiting for me. I sigh.

—Do you think our kids from the swimming team would be proud hearing just what you say? That you can´t stand up even for a while. 

—Are you trying to black mail your own granny?

—Me? Oh, no, I´d never dare. 

—I don´t care what you think, Morgan. I am not fine and I need those meds, so, as far as I know, you must pay me your existence at least by buying those meds. Go alone and come back right away. 

—It´s a deal—I answer happily—If mom arrives, you tell her I went for your medicine. 

—But you better go for my medicine and nowhere else, you hear me, gurl?

—Sure!—I repplied, reaching my pink hottie from the largest sofa—Take care. 

I step into the freezing night and shut the door close. My granny could follow me to the edge of the world if she wanted to, but she won´t in her current state, not that she wants pyschologic help anyway. When I turn right I can see my real destiny. Thomas and Randy´s house, my only way out. If it depended on my family, my life would be retrained to school, granny and housework, but my friends are there for me. I met both of them when I was ten. I was crying because Sara, the most popular girl of fifth grade, had accused me of being a snitch, telling teachers that she was a bully. I couldn´t imagine that telling childish jokes to our teachers made me a gossip, but as Sara didn´t have someone to blame for her own behaviour, I was to pay with social isolation. None of that had a real reason, it just was like that. Children were mean and followed what Sara told them to believe: I was of no trust and for that everyone could hate me.

But then, Randy appeared. She was always behind me in the school, sneaking through shrubs. Even if I didn´t notice, she was there. And one day she decided to introduce herself . I was wipping my tears away when she said hi, her brother, Thomas, treading on her heels trying to follow her rapid pace.

“Why are you crying?”, she asked before reaching my spot. I tossed back, but didn´t stand up.  It was strange to see her running towards me as in a heroine saving.

“Ha! Who´s crying? I-i´m not crying, little gurl. Something´s caught in my eye. I´m just- I´m just... Why are you running?”

“But you´re all red. A-and trembling, a-and... shiv-shivering and... Mom says that... that if I see my brother Thomas doing that, I must try to speak to him. ¨He´s surely sad, so he can´t be alone¨, she would say”, she explained, breathing hardly. She kept running towards me, menacing to catch me into her little arms.

“Alone? Well, even if I am alone, that´s none of your business, gurl.” I tried to say, not able to move. Did I want to be caught?

“R-randy!”, Thomas shouted, showing himself behind her. I blushed right away. I was used to drooling, rude boys but this one was older and didn´t seem to drool all day through. I instantly thought he was light, that bright face he had. Randy jogged for the last time and cuddled me tight.

“W-what are you doing?!”

“Randy, I told you not to hug strangers!” Thomas said when he reached us.

“But she´s not a stranger”, she said, clinging to my arm. Then  Thoma´s eyes changed with a recognizing sight.  “Ah, I got it. So it is her the ghost girl you talked about?”

“Ghost girl?” I asked, squirming into Randy´s arms.   Thomas nodded smilingly.

“The one who nobody sees and nobody seems to care about, yet she´s here breathing. You´re the ghost girl”, he explained charmingly, in a way that didn´t sound like he was trying to offend me. This was different, like he was translating something that a child of Randy´s age would say. Like both of them understood. “We finally found you. Randy had heard of you and wanted to get to know you.”

“What?”, I asked trembling.

“I want to be friends with you now”, Randy confirmed.

“But who are you and how do you know me?” Thomas smiled reassuringly, like a hero would do just after saving your life. He kneel just in front of me, smiling at six-year-old sister proudly.

“We don´t know why you are crying, but surely we know that you don´t have to be alone.”

“But why...?”

“Let´s call it... destiny. You are sad and we are here. We are bound to be friends, don´t you think.”

I smiled for the first time in a while, letting myself being hugged by a girl half my size and her strange and charming brother. It was an odd encounter, but I knew it meant something, just as he said. I was sad and they were with me, just by my side. I thought we certainly were bound to be friends. And so we kept seeing each other, checking out on one other´s loneliness and sadness. Those horrid feelings gradually disappeared as I had friends. I got to learn that, as strange as they were, they didn´t have any friends in school so they had me as the third member of their crew, giving me a place to belong to. The three of us always running, shouting and fooling around as we pleased.

I giggled and follow the path down the street. Just before I can gaze the streetlight of their house, my cellphone rings. It is Thomas! I feel my own heart accelerating and my usual silliness climbing through my throat as it always does whenever Thomas talks to me.

“Are you already there?”, he ask rapidly.

“I´m on the corner of the street.”

“Then turn around and run to your house.”

“Are you there?!” I can´t hide my excitement.

“No, we´re so sorry we won´t make it to arrive today. Mom and dad argued all day long and we couldn´t get out of there earlier.”

“Ok, I guess it doesn´t matter. Are you all right?”

“I know it does matter, Mor. Don´t worry, you will be rewarded for the waiting. I´ll have a surprise for you.”

“Really?”, I asked, instantly covering my mouth to control my shrill voice. “R-really?”

“Yes. Wait for us until then. I´ll go directly to you.”

“T-thanks. B-but are you ok? You said your parents were discussing.”

“Nah. They did discuss, but it was the usual thing.”

“Anger”, I hear at the back noise. “I´m sorry, Tom, I just thought..” It is their father, trying to excuse himself for the family he and their mother are tearing apart. I sigh and can´t help but feel sad for my precious friends. They´ve been in the middle of the divorce for almost four months and I haven´t being able to see them as much as I´d like to. Their parents usually call it a day after hours of fighting.   

“Ah, yeah, dad. Let´s talk about this later, Mor. See you.”

“Yeah, see you.” Thomas hang  up. I sigh once again and turn back down the street. It wouldn´t be this bad if we weren´t on vacation. When I click the door open, I see my mother´s tired face as she tries to get rid of her coat. I run to help her out of it.

“Ah, you´re back, Morgan”, she notices as if she was so absent-minded that she have forgotten she has a daughter, though the normal thing is that she chastises any intent of escaping to Thomas and Randy´s house.  

“I´m home”, I answered scanning mom´s face. I think she´s trying to hide something from me, something within her expression. She´s afraid that I find out it through her eyes, if not her dimming voice. “Mom, what happened?”

“What do you mean?”, she says kneeling to take out her shoes. Then I can see a little, red line right in her chin. Her eyes are also swollen and red. She´s been crying.

“Is that a scratch? Mom, what happened at the hospital?” Mom frowns and touches her own skin, confused. Then she covers her face and smiles, thinking twice what to say.

“I´m fine, don´t worry.”

“You bled. Bleeding is no normal thing in any job, specially in yours”, I say. I´ve always thought mom is like a heroine. She wanted to become one at a really young age, but instead of being a surgeon, a nurse, a firefighter or something else, she wanted to be a psychiatrist.  In a world that laugh or ignore at mental illness, she wanted to know.

“As a girl I imagined that people with mental illness could live in another world, a tortuous world in which they know nothing but loneliness. It must be really sad to be in such a place, don´t you think?”, she answered when I asked. But mom is rather sensitive, so a job like this breaks her heart over and over again. Her heart never hardens, never learned to protect itself from other´s sorrow.

-That´s to be empathetic, huh?-grandma asked behind her-You always say that, but I don´t think it has to involve wounds.  

-Now you mom?

-It´s always being her, I guess-I answer, as grandma, in her usually extreme thoughts, was the one who accurately describe what my mom could be living through in her job-, but I agree, mom.

Mom sighs, rubs her eyes and grabs her medical robe defensively. A little stowed paper can be seen in the folds of it. I can easily see it is a drawing... with a lot of blood. I hurry up and take the drawing out.

-What are you doing, Morgan?!-But it is too late. It seems like a simple child´s crayon painting at the beggining. A family made out of lines and circles, holding by their hands. A mother, a father, a boy and a baby... hanging from a thick rope. The little body is drawn blue and so the mother, like fading away from the killing of her baby. But the father and the boy look good. It´s disturbing-You don´t have the right to see my patient´s stuff, child!

Mom tries to snatch it from my hands, but she´s too short. My father´s height gives me a good advantage against her.  

-Patient´s stuff?! What´s that? Who did it? Why they did it?

Mom keeps trying, but she knows it´s useless. After a few seconds, she stops.

-A  female patient with dissociative identity disorder draw it. She´s not actually mine, but she did it for one of my patients. He ask her to do it.

-Did this happen to him? Is this him?-I asked pointing at the boy´s shape.

-I think so.

-Did he killed someone?

-Peter is... difficult, but I know he´s not capable of murdering.

-Oh, so you´re not sure.

-No! He just doesn´t speak about what happened to him before coming to the hospital. It is his first time receiving treatment. We don´t know much about him, there are no records.

-Are you serious? You take this drawing home so nobody suspects that he killed a baby when he was a child?

-How would you know that?! It might be something he saw and he described it to Julie.

-Ok, I´ll pretend I take it. Even so, why did you take the drawing home? It makes no sense if you actually believe he´s innocent. I bet he´s young and he´s alone and you want to help him, but you can´t, no if he committed murder.

-Morgan... I´ve treated real dangerous people.

-Once, and she immediately returned to jail, but you´re keeping this boy hidden, so police won´t start any investigation. You are aware of what you´re doing? This child might be actually crazy!-Mom steps forward firmly, taking the drawing from my hands.

-Listen, Morgan. I don´t want you to talk about Peter like this anymore. You don´t know him and you have no right to talk on this.

-But, mom, I´m just...

-Enough. I´m your mother and it´s my decision to keep this drawing. You may think it´s illegal, but you´re just assuming things. On the contrary, I´m sure he´s innocent and that I have to heal him, to safe him.

-This is dangerous for you. He hurt you-grandma mumbles. She knows that mom is, for the first time in months, real angry. So do I, so I keep staring mom, waiting for her to declare war. She doesn´t even want to keep excusing herself about her actions.  

-And I am no fool. I will take the risk, if it is one-she answers. I´ve understand. She´s determined, but I am, too. Mom rushes upstairs, but I stand up at the staircase. I´m going to discover who this Peter is.