A TOUCH OF INSANITY

chapter one

I started breathing again. I don't mean when the air starts flowing from your nose down to your lungs but the kind when all your surrounding feels suffocated. So yes, I started breathing again, and it feels great. My life does not feel like it not falling apart, and I am ok with that, but I keep waiting for that moment when it will all come crashing down, and this time I don't think I will come back. Next time I will let myself drown.

Where am I now? I will tell you that I am not canceling all my therapist appointment to proof am better, but that is a lie. Second, I won't tell you that I didn't have suicidal thoughts at the beginning of last year, and lastly, I won't tell you I still haven't slept well for 300 days. Medically, that should not be possible because you are likely to have hallucinations, high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke, and esterase. Shockingly, most of these are old people's diseases. I am only 24 years old. I began developing on the 17th day when my grandfather began putting a sleeping pill in my food or anything he knew I drank.

I like the old man, but I don't trust him anymore because it won't stop the nightmares and night terrors from happening if I sleep. It won't stop me from waking up and hearing the sound of my voice screaming like I literally could wake up hearing myself scream, and my brain is hard-wired to ask, when did I scream?

As you can see, I am a young adult with too many issues. Yet, I never heard my grandfather's complaint once, and I am legally eighteen, so he could just kick me out and say he is done with me, but he has a big heart.

Like I said, I can breathe again, and you ask if I am in love, no am not in love, and if love comes, I will punch it in the guts, no questions asked.

"Love is falling off the cliff and being happy even if you're going to die; it's literally being happy that you're going to die. So even if the thorns pricked you, you still appreciate the rose."

This is not written by any philosopher. It is just me and what love is. Enough about love that will get me to call my therapist. The thoughts I have buried deep down inside would resurface. I am currently in my new room in New Jersey, studying psychology. Yeah, I know. Ironic for someone with lots of issues, but I want to be a better judge of characters than before. I am currently alone, really far from my university,. Why stay in the dorms when no one wants to stay with a roommate with night terrors. Still, I have made some friends in my department. There is Aliya, Casey, and Tintin, and my favorite is Michelle, short for Mimi. She is so short and cute but has a temper like a spitfire.

"Can you believe he was trying to touch my boobs on the first date"

Mimi says to me while doing her makeup in front of my mirror. She had decided to invite me for a senior year party and saw it was better to come to my place to play dress-up

"Steph… Steph…Steph," she called out to me while trying to eye line her eyes, and I seemed lost in the world until she called me out

"Hmmm," I answered, and she rolled her eyes

"Sometimes I wonder where you go to," she said as she continued her makeup and repeated herself

"I said that the guy who asked me out last week….mike or Michael …. I have forgotten since he was such a douchebag; anyways, back to the story, he tried to touch my boobs without even going first base."

"yeah ….what a douchebag," I said

Just agreed cuz I didn't want to remind her that just a few weeks after I knew her, she had let a guy on the football f**k her in the player's locker room, and he didn't even take her out on a date

"So we are going to this party to get drunk and forget about men," I snickered as she said the last part. This is because, for a few weeks, I have known that she is always around men. What can I say? She is a hot Latino girl. She has light short wavy brown hair, amber eyes, and a huge ass. Michelle was the whole package, and I don't blame guys for wanting to smash that.

Mimi got up from the chair, swaging her hips in front of me

"so…." Waiting for me to answer

"I think most guys will be wondering why they aren't with you," I replied

And she smiled. "I know, right."

And so we took Mimi's car to the party, which I regretted in case she forgot her no boy's rule, and I was stuck with no ride. As we got close to the house, you could hear loud music, cups and empty bottles in the yards, and couples making out on the floor bed. I entered the house as I came down from the car with Mimi not too far behind, greeting anyone who knew her. Mimi was what you would call a social butterfly, but she was a fun person to chill with; I saw Casey and Tintin near the beer pong with cups in their hands from afar. I walked towards them, took Tintin's cup, and gulped the beer.

"You are a baby alcoholic," Casey said as she laughed

"Please, that was barely a drink," I said, smiling even if I knew that I was going to take more than that

"That was like my last drink,"… Tintin said, and I stared a bit confused since I knew she could always get more

She grabbed the cup from my hand, saying

"don't look at me like that. The guy near the keg has been asking for my number no stop. But, unfortunately, I had to use the excuse, my phone is off, and I am too dumb to remember my own phone number."

"oh," I said, and everyone laughed

"what funny" Mimi asked, popping out of nowhere

"Tintin is too dumb to remember her phone number," Casey tells her

"oh," she said, turning to Tintin, and Tintin rolled her eyes

And there was a short silence before I started talking

"let's play beer pong."

"that's just an excuse for you to get drunk, but I am in," Tintin says

"me too"

"well, stripteaser," Mimi said with a smirk.

We had a rule in which even though the ball enters the cup, the person has to drink and take off one of her clothes, although I rarely get naked cuz am the boss at the game. But Mimi had me eating my words at the start of the game because Mimi is usually on my team.

We are undefeated.

As a result, when the ball landed in the cup, I drank it all at once, removed my bra because it was stressful, and threw it into the corner, which I don't remember where I put it by the end of the day.

REMOVING MY BRA WAS SIMPLE because I was wearing a jacket and a spaghetti hand shirt.

By the end of the game, I was slightly high and was only on my spaghetti shirt and shorts, which could serve as panties and my actual panties, and a lot of guys staring, but I still won. I made one of them almost nude that a thumbs up for efforts. I could feel my head spinning, and the house was just too hot-filled with too many people. I stepped out of the house, stumbling a little as I reached the lawn. I hit someone by mistake and fell something. I bent down, trying to pick up what I fell down even though I didn't know what it was; trust me, it is a bad idea to bend down when your head is spinning because I felt worst than I did a few minutes ago.

"I got it," I heard a soft baritone voice.

I raised my head, and it was like Clark Kent just fell on this lawn.