I fiddled around my mother's cupboard, looking for some clue. I wasn't absolutely sure what I was looking for. Maybe something that would explain the tremulous smiles, and the watching me sleeps and the long, haunted gazes.
Reaching to the back, my hand closed around a cylinder-like object. Pulling back, I found a small, blue-tinted, transparent container. A medicine bottle. Turning it over, I read it, quickly making out the worn letters "Anti.. Depress.ant. Antidepressant."
I was too shocked to be angry at that time. I just sat there, staring at the bottle. Sitting on the floor of my mother's bathroom. To this day I ask myself, "what the hell was I thinking?" The truth is, I'm not quite, sure. I opened the bottle. Removed the small white capsule, turning it over in my fingers. Squinting at it. Studying it at all angles and in all lights.
Surely my mother didn't need these. She could only take certain pills, 'cuz the normal chemical ones were bad for her, she needed to stick to organic, and these were definitely chemicalized.
Suddenly it dawned on me. Mine. These were MY antidepressants. These were my pills. I think maybe, though I seemed calm on the outside, I was panicking on the inside. How long had she been slipping these? Where? In my food? The water? The wine? For the love of god and everything pleasant and sweet not the wine! Did she know about my wine stash? I wondered, how much DID she know, really? Did she know about me and Fay Thompson? The backseat of her car? Oh dear lord no. Did she know about the pot? My heart tensed, shuddered, and skipped five beats. Did she know about the playboy stash under my bed? No. This couldn't be happening?
Get a hold of yourself, she couldn't know about any of those things. I did a daily hiding area replacement. What's more, the pot was not stashed in my room. It was, in fact, stashed behind the lamp in my ceiling, which was broken. The rum and the wine were all in an old suitcase up high in my closet. Along with my dear bailey's. The porn magazines were, in fact, covered in black paper with random titles on them so as to make them seem like old schoolwork. And Fay Thompson is still a virgin. As far as everyone but me and my buddy knows.
So why did she slip me the anti-depressants? Simple. She thought I was depressed. I looked at the bottle again. Popped the capsule in my mouth. Poured three more in my hands. Down them too. Within ten minutes I had dutifully consumed the entire bottle. Lying back on the pink and blue tiled floor, I held a mirror above my face and contemplated my reflection.
I had dark hair, almost black, worn a little too long and a little too loose, curling at around my ears and neck. My eyes were a clear contemplative blue. My nose, too narrow, too straight. A psycho-path smile and a seemingly delicate face. I'm thin. Tall, but thin, and lanky.
As I lay there, I dropped the mirror, watched it crash on the floor, and giggled to myself as glass flew and cut my face.
I heard the slam of a door.
"Auley!"
I laughed again. Closed my eyes, and waited for someone to give me a light to run into.