Wishing Well

The first thing that I saw when I woke up was white. Not the bright, angelic kind, but the stark and dull kind. The ceiling above me was white, the ground below me, the four walls around me. When I looked down I was covered in a scratchy white blanket.

“Well… crap.” I mumbled as I slowly regained consciousness. This couldn’t be hell, I wasn’t being consumed in flames or anything of the sort. Which could only mean one thing. I had failed.

Shit. I saw my mom outside a large glass door, talking to a short and stubby woman in pink scrubs with cartoon character’s printed on them. The woman turned her head, obviously exasperated with my mother, and saw me awake and sitting up. She rushed in, and my mother followed her lead.

“Ohh, Jo. What happened? Was it an accident? The doctors said it was possible you just got the dose mixed up on the pills. Isn’t that what happened? Oh dear, please be more careful next time” My mom said this so fast that only 17 years of experience allowed me to understand what she was saying.

“No mom, that’s not what, happened. I’m not three, I know how much to take. I was trying to kill myself, okay?” I don’t know what made me say it. Probably the drowsiness. I should have just shut my mouth and let her think what she wanted. The smile on her face faded quickly, and she blinked a couple times. The nurse left the room unraveled, like she had seen this a million times. My mother flopped herself down in a chair, and put her head in her hands. Now I felt really bad for hurting her. She’s really not a terrible person, my mom. A horrid mother, but not a bad person. I wanted to tell her that this wasn’t her fault at all, I really did, but the words refused to come out. I used to be able to lie with ease, but this lie just wouldn’t come out.

Its not all my moms fault either. Its mostly my boyfriend. Well, ex-boyfriend. We dated for two years, and I was so in love with him. I thought he loved me too, he told me he did. He never ever hurt me… Well, except for the incident, but he apologized for that. Then last night I get home from the library, and there’s a message from him on my machine, that says that he’s leaving me for Holly Anderson, a beautiful blonde cheerleader at my school. She used to be my best friend, before my diagnosis. After that, she stuck her nose in the air, got a wonderbra, and joined the cheer team. Every boy in school wanted Holly Anderson, not stupid Josie White.

Everything that had been holding me together was yanked away from me at once. I couldn’t see, hear, I couldn’t even feel my own heart beating, which is when I decided that I never wanted to hear it again. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder a year after Nathan and I started dating, when I was 16. It almost killed me, and he was the only thing that kept me going. I kept taking my meds, and eventually I felt better. I finally felt like a normal teenager. Then a couple weeks ago, my dad left. My mom didn’t come out of her bedroom for days. I felt hopeless, useless. My dad said that him leaving was a good thing, he was even getting married. He had knocked up a nurse at his practice, a blonde twenty something with double Ds. April Anderson. Holly’s older sister. Yeah, my familys that messed up.

Anyways, that’s about when I stopped taking my meds. I tried to hide it from Nathan, but he saw. He couldn’t take me being “mental” in his words. On bad days, I would just sit on the seat of my picture window and watch the rain. I could sit there for hours, not talking to anyone, not eating, not sleeping. I cried so much on those days that I never thought I would stop. My good days were great. I felt like a superhero, like I could do anything, be anything. I danced, I laughed. I didn’t sleep then either. I would stay up all night, cleaning, dancing, even just sitting there and laughing at nothing at all. I was too scared that I would go to bed and the feeling wouldn’t be there when I woke up. My mom was too busy to notice that my mood swings had started again, Nathan noticed, but he never said anything until the day he left me.

After I heard the message on my machine, I went to the medicine cabinet and got the medicine I had stopped taking weeks ago, and some store brand allergy pills. I had expected it to hurt, but it didn’t, I just laid down and waited.

“How did..?” I asked my mom, but she cut me off before I could finish my question.

“I was going to tell you that your aunt had called, but when I saw you, you were so, so pale, and you wouldn’t wake up” She said between broken sobs.

“My aunt?” As far as I knew, I had only one aunt, but she had died when I was 10.

“Chloe, your fathers step sister. They’re estranged, so you probably haven’t seen her in years, but I think you met her once when you were younger.”

Well, damn. I knew who she was talking about now, and I didn’t like it one bit. My aunt Chloe was a bit odd, if you ask me. She had been cut out of the family fortune when she was 22 for dropping out of law school to focus on her “art” (which consisted of a variety of odd sculptures and pottery). To make matters worse, she had married an author with not a penny to his name and only a few obscure published works. I don’t think my grandparents had ever talked to her again. I had met her once when I was 13, when she randomly stopped by for my birthday, like it was the most normal thing ever. She kept calling me Josephine, which left me permanently annoyed with her.

I groaned “What did she want?”

“She wanted to see if you would stay with her for the summer. I didn’t think it would be a good idea, until, until..” She couldn’t even finish her sentence through the sniffles. I swear my mom could be so melodramatic sometimes. It wasn’t as if I had actually died or anything.

“Oh mom” I whined “Are you actually thinking of shipping me off to…God, I don’t even know where she lives. Ill be fine mom, I don’t need to go visit any random relatives I don’t even know.”

“Honey, I just think you need a change in scenery. It’s beautiful where they live, really. And your aunts so worried about you. This will be good for you, I promise.” She smiled at me, like she was proud of herself for fixing everything. Damn, don’t I wish that a “change in scenery” could fix everything. That’d be flipping fantastic.

“Well, since you already decided for me, when do I leave?”

“The doctors say you can leave on Sunday, so I got your tickets for Monday.”

“You already got me tickets?!”

“Well, I knew I would be able to convince you eventually.”

“Whatever. I’m gonna take a nap, you can leave or whatever.” I rolled over and closed my eyes, listening intently until she left. I knew I had hurt her feelings, but she had hurt mine too. The first thing that crossed my mind is if I could try again tonight. That way they could have my funeral on Monday instead, pretty ironic eh? They must have some pills here or something that I could OD on. I searched, but I didn’t find anything. Just then though, another nurse walked into my room. This one was a guy, he said his name was John and that he was from the phyc ward, and that he was sent here to observe me until I went home tomarow. So basically, he was here to babysit me.

Since I obviously wasn’t going to succeed tonight, I tried to get some sleep, emphasis on the tried. I tossed and turned for hours, and when I finally did get to sleep I had my nightmare again.

I was in a huge field, rolling green hills, blue sky, I didn’t see so much as a leaf in sight, just grass. Then, as I started walking, I noticed a small brown dot, and started running towards it. When I got to it, it was a well, like the old fashioned kind that you make wish’s in. I was leaning over the edge when I fell in, and I screamed as I fell down, down, down. As the light above me got smaller and smaller, someone up there started calling my name desperately. I didn’t recognize the voice, and I never saw the person. The voice didn’t fade or stop calling for me as I fell through, and I rarely ever reached the bottom. Ever since I stopped taking my meds though, I always reached the bottom. It was the same thing every time, I fell with a clunck, and I was in a white padded room, and I could still hear the voice. I tried to get out and get to the person who was calling to me, but I was in a strait jacket, and I couldn’t move. I screamed for help, but no one ever showed up, and eventually the voice stopped, and I started to sob.

That’s where my dream always ended, and I was constantly waking up sweating or crying. Sometimes both.

The next two days flew by, and after some tears and worrying (from my mom), I was off on a plane to goddamn timbuck two. It took 6 hours to get there, and honestly I probably should have just jumped out of the plane window right then and been done with it. But by that point I was on way too many happy pills to try something like that. My aunt met me at the gate, and I was just a little embarrassed to be seen walking with her. She looked a lot different then the pictures I had seen of her. Her auburn hair was still in long ringlets, but now it had electric purple streaks in it. She wore red polka dot dress with lime green canvas sneakers, and carried a rainbow print tote bag. None of that really compared to the giant yellow sunflower she had in her hair though, I think that might have been the worst. She looked like she would barf glitter and have a pet unicorn.

“Josephine! Over here!” She yelled at me, smiling. When I got in range she gave me the biggest bear hug that id ever imagined, and for a tiny person, she was pretty strong. “Oh, honey, I was so worried about you! I haven’t seen you since you were a baby, and, oh my you’ve gotten big. Oh, I was so worried about you, when your mom told me! Are you feeling alright?” She said this all at such a mega fast speed that I barley got it all. Really, she talked alarmingly fast.

“Yeah, I’m feeling better I guess.” Those were the only words I got in from the airport to her car (green slugbug with giant fuzzy dice on the mirror and a bumper sticker that read, “Honk for childhood literacy!”), and all the way home. She talked constantly, and about everything. Her husband, Sam, who who just published his first novel. Her art, which had made it’s way into a gallery in some town a couple hours away.

“So where is it exactly that you live?” I piped up in a brief moment of silence.

“Oh, we’re about to pass the sign right now! Oh, it’s so beautiful, i know you’ll love it here”

The sign read “Welcome to Ocean Isle Beach” It actually was really beautiful here. The beach at least, the rest just looked like snob central. Big hotels, fancy houses, old women in pink jogging suits walking little bitty dogs. It was like a quant Beverly Hills.

It took us like 3 minutes to get to her house, which was looked even more adorable and quant then everything I had seen so far. I wanted to puke. It was two story, brick, with little flower pots in the windows, and another bigger garden in the front yard. The front doormat read, “Wipe Your Paws!”. I honestly didn’t know how I was going to live here for two months. When we walked in, I was hit dead in the face by a wave of fragrance. It smelled like she had mopped the place with perfume.

“Here honey, let me show you to your room” my aunt says with a huge smile on her face, and I wonder if she’s taking pills to make her so chipper all the time. If so, I wonder if I can get my hands on some of those. My room looked like somewhere a unicorn with a heart full of glitter might live. The walls were bubble gum pink, the carpet looked and felt like spun sugar. The bed was folded precisely and perfectly, and the quilt was covered in pink flower patterns, but the most distinguishing factor of the bed was that it was covered, literally covered, in various beanie babies, teddy bears, care bears, ect. This room was going to need a serious makeover if I was supposed to be able to fall asleep in here.

“Do you like it?”

“Love it” I mumbled, trying halfheartedly to sound exited, but Chloe didn’t even seem to notice. She was so chipper all the time, I doubt anything I said could stop her from smiling.

“Okay, so there’s a dresser to pack your clothes in, and you have your own bathroom, right down the hall, and if there’s anything else you need, I’ll be in the attic” she walked away, flashing pearly whites. The dresser I soon saw, was not only humongous, but covered in little china figurines. They had everything; dogs, fairies, angels, turtles, gnomes, etc. Once I had finished unpacking, I decided to check out my bathroom, which also was themed (shocker). This room was full on flower child. The walls were neon orange, beads and sunflowers were hung everywhere, and even floor was lime green aluminum. I swear, I think that room was the worst thing I’ve ever seen.

“I need to get out of this place” I thought to myself. “Hey, I’m going on a walk!” I called out upstairs, not really caring whether she heard me or not.