Forever by Lilliana Anderson

Author:Lilliana Anderson [Anderson, Lilliana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-06-26T04:00:00+00:00

* * *

“Do you think we could sit and talk?” my mother asks once I’ve been out of the hospital and back at her house for a week. I’m still not particularly forthcoming with her. On top of not trusting her because she dumped me in the street at fifteen, I’m also mourning the loss of Phoenix. Ever since I started taking the medication, I can’t hear her anymore. My counsellor tells me it was always my imagination, and that she wasn’t real. But I already knew that. I just miss being able to talk to her. I miss the feeling of carrying her on my back. It’s just a tattoo now. It’s just a tattoo.

“What is there to talk about?” I ask, putting my book down as I give her my attention. My therapist suggested a few sessions with mum could be beneficial to my healing. But I don’t know if I want to drag her shit along with mine. I can only handle one thing at a time. Schizoaffective disorder is something I’ll have to manage for the rest of my life. It’s a disorder that comes and goes depending on my stress levels and circumstances. They believe I developed it because of my drug use, and the trauma associated with my year as a drug whore. I fucking hate that they’re making me talk about that shit again. But Schizoaffective disorder is managed with medication and counselling, and if I don't participate, they can hospitalise me. I don’t want to be drugged up and trapped in a room ever again. So I'm cooperating. Especially since my parents have been granted medical custody of me. It’s pretty fucking hilarious if you ask me—the people who abandoned me are responsible for my medical decisions. It’s insanity of the highest order. And I'm supposed to be the crazy one. Right. The good news is, their custody is temporary. There'll be a hearing in a couple of months to assess my competency. So I’m focusing on being my best self for that. I also want to be my best self for this baby.

“You’ve been here for almost a week, and we’ve barely spoken at all.”

“That’s because I don’t want to be here, but I'm forced under your guardianship by law. The paperwork says I need to be here. It doesn’t say I need to talk to you or be your friend.”

“I’m not asking for you to be my friend. I’d just like us to come to an understanding.”

“Fine. Talk.” I say, sitting up to eye her as she fidgets with a loose thread on her sleeve.

“First, I wanted to give you this,” she says placing a small comb on the bed in front of me.

“Why?” Why would I want a comb?

“This is the comb I used to brush your hair when you were little. Before things got really bad with Oliver—”

“And you withdrew your love from me.” I remember her when I was small, singing to me, telling me stories while she sat with me before bed and untangled my curls.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.