1. Lose Your Mind

1

Lose Your Mind

Teal

Sanity is a matter of perspective.

After all, to me , it makes sense what I’m doing here. But to anyone else, they’d label me insane. I suppose they wouldn’t be wrong, given more than a handful of doctors would agree with them.

I’ve been Bristal’s designated crazy girl as far back as I can remember. Ever since my first meltdown in the middle of Regal Marketplace, when I accidentally knocked one of the jars off a shelf, and it shattered on the tile. Cherry juice-stained glass scattered the floor while I curled against the canned vegetables with my fists balled at my temples.

I tried to silence the ringing in my ears while everyone stood watching me have a breakdown over a shattered jar .

If I close my eyes, I can still see theirs on me. Everyone watched me like a movie as I fell apart, but no one actually did anything about it.

Adjust her dose.

Alter her diagnosis.

It hasn’t worked yet, so I can’t figure out why they’re still trying. Besides, who are they to judge when the ones holding the scale are usually the worst offenders?

The creaky gate at the other end of the courtyard opens, and I watch a figure walk through. The man is tall, and his dark hair falls to the top ridge of his ears. He’s wearing a hoodie and jeans. A simple outfit when his family no doubt bleeds money.

There are only two ways to get into a school like Briar Academy: be one of the very few ridiculously intelligent students here on a scholarship, like my roommate Violet, or come from a family with pockets deeper than the ocean.

Like most students, I’m the latter.

The Donovans come from old money. We’re rich through oil, blood, and sin. The only way to get as wealthy as my father is to come from generations of men with no moral compass. And there were plenty of them.

My family was one of the first four to invest in Bristal. Along with the Pierces, Christiansens, and Lancasters, my bloodline founded this small slice of hell. Between the four families, we built this town. Set the laws. Laid the first bricks of Sigma House.

As if wealth and local power weren’t enough, the men who founded Bristal decided they needed more. So they started the fraternity that now bleeds into every political facet of this country. In the university handbook, the fraternity goes by Sigma House, but everyone here knows to really call them Sigma Sin.

After all, they do the work of sinners, not saints.

They hide behind their fraternity while the families that started it all taint each new generation with power and greed.

The man makes his way deeper into the courtyard. He closed the gate behind him but didn’t latch it. His shoes drag against the pavement with every long stride, and his steps are even, slow, and purposeful.

Campus policy says we shouldn’t be out of our dorms past ten o’clock, but no one follows it. And since no one actually monitors the security feeds around campus unless there’s an incident, there’s no incentive to listen.

Regulating students would require the administration to care about our safety.

God forbid someone actually gives a shit.

The man doesn’t see me sitting on a bench at the opposite end of the courtyard as he makes his way through it. A streetlamp above him flickers.

I watch from the shadows as he kicks a rock across the cobblestones. It skips along the crevices before finally lodging in one of them.

The music in my earbuds is low enough that I can still hear every sound of his shoes scraping the ground. Of his bag being pulled up over his shoulder. Of the low whistle coming through his pursed lips .

Until he finally comes to a stop near the library, tucked in the darkness of the now-barely flickering light.

He’s familiar, but I can’t place him. I’m pretty sure we’ve had a class or two together. His hunched posture is familiar, even if I can’t remember his name.

So I give him one instead.

Talon .

He reminds me of a hooked claw in the night, circling for prey.

A predator.

His phone pings loud enough that it echoes through the empty courtyard. It slices through the silence of the night, and I jump.

Still, he doesn’t see me as he pulls it out of his pocket to read the message. The phone’s light makes sharper lines of his features, and the glow is enough for me to make out a small smile ticking up in the corner of his mouth.

I’m tempted to turn up my music and walk away. It’s wrong to watch people like this.

But what is right ?

I thought I knew, but with every year, it gets more convoluted.

Real and imaginary start to blur, and when my mind is left to its own devices, it starts filling in the blanks—which is easier than letting it sit in silence.

So I don’t move.

I watch.

I wait to see what he’ll do. Using him like my own personal movie. Finding a sole point to focus on when the pills make it so difficult.

My pills .

I glance at my phone, realizing I’m an hour overdue for my next dose. That might be why the stars are so loud in the sky tonight. So bright I wonder how no one else hears them screaming over the music in my ears, begging me to join them.

I reach into my bag and pull out the pill bottle, reading the warning in bold font on the front.

DON’T MIX WITH ALCOHOL

A better warning would be to not mix them with life , when all they do is make my mind swim in circles. I can’t decide what’s worse: having the clarity to see I no longer want to be here or the pill-induced haze that strings my mind up in purgatory.

Every day, it’s a decision I weigh.

Every day, I almost let the voices in my head talk me out of this.

Today, sanity won.

People underestimate what it actually means to be insane .

They throw words around like bipolar and crazy like it’s a joke to lose your mind. They use it to rationalize their bad behavior or to excuse someone for being erratic. Or worse, they use it to praise themselves for making it through a bad day.

Because they got through it.

They. Got. Through. It.

If only it were that simple .

Shaking my head, I pop off the cap on the pill bottle and swallow one. It scrapes my throat on the way down, so I guess I’m still alive.

I told Dr. Parish this new medication makes my insides hurt and the world fuzzy, but he swears I just need to give it time.

Time .

As if that will help us figure out if I’m getting better or worse. Half the time, I want to just throw in the towel and let them lock me up. At least in Montgomery Psychiatric Ward, no one expects me to pretend that I’m okay.

I’m nineteen now, so technically, I can make my own decisions. I can go against my father’s directives and stop my treatments. Maybe if I sit with my madness for long enough, I’ll finally know if I can survive it without all the interventions.

Tucking the pill bottle back in my purse, I refocus my attention on the man in the courtyard. He’s leaning against the Social Sciences Building, dragging one hand through his hair while the other types something into his phone.

He’s waiting for something, and it doesn’t take long before he seemingly gets what he’s looking for.

The gate at the end of the courtyard creaks again, and a blonde girl wearing a pleated skirt and fluffy green sweater walks through it. She’s on her phone like he is. Texting or checking social media. She’s not paying attention, even though it’s the middle of the night, and there’s only a single bulb lighting the path to the library .

Unlike Talon, who I had to name due to lack of recognition, I know who the girl is. Still, I decide to rename her for the sake of whatever fantasy I’m playing out in my head.

Ivy Martin .

First and last.

Sweet and simple.

It sounds nice, and I can imagine it on a news headline in the morning.

Ivy doesn’t notice Talon standing in the shadows as she makes her way toward the library, which is still open.

More proof the campus rules don’t make sense.

So many things don’t make sense. Then again, people tell me I don’t either.

Ivy finally spots Talon at the last second. He doesn’t immediately move, so I think maybe I misjudged him. Maybe I’m conditioned to expect evil over innocence. My mother always says I have a bad habit of seeing the worst in people.

But then she smiles, and Talon rushes her, grabbing her by the back of the hair and sealing her mouth with the other as he drags her back toward the brick wall.

She scratches and kicks at him, so he traps her arms with one of his, pinning her in the darkness where it’s harder to see them now.

But I hear them.

Muffled screaming.

Shoes crunching on concrete.

Scuffling .

Real, grounding sounds that drag my mind to this moment. To this bench. To this night.

Maybe that’s why pain fascinates me. It cuts through the numbness when so few things have the ability to do so.

Ivy fights Talon. Two bodies battling it out in the darkness. And he wins as he shoves her to her knees, and her entire body winces.

She feels it.

What I would give to feel anything.

What I would—

“Boo!” A hand covers my mouth, muting my scream, while another wraps my throat.

I was so focused on the scene in front of me that I didn’t hear anyone sneak up from behind. And as my head is pulled back, forcing my face up to the sky, I’m met with ice-cold, soulless gray eyes.

Declan Pierce.