Remember To Breathe

After spending more than a week catching up with Dane, avoiding his friends, hanging out with my new ones, and listening to the three girls babble about Jesus, I was extremely calm. It was sunny for the beginning of March, but still cold enough to need a jacket. Jillian and I were near done with our project. The only thing we had left on it was part of the essay which Jillian said she would finish typing. So now, I had a free Thursday night to myself. It was nice, just lying in bed, listening to the soft music playing throughout my room.

My plan for tonight was to just relax and get a peaceful sleep tonight. No voices entering my mind, no twisted dreams causing me to wake up in a frenzy. I felt so placid, it was unbelievable. And it was all because of one thing I promised myself. After a few more days of talking back to that cursed voice entering my thoughts, I finally just started to ignore it.

Alone again, huh?

I didn't say anything about it leaving, unfortunately.

The thing I hated most about this was that I couldn't tell anybody about it. I couldn't complain about how annoying it got. I was sick of hearing such demeaning thoughts entering my mind, and not being able to convince myself that they were not true. If I told any of my friends, they would think I was insane. And trust me, that could not happen. I wouldn't be able to tell my parents, because they'd make me go to some psychiatrist. That couldn't happen, either. So now, I just had to deal with it and ignore it.

You can't ignore the truth.

I waited for a moment, not hearing anything.

Peace.

Silence.

This was something new, and I really liked it. I was hoping this could happen more often.

I hopped off my bed and quickly changed into some more comfortable clothes. Over the days, Jillian, Phoebe, and Audrey have been coming over and helping me with the clothes and makeup. They said if I paid attention to them, I might be a normal girl by the end of the month. It was a definite might, though.

After getting dressed I looked outside my window and absorbed the scenery around me. The sky's hue was starting from a light blue going down to a dark pinkish color with yellow mixed in some parts. There were few stars outside and the moon was crescent shaped, barley visible from the now disappearing clouds. The sky had never been like for a long time. In some thought in the back of my head, I was convinced it was only like this because I was so calm. I quickly rejected that thought with a chuckle and quickly closed my curtains. I started to descend down the stairs until I heard my mother talking on the phone.

"Yes, Dr. Santori, I will accompany Mariana to her appointment tomorrow."

What appointment?

I was about to finish my small sojourn down the stairs, but I quickly abandoned that plan and went straight back to my room to sleep. I might as well sleep early and wake up early then argue with my mother about going to a doctor's appointment tomorrow or not. And since the odds were always against me, I decided against it, knowing I'd lose the fight anyway.

I'd rather be calm than angry any day.

I went back to the comfort and silence of my room and crawled into my welcoming bed. I quickly shut off the lights and tried to sleep, although I knew it would be impossible with all these thoughts swimming in my head. As much as I tried to close out all of the voices, they kept on entering into my head. They weren't even relevant thoughts to what I actually should be thinking about. I couldn't even utter them; they were too disturbingly awkward for a person like me. Although lately, I noticed I haven't necessarily been acting like myself.

That's beside the point, though.

Finally, after letting those horrifying thoughts run around, they started to fade and my world was encased with a sweet darkness I had been waiting for since I was awakened this morning.

The darkness soon disappeared and I was greeted with a gray sky through open curtains. I let out a groan and pushed off my comforter and repeated my morning routine.

When I was finally ready to head off to school, I saw a familiar figure standing in my house, talking to my mother. I was almost too tired to pass it of until a thought went right through my head. Talking, to my mother.

Shit.

I ran over to my mother and Dane, quickly grabbing him by his arm and running to the door, cutting off their entire conversation. I was about to shut the door until my mother called out to me.

"Don't forget about your appointment!"

I grumbled something which sounded like a 'goodbye' and quickly shut the door. I waited until we were at the end of the driveway to actually start breathing again. I was too afraid to actually say anything to him. My mother could've said anything to him. I was really hoping for once, she would have had nothing to say. Especially about me.

I looked at him and then I started to wonder why he was even here. I was guessing that he read my mind, also.

"I came to pick you up. I can't have you get sick, now."

He was so goofy; I was starting to remember why we were friends in the first place. When he was alone, he was perfectly fine. But when he was with them, it was a whole different story.

I followed him to his car and got in the passenger seat. He started to drive, but unfortunately, he wasn't going to be quiet like yesterday.

"What's the appointment for?"

"Beats me, probably some physical." I was lying, again. I knew exactly what this appointment was for, but there was no way Dane, Jillian, or anyone else would find out about it. The only reason I didn't want to go was because my parents never told me in advance that I had one; I would always be blind sighted with them telling me right before I went to bed. That didn't make it better, though. It just made me more reluctant to go.

Dane looked over at me and smiled. "I heard about what happened yesterday."

I could tell my smile fell and I quickly turned to the window and then back to him. "Oh,"

"Hey, don't get me wrong. Andrew and Nate are idiots, they deserved it."

I smiled a little bit and started tapping my fingers on my knees.

"Why do you hang out with them?" I heard myself say and instantly regretted it.

He looked at me, obviously searching for the right words and then sighed. He pulled up into the parking lot leading to the high school and stopped the car.

"I don't know."

I nodded my head and just sat there.

"I guess I'll learn to like them." I said and his face lit up.

He unbuckled his seatbelt as did I and we both got out of the car. We started walking toward the main doors and he started to speak.

"That really means a lot to me."

I laughed and tried to keep up with his fast pace. "It should, this isn't easy for me."

He laughed also and opened the door for me. I walked in with him following behind and then we both stopped. If we took a right, we would be with his friends. I had a strong feeling that Andrew and Nate wouldn't be too keen on forgiving me. And I wouldn't be that jubilant on apologizing, either. If we took a left, we'd be with my friends. I wasn't that sure of whether he'd like being there.

But if we just went straight, I didn't know what would happen.

I thought it was quite amusing that life could be changed just by the direction you took. It didn't seem that big to me right now. But somehow later on in life, it would change. And I was far too nervous to do anything reckless right now.

Even if was just choosing left or right.

So, we did what I thought would be the logical thing to do; we parted ways, Dane turning into the right hall, as I ventured towards the left.

"See you later," he called out. I waved to him and turned back to face the hall leading to my friends.

I spotted Jillian and smiled. What I really needed to do was vent about how annoying Dane's friends were and how I really didn't want to get to know them. Who would, anyway? They were just jerks that had nothing better to do than insult everyone else. I made a promise though; I had to at least tolerate them. If I had to do that though, I had to vent somehow. But I knew I couldn't vent out to any of my friends. They had more important things to do then to listen to my problems.

They'd probably get bored listening to you talking.

I frowned at the thought and I tried to block it out of mind. It didn't work until I remembered what I did last night. So I tried the same thing I did last night; I didn't respond at all and I got what I wanted.

Absolute silence.

It was nice.

After school Dane gave me a ride home and I waited for my mother to get back from grocery shopping so she could take me to my appointment. Somehow I had managed to calm myself down on the ride home, knowing that it would just be a small checkup. Dr. Santori just wanted to see how I was doing. Nothing severe would happen, probably just a physical.

When my mother came home, she was surprised at how placid I seemed. I was surprised, too. Not once did I protest going. I didn't try to feign an illness at the last minute and I didn't lock myself in the bathroom. Most people would think that strange, but I really didn't like going to the doctor's office.

When we finally arrived we entered the dark, unwelcoming building and I sat down in one of the uncomfortable chairs while my mother told the receptionist we were here. When she came back to me she sat down and we waited a few minutes in silence. Finally, Dr. Santori came in through one of the doors and smiled at us. We took this as a signal to follow him, so we did. My mother and I trailed behind the old doctor going down the dimly lighted hall. He turned into a room and we followed into the room. I sat on one of the chairs, as did my mother and Dr. Santori. He smiled at us and picked up a chart off of the table next to him.

"Mariana, how have you been?" he asked in a raspy, but gentle voice.

"I've been good." I answered.

"Good, good." he answered as he inspected the chart sitting in his lap. He looked back up at me and started to write something down.

"Has anything abnormal been taking place since our last appointment?"

Other than the fact that you're talking to yourself again?

"Nothing." I lied.

He smiled and wrote something else in his chart.

After thirty more minutes of him asking me questions and me lying on half of them, we were out of the office and back in the car.

My mother looked from the road to me and then sighed. "Did you lie, at all?"

"No, mom." I said, looking out the window.

She didn't say anything for a few minutes until she spoke up a little quieter than before.

"You know, your father and I are just looking out for you. We do believe you, Mari."

I smiled at her and touched her hand. "I know."

The rest of the car ride was in silence. When I got back home, I spent the whole night encased with the peaceful silence of my room. That's how I liked it. But I knew it wouldn't be like this forever. So I enjoyed it for now. The serenity would be long gone by tomorrow.