Page 125 of Releasing 10
Because her son was mysun.
“I just want Hugh,” I strangled out, voice shaking almost as much as my body. “Just…just Hugh, okay?”
PART 7
The Dangerous Art of Dissociation
HOLDING ROPES AND HERO BROTHERS
Lizzie
OCTOBER 15, 1998
AFTER THE DOCTORS CHANGED MY MEDICINE AGAIN, IDIDN’T FEEL PANICKED ANYmore. In fact, I didn’t feel anything at all. I went through the motions at school and home, content in a hazed numbness.
No scary lady.
No monster under my bed.
Nothing at all.
Focusing was difficult because all I wanted to do was sleep, and I found myself zoning out a lot during class.
Mam told me that the fog would soon wear off and I would go back to normal again, but I wasn’t sure what that looked like. Not when I couldn’t remember a point in time when I had been me.
The only time I truly felt anything was when I was with Hugh. He seemed to be the only person capable of kick-starting my emotions, and boy did they kick-start when he was around.
The me without chemicals, that was.
Exhausted by the time Thursday came around, I offered to hold the skipping rope for my friends at big lunch. I didn’t have the energy to engage further. Right now, holding the rope was the best I could do.
“Cinderella dressed in yellow went upstairs to kiss her fella, by mistake she kissed a snake, how many doctors will it take,”the girls around me all chanted, while I held one end of the jumprope and Marybeth held the other. Between us, Claire jumped over every loop like a superstar.“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten…”
Claire was the best jumper at school, even better than the older girls, and I knew she could go all lunch break without missing a skip. She reminded me of the bunny rabbit on the television commercial for batteries, except Claire didn’t need batteries to charge her up, just sunshine.
“England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, inside, outside, puppy-dog tails!”another group chanted across the schoolyard, while two girls stretched the elastic with their legs and another jumped and weaved between it as fast as she could without touching the elastic.
They were loud.
Everyone was soloud.
Behind me, I could hear another game taking placing.
“Orange balls, orange balls, here we go again, the last one to touch the ground has a boyfriend!”
Hands trembling, I closed my eyes and took a steadying breath.
“A sailor went to sea, sea, sea, to see what he could see, see, see, but all that he could see, see, see was the bottom of the big blue sea, sea, sea.”
It was too much.
All of it.
“You’re messing up,” someone declared before snatching the rope out of my hand. “Move, Lizzie, I’ll swing the rope.”
Feeling overly stimulated, I backed away from the skipping rope, only to be intercepted by another girl from my class.
“Come on, Lizzie,” Cadence encouraged, holding her palms up expectantly. “Play the clapping game with me. You know the pattern.”
