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"Adrianna, what are you doing?" Danielle giggled, watching me from my bed. I smiled and spun around in my chair at a sickeningly fast pace. I shrugged in response, stopping my chair so that I could stare at her.

"Not really sure. The spinning makes my head hurt less." I responded, then stood up from the chair and stumbled over to where she was sitting on my bed. I sat next to her and entwined my fingers with hers.

"You didn't take your medicine today?" She asked cautiously and I shook my head. I shook my head to answer her question, but also because I disapproved of her tone of voice with me. She of all people shouldn't be afraid of me acting out. She should know that I'm not going to hurt her.

"I don't need to." I started, looking up at her with a small smile. "You make me happy Dani; I don't need them anymore."

She rolled her eyes and pecked my forehead. "Yeah, try telling your brother that."

I scoffed quietly and shook my head. Cole will get over me being with Dani eventually. She isn't a bad person and he has to agree that I've been a lot better, for the most part.

"Don't worry Dani. Besides, I don't want to think about that right now." I sighed before sitting up. Dani shrugged and got up from her bed, walking over to her backpack. She rummaged through it for a while before pulling out a white pack and her favorite red lighter.

"You want one?" She offered, moving to sit on her windowsill. I shrugged and got up from the bed to walk over next to her.

"You used to smoke?" Kris interrupted, scrunching her face up in disgust and I looked up, rolling my eyes at her. Smoking wasn't all that bad. I wasn't too fond of the smell, but there's something about hurting myself in any way that will forever be extremely appealing to me.

"Like once a week. I don't do it anymore." I reassured and her face expressed a look of relief.

"Everything was good until it wasn't." I started again, my throat threatening to close up. "Eventually Danielle got bored, my crazy wasn't so attractive anymore."

"Dani, where are you going!" I shrieked, tears tumbling down my face. Her eyes locked on mine, empty and disengaged.

"I'm done, Adrianna. It's been good, but I'm kind of over this, and you. But I'll see you around school right?" She answered, not even waiting for my response before she turned around and walked out of my room.

"I can't even tell you what I did after that. I remember waking up the next day and seeing my room demolished. Cole was sitting next to me, the most panicked I had ever seen him" I continued, my body shivering at the memory.

I had blacked out in rage before Danielle, but it was never that bad. And it wasn't an isolated incident. It happened every time I called her phone and it went straight to voicemail.

"I'm assuming that after that is when you guys decided to come here?" She asked, and I bit my lip.

She's not wrong Adri. Minus the fact that I went to the nuthouse before coming here. Do you want to tell her that? Not really, but what if she finds out later and thinks that we lied? I guess you're right, but being admitted to the crazy hospital isn't the most attractive thing. Neither is having an annoying voice in your head.

"Cole...admitted me to a psych hospital first. I was there for a few weeks. Then I came here." If Kris leaves me right now, he will most likely have to do that again, but this time I will most likely burn down the building and they'll send me to jail. It wouldn't really make a difference though.

Kris was silent for a while, which only made me rub at my wrist nervously and start fidgeting. Patience is not something that I have a very large supply of in my body. I associate having to wait with something bad is going on.

Kris must've noticed my shaking because her arms tightened around me and she nuzzled her nose into the crook of my neck.

"Was that your first time going?" She asked next and I immediately shook my head.

I've been to the same psych hospital my entire life and despite the fact that I've gone 10 times, none of those times have been very pleasant. Was it surprising though? Who would honestly expect my parents to pick somewhere that I'd actually like?

Definitely not me.

"I'm sorry Adri." She whispered gently, playing with the ends of my hair.

A sad laugh left my lips. "You'd think being surrounded by other crazy people would make you feel a lot more welcome, but it made me notice everything about me that I hate."

All of the other crazy people and all of the other depressed people, just made me realize how crazy and sad I really am. They think that crazy means telling a teacher 'no', while I've thrown a chair at a teacher for trying to make me go to recess. They think sad is wanting to die every now and then, when I want to die every second of the day.

It just isn't the same for me as it is for them.

"Hey," Kris whispered, pulling my attention back towards her. "You know what I hate about you?" She asked.

I felt my heart drop at the question because I've been asked it in so many different contexts. By the homophobes in school mostly, but by Danielle too.

On the days that she was drunk or high, she would scream at me for being so sad. I loved her at the time so I was okay with it. I thought that I deserved it for being such a bad girlfriend. I thought that I deserved to be hit because sometimes when we would make out, I would have a panic attack and push her away. When she hurt me, I thought it was okay because I thought that was how love was supposed to work.

Now I know that love is all about annoying the person to the point of wanting to jump off of a cliff and eating pizza with them every day of the week.

"Nothing Adri. There is nothing I hate about you." She whispered, placing a small kiss to my lips. She pulled away and kissed my forehead, before leaning back and pulling me tighter against her.

I didn't realize that I was crying until the tears hit my arm. I mentally shrugged at the action. I guess that crying at the thought of Danielle was better than breaking everything in sight.

If I did that again, Cole would probably keep me in a padded room. Though that's probably where I deserve to be right now anyway.

∆

Kristina dropped me off at the end of the school day, but before she left she told me to forgive and apologize to Cole. It wasn't his fault that he loved me and wanted to protect me. She told me that what he said was perfectly reasonable and I was just being stubborn.

Per usual.

"Cole." I sang quietly, walking down the hallway. I knew that he was home; I heard Ellie come inside a giggling mess earlier.

I glanced in the living room and didn't see him there, so I went upstairs to his office to check there. The door was closed and there was a faint sound of jazz music coming from the room, so I knew that he was probably finishing up some work. Maybe that was my sign to keep ignoring him.

If you do that, Kris will find out. And how exactly will she do that? I don't know, but she's magical and it sounds like something that she'll just figure out. I think that I'll take my chances. You have a really funny way of showing someone that you like them.

"Adri...?" Cole spoke slowly and unsure, probably questioning whether or not I actually wanted him to open the door or not. I didn't want him to because I wasn't supposed to have knocked on it. Some people just don't know what the words 'my body' means.

Those are the kinds of people that deserve to be stabbed.

"I'm sorry. I was being a brat." I spoke quickly, keeping my head down.

I'm not good at anything really and usually, I'm okay with that, but there are some things that I wish I was better at. Apologizing is one of them. Not because I want to apologize to a lot of people, but to the very few people I want to apologize to, I want to be able to give them an actual apology.

"I'm sorry for assuming things about Kris.' He spoke, and then a few moments later gave a short laugh. "I tell you not to assume things about people all the time, and I did it. What a great example I am."

I tilted my head slightly and looked up at him. "You know it's not really your job to be the example anymore. We have those things called parents that are supposed to be around more."

I honestly think that they spend more time on their plane than they do here at home.

He rolled his eyes and opened the door wider so that I could walk in.

"She seems like a nice girl," Cole commented, as he typed away on his computer.

I shot him a look. "That means that we need to change the prescription for your contacts. She's terrible." I scoffed, and he raised an eyebrow at me.

"Obviously not that bad. You spend all of your free time with her and your grades have gone up." He tried to not sound excited about it, but I could hear it. My brother is a huge nerd and grades are very important to him.

"The same thing happened with Danielle," I stated smoothly, and his eyes snapped up at me before he sent them back to his computer screen. I've already talked about her once today, might as well not stop now.

"You told Kris about her?" Cole asked slowly, back to an unsure tone. I don't blame him. The last time we had this talk I broke his old vase, and he seems very fond of this new one.

"Yeah." I sighed, leaning back in the chair. "And the psych hospital. Kris must be crazy herself to still want to be with me."

If I was sane, I definitely wouldn't be around me. I'd be too afraid of getting hit or of something being thrown at me.

Because that's the kind of shit that I do on a daily basis.

Cole chuckled and then leaned back in his seat. "Crazy doesn't have to be a bad thing. You're crazy and-"

"The worst thing to walk this Earth." I finished for him, and he shook his head with a small smirk.

"One of my favorite people in this whole entire world." He corrected and I shot him a look.

"Due to the fact that our parents have abandoned us and left you to take care of your younger siblings, you, my 23 year-old brother, have the social life of a middle-aged, cat lady. You don't have a large pool of people to choose from." I stated and he sent me a playful glare.

"But..." I continued, leaning on the desk. "You have enough of a social life to meet some pretty nice girl, don't you?" I teased, with an actual smile this time. Even though I just had a conversation about one of the darkest moments in my life, I was genuinely excited about Cole's girlfriend. He came home so happy and relaxed now. I liked seeing him like this because no one deserves it as much as he does. But every time I try and talk about her, he pales and makes up an excuse about having to go to his office.

Like he is now.

"I have to do work, Adri." He mumbled quietly, turning his attention back to his computer screen. I pouted at him and rested my hand over his.

"Cole I want to meet her," I stated and he turned towards me in shock. Trust me, I didn't think this day would come either. "She's obviously different than all of the other girls and that's enough for me to behave if she comes over for dinner. Heck, I'll even make dinner." I offered.

His facial expression didn't get any brighter. Instead, it dropped further. He stared at me for a little while longer, before taking my hand in his with a small smile.

"You'll get to meet her soon Adri. Promise." He offered and I shrugged nodding.

I got up from my chair and hugged my brother's shoulders before the compassionate part of my brain could change her mind. I snorted at his shocked facial expression before heading out the door.

"I love you, Adrianna." He called out as I closed the door behind me.

"I love you too," I whispered to the closed door before heading back to my room.