I Don't Want to Be Crazy by Samantha Schutz Read Free Book Online Page A

always have
about how it keeps my father up.
When I am out with friends
I constantly check my watch
and feel guilty
that me being out with my friends
affects my parents.
But it also makes me angry.
I am always the first to leave and
none of my friends understand why.
    It’s the end of winter break
and I feel sick.
My head is heavy, stuffed with snot,
and my joints ache.
When I tell my parents I am going to Nate’s house,
my mother protests, says I am sick
and shouldn’t be going anywhere,
but I convince my father otherwise.
It’s my last night at home
and I want to see Nate.
    When I get to his house, Jason is there
and I wonder if they are as uncomfortable as I am.
The three of us smoke a joint
and I fall asleep on Nate’s couch
as they watch basketball.
    The next morning I am worse than before.
I shuffle out of bed to the kitchen
to find some decongestants.
    My father is cooking, and the TV is on loud.
I sit down in the dining room.
I don’t have the strength to take the pills.
I brace my elbows on my knees
and hang my head down.
    I feel like I am being crushed.
My head is sinking lower and lower
and then everything flips.
I have no sense of up or down, only suspension.
I want to call to my father, but I can’t.
My sister walks through the room,
asks me how I’m feeling,
and all I can do is reach out my hand.
She tries to get me to the living room to lie down,
but we don’t make it.
    I wake up on the floor by the front door.
Something wet is on my head
and my father is bent over me,
kissing my face, over and over.
    The fire trucks come first,
then the ambulance.
The foyer is filled with people.
I try to tell them I feel better,
but everyone insists I go to the hospital.
The EMTs won’t let me walk to the ambulance.
They have to take me on a stretcher.
Up I go, strapped in,
carried out of my house
with all the neighbors watching.
    Back at school,
my therapist and I talk about passing out.
I tell her it is terrifying to be lost
somewhere in between here and there
in the dark nothingness,
to have moments of time
unaccounted for.
    Passing out makes me think about death—
about the moment before dying
and how it must feel
to be pulled away from everything you love
and have no control.
    I tell her about winter break
and the ambulance and the high fever
and how I spent the day in the hospital,
hooked up to an IV and getting tested for everything.
I tell her it’s not the first time I passed out.
The first time was when I was fifteen.
My sister took me to a concert in the city.
    We were up front by the stage, next to the speakers.
The bass was crushing my chest.
I was light-headed and then things began to fade.
The night sky flashed in front of my eyes
and the floor caved in.
    My sister’s friend carried me outside
and sat me down in the cool air.
My hands were vibrating.
I asked my sister if she could feel it,
but she couldn’t.
I could see how much it scared her
to not feel what I was feeling.
    The next summer it happened again
at an outdoor concert with Abe and Matt.
We were packed in, body to body,
trying to get to the small gate in the fence.
I was overwhelmed by all the people, the noise,
and then things began to fade.
I reached out for Abe,
but before I could say anything,
I fell backwards into the crowd.
    I woke up with Abe over me
and I was embarrassed at all the drama.
Medics came rushing into the crowd
and cut a hole open in the fence to get me out.
    Later that summer I was in a bar
and I got a bloody nose from the heat.
Once my friends realized what was wrong
they all piled into the bathroom.
They tried to give me advice
on how to make the bleeding stop
and I passed out.
    I came to as I was being carried to the street.
When the ambulance came,
they had to take me to the hospital
and call my parents because I was a minor.
The biggest problem I could see was
that I had lied to my parents about where I was
and it was two-thirty in the morning.

iii.
    It is a new semester.
Everything is hidden
under the