Note: this is 100% fiction.

Staring at the pill bottle on my bed, I hug my knees even closer to my chest. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t know what I am becoming. Whatever this is, I wish it would go away but the more I want it to go away, the more I want it to come back.

“Knock knock,” comes my mother’s voice at the door.

“Go away!” I yell, my voice sounded apparent that I’ve been crying. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

My father had immediately forced me into my room the moment he found out. He had no desire to hear any kind of explanation but why would he? He was never the kind of person who would take the time to listen to explanation. He was always an assumption kind-of-guy. My mother, on the other hand, is more sympathetic, secretly bringing me meals when he’s not here.

Slowly, Mother opens the door and slides a tray of food into my room. “You don’t have to talk to me,” she says softly from the other side of the door, “but you do need to eat.”

Weakly, I crawl out of bed and slowly crawl my way toward the food. On the tray is a bowl of mashed potatoes, beans, and carrots. Next to it is a picture of me from when I was little, the corner of my mouth twists into a tiny smile as I see the shirt I was wearing. Future Leader? Who’s idea was that? Then I turn the photo over, on the back are the words, “What happened?”

I grew up, that’s what happened.

Whatdoyousee