Fake (A Pretty Pill) Read Free

last night so perhaps it’s just nerves that I’m feeling this way; nerves over her leaving me for an extensive period of time.  And paranoia; perhaps I’m experiencing an unhealthy dose of paranoia.
    “I have to return in order to gain my student visa.” she grumbles.
    “I know, I know.  I just wish the stupid thing wasn’t so complicated.” I moan, pulling her into me tightly.
    Shae sighs.  Shae sighs a lot lately.  She also spends an inordinate amount of time on the phone with her parents, sometimes shouting down the line with them.  Shae has never before now been one to raise her voice or become agitated, but she appears to be edgy lately.  I know it has something to do with me being a little more relaxed with my medications , since I don’t have Jade breathing down my neck to get me to have them all the time.  Shae has expressed concern over it, but I feel fine.  I feel really good actually.  I still have my pills, though probably only about 70% of the time.  But I think I’ve found a good medium.  With Shae alongside me, I just don’t feel as fractured as I used to.
    Shae disagree s with me though and she says that I’m different than I used to be.  Admittedly, I can be a little quick to anger at times, but never with her.  Road rage appears to be somewhat of an issue, but with all this fucking traffic around LA, who can blame me?  Newcastle wasn’t anything like this.  Today we’ve taken a cab though, so there’s no rage to contend with.  Yet still Shae is behaving distant, rigid and strange.  This is the standard of her recent behavior with me, and I can’t say that I like it; because I seriously don’t.  But I don’t want to argue about it either.  I just don’t understand it, all I know is that it feels wrong and I’m waiting for her to explain what the problem is, but she doesn’t.
    “What’s wrong?” I ask.
    “Nothing; I’m just nervous about the flight.” she grunts quietly, looking down at the floor rather than me, another new thing she has been doing.
    She used to look at me when she talked to me.  Now she looks everywhere else.
    I decide to change the subject.
    “You’re going to miss out on the birth.” I chuckle.  Jade, my sister, is having a baby with her partner, Ben; my best friend in the world besides Shae.  But Jade is totally packing it.  She’s not baby friendly, though I suspect she’ll be singing a different tune once the little devil comes out.
    “I m ight make it back in time.” she mumbles.
    I find myself shaking my head and sighing.
    This girl in front of me isn’t my Shae; I’m not sure who she is, and it’s really giving me the shits. 
    It all started a month ago, when I turned on the paparazzi after Ben won his fight here in LA.  He had gotten on his knees and proposed to Jade and some of the photographers had challenged me when I asked them to step back.  Of course I got into a tussle, because I’m not one to back down from a fight, but Shae was disappointed in me.  Her disapproval oozed from her for days like a toxic sludge.  I’d never seen her like it before.  I assumed she was embarrassed, and no amount of ‘sorry’ was going to change that.
    Then there were the beginnings of phone calls.  Her parents were calling to ask what the deal was with my scuffle, which of course was reported in the news back home.  Shae explained, but they were concerned.  I think they worked it all out, or they were told, or they did some digging and found out about my bipolar; because they began phoning and speaking to Shae at length.  International calls are not cheap.  And they weren’t interested in talking to me in the slightest.  I went from being a part of their family to an ostracized anomaly.
    I knew that this situation was perpetuating my escalation into a mania; because I just didn’t know how to cope with it.  So of course I have since become a little on edge myself; consumed by my paranoia at times; regardless, I know my