schizophrenia doesn’t just cause hallucinations. but when lottie is diagnosed, nobody tells her or her parents what to expect.
so nobody knows what to make of… the other things. the way that lottie doesn’t seem to smile the way that the other kids do. the way that even when she’s playing with her ponies - the most she ever seems to be is content. she isn’t happy and she isn’t sad (except for when she is, which her mother does her best not to think too deeply about. she can’t have a sad child on top of a mentally ill one, it’s simply too much to bear) she’s just existing.
at school, lottie is quiet. she’s isn’t excluded, but she sits alone at lunch. and when the other kids invite her to play at recess, she shakes her head no.
lottie wants to say yes - she wants it so badly it makes her chest start to pull and pull like it could tug right out of her fragile chest with desperation. but her mind can’t work out the conversation the way it’s supposed to. she doesn’t know how to talk to them and no matter how strong the desire is, it isn’t strong enough to create understanding.
as she gets older, lottie hears the things people say about her.
it’s never mean but it’s never nice and lottie figures, that must just be where she exists; the intersection of opinion and the crossroads of reality.
“she’s just so in her head.” “i’ve never really talked to her either, she’s just… quiet.” “she seems nice but i don’t know… we’ve never really spoken.”
lottie tries not to think about it too deeply. she tries not to wonder why it’s so hard for her to remember the things her teachers are saying, or why she can’t seem to break down the information they’re learning. she tries not to think about why everything seems to be so difficult for her in a way that it isn’t for her peers.
but when you spend more time living in your mind than on earth, you don’t just get to decide one day that you’d like to turn off the voices.
so lottie thinks and she thinks.
she thinks about how distant she feels from everyone else. she thinks about how she’s never seemed to care about the things that her peers do and wonders why it all comes up empty for her. she thinks about how she knows how to do well in school - her pattern recognition has helped her that much - but she can hardly ever remember the contents of whatever book she’s reading. she thinks about the friends she has and how she’s never been anyone’s best friend. she thinks about how she’s never even thought to have a best friend.
lottie thinks and she thinks until she has more questions than she ever has had answers.
and when she reaches the end of her spiral, she thinks about jackie. jackie who has always been awkward and… vaguely off putting, but who seems to have learned how to socialize properly throughout the years. jackie who has a best friend. jackie, who is beloved.
it’s interesting, lottie finds. they both started alone (except for those few moments where they had each other) and they both spent so long feeling othered. but somehow, jackie ended up with community. at least, that’s how it looks.
so lottie begins to dissect her.
she thinks about the clothes jackie wears, the way that she interacts, the things that she does, and she tries to learn from it.
she studies trend cycles the way jackie does and starts to capitalize on how often her parents go out of town. she throws parties she doesn’t necessarily care about, but that keep the house from being so eerily quiet, and each time - she invites more people. she hangs out after school with her teammates and hangs on the sidelines during arguments so that she won’t anger anyone on either side.
and suddenly, lottie is liked too.
she has her yellowjackets, who she likes - really likes - even if they aren’t as close with her as they are with everyone else, and lottie tells herself she’s okay with it. she just doesn’t know how to manufacture that kind of relationship and maybe this can be alright.
maybe she can be content here.
maybe she can be okay on the outskirts of community.
maybe only people like jackie get to lead it. and as lottie knows, she is everything and nothing like jackie.
