In my past life, my roommate swapped out my psychiatric medication. "I read about the placebo effect online," she had told me, wearing that insufferably smug smile. "Look at you—you’ve been fine without them, haven't you?

See? It’s all in your head. You’re faking it." I had begged her.

I told her that without the pills, the black hole in my chest caved in until dying felt like the only way to breathe. I told her to give them back.

She just sneered. "People used to survive actual hardships without crying about depression. You just have it too easy, honestly. Read a book.

Stop being so dramatic." Without the chemical tether holding me to reality, the withdrawal tore through my central nervous system. I lost control.

I locked myself in the bathroom, ran a razor down my wrist, and bled out on the linoleum.

Only right before the darkness swallowed me did I discover the truth: she had orchestrated the breakdown on purpose.

She had read somewhere that manicdepressive episodes trigger compulsive, reckless spending, and she wanted me manic enough to bleed cash straight into her pockets. Then, I woke up.

I opened my eyes to the exact morning I begged her for my prescription. If soft words and trembling pleas couldn't win back my lifeline, fine.

I would give her the madness she asked for. I would tear down the roof and show everyone what real psychosis looked like.

After all, I was sick, wasn’t I? "Smack!" … The sharp crack of skin on skin echoed off the cinderblock walls. Taryn recoiled, staring at me in utter disbelief.

I had put every ounce of my weight into that slap; my palm stung, vibrating down to the bone.

It took her several seconds to recover, her jaw clenched tight enough to splinter teeth. "Are you out of your fucking mind?" "Yes," I breathed. "I am." In my previous life, I had discovered my antidepressants replaced with generic multivitamins.

Maeve, our other roommate, had whispered to me that she’d seen Taryn rummaging through my nightstand.

My prescription was a specialized, hightier compound—an imported European brand my parents had moved mountains to secure because nothing off the domestic shelves worked.

It was potent. It built a chemical levee against the urge to end my own life. But the flip side was brutal: if stopped cold turkey, the withdrawal was catastrophic.

I had pleaded with Taryn. "Give them back. Without them, I will die." She had calculated the whole thing. "Oh, please. What depression?

If someone really wants to kill themselves, a pill isn’t going to stop them. You’re not sick, you’re just pathetic.

Take the flintstones and get over it." Back then, in my naive, fragile state, I actually believed she was just ignorant.

I thought if I explained the pharmacology, if I broke down in front of her and showed her my pain, she would understand and hand them over.

Instead, I got passiveaggressive cruelty. By that point, I had been off the pills for three whole days. I hadn’t dared to tell my parents.

The medication was nearly impossible to obtain, requiring international couriers and endless bureaucratic hurdles.

Both of them were in fragile health, working punishing hours; the sheer thought of burdening them made my throat close up.

I stood there now, chest heaving, drawing in ragged, shallow breaths.

My fingers trembled violently, the autonomic tremors already taking hold. "Give me back my medication." Taryn’s brow pinched.

Her lips thinned into an ugly, impatient line. "You take those pills every morning and doze off through every single lecture. How are you going to pass midterms? I did you a favor.

Why can’t you appreciate that someone is actually looking out for you?" Something inside me snapped, raw and wild.

A scream ripped from my throat, tears spilling hot and heavy down my cheeks. "The professors know my medical history! They know what’s wrong with me!

I need that prescription!" The dorm walls were notoriously paperthin. Next door, the rustle of sheets and creaking bed frames went instantly silent. Taryn heard it too.

An ugly flash of irritation crossed her features. "Can you stop throwing a tantrum? High school is over.

You can’t hide behind your little mental health excuse forever." She grabbed my wrist, dragging me in front of the fulllength mirror behind the door.

In the glass, I looked shattered—shoulders hunched, holloweyed, trembling like a trapped animal. "Look at you," she chuckled, entirely unbothered. "You really have the crazy routine down, don't you?

Maybe you should teach me. Next time someone pisses me off, I can just throw a fit and pretend to be insane too." She laughed, breezy and cruel.

She didn’t notice the screen of her phone lighting up on the desk behind her. A notification banner popped up: "Good stuff.

However many you've got left, I'll take them." Beneath it was a photo of my distinct blueandwhite blister packs. And above that: a completed Venmo transfer.

Taryn had already accepted the funds. My medicine. She sold it. She had sold my lifeline to some stranger.

The pills my parents had skipped meals and pleaded with foreign contacts to obtain. The last taut string anchoring my sanity snapped with a violent twang.

She hadn't taken them to "help" me. She hadn't replaced them with vitamins out of misplaced concern. She stole them, turned a quick profit, and treated me like an hysterical clown.

She knew "exactly" what she was doing. A sound tore out of me—half sob, half hysterical laugh.

My fingernails dug into the meat of my own forearms, dragging downward until scarlet tracks welled up against the pale skin. I didn't feel pain.

The stinging bite actually grounded me, venting the boiling pressure inside my skull. Seeing the blood, Taryn's face shifted.

The smugness fractured into a flicker of genuine panic, edged with guilt. "Stop doing that!

Don’t think you can pull sympathy points with me by playing the victim!" I didn't care what came out of her mouth anymore.

My ears were ringing, a highpitched siren that drowned out the world. All I knew was that my survival had been bartered away for pocket change.

I grabbed the ceramic mug off the counter and hurled it into the wall. It shattered into a dozen sharp missiles.

Then, my hands found whatever was within reach—notebooks, lamps, textbooks—smashing them to pieces. "Give it back! Give it back to me!" Footsteps pounded outside in the hallway.

Then came the urgent banging on the door. Neither of us moved to answer it. Taryn was frozen in shock; I was trembling so hard my knees buckled. The door suddenly swung open.

Maeve had just returned from her morning run, a key in hand, greeted by a crowd of curious onlookers peering over her shoulders into the wreckage of our room.

Taryn instantly pasted on a brittle, strained smile, shifting her tone to one of martyred patience. "Wendy, please. I just want you to focus on your classes.

There’s no need to take your anger out on me." Not a single word about what she had done. Maeve rushed in, instantly wrapping her arms around my shaking frame.

I pointed a shaking, bloodstreaked finger at Taryn’s phone, my voice tearing through the corridor, loud enough for the entire floor to hear: "Who gave you the right to sell my prescription?

Who the hell do you think you are?!" "Do you have any idea that those pills keep me alive?

Is my life only worth fifty bucks to you?!" A wave of nausea hit me, and I dryheaved onto the carpet. The atmosphere in the hall shifted instantly.

The murmurs began, sharp and accusatory. "Did she just say her medication was sold?" "What kind of sociopath does that to her own roommate?" "If someone stole my psychiatric meds, I’d lose my mind too." Hearing the whispers swell, Taryn’s face drained of color.

She scrambled to regain control, raising her voice to address the crowd. "Everyone, please, don’t misunderstand!

Wendy is emotionally unstable—she doesn't even know what she's saying right now! I just noticed she sleeps through every morning lecture.

As floor rep, I was only trying to check on her!" The muttering dampened slightly. People hesitated. "I want to die." The thought pulsed in my temples, rhythmic and deafening.

My vision blurred; my hearing muffled under water. Slowly, mechanically, my gaze drifted to the exterior window of the common landing across the hall. We were on the second floor.

The low brick balustrade looked so easy to clear. My body moved before my brain could process the impulse.

Before anyone realized what was happening, I slipped from Maeve’s grip, bolted across the threshold, and swung one leg over the stone railing.

The air went dead silent for one suspended second. Then, the floor erupted. "Grab her!" "Call campus security! Somebody call the RA!" My muscles were locked in cold rigor.

Before I could throw my weight forward, half a dozen hands caught my sweater, dragging me violently backward onto the concrete floor.

Taryn stormed toward me, her face dark with fury, words spitting from her lips like venom. "What is wrong with you?! Are you doing this for attention?!

I asked you a simple question about your grades, and you pull a stunt like this? Do your parents know you act like this?!" She was unraveling.

She knew this was out of control, and her only defense was to paint me as an unhinged drama queen.

Yet, one thing she said struck me like a bucket of ice water. "My parents." I couldn't die. If I died, what would become of them?

How could I leave two aging, exhausted people to bury their only child? "I want to die," I sobbed out loud, rocking back and forth. "No. No, I can’t die.

I have to live." The onlookers exchanged horrified, pitying glances. "She really is unwell..." someone murmured.

Tears tracked through the dust on my cheeks as I forced my mouth into a grotesque, pleading smile, looking up at Taryn from the floor. "Please. I'm begging you, just give them back.

My mom and dad skipped their own treatments to pay for those." My strength gave out completely, and I slumped flat against the floor, forehead pressed to the linoleum like a supplicant.

Maeve rushed forward, hauling me into her arms, and turned on Taryn with a venomous glare. "Have you lost your damn mind?

I kept quiet thinking you guys would work it out if you just gave them back, but you "sold" them?

What kind of human being does that?!" Flashes of blood, razors, and white hospital ceilings flickered behind my eyelids, but I forced them down. I was given a second chance at life.

I refused to die on this hallway floor. "Maeve," I choked out, reaching for her pocket. "Give me your phone." I dialed my mother’s number. "Mom..." My voice cracked. "Someone sold my meds." The line went completely dead for two agonizing seconds before my mother’s voice came through, trembling with a terrifying calm. "Wendy.

Is there someone safe with you right now?" I handed the phone to Maeve. "Yes, Mrs. Dawson," Maeve said, her voice steadying. "I'm right here.

I won't leave her side." When Maeve hung up, she held my hand in a vice grip. "Wendy, your mom is on her way." Just then, our resident advisor and the hall dean came rushing down the corridor, catching the tail end of the conversation.

Dean Keller’s face turned an ugly shade of gray. Once parents were involved, this was no longer an "internal residence issue." A paper trail meant administrative hell.

It meant performance reviews and campus PR disasters. Without hesitation, the dean began waving off the lingering students. "Move along! Don't you all have morning classes?

Clear the hall!" Once the corridor emptied, she turned to me, arms crossed, her gaze cold and patronizing. "Wendy.

What kind of scene are you causing "this" time?" "This time?" A sick wave of memory washed over me.

In my previous life, on the very first day the pills went missing, I had gone to her office in tears. I remembered her dismissive wave. "Honestly, Wendy, you seem fine without them.

Your sociology professor even mentioned you didn’t doze off in class today." She had smiled, relieved that a problem student was suddenly less of a chore.

She thought going off the medication was an improvement. Left without options, I had been forced to beg Taryn over and over again.

And while I was privately losing my grip, stockpiling utility blades in my desk drawer, Taryn was telling the entire sorority circle that I was making it all up. "She acts like she’s on death’s door," Taryn had laughed over iced coffees. "Trust me, it’s all for attention." The phantom sound of that laughter echoed in my ears right now. "Stop laughing," I muttered, my teeth clattering together. "I'm not faking it.

Give it back. I need to take it." I glared at Taryn with unadulterated fury. "Dean Keller, she sold my prescription." Dean Keller turned an eyebrow toward Taryn.

Taryn immediately launched into her rehearsed defense, batting her lashes with wideeyed innocence. "Dean Keller, I didn't sell anything! She’s practically comatose every morning.

I'm the floor rep—I was worried she was going to flunk out and drag our hall’s GPA down, so I swapped them for Bvitamins! And look—she’s awake!

I was just trying to help her, and she attacked me and trashed the room!" She dabbed at the corner of her eye, looking entirely like the wounded party.

Dean Keller turned back to me, frowning with weary condescension. "Taryn was trying to support you. You can't use college as an excuse to slack off, Wendy. Academics come first.

Can't you just push through this?" "Push through it." In my last life, I tried to push through it. And it killed me.

My fingernails dug deeper into my wrist, the sharp sting of blood keeping the fog at bay.

Taryn took a tentative step toward me, reaching out as if to guide me up for the dean’s benefit. I recoiled violently. "Don't touch me! Thief!

You sold my pills!" My eyes locked onto Taryn’s phone sitting on the open desk.

In one fluid lunge, I snatched it off the wood and pressed it against my chest, curling inward like a pill bug.

Tears blurred my vision as I unlocked the screen—still on the messaging app—and hit the microphone icon on the active chat. "Please," I sobbed into the receiver, my voice trembling with raw, desperate agony. "Can you please bring my medication back?

I’ll pay you. Whatever you paid her, I’ll double it. I have money.

If I don't take it, I won't make it through the night." Taryn lunged forward, her voice screeching into the quiet room. "Give me my phone, you psycho!" She completely forgot the dean was standing there.

She threw herself toward me to wrest the phone from my grip, but Maeve threw her entire body into Taryn's path, shoving her backward against the bunk frame. "Back the hell off!" Maeve yelled. "If anything happens to her, you're a murderer!

And you're an accessory!" She spat the last word directly into Dean Keller’s face. Dean Keller froze. That single word—"accessory"—cut through her bureaucratic apathy like a knife.

She immediately backed away into the hallway, pulling out her phone and speaking in hushed, panicked tones.

I stayed huddled in the corner, my nails tracing the old and new welts along my forearms.

Maeve knelt beside me, her hands gently wrapping over mine to keep me from tearing my skin apart. "Hold on, Wendy. Just hold on.

Your mom is almost here." The dean brought in campus security and two senior administrators, but no matter how gently or firmly they tried to coax me up, I remained rigid as stone.

I was waiting for my mother. Seeing that I wouldn't budge, they finally pulled the dorm door shut to keep the gathering crowd from seeing the spectacle.

Two hours later, the door flew open. My mother burst in—flanked by two uniformed police officers.

She was drenched in sweat, her limp more pronounced than usual from running, and she nearly collapsed onto the floor the moment she saw me. "Wendy!" Unable to bend her bad knee, she dropped hard onto the carpet, gathering me into her arms.

Her trembling hands pulled back my sleeve, revealing the fresh, bloody welts. Her eyes turned bloodshot with grief and rage. "It's okay, baby. Mama's here. Don't be scared.

Don't be scared." Tucked against her chest, the scent of lavender and laundry detergent enveloped me, and the dam broke.

A tidal wave of grief poured out of me. "Mom... she sold my medicine. She told everyone I was faking it.

Mom, it hurts so bad..." My mother didn't even spare Dean Keller or Taryn a glance. She looked straight up at the two officers. "You see this?

That girl over there knowingly attempted to kill my daughter." Dean Keller swallowed dryly. Taryn swayed on her feet, the blood completely draining from her lips.

My mother slowly rose, her finger leveling at Taryn with terrifying, quiet precision. "I will see you ruined for this. You stole controlled medication from a clinical depressive.

You’re a monster." While the officers began photographing the room, my mother insisted on taking me straight to the emergency room for an evaluation and acute intervention.

Dean Keller tagged along, offering anxious, placating smiles the entire way. In the ER, my mother produced my thick medical history with practiced ease.

The attending psychiatrist took one look at the pharmaceutical file and his expression hardened. "This is an imported neuropsychiatric stabilizer," the doctor said, looking over his spectacles. "It’s not approved for standard domestic distribution due to severe dependency profiles.

The withdrawal effects are exceptionally volatile." My mother nodded grimly. I whispered from the gurney, "Nothing else worked.

Only this one kept the thoughts away." Dean Keller cleared her throat from the corner. "Withdrawal?

Surely missing a couple of days can't be that lifethreatening?" The psychiatrist shot her a look of pure clinical contempt. "Abrupt cessation causes a catastrophic rebound effect.

The suppressed suicidal ideation returns with tenfold intensity.

In clinical trials, unsupervised withdrawal has a documented mortality rate." When I was first prescribed it, the specialists had made it abundantly clear: "Never stop cold turkey." Even if we reached remission, tapering off would require inpatient monitoring.

My parents had only turned to it as an absolute last resort, after every therapy, SSRI, and treatment protocol had failed.

My mother had brought me to the hospital for two reasons: to stabilize my neurochemistry, and to establish an unassailable evidentiary record. We had done this before.

We knew how the world worked.

When I mentioned that I had been off the pills for three days and that my request for help had been brushed off by faculty, Dean Keller blurted out, "Wait, you can't put that in the official chart—" I turned my head and looked at her. "Did I come to your office three days ago and tell you my pills were stolen?" Silence. "Did I tell you that my hands were shaking and that I couldn't breathe, and asked you to help me get them back?" More silence. "And did you tell me that going without them was 'good for me' because I wasn't falling asleep in class?" The psychiatrist’s fingers paused over the keyboard for a fraction of a second, before striking the keys with deliberate, heavy force.

Doctors are cautious when legal liability is involved, but in psychiatric intakes, patient statements are recorded verbatim.

In the recommendation box, he typed: "Patient presents with severe, acute exacerbation of suicidal ideation secondary to unauthorized medication deprivation.

Due to the highrisk nature of the compound, strict adherence is mandatory. Abrupt cessation carries imminent risk of selfharm.

Immediate psychiatric stabilization initiated." He administered a temporary sedative and a substitute stabilizer.

Dean Keller stood outside in the corridor, frantically whispering into her phone, escalating the matter to the board of regents. How ironic.

When my life was hanging by a thread, she couldn't be bothered. But the moment her own neck was on the line, she moved mountains.

The medication pulled a heavy, warm blanket over my racing thoughts. My mother tucked the hospital blanket under my chin. "Sleep, Wendy.

I'm right here." When I finally woke, the room was crowded. Two campus detectives, Dean Keller, and a vice chancellor from student affairs were waiting by the foot of the bed.

My heart seized at the sight of them, but my mother’s warm hand squeezed mine. "It's alright, sweetheart. The detectives are here to take your statement.

They’re here to help." The lead detective, an older woman named Detective Cooper, held the medical printout, reviewing it with a grim set to her mouth. "Wendy, you realized the pills were missing three days ago?" I nodded slowly. "Why didn't you call your parents immediately?" I stared down at the coarse cotton sheets. "The prescription has to come through a private courier from overseas.

It takes weeks, and it costs half my parents' monthly income. I didn't want them to panic. I thought...

I thought the school would help me resolve it." Detective Cooper’s tone was remarkably gentle as she guided me through the timeline, but with every word, the vice chancellor’s expression darkened.

Dean Keller was practically sweating through her blazer, shrinking under the detective's sharp glances.

When asked how I discovered the pills had been sold, I handed over Taryn's unlocked phone.

Detective Cooper called Taryn into the small consultation room, ordering her to confirm ownership of the device. Taryn stood there, pale and listless, mechanically nodding.

Detective Cooper fixed her with a piercing stare. "Mind explaining this Venmo transaction?

Just ten minutes ago, you claimed Wendy was hallucinating the whole thing." Taryn opened her mouth, her voice catching. "I—" Before she could spit out a lie, the door was pushed open, and an anxious, trembling voice broke the silence. "Officer!

Please, I bought them, but I didn't know they were stolen! I swear to God, I had no idea!"