Call Me Crazy
by Quinn Loftis
Synopsis
“I’m looking out from inside the chaos. It must be a one-way
mirror because no one seems to be able to see back inside to where I am. The
looks on their faces, the judgment in their eyes, tells me everything I need to
know. The most frustrating part about the whole messed up situation is that
even though I’m the one that they stare at in shock, I am just as shocked as
they are. I know no more than they do of why I lose control. What they don’t
know is that I am more scared of myself than they could ever be.” ~ Tally Baker
After a devastating turn of events, seventeen year old Tally
Baker is admitted to Mercy Psychiatric Facility where she is diagnosed with
Bipolar Disorder. She has come to a place where she honestly believes that her
life is over. Her mind tells her that she will never smile or laugh again, that
she will never be normal again. It is in this unlikely place that she meets two
people, different in every way, yet both critical to helping her realize that
she has so much more living to do.
Candy, a cantankerous sixty year old Mercy Psychiatric
patient, is hell bent on driving everyone as crazy as she is. Candy shows Tally
that, regardless of her diagnosis, the ability to push on and live her life to
the fullest is her choice and hers alone. In the midst of Tally’s oftentimes
humorous, sometimes heart-wrenching, escapades with Candy, a new patient is
admitted to Mercy—a Native American woman named Lolotea. Along with this new
patient comes a daily visitor, her son, Trey Swift. At first glance, it is
obvious to Tally that he is incredibly handsome and unbelievably caring. But
what she learns through her second glance, and many thereafter, is that there
is much more to Trey than he ever lets on. It is during these daily visits that
Trey and Tally build a friendship far deeper than either of them truly realize.
With Trey, Tally feels for the first time since being admitted that someone is
looking at her as a person and not as a disease. Trey begins to make it clear
that he wants more than friendship, but she knows that she can never give him
more. How can she, when she won’t even give him the truth? Tally doesn’t tell Trey that she is a patient
at Mercy, and she doesn’t ever plan to. Her plans go up in flames when she
finds out that Trey is a new student at her school, the school where her
brokenness was found out in the floor of the girl’s bathroom in a pool of her
own blood.
Call Me Crazy Trailer
Excerpt 1
“Crap Candy,” I growl at my snickering companion as I rub my
side and glare at her. “What was that for?”
“A better question would be why were you hunkered down under
the table drooling over Kemosabe?”
I frown at her. “That’s tacky don’t you think?”
“I’m sixty years old and crazy; I can do tacky if I want,”
she snorts at me.
I can’t really argue with her there. Like pregnant women,
old, crazy ladies pretty much get a free pass on crassness and eccentricity.
“So come on,” she pats the chair that I had so quickly
vacated, “tell Candy all about it.”
I roll my eyes. “He just took me off guard, that’s all,” I
lie smoothly.
Candy isn’t buying it. “He was hot, just admit it. Hot and he
got you bothered.”
I cringe. “Candy, you calling a guy young enough to be your
grandson hot is just not right.”
“Psht,” she flips her hand at me. “I’m old, not blind or
dead. Besides, I didn’t say I wanted to jump his exotic bones.”
I groan as I bang my head against the table. “Where do you
learn these terms? I mean it’s not normal for someone your age to blurt out
crap like that.”
“Did you just use the term normal in a sentence describing
me?” She raises her brow surprisingly at me.
I laugh. “Good point.”
Excerpt 2
“I may be in a mental hospital, but I am not dense. So
please, un-complicate it for me.”
This was not my plan for tonight and I fight the urge to
stomp my foot and tell her how I was supposed to be curled up in a ball on my
bed freaking out. But I won’t say that, not to Trey’s mother.
“I have bipolar disorder. Everyone knows it: my parents, my
friends, the entire freaking school. The fact that I am in a mental hospital is
the gossip of the century. People whisper around me and refuse to look me in
the eyes, like at any second I’ll snap and start screaming that the voices
won’t shut up.” I’m crying again and it pisses me off. I wipe my eyes,
frantically trying to clear them, to remove the evidence of how badly all of it
has hurt me, is still hurting me.
“Trey treated you normally.” Her voice is softer, gentler,
and when I look at her through the wetness in my eyes, I see understanding in
them, not the condemnation from minutes ago. “He saw you, not the disease.”
My knees shake with the effort to hold my body up and I reach
to the wall for support.
Author Bio
Quinn lives in beautiful NW Arkansas with her husband, son,
Doberman and cat (who thinks she is a ninja in disguise). She is beyond
thankful that she has been blessed to be able to write full time and hopes the readers
know how much all of their support means to her. Some of her hobbies include
reading, exercising, crochet, and spending time with family and friends.
She gives all credit of her success to God because he gave her the creative
spirit and vivid imagination it takes to write.
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