by Holly Bourne
His feet bounced up and down, his legs jiggled like a jelly in a wind-machine. Check.
His hands tapped on his knees, like a drummer who’d been told his entire family would die if he stopped drumming, even for one moment. Check.
He kept shuffling in his seat, moving positions, over and over, like someone’d tipped an industrial-sized vat of itching powder down his jeans. Check.
I looked down at my own body.
My legs were wobbling. My hands were a-tapping. And I’d readjusted myself more frequently than the director had beheaded a character.
Snap.
BAD THOUGHT
I can’t go out with someone with anxiety.
BAD THOUGHT
It would be like two alcoholics dating each other.
BAD THOUGHT
How the hell am I going to break this to him without causing him more anxiety?
The film wasn’t my thing – yet I didn’t want it to end. I willed it on for ever so the lights would never come up, so I wouldn’t have to deal with the situation. How how how? What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t even message the girls as my mobile would glow too bright and make everyone in the cinema hate me. I couldn’t really explain it to them anyway. What if they laughed and called him a “freak”? Would that mean they’d laugh at me and call me a freak if I let my guard down and wigged out at some point?
The film ended; the lights came on. Oli turned round and grinned, his smile carving more sculpture into his beautiful cheeks.
I wiped my sweaty hands on my clothes. I wiped them again.
“It was great, wasn’t it?” he asked, his voice a bit strained. Or maybe I was imagining it?
“Yeah. Very…umm…violent.”
His smile dropped. “You didn’t like it?”
“No, I loved it,” I lied. “I wonder how they got those guts to look so realistic. Impressive, huh?”
Oli didn’t look convinced. “Yeah, I guess.”
We stood and collected our stuff, letting the people who’d sat in the middle trickle past us. Just as I was wondering what would happen next, I was tapped lightly on the shoulder.
It was his mother. She looked a little bit…green.
“Hey, guys,” she said. “Did you enjoy yourselves?” She was talking like a kids’ TV presenter – all patronizing and over-enthusiastic.
“I don’t think it was for me, but you love this director, don’t you, Oli?”
Oli nodded but stared at the carpet as he did so.
“Anyway, Oli, I’ve had a chat with your father and we’re happy to hang about the cafe for a bit if you two want some time to yourselves?”
Oli nodded again.
“Great…” She looked at her watch. “Shall we all meet back here at half five then? Evelyn, we can give you a lift back if you like?”
“Oh…that’s all right. I don’t mind walking.”
“Walk? But it’s cold. We’ll give you a lift.”
The thought of being in a car, after the chat I was about to have with Oli, was too much. “It’s okay,” I said, firmly, in a voice far more authoritative than usual. “I’m happy walking. But thanks.”
His mother bristled, but straightened and walked back to her husband. “Remember, Oli,” she called over her shoulder. “Half five. I’ve got to get dinner on.”
“Okay, Mum.”
We stood, not talking, as the cinema emptied around us. When it was obvious only I was going to break the silence, I did.
“So…” I pulled out my phone and looked at the time. “Half five, we’ve got forty-five minutes. What do you fancy doing?”
Oli shrugged. “I dunno. We could grab a coffee?”
“Riiiight. Do you want to go to the same cafe as your parents, or do you want to go to a different one?”
He blushed, and I felt instantly guilty, though it’d been an honest question. “A different one is fine.”
“You sure?” My voice sounded as patronizing as his mother’s.
“I’m sure.”
It was almost dark when we walked out into the car park, but bright enough to feel disorientated after sitting in the cinema for two hours. Sensing I would have to be The Decider on this date, I steered us wordlessly towards a little coffee house I knew around the corner.
It was winding down for the day – the waitresses looked tired and ready to go home. I ordered us two lattes and took them to the table. Oli’s foot was a-tapping like crazy and he wouldn’t look at me when I put the drinks down.
“Thanks,” he said to the table.
“It’s fine.” I was surprised by how calm I felt, and in control. Maybe there’s such a thing as relative anxiety? If someone else is more nervous than you, you therefore feel calmer or something? Either way, I had an instinct today was A Big Day for Oli and I hoped I could show some compassion.
He stared into the steam of his drink. I waited for him to talk. He didn’t.
So I sipped and I waited.
Still nothing. Just the tap tap tapping of his shoe and the slurping of caffeinated beverages.
When we only had twenty minutes left I gave in.
“What’s going on, Oli?” I asked gently, putting my hand on his. He flinched initially, and then relaxed into my hand. I didn’t even think about the germs on his skin, which was evidence to back up my relative anxiety theory.
I watched as my question broke him, like a grief wave crashing against a cliff. Oli’s arm began to shake, his face screwed up. When he spoke I could hear the repressed tears in his throat.
“I’m sorry…” he stumbled. “About my parents… I should’ve told you they were coming. I’m such an idiot…” The disdain in his words was heartbreaking. The self-hatred. I knew it so well. You can’t help getting sick in your head, but, by golly, do you forget that. Daily. You despise yourself for being the way you are, like you’re doing it on purpose or something.
“Why are they here?” I asked in my same calming voice. I felt like I was hovering above the situation; it was too surreal to freak out about. Things had got too weird too quickly and all I could do was go with it.
“I… I…”
“It’s okay, you can tell me.” I realized I sounded like Sarah.
“I find it hard…I used to find it hard…” His voice shook with his hands. “To go out sometimes.”
Ah, agoraphobia. That old chestnut. And by “chestnut”, I mean misunderstood and totally debilitating clusterfuck of a mental illness. It made sense now, thinking it all through. By the looks of things he was a year behind me in recovery terms.
“That must be hard,” I said.
Notice how I didn’t say
“I’ve been there.”
“I understand.”
“I get it.”
“I once didn’t leave the house for eight weeks. I really get it.”
Or any of the other things you would think I’d have said. All the things I probably should have said. All the things that probably would’ve helped. Because there’s nothing more comforting than someone who actually gets it. Really gets it. Because they’ve been to the same hell as you have and can verify you’ve not made it up.
I didn’t say anything like that.
“It’s hard…” he continued, both of us utterly ignoring our drinks. “I’m getting better. I’m seeing…someone. I probably wasn’t ready to…you know…date, I guess. But when I first saw you in film studies, I just felt something, like maybe you were different… I liked how intense you were when you answered questions…and…well…you look like that…”
I blushed.
“I didn’t think you’d say yes if I asked you out. And then you did. And I was so happy, and then, so panicked, and I knew I would screw it up, and I have screwed it up. Who brings their parents on a date? Who? WHO?” He suddenly slammed his drink down on the plastic table. Coffee splashed everywhere.
“Woah, Oli, it’s okay.”
He bashed his cup down again, more liquid flew everywhere. “It’s not okay. It’s
not. I’m a freak. I’m such a FUCKING FREAK.”
And then, of course, he cried.
I know what you want to have happened, or maybe I don’t. But I reckon that, at this point, you would like it if I’d reached over and taken his hand again. If I’d opened up and told him all about my brain, and how I was sectioned once, and that he’d get through this and we’d work it out together. And maybe we would kiss, and he would go home feeling amazing about his day, rather than humiliated and broken.
That’s not what happened though.
I let him cry. I walked him back to his parents, saying “it’s okay” over and over again while he continuously apologized. His mum gave me a dirty look as I delivered her son back. I wanted to grab her face and yell, “I’m not a horrible person, I’m not. But I’m broken too and I’ve never been on the receiving end of this behaviour before and I can’t handle it and I have to look after me first, before anyone else.”
I just said, “It was nice meeting you.”
Then I turned and left them to tend to their son.
I ran home quickly to change for the party, my phone buzzing with messages from the girls asking how it had gone. I had a horrid feeling in my stomach.
Guilt.
I packed my bag, chucking lipsticks and all sorts into it. Why hadn’t I opened up to Oli? It’s not like he would judge me. He would get it, much more than anyone else. He wouldn’t have thought any less of me, and it would’ve reassured him so much.
Just as I was about to leave, I looked at myself one more time in the mirror. Really looked. My hair was up, my top clung in all the right bits, a bag hung off my shoulder. I looked like any other sixteen-year-old on her way to a party. From the outside, nobody could tell what had happened to me, and I’d worked so hard to make it that way. Then I understood why I’d done what I did.
I enjoyed being the healthy one. That was it.
For the first time ever, I was the normal one.
And it had felt intoxicatingly good…
Seventeen
A couple of hours later and I was getting acquainted with the treacherous world of shots. Sambuca shots to be precise. Screw the medication, I was on hardly any now anyway.
“Woah, Evie, where have you come from?” Guy yelled over the music. He’d just stumbled into Anna’s kitchen and witnessed me doing two shots. Alone. Because doing shots alone is a great sign of mental well-being.
“I am doing shots,” I told him calmly. “It is a perfectly reasonable thing for a sixteen-year-old to do.” I did one more and winced.
Guy took the sambuca bottle out of my hand. “Yeah, but you’re not usually like this.”
“Like what? Fun?”
“No…like everyone else.”
We held the sambuca bottle between us, looking at each other a bit longer than two friends would usually look at each other. Amber came in.
“EVIE,” she hollered. “Where’s the sambuca? I need it.” Her hair was frizzing, a sign Amber was wasted. She said whenever she got drunk, her hair got drunk with her. It was her idea to get trashed tonight. And after hearing how loud she and Lottie laughed when I’d told them about Oli bringing his parents, I was inclined to agree.
They’d really laughed at him. They thought it was funny, hilarious even. I’d found myself laughing along, muttering “yeah, what a freak” with them as my personal guilt turned to anger and despair. I mean, I hadn’t told them about the agoraphobia because I reckoned that was private. But they’d wanted to know, obviously, why I hadn’t brought him with me to the party and the parent thing had just sorta blurted out. I guess it was freaky if you didn’t know why…
As I said before – mental illness, we sure as hell know the words for it, but we still can’t have sympathy with the actual behaviour.
I tugged and reclaimed the sambuca from Guy. I waved it in the air in victory but I hadn’t screwed the bottle top on properly and treated us all to a sambuca shower.
“Oops,” I said, giggling as sticky aniseed splattered in my hair.
“Jeez, Evie.” Guy wiped the dribbles off his face, looking peed off. “I think you’ve had enough.”
“Me? Coming from the king of substance misuse?”
“Yeah,” said Amber. She wiped the sambuca off her shoulder with her finger and licked it. “Don’t you have a spliff to smoke in the corner by yourself or something?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.” Guy stormed out the kitchen, knocking an empty bottle over in the process.
For some reason, I found this hilarious and threw my head back laughing. Amber eyeballed me curiously.
“You all right, Eves? It ain’t that funny.”
“The beer bottle!” I laughed harder.
“Yikes. Maybe you have had enough.”
“No!” I protested, and held my makeshift shot glass (egg cup) up. “Please, sir, can I have some more?”
Amber grinned and obligingly poured. “To us,” she said, knocking our egg cups.
“To us,” I drank.
Joel and Jane just wouldn’t stop laughing. They clutched at each other, holding each other’s ribs instead of their own.
“Wait,” Joel gasped. “So what did this dude say when his parents showed up?”
I tried to remember. It was hard, despite it happening only a few hours ago. I was finding it hard to remember anything though. What people’s names were, where I was, how to walk properly…
“Er…” I said, searching for the memory. “Oh yeah! He said, ‘Don’t worry, we don’t have to sit with them.’”
Joel literally cried with laughter. “Here,” he yelled at a group of his mates, beckoning them over. “This girl just went on a date today” – he gestured towards me – “and the guy brought his parents with him!”
All of Joel’s mates laughed. Well, not Guy. He wasn’t there. I hadn’t seen him since the kitchen. It was getting out of hand; everyone knew about Oli. Poor Oli! I hoped it wouldn’t go around the whole college. I’d already been such a douche today.
“No way.”
“What? Seriously?”
“That’s mental.”
I stood up. My head spun so fast I sat right back down again. I gave myself a moment and tried again.
“I’m off.”
People still giggled manically as I left the living room.
Amber was in the hallway.
“EVIE!” Her hair was definitely drunk. It was twice the size of her head. She pulled me onto the stairs for a hug. “I’ve missed you.”
I fell on top of her and we lay there, giggling, until someone asked us to move out the way. “Where’s Lottie?”
“Oh, she’s upstairs shagging Posh Boy. Has been since we got here.”
“Oh…” That didn’t seem very like Lottie. This party was supposed to be The Big Moment Where Tim Finally Met Her Friends but we’d only really said “hi” before they’d both disappeared upstairs.
“I know…” Amber answered. I must’ve been thinking aloud. “I think there’s stuff up with them.”
“What sort of stuff?”
“I dunno. Did you notice how he hardly even said hello to us? Who knows? I’ve never been in a relationship.”
I settled my face into her moist shoulder. “Me neither.”
“At least you had a date today…well…does it count as a date if the boy brings his parents?” And she too, like everyone bloody else, melted into hysteria.
I bum-shuffled down the stairs. “I’m getting more drink.”
“Oh! Bring me some,” she called.
There were so many obstacles to the kitchen. People, crap on the floor, my own feet not behaving. Everyone was hazy, like they were in an art house movie’s self-indulgent scene or something. All slow shutter speeds and blurry limbs.
Movie. I wished I was at home watching a movie.
The bass beat from the heavy metal was all metallic in my ears, my mouth tasted of metal too. Maybe if you hang out with heavy metal people enough you become metal?
Kitc
hen. Busy. Had trouble getting to the gin bottle.
What is gin anyway?
It tasted like grown-ups.
It was okay if just a shot of it.
Shots.
Sarah would be proud. Shots make you drunk. Being drunk makes you sick. I hadn’t been sick in six years.
I couldn’t bear the thought of being sick.
Until tonight.
Outside. I was outside.
Cold though. It was proper cold.
Nice down here in this little corner I’d found.
Maybe if I just closed my eyes? Had a little rest. Didn’t think about Oli and the hatred in his face, at himself. Didn’t think about just how loud everyone’s laughs were. Didn’t think about how I didn’t tell him about me. About who I am. What I’m like. I let him down… I let myself down.
Just like him. I’m just like him.
And everyone thinks he’s a freak.
Freak.
Freaky freak freak…freakington.
Man, it was cold.
“Evie?”
“Shh, now quiet time,” I told the voice.
“Evie? What you doing out here by yourself?”
It was Guy’s voice. I smiled.
“I’d rather have two bollocks the size of watermelons,” I told him, and started manically grinning.
“Oh Christ. You’re wasted.”
“No, YOU’RE wasted.” It’s more convincing if you say it with your eyes closed. That was my viewpoint and I was sticking to it. “You’re always wasted.” I put on a voice I didn’t know I had. “Oooo, I’m Guy. I think I’m so cool because I play the gee-taar, and I smoke all the weed but what am I hiding from? WHAT?”
I opened my eyes on the “what?” for dramatic effect, and his face was right in my face. Smiling.
“Your mate. The giant one. She’s passed out. I don’t know where the other one is. Can you please let me take you inside?”
“You said please.”
“Yes, well, I have very good manners.”
“Not really.” And I closed my eyes again.
“No, Evie, don’t go to sleep. Come on.”
I was lifted and floated through the garden. It was a nice garden, lots of bushy bits, it would be nicer without all the people standing around in circles, playing the music too loud, passing one cigarette between them. Was it a cigarette? I floated past too quickly to work it out.