I want to fall down, curl into a ball, and disappear.
When I get inside, I lock the door and drop to my knees.
My chest tightens even more. The pressure is frightening. I can feel my fucking heartbeat. It’s fast. Like my heart’s about to pop out of my fucking chest.
Jay will be home soon, I remind myself. I have to get back to normal for him.
I drop the letter Damon handed me on the floor.
I see who it’s from: Melanie Carmichael.
Oh, Melanie. She hurt me so much, but I hurt her more. Every night I wasn’t there for her. Every night I recoiled from her touch. Every night she tried to get me to go out or to pull me from the grip of my despair only to be met with the cold shell of a person that I’d become after I came back home.
The combination of Damon freaking me out and Melanie’s letter collide, generating the perfect panic attack.
I lie on my stomach, resting my hands beside me.
It’s pointless to fight. I have to go with it like Laura says, but I don’t want Jay to come home and see me like this. I don’t want him feeling like every time I fall, he has to catch me. But my awareness of how this will affect Jay only makes it hurt even more.
I beg my body to help me.
He was so excited when he saw the tickets, and I’ve been so eager to spend tonight with him. However, this episode reminds me of how long things like this can stretch out…and how they can interfere with my life. Reminds me of a time when I could hardly function because they were so intense. Of the stretches that still occur…that leave me walking through life like some sort of zombie.
I knew the relief I was experiencing with Jay wouldn’t last. That one day I would have to confront this dark part of me again.
You can do this.
But I know willpower only works against me. I always use it as a tool to beat up on myself.
Relax. Relax.
But I can’t.
Jay can’t come home and find me in this state.
I need to at least make it to the couch so I can look like I’m tired or taking a nap. That’ll give me time to recover. We have at least two hours before we have to leave here anyway.
Come on.
I need to be strong long enough to get there.
I hear the familiar sound of Jay’s car engine outside.
The couch feels so fucking far away, even though it’s just a few feet.
Mental flashes of the urgency of war return to me. It’s like I’m racing through streets, on high alert, knowing there could be a sniper aiming for me. That I or any one of my friends could be shot dead in a moment.
I push to my knees. It feels like I’m struggling against a three-hundred-pound weight. I crawl across the floor.
The sound of the car door opening and closing.
I don’t have much time.
He’s not going to find me like this. I’m not fucking this up.
I press my hand against the back of the couch as I start rising to my feet.
I hear the rattling of the lock on the door. Jay must have just put his key in.
The pain in my chest is like someone’s sticking a knife in it.
Do it, I command myself before getting up and throwing myself over the couch.
As the door opens, I settle on my back, closing my eyes and hoping to God I look like I’m taking a nap. That I haven’t been caught. I doubt I’m giving a good performance of appearing comfortable because I can feel that every muscle in my body is flexed.
“Hey,” Jay sings out, stressing the dissonance between our mental states.
He closes the door as I pretend to wake up. “Oh, hey,” I fight to say.
He eyes me uneasily. He can tell something’s wrong, and I’m pissed at how shitty I am at keeping this shit from him. “You okay?”
“Just got a headache. I took some ibuprofen.”
It’s shitty to lie to him, but I won’t ruin tonight. This was supposed to be a fun-filled date where we would laugh together and forget about all this shitty stuff. But now here it is, right in my face, torturing me.
“Okay,” he says as he approaches and leans over the couch, offering a kiss.
I reciprocate, but I can’t offer him the sort of kiss I usually would. I’m too busy fighting this demon within me.
He notices and pulls away. “Sorry,” he says. “You need me to get anything?”
I see the same look in his eyes that I used to see in Melanie’s. Helplessness. Worry.
He wants me to open up, but he doesn’t want to push.
I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to spoil everything. And that’s all that my goddamn brain seems to do. Spoil shit.
“I’m good,” I say even though I’m far from it.
He twists his lips into a wry smirk. “Okay. I’m just going to shower up and make some dinner then.”
“Just make yourself some. I’m not going to be hungry. Thank you, though.”
“Sure.” He heads on to the bedroom.
At least while he’s showering, I have a chance at recovering. Although I can tell by how powerful this is that I don’t have a chance of getting better. Not tonight. I have to find a way out of this. This isn’t like my usual episode—the ones he’s seen.
It’s like the ones I had back when I was with Melanie. Because I’m not just reminded of what I did to her, but what I fear I’ll end up doing to Jay.
He’s had to help me out of my attacks on several occasions. He’s good at it. He’s amazing. And I know he would be understanding about tonight, but he shouldn’t have to be. He shouldn’t have to live like this. He has his own problems. He shouldn’t have to take on my demons, too—these demons that can creep up at any time and take what should have been a fun moment and turn it into something dark.
I knew this moment would come.
I kept warning myself, but I was so greedy to enjoy him that I wouldn’t let myself fully consider the consequences.
A horrifying realization hits me. One I’ve known all along, but which in my emotional state and dread regarding the letter from Melanie is only amplified:
I could ruin Jay’s life. If he stays with me, I could jade him the way I jaded Melanie.
I want him so much, though. Want him with every part of my being. It’s a selfish desire. I want him here because he makes me better. Because I want someone to soothe my pain. What do I really offer him? What can I offer him in the long-term other than the misery of having to nurse me back to health every time an episode like this hits me? When they become so severe that I can’t enjoy something I want to share with him so much? When I have to be a witness to him slowly becoming more and more disheartened by our life together?
I remember how alive Melanie was before I went to Iraq. Her bright smile. Her zest. Her playfulness.
We had the same sort of frisky fun together that I now share with Jay.
But then there was the defeated look in her eyes before she left. Those dead eyes, nearly as dead as mine because of how I killed her soul more and more every day. When she’d given up on crying or pleading for me to get help. When I wasn’t sure she even believed she could be happy ever again.
To think I could do that to Jay—that he could wind up as sad and miserable and that I could let him do that like I did with Melanie—tears me apart.
As much as I want to believe I’m better—that things have changed—this reminds me it’s not true.
This will never go away. It can’t. This is a part of who I am now, and I’ve known it all along.
Some romantic part of me wanted to believe that Jay could make this go away. Could heal all these internal wounds. But that was just a fantasy.
This is the reality. This is what had to happen.
We shared a brief moment of bliss—a moment where I was free of the true depths of my despair, but my moods aren’t ever static. The happy moments don’t last forever. It’s one thing to go to work and push through the hard days there, but it’s another to have to pr
etend to be okay within a relationship when I’m falling apart inside. A coworker doesn’t care if I’m distant. A lover does.
I won’t do that to another person. Not someone who I care about as much as Jay. It’s wrong. Abusive, even. How could I live with myself if I had to come face-to-face with a version of Jay that was as emotionally depleted as Melanie was?
How could I be happy knowing that I did that to my Jay?
Her words echo in the back of my mind: “I can’t do this anymore.”
It breaks my heart.
Tears into my soul.
You know what you have to do.
I have to hurt him, but better for him to get hurt now and move on with his life than for me to fill his life with the darkness that consumes me. To let it destroy him, too.
I won’t let that happen. Not to him.
36
Jay
“Feeling any better?” I ask.
It’s an hour and a half until the show. It’ll only take fifteen minutes to get to the Fox, but between finding parking and getting to our seats, we need to leave soon.
“Jay, why don’t you just go without me? That headache’s gotten a lot worse.”
“You need some more ibuprofen?”
“No. I’ve taken plenty. I just…I don’t think I’m going to be able to enjoy tonight.”
When I came in and saw him lying on the couch, I could tell he was rattled. Considering he was fine at work today, I know something’s triggered him. Something changed between the time we got off work and when I got home. I’ve seen how quickly a sound can set him off, but if that’s all it is, why doesn’t he just tell me? He knows he can talk to me about this kind of stuff. Hell, I’ve seen him have episodes before.
“Did something happen?” I ask.
“No.”
A lie. “You can talk to me if something set you off. That’s not something you should be ashamed of.”
“I just don’t want to talk about it.” His tone is severe enough that I know better than to push. I can wait till he calms down and this episode passes.
“We’ll just skip the show tonight,” I say. Sad as I am that we’re going to miss something I was so excited about, it’s for the best. He can’t handle the show tonight.
“Jay, you should go.”
“I wanted to go with you. I’m not interested in going by myself.”
“I’m sorry. I just—”
“No. It’s fine. Don’t feel bad about it. Shit like this happens.”
I’m frustrated, but I won’t abandon him.
Disheartening as it is that just as soon as we had a chance to do something fun, an episode had to come along and throw a wrench in things. I understand that this is what Reese was talking about. The sorts of issues I signed up for.
“You really need to go,” he says.
“I’m just going to turn in for the night, I think. I’m tired anyway.” I head into the bedroom and close the door.
Emptiness rises within me.
I’m all alone.
A part of me expects Reese to come in here and console me. To shake out of this state he’s in and go out to the show because he cares about me so much. Intellectually, I get that it doesn’t work that way. Doesn’t keep me from wishing that something would change, and he would hurry in and apologize for his curt behavior, hop into some nice clothes, and dash off to the theatre with me. That’s a pipe dream, but it’s a shame that tonight won’t be a fun, frisky time with Reese. This is part of the package. I knew that getting into this. I’ve seen him struggle with this before. I want to be here for him, but he isn’t letting me, and it’s frustrating as fuck.
I decide to get ready for bed, hoping he’ll come in and join me when he’s feeling better. But I wait…and wait…and wait.
He stays in the living room. I don’t hear him get up and move. Not even to go to the bathroom, and it concerns me too much to stay in here and act like nothing’s going on. He knows what’s happening, and if we just ignore this, that’s not going to help him get any better.
I head back into the living room. He’s right where I left him a few hours ago.
He stares at the ceiling until I move closer, and he looks at me for a moment. I don’t see the usual look of appreciation in his eyes. I see that distant cold gaze.
It makes me sad.
“Feeling any better?” I ask.
“A little.”
If anything, he looks even worse than when I told him I was going to bed. Like he’s just been stewing in self-destructive thoughts. I imagine him replaying that time in Fallujah again and again in his head. Thinking about all that happened. All that could have happened. I imagine him thinking about what Caleb did and how helpless he felt in it all.
I kick at the base of the couch, hitting my toe lightly against it. As I gaze down at it, I see something out of the corner of my eye. It’s an envelope on the floor, on the other end of the couch. It has crinkled marks in the middle, as though someone gripped it tight.
My curiosity gets the best of me.
Is this what set him off? Is this the thing that made him go from being totally cool today to being this shell of a person tonight?
I meander over to it, trying to act casual. Like I’m not up to no good, but given the state he’s in, I wonder if he’ll even notice.
I grip the letter between my toes and kick my leg behind me, grabbing it.
As he shifts his head, turning to the TV, I take a glance to see who the letter’s from.
Melanie.
His ex-wife.
“Reese,” I say.
He keeps staring ahead. He’s gone, and regardless of why he’s gone, it’s like he’s not even here. And it’s the most painful and lonely feeling in the world. This must have been what he would do to her. Why she couldn’t stay.
My face trembles and my eyes water. I’m not proud. I shouldn’t be about to break down when I know what’s causing this. But as impersonal as it is, it feels so deeply personal.
I walk around the couch so that I’m standing in front of him. So that he has to look at me.
“Reese, why didn’t you tell me you got this?”
I display the letter. He looks at it for a moment before his gaze drifts. “What about it?”
“This is why you’re acting like this, isn’t it? Jesus, Reese, you should have just told me.”
“It’s about more than that.”
“This is clearly part of it, though. Talk to me. I want to help you.”
“You can’t help me, Jay. No one can help me.”
I’ve never heard him like this. He sounds so hopeless. So overwhelmed.
“The Reese I know is a fighter. Even when it gets hard. Things like this come up, but he knows how to get through them.”
“It’s more than that stupid letter,” he says. “All that did was remind me of a mistake I was about to make.”
“A mistake?”
“We can’t do this.”
“Reese, you’ve gotten through shit like this plenty of times. We’re just gonna—”
“This isn’t about this episode. It’s about us. This isn’t going to work.”
He might as well have decked me. I open my mouth a few times, trying to think of how to react to this.
“I can’t do that again,” he says. “I’m not ready for a relationship. That letter just reminded me that it’s too much.”
“What kind of bullshit is that?” Is he being fucking serious right now? Is that why he’s so upset? Here I thought he was having some sort of breakdown over the past, but really, he’s just been dreading the idea of a future with me?
No. My mind races through all the beautiful moments we’ve shared. The moments when I could feel us getting so much closer. That wasn’t a lie. But I’ve thought that before. I thought that with Kyle and the other assholes. Have I been fooling myself this whole time?
Have I been feeling so much more for him than he’s been feeling for me?
I refuse to believe that.<
br />
“Are you telling me that this whole fucking time that we’ve been doing all this shit together, you haven’t felt anything for me? It’s just been this fun thing without any deeper feelings behind it? More than fucking. Because it sure was more than that for me. I…I…”
Don’t say it.
But I can’t help it. I have to know. Because if he really doesn’t feel this way for me now, then I need to get the fuck out of here. It’s only going to hurt worse the longer he lets it go on.
“…I’m falling in love you.”
He looks at me, his eyes wide in horror. Like that’s the worst fucking thing I could have said to him.
I feel like I did when I wore those panties for him. Naked. Exposed. But in the worst possible way.
He sits up. It’s the most he’s moved since I came home.
He rises to his feet. “Love? Are you out of your mind?”
He sounds pissed.
“We’ve been seeing each other for two months, and you’re going to tell me you love me? You don’t know me. You don’t know who the fuck I am, and I don’t know you.”
I’ve never seen him like this before. Has he really been hiding this side of himself all along?
“Why are you being so mean?” I ask.
His gaze drifts. “You can’t handle this.”
“What?”
“This is going to be too much for you, and you might not leave me today or tomorrow, but one day, you will. Just like Melanie did.”
“How can you say that? You haven’t even given me a chance.”
“I don’t need to give you a chance. I know how you are. You’ve lived your life running from your problems, and this one is too much for you to handle. Melanie was a strong woman…a dedicated woman, and it was too much even for her. That’s what getting that letter reminded me.”
“I’m still here, aren’t I? I do always run, but you’ve given me a reason to stay. I can prove to you that I’m strong enough for this. After all that we’ve shared, are you really willing to just walk away from this?”
He looks into my eyes, and without hesitation says, “Yes.”
It’s like when he punched me that night when I woke him up from his bad dream.
I’m stunned. In shock.
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