How I Got Here

by Hannah Harvey

  ‘We’re going to dinner at mom and dad’s.’ He’d said as soon as he’s walked in, ‘we should be leaving soon.’

  ‘They didn’t call me, I don’t remember them setting up a dinner.’ Amanda had shaken her head; she’d planned on spending the evening studying for her course, and she hadn’t really felt like going out.

  ‘They didn’t arrange it, I did.’ He’d explained using the minimal amount of words he thought he could get away with.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I think it would be a good idea to have a family meal.’ He’d persisted, ‘Please can you just not question it and get ready, where’s Tiff?’

  ‘In her room, why do we need to have a family meal, is something going on that you’re not telling me about?’

  ‘Later Amanda, we’ll talk at dinner.’ He’d replied and then gone off to tell Tiff their plans, the little girl had been happy to come along, partly because it meant her bedtime would be later, and partly because she knew that a trip to her grandparent’s house, inevitably meant that she would be given plenty of sweets.

  Oliver hadn’t said another word the whole trip, though for the first twenty minutes she’d fired questions at him, all of which he refused to answer. By the time they arrived she was thoroughly annoyed, she got out of the car first, leaving Oliver to unbuckle Tiff, and walked inside using the key under the doormat, vaguely remembering having told Oliver off for keeping one there, she noted that she’d have to tell her parents the same thing.

  ‘Hello darling, it’s lovely to see you.’ Her mother, Judy, came out of the kitchen to greet her, kissing both her cheeks and looking at her, ‘you look tired.’

  ‘I’ve been busy lately, ‘Amanda shrugs off the comment, ‘any idea why Oliver summoned us all here tonight?’

  ‘I wouldn’t call it summoned dear, but I haven’t any ideas. He sounded alright enough on the phone, and you said yourself that he’d been doing better recently, maybe he just wanted to see the family.’

  ‘Maybe but that doesn’t explain why he’s not answering my questions, I’m telling you there is something going on.’ Amanda stops talking as Tiff comes barreling down the hall, throwing herself into her grandma’s arms.

  ‘Hi mom, is dad here?’ Oliver kisses his mother’s cheek, and Judy has to agree that he does look as if he had something to tell them.

  ‘He’s in the dining room waiting for his dinner; I made him wait until you all arrived.’ Judy replies.

  ‘We’ll have to go in then.’ Oliver smiles and they all make their way into the dining room. For most of the dinner they talk about everyday things. Judy tells them about her gardening and the beach house they just rented for the upcoming summer in the Hampton’s, and then offers both Amanda and Oliver unlimited time there over the summer, to which Amanda promises she’ll get down as many weekends as she can.

  ‘How about you Oliver will you come? I know you won’t have all the weekends off at the hospital, but you might be able to drive down for some at least, and some weekdays too, depending on your shifts.

  ‘Actually that’s sort of what I wanted to talk to you all about.’ Oliver replies, he can hear the collective intake of breath, clearly they’d all been waiting for him to raise the subject, and he’s surprised Amanda restrained her curiosity for so long.

  ‘Oh yes?’ His father, Paul, looks up from his now empty plate.

  ‘I won’t be working at the hospital this summer, I quit today.’

  ‘You did what!?’ Amanda shrieks loudly, ‘What on earth did you do that for?’

  ‘Let him explain.’ Judy, ever the peacekeeper, hushes her daughter into a reluctant silence.

  ‘I haven’t been happy at the hospital for a while; you know I never really did want to work in a private hospital, it was only because it sort of fell into my lap, and then – well there was always a reason to stay, but for a while now there hasn’t been one, so I left.’ He explains it as best he can, this of course being the easier part of his announcement.

  ‘What will you do now then? Have you got another job lined up? Because the money from your grandfather won’t last forever, you’re young so $500,000 may seem a lot, but you’d be surprised how it can whittle away.’ Paul looks at him sternly, he’d always worried that one of his children would live purely off inheritance, but so far they’d all been sensible about it, and none of them had chipped too far into it. All of them had good steady jobs, and were saving for a rainy day, something which he had always greatly encouraged.

  ‘I don’t have one yet but I will get one, and as soon as I can.’ Oliver promises, the last thing he wants to do is stop working, keeping busy helps him.

  ‘Well that seems fine then.’ Judy nods her approval.

  ‘No but if you were just changing your job, you wouldn’t have called a last minute family meeting.’ Amanda, always ready to be suspicious, was the first to speak after Judy had so readily brushed the subject aside.

  ‘There is something else; I used some of my inheritance to buy a house, $294,000 to be exact.’ He said looking for their reactions, the room fell silent for a few moments, his father turned and looked at him sharply, seemed about to say something critical and then changed his mind.

  ‘Well real estate seems like a sound investment.’ Paul nods his approval.

  ‘I thought you liked your apartment.’ Judy says confused, ‘Or do you plan on renting out the house, or doing it up and reselling it? One of my friends does that, renovation work on property, she makes quite a tidy profit each time, but surely you wouldn’t have time to do it up, I don’t want you tiring yourself out.’

  ‘I’ll be selling the apartment and moving into the house, in a week.’ He pauses and takes a deep breath; they’re all waiting for him because they know he has more to say, ‘It’s in South Dakota.’

  ‘You’re moving to South Dakota!’ Amanda’s voice shouts out, causing Tiff to cover her ears.

  ‘Honey, why don’t you go and play with your toys in the other room.’ Judy instructs the child, willing to escape the noise of the inevitable fight, Tiff scampers off.

  ‘This is about her isn’t it, is that where she is?’ Amanda’s eyes flash angrily at him.

  ‘Who are we talking about, what woman?’ Paul asks trying to keep up, though he’d still reeling from his son’s announcement.

  ‘Not woman, girl. She was a patient of Oliver’s up until a few months ago.’ Amanda explains briefly, ‘So is it because of her?’

  ‘Not it isn’t, I don’t have any idea where she is.’ Oliver replies.

  ‘This seems very sudden.’ Judy says trying to stay calm; of course she’s dealt with her children moving away before, but never so suddenly, and now there was mention of a girl, she was finding it hard to take everything in.

  ‘I need to get out of the city, that’s it.’ He shrugs, dreading the question he knows is coming.

  ‘But why to South Dakota?’ It’s Paul who asks it, the question they’re all thinking, ‘There’s some nice scenery round that way, but I don’t know why you’d move there, of all places.’

  ‘I found a house that was hard to say no to.’ He told the half-truth, because if he’d told them how he’d found the house, they would have called him crazy and prevented him from going. ‘Here why don’t you take a look?’ He pulls out the details from his bag, which was lying next to his chair. He hands the pages over to his father first, and Judy stands and looks over his shoulder.

  ‘Oh it does look wonderful, and so much land as well.’ Judy smiles at her son, trying to see this move as a positive thing.

  ‘You get a lot more for your money that way than in New York, it’s smart to buy something out of the city I think.’ Paul replies.

  ‘It’ll probably do you good to slow down a bit, the hospitals there will probably be far quieter.’ Judy adds.

  ‘I was thinking about looking into work in a small practice, just for a change of pace.’ Oliver replies, ‘I just think it could be good.’

  ‘That s
ounds sensible.’ Paul offers up his opinion, ‘Excellent prospects.’

  ‘Are we all forgetting the suddenness of this move?’ Amanda protests, ‘It’s completely insane and I have no idea why everyone is so quick to accept this. I also have no doubt that this is something to do with her.’

  ‘Sweetheart I know it’s sudden but if it’s what he feels is right, then we have to support him.’ Judy says once again trying to calm her daughter down.

  ‘Tell me you’re not doing this because she’s not here anymore.’ Amanda persists, but at a more reasonable volume this time.

  ‘I won’t lie it’s partly that, maybe more than it should be, but whatever the reasons I need to leave the city.’

  ‘Could someone explain the importance of this girl?’ Paul says putting down the house details, with just a little envy that his son had purchased a house with such nice grounds.

  ‘There was a girl at the hospital, I’d been helping her for a while with her problems, and she was very withdrawn and didn’t trust people. She was anorexic and didn’t speak much.’ Oliver replies, wanting to tell his version rather than let Amanda speak for him.

  ‘Oh how terrible for her. That sounds awful.’ Judy sits down; sympathy for the girl she didn’t know was flowing though her.

  ‘I was helping her, working with her every day, that’s what was distracting me so much and why you called Amanda here, she was – special, just so amazing, and she started to get better, to eat again and to get over her fears, she was telling me what had happened to her, why she felt so down all the time.’ Oliver cuts off, struggling to find the right words.

  ‘He fell in love with her.’ Amanda supplies, somewhat unhelpfully. Judy’s eyes widen, and Paul sighs loudly.

  ‘Oh Oliver,’ Judy shakes her head slowly, her head dropping into her hands.

  ‘Nothing ever happened, but I did fall in love with her and she fell in love with me, but then she left, she’s moved away and I don’t know where too.’ Oliver admits, looking down at the blue table cloth.

  ‘That’s probably for the best dear, even though it hurts now.’ Judy gently lays her hand on his arm, ‘It’ll get better.’

  ‘You’re giving up your whole life, changing everything drastically, just because you can’t stand to be in the city where you met her.’ Amanda shouts, ‘You’re being so ridiculous.’

  ‘That isn’t the only reason I’m going, I need a change.’

  ‘You’re being a fool, I knew things were getting too serious between the two of you, I only wish I’d spoken to her sooner.’ Amanda realizes what she’d said too late, her eyes widen but she tries to hide it, foolishly hoping he didn’t hear her, but as he turns his dark gaze on her she knows better.

  ‘What did you just say?’

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Letter 14

  It’s warm today so I’m writing this outside by the water, the house is still insight but I do feel better being away from it, I’m finding myself feeling more and more trapped when I’m in the house, so I try and get out as much as possible.

  Things here haven’t changed all that much, I’m still working as a check out girl at the grocery store, I’m still working towards my high school diploma, and I’m still eating. None of this is very surprising considering it’s only been a day since I last wrote a letter, I can’t seem to stop writing these days, and I’ve always got a notebook with me. I spend so much of my time writing stories, because I found that when I stopped writing for a while, because I thought my obsession with writing was just another aspect of my illness, I found myself missing it almost as bad as I miss you. So I started writing the stories again and I’m feeling a lot better for it.

  This morning I was sitting in my room just staring out of my window, wanting so badly to talk to you, and when those feelings become as strong as they did this morning, I have to write a letter, and so here I am sat outside, scribbling away because I can’t stop thinking about you.

  So now I’m going to tell you how I’ve been feeling, because there’s been something that’s been – well not quite right for a while, but I haven’t been able to put my finger on it, but now I can, so here goes.

  I’ve started to feel like I’ve fallen into a rut, everything is just trotting along nicely and I can’t seem to stop feeling low, I want more, and then I feel bad for wanting more, when everyone is doing what they can to help me, but I can’t help feeling like my life has been frozen for a while, with leaving school and being ill, I haven’t been moving forward, I’ve been stuck on pause and now I want to resume my life, I want to do more with my life, but I know that I can’t. In all honesty it’s one particular thing I want to resume, I want to start running again, but my parent’s won’t let me because they’re too worried about the physical strain, my therapist thinks it’s a sign that I’m slipping back into my old way of thinking, so won’t allow me to run because of the emotional strain, my group therapy leader thinks that it’s a little too soon to be considering it, and I just want to have the final say on this, but I don’t. I’m forced into following their views on the subject, and no matter how much I try and reassure them, tell them that this isn’t about getting thinner, and that I’ll take it easy, they don’t trust that I’m stable enough to make my own decision on the matter, and I can’t even blame them, because my decision making skills have been severely lacking recently, and so of course they won’t let me make the decision even though I am perfectly capable of making it now. I can only blame myself for the view they have of me, because I did this to myself, which makes me hate myself even more.

  I have been putting on weight though, so now I am officially back at a healthy weight, so the nutritionist that my parents send me to see, has come up with a maintenance plan, because everyone is worried that if I put on more weight, I’ll spiral out of control and stop eating again, which may be true, because I catch myself thinking it sometimes, thinking how easy it would be to just slip back into that pattern, but I catch myself before the thoughts get out of control, and then I’ll call Kylie and she’ll talk it over with me until I feel better.

  The point is, I think the fact that I’m at a healthy weight again, should win me some credit and I should be allowed to run again, but that argument was shot down before I could even explain it fully, I was told that I shouldn’t rush things, and if I was bored then maybe I could take up sewing. I don’t want to sew. I want to be outside and be running again, I used to love running so much, I loved it before I got ill and yet everyone around me only remembers me using it as a weight loss tool. I want to be able to get rid of all my own bad memories associated with running, because in the end there were so many bad memories when I was at the height of my illness, that I need to bring some more positive ones to the foreground, but I can’t talk them round and I won’t allow myself to go against them, I’ve already caused my parents too much upset.

  I’m going to Megan’s place today, we’re going to study for a while, but we’ll probably end up watching a movie or something. We’ll probably invite Kylie over as well, and then it’ll inevitably turn into a slumber party. I don’t really feel like going, I don’t think I’ll be very good company for either of them, however hard I try and be positive. I’m just in a generally low place today, because of the whole running thing, but also because I can’t stop thinking about you.

  Megan says she understands, she was in love with someone last summer, but he dumped her and moved half way across the world, she was heartbroken but now she’s fine. I wonder if that’s how it’s supposed to go, you love someone and then when it’s over, you can just work towards being fine again. Will I be fine in a few more weeks or months, is there one set time do you think? Or is it based on how long you were in love, for instance, I’ve loved you for several months, and so will it take me longer to get over you because of that? Megan tried to calculate it from an article in one of Kylie’s magazines; Kylie struggled with the math side of it so Megan took over. According to the magazine, which I’m sure is a trul
y reliable source of information, I should have been over you a month ago, which leaves me believing I’ll never be over you, Kylie thinks that it’s ok if that happens, because it won’t always hurt so badly, she says it’s possible for me to still hold you in my heart, as a memory of someone I loved, and still I’ll be able to live a happy life and meet someone who I can love, someone who the timing is right with, and that eventually you’ll become a barely visited memory, always there but rarely noticed. I think that made me feel worse, because it feels awfully unfair that I should have to forget you, push my feelings aside and find someone new, because I never got the chance to actually be in a relationship with you.

  Megan doesn’t share the same view as Kylie, she thinks it’s incredibly short sighted of me to say that I’ll never get over you, she doesn’t think that there’s only one person you can love, and she’s of the mind that because I was so young when I fell in love with you, and lost you. That I can easily find someone else who I will fall in love with, she says that I can’t see it now, because I’m still in the mourning phase, but one day I’ll be able to move on fully, so I shouldn’t think about being eternally in love with you. That made me feel worse as well, because I think a part of me wants to love you forever, and not because it’s a terribly tragically romantic sentiment, the kind of thing in a classic romance, but because when you love someone as much as I love you, I think it’s worth holding onto.

  My parents on the other hand don’t know about you, well I mean they don’t know that I’m in love with you, my father suspects that I had become a little too close to you, and he believes that is why I left when I did, why I begged if we could move out of New York City, but he thinks that it’s just a close friendship, a crush at most, and even though my mood is often low, he’s certain that it’s got nothing to do with you, he thinks that I’m over it. Neither of my parents knows that I can’t get you out of my head, or that I have nightmares and wake up crying, thinking that I’ll never see you again. Nobody knows that part, the nightmares part.