Lucid

by Gabrielle Castania

  Albeit taken aback by my request, he managed to smile. “If you’re feeling up to it, sure. Let me drop Ellie off, and I’ll be over from there.”

  Satisfied with where I was leaving things for the moment, I squeezed his hand one more time before letting go and climbing into Roger’s car.

  Our drive from the city to our house would take us about twenty minutes, which meant that I would have plenty of time to have a much-needed chat with my father. As we pulled out of the parking lot, I told him pointedly, “So, Ellie tells me you’re the reason I’m still here.”

  Not taking his eyes off the road, he shrugged a little. “I’m not a hero, Ashley. I’ve been a massive source of your problems, so it seems a little backwards to have you crediting me for something good now that you’re finally able to come up for air after I’ve been holding you underwater for so long. Taking you to the hospital was the least I could do after everything terrible that I’d already done to land you there.”

  He still had no clue how much I knew of my time in the hospital, which led him to approach me cautiously. The man whose existence I came to despise was the one who saved my life when I apparently needed saving, and I smiled at him, taking in his profile as he kept his eyes on the road. I said quietly, “Well, thanks, Dad.”

  That was enough to coax his full attention toward me for a second, long enough for me to register the shock on his face. “Dad?” he stammered a little, as taken back by what I said as I almost hoped he would be. “You haven’t called me that in years.”

  “I avoided it because I spent that time hating you for everything, blaming you for all of my problems,” I told him, looking idly out the window as the scenery flew by at highway speeds. “The things you did before hurt – I can’t lie to you and say that they didn’t – but you literally saved my life. Had you followed Mum out of my bedroom that night when I fought against this reconciliation, I’d have gone to sleep, and who knows if I’d have woken up. Between that and your constant visits while I was in the hospital, you’ve definitely earned some brownie points, which I’ll cash in on using ‘Dad’ from now on, so long as you stay like this. I hear old habits die hard.”

  “I have my thirty-days chip in my pocket right now, and I’m well on my way to sixty,” he announced with pride. “It’s definitely a process, and it’s been so difficult to face the things that I’ve done. Seeing what it did to you, what you did to yourself because of it all, was the most sobering experience I’ve ever had in my life.” The weight of admittance was heavy, but it meant a lot to me. “You know, you’re not as upset with me as I expected.”

  “You were there for me.” I turned to him with a smile, telling him the things that Ellie had told me in her summary of my time in inpatient care. “It means a lot to see how dedicated you were to making sure you were there. I can’t change how things used to be, but the future is still up in the air. Now that the monster is gone and my dad is back, all the time I spend angry at you for things neither of us can go back and erase is time I waste trying to move on, to enjoy the present while we have it.”

  Roger chuckled to himself. “You’re far more forgiving of my trespasses than I would be. If I were you and my father did half the things I did, then came back to grovel, I would never speak to him again.”

  I responded casually for the sake of keeping the conversation going, but the weight of my words hit me as I said them aloud. “You were under a lot of pressure, and you didn’t handle it the right way, so it changed who you were. I was in the same position this time last month, and I know how easy it is to overlook what you know to be right in favor of trying to keep yourself blind to your problems. There’s something in front of you that’s more satisfying than sorting through your pain, and so you take it, and it shuffles who you are until you don’t recognize yourself anymore. That isn’t who I am, and drunken Roger isn’t who you are. I think the world of Ellie and Joey, and I hurt them pretty badly as I made a mess of my life, and even after all of that, they were there once I realized the errors of my ways. It wouldn’t be fair to accept love and forgiveness once I made it to the other side of who I was, but deny it to someone else at the same time.”

  He tried to hide his emotions by wiping at his face with the hand farthest away from me, and I pretended not to notice he was tearing up. “You don’t know what a relief that is to hear,” he replied after giving himself a moment, his voice still a little shaky. “I thought I would never get you back, no matter how much I begged. I don’t have the words to tell you how happy I am, Ashley.”

  We pulled into the driveway, and I smiled not only at the sweetness of his words, but also at the sight of my own home. I didn’t remember much of the past few weeks, and I didn’t know how homesick I was until we pulled up. The house was definitely a sight for sore eyes.

  I grabbed my things from the trunk before we made our way inside. The moment the door open, I was crushed in a tight embrace, and as soon as I rationalized that it was my mother, I hugged her back. She pulled away just enough to pepper my face with kisses, and she smiled at me once she was satisfied. Finally, she cooed, “I’m so glad you’re finally home, Love.”

  “I’m glad to be here,” I told her. “I didn’t think I would miss this place when I left, but look at me now, a little homesick.”

  “How’re you feelin’ after everythin’?” she asked, letting me go but keeping her eyes locked onto me.

  For the first time all day, I stopped to consider how I was feeling. How the hell was I feeling? I wasn’t even sure I knew. I was feeling tired, relieved, scared, excited, and most of all, loved.

  “There’s a lot going on up here,” I told her, motioning to my head with a smile, “but I think I’ll make it.” She regarded me with silent suspicion, which is all it took for me to realize that maybe, a less vague answer would be for the best, coming from where I was. “It’s nothing bad; I promise. It’s been drilled into me to talk to someone if it gets bad again, but things are shaping up to be okay, so I think, in spite of everything, I’m going to make it.”

  More satisfied with that version of my answer, she finally grinned at me. “Are you up to doin’ anythin’? The doctors suggested we limit your time alone for your first few days back, just to try to play it safe.” I briefly considered arguing, insisting that I had only meant to sleep by doing what I did, but figured it would be in vain, a quick way to start a fight that nobody was interested in having during my homecoming. “I was thinkin’ we could spend some time as a family tonight.”

  Feeling my stomach growl, I tried not to think about the cafeteria food I must have subsisted on while I was in the hospital. “If that includes getting something for dinner, I am absolutely fine with family time.”

  She giggled a bit, dipping into the kitchen and coming back with a plate of cookies and a smile on her face. “I was antsy waitin’ for you to come back, so I figured I’d put my time to good use and make you a ‘welcome home’ snack.”

  With a smile, I grabbed one of them, delighted to see that they were still warm, and crammed it into my mouth. Maybe I didn’t need the sugar, but I had survived myself, and damn it, I was ready to celebrate. Life is too fragile not to have dessert.

  I was about to compliment her on them when my phone buzzed in my duffel bag for the first time since I had it back. The lock screen, suspiciously no longer the photo of Danny and I from the concert that I’d set it to after my freak out, said I had a message from Joey, telling me that he was waiting for me in his car.

  “That’s Joey,” I told my parents, who tried their best not to look over my shoulder at what my phone said. They were worried about me, I knew, and I was sure it was going to be an adjustment for them to somehow keep an eye on me without becoming entirely overbearing. I tried my best to understand that they weren’t trying to pry, only trying to keep me safe from myself. “I asked him to swing by so we could talk.”

  “Why don’t you invite him to dinner?” Roger suggested with a smile. “We can go anywhere you want
, and his meal is on us, too.”

  “I’d like that,” I replied, imagining an evening with people close to me, trying to figure out where to go from there. “If you don’t mind, though, could he and I head out for a little while? I know you guys are doing the whole monitoring, cautious thing because I’m your ‘little girl’ and everything, but this ‘little girl’ is eighteen and would very much like to make up with her boyfriend without Mummy and Daddy in the background.”

  Roger looked to Mum, unsure of what to do, not entirely eager to leave me alone after what I’d done, but she nodded in support of my suggestion. “As long as you stay with him, I don’t see why not. Just don’t be gone too long, please; I don’t know about you guys, but I’m starvin’.”

  I smiled at the two of them one more time before slipping out the door.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Out in the driveway, Joey was waiting with his car idled, tapping away at his cell phone. I’m sure he envisioned us going out someplace, or maybe even staying at my house for a while, but I had another idea in mind. It was time to start being more vulnerable, more emotionally available, and I couldn’t think of anybody I’d rather start that trend with than with him.

  When I knocked on the passenger window instead of opening the door, he looked up curiously and unrolled it so he could hear me. “Hey. Thanks for coming,” I greeted him. “I was sort of nervous I was overstepping my boundaries by asking you.”

  “Let’s be real here, Ash,” he beamed at me, “I don’t think there have ever really been any boundaries between the two of us. I think you could ask me to recite poetry backwards while doing a headstand, and I can’t promise I’d be successful, but damn it, I’d try. You asking me to come talk for a while is, comparatively, simple.”

  I couldn’t help but to chuckle at how absurd the image was. “I was thinking maybe we could stick around here, though. I’ve been away for a while, so I’d kind of like to stay closer to home, if you don’t mind.” Without question, he killed the engine and climbed from the car, and I walked around the front of it, meeting him in the middle. Puttering nervously, wildly unused to being unsure of him, I looked up at him sheepishly. “My parents are both sticking around the house, though, so would you maybe want to go for a walk around the neighborhood? There’s someplace I’d like to show you.”

  He flipped his sunglasses back down out of his hair, tucking one hand gingerly into one of mine with a smirk. “Lead the way, then.”

  As the two of us wandered the familiar streets of my neighborhood, we made idle small talk. I asked him about how graduation had gone for him, and he told me all about it. His trek across the stage had been met with a few claps peppered into a whole lot more grumbling, but he insisted that he didn’t mind. He ended up going to Marmara’s graduation with Yosuke and Sam to support Ellie, who he noted was having a really hard time in my absence. He recounted how she’d shown up at The Bistro one afternoon, and he took his lunch break to sit down and really talk to her one on one for the first time since my whole, crazy adventure started. They talked about me, of course, but also about themselves, about each other, and he said he came away feeling like he finally knew her as something more than just my best friend. They agreed to set aside their differences and come together for my sake, learning that they actually got along quite well when their influence wasn’t pulling me in totally different directions.

  Finally, we made it through the vast expanse of vacant land in my neighborhood and to the entrance of the meadow. It had been ages since I’d been there for real, and I paused for a moment to breathe it all in. The grass had sprung back to life, the trees had their leaves once again, and the sun shone in bright hues around the area, bouncing off the wildflowers that peppered the ground at my feet.

  I smiled, turning to Joey and telling him, “We’re here.”

  He looked around the opening, trying not to look perplexed. “It’s lovely,” he said, visibly trying to work out why I’d have brought him here. “I won’t lie, though – I thought we were actually going someplace.”

  “This is someplace, even though it doesn’t look like it at first glance,” I replied, sitting myself down beneath my tree and tugging him to the ground with me. “I know it doesn’t look like much, but it actually holds a lot of significance to me.”

  Following my lead, Joey lounged back against the tree trunk, his eyes locked onto me. “What’s so special about this random little clearing?” He paused for a moment. “That sounded kind of rude, and I’m sorry. If this is important to you, then it’s important to me, too, but would you kindly explain why it’s important?”

  Looking out along the tree line, I began to recount the beginnings of my story to him, parts that I had carefully omitted at the start of our relationship and never bothered to tell him after that. I had wanted to seem like someone who had it all together when we met, and by the time I thought to tell him, things were going differently for me in the shadow of his influence, and it seemed to no longer matter. It was a chapter in the story of my life that I’d finished writing long ago, but every character needs an origin story.

  “I call this place ‘the meadow’, and before you came along, it was my safe place. Any time my parents would fight, or if I had a hard day at school with everyone, or when my emotions were acting up, I would come here and sit against this tree and just exist for a while. I’d draw, or do my homework, or just lay here and listen to music. This was my place where I could shut the world off for a few hours.” Looking at him, being back there again and calling a number of memories to mind, not all of them real, I waded into talking about what had happened more recently, asking cautiously, “Did they tell you about my dreams?”

  “The doctors told your parents about them, and your parents told me,” he confirmed with a nod. “Both of them have been really good about keeping Ellie and I in the loop about your goings-on throughout this whole thing, and they told us both about the dreams. Ellie didn’t seem surprised, but I never knew about it.” Clearly, he was unsure how to approach the situation, trying to figure it out on his own without having to ask too many questions. “When you gushed about how much you liked him, I figured you were just doing this fan-girl thing; I didn’t know he represented this vivid, constant hallucination for you. I almost feel bad for enabling you.”

  “Don’t,” I replied with a gentle smile. “You couldn’t have known; you just thought we both liked a band.”

  Not moving his gaze away from me, Joey asked softly, “How do you feel about all of that, Ash? They said you believed it pretty hard, so it has to be sort of jarring to learn it was all in your head.”

  I thought for a moment about how to best answer the question. I hadn’t had time to work it out myself, but I was comfortable enough with him to try to work it out by talking at him. “Honestly, I don’t know. Maybe my mind was just tired of trying to figure things out, sick of dealing with everything so intensely and so often, and I made up this escape. I couldn’t fix my problems, so I assigned the role of trying to someone else, even if he wasn’t real. I mean, he’s real, obviously, but not as real as I thought he was. He was this bizarre voice of reason, while also acting as a therapist, and a friend when I felt like I didn’t have any.” I shook my head, trying to clear out my thoughts a little and give myself some space to breathe. “I wasn’t feeling very loved, so apparently, I was depressed enough to give myself this weird, artificial love to get myself through. And I got so lost in that idea that I almost died trying to chase it.”

  Joey sat up a bit, taking my hand into his once again. “Are you okay to talk about what happened? I don’t want to press you, but I’d like to know anything you’re willing to tell me about why you did it.”

  “There isn’t really anything to talk about. It’s not like I was deliberately suicidal – I never wanted to kill myself. I was just so interested in the delusion of everything I thought Danny represented that I wanted to sleep and just drink it all in. Toward my breaking point, the only happiness I c
ould let myself feel was within those dreams, and I just wanted to sleep for a while and dream so I could try to bring myself back up to base again and figure out where I went wrong so I could start trying to make things right.” I heaved a heavy sigh from within myself, slumping a bit in defeat. “Ben and his crowd always liked to call me a psycho, and now, they’ve got the diagnosis to prove that they were right all along.”

  “Hey,” Joey cooed to me, tilting my chin up with his free hand so I had to look him in the eye, and he smiled gently at me, giving me that familiar comfort like he always used to. “Don’t beat yourself up, Ash. Psychosis is different than psychotic depression. The latter is just an extreme form of major depression; things got so bad for you for a while that fantasy was better than reality, and you were unstable enough to believe it. They think they have your medication right, though, and you told the doctors you didn’t have any of the hallucinations for a few days. You’re finally on the other side of your downward spiral, so the only place to go from here is up.” When I looked at him incredulously, he smiled, letting go of my chin so he could flip his hair dramatically. “Now that I’ve graduated from high school, I’m officially a Psychology major, so you can trust me to read your mind.”

  I couldn’t help but to laugh. I’d moped around enough that I was tired of doing it, and even if it took all my efforts, I wasn’t going to feel sorry for myself. I knew I wasn’t out of the woods yet – depression doesn’t work like that – but at least the storm clouds overhead were starting to dissipate, and I was beginning to be able to see through the darkness for the first time in a while. “I think you get that trust after earning the degree.”

  He flapped a hand with a chuckle. “Nah. In fact, I’m probably a professional, by this point.”