by L. M. Reed
Chapter 23
Dear Diary,
I hate hospitals!
CeeCee
Christmas came and went in much the same way as Thanksgiving. I made it through the last day of finals, even though I don’t remember anything about them, and vacation loomed in front of me. I spent a lot of time recording the second Agent Jack Knight book for Felicia.
Felicia’s birthday bash had been so successful the kids at school and church convinced her to have a Christmas party. Of course, she roped me into helping plan it. I figured that was as good a way to waste time as anything else was.
Mom suggested that we start off by Christmas caroling at the local old folk’s home. Felicia loved that idea. Then, instead of a regular gift exchange, Felicia opted to do a white elephant thing. To top it off she decided to show The Santa Clause in the media room. Mom and Mrs. Blanton began planning the food again, and they invited Mrs. Murray to join them. She was thrilled to help.
The party was, not surprisingly, a great success. How could it be anything else with Felicia in charge? Once again, Mrs. Blanton sent us home with tons of leftovers. Mrs. Murray and Mom made plans for us to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day together. Mrs. Murray was grateful for the company. Her one child, a son, was married and stationed overseas and she didn’t get to see him often.
I gave Felicia the second Agent Jack Knight book on CD for Christmas, but hadn’t started on the third one. I didn’t have the energy.
Although Felicia knew something was wrong, I was fairly certain she put it down to the trouble with Mark, which I’d briefly explained to her, instead of having anything to do with Nick. I didn’t disillusion her. I suspected that she might not be totally over the Mark crush so I didn’t want to make her feel as badly as I did about my situation with Nick. I still couldn’t talk about Nick, not even with her.
I survived each day by merely going through the motions of living automatically. I carefully kept my mind a blank, and tried not to think about anything if I could help it.
I was distant on the phone with Nick, cutting our conversations down to a mere five minutes of “Hi, how are you?” “Fine, you?” and I could tell he was puzzled, but there was nothing I could do about it.
Even though he was well aware that something was wrong, he had no clue what it was and thankfully something held him back from asking me directly. I didn’t know how I would have handled that.
My carefully constructed calm crumbled the day before Christmas when I received a package from Nick. I debated about opening it, but my curiosity was peaked. Carefully tearing open the paper, I took out a small black box. Lifting the lid I saw a tiny charm, the most delicately shaped silver figurine I had ever seen and it looked like it was running.
Where does he find these things? I wondered in awe as I held it carefully in between my thumb and index finger examining it minutely.
It was perfect.
I hadn’t worn Nick’s bracelet since the ‘day of discovery’ in order to try to keep my mind blank and my emotions under total control, but as I held the delicately shaped object, a lump found its way into my throat again, and I knew tears weren’t far away…so much for blankness and control.
From that point on, I lived with that stupid lump—which seemed to have taken up a permanent residence in my throat—a pain in my chest area that wouldn’t go away, and a queasy stomach that rebelled against food.
Everything reminded me of Nick.
A couple of weeks into January I finally had to stop calling him in the evenings. I couldn’t control my voice any longer. He tried calling me, but I refused to answer.
Mom was concerned; Nick had apparently called to ask her what was wrong since I had quit calling him and wasn’t answering his phone calls. I told her I was fine, just busy, and I would call him later when things slowed down.
To prove my point, I began staying out longer during my nightly runs. I never in the mornings any more—I hadn’t since I sprained my ankle—not wanting to wake up and face the day any sooner than I had to, so I tried to make up for it at night, especially since I needed to be exhausted in order to fall sleep anyway.
Sleep was elusive to say the least. When I wasn’t thinking about Nick and Mom and the conversation I’d overheard, I was replaying the Mark fiasco in my head over and over again.
We began moving our stuff into the new apartment the first of January—I had almost forgotten that we planned to sell the house—and since Mark was no longer available to help, and neither Mom nor I wanted to call Nick, that meant we were on our own.
We loaded the small stuff ourselves in our compact car, and then paid a small two-man moving company that someone from church had recommended to move our furniture and appliances.
In December, Mom had donated the handicapped van to a local charity. We could have used it for the move if we’d kept it, but seeing that thing parked by the garage every day depressed us both so I was glad to get rid of it.
We hadn’t discussed it, but I suspected Mom felt the same. It had been a painful, daily reminder sitting there so…alone and abandoned.
Anyway, thankfully, Mom had found us a first floor apartment. That helped a lot.
We only took our washer and dryer—since the other appliance came furnished with the apartment—and our bedroom, living room, and dining room furniture. Mom called the Salvation Army to pick up everything else.
At the last minute, she decided to give our couch away and have a sleeper sofa delivered to our new apartment, not quite ready to give up hope that Mark would come around.
I already had, but then I’d given up on most everything.
By the last week of January, we’d fully settled into the apartment.
The move had been hard on me. Boxes that I’d easily lifted only days before, seemed almost too heavy to lift and wore me out just carrying them the short distance from the house to the car and then from the car to the apartment.
I hadn’t been able to bring myself to do any weight lifting during the holidays and, realizing how much ground I’d lost plus acknowledging the fact that I had to start back slowly, depressed me so I’d waited until school began again to do anything about it…and it showed.
Even once I returned to a weight training schedule, my heart wasn’t in it.
Although the weight training gave me a good excuse to bow out of lunch in the cafeteria with the gang, I wasn’t sure I wanted to race anymore.
Track season was scheduled to begin sometime towards the end of February or first of March, and I knew the coach was counting on me to run the mile and the 800-meter races, but none of that seemed important to me any longer.
Nothing did.
Thankfully, because Mom and Mrs. Murray had become such good friends, they spent more time together in the evenings and on weekends, giving me an excuse to be on my own. I didn’t have anything to do; I just didn’t want to hang around Mom.
As much as I loved her, she reminded me too much of things I wanted to forget. Even though Mom didn’t regret moving, she did regret being so far away from Mrs. Murray, so it was nice for them to still be able to visit each other.
By the middle of February, I realized that Felicia and Michael were going to start questioning me about what was bothering me. I tried to be normal around them, but they knew me too well to be fooled, especially Felicia. I could attempt to convince her it was all about Mark, but I hated lying to her.
Although I tended to lie by omission frequently, I cringed at being what my dad would have called an “out and out liar” so I put them off by saying I couldn’t talk about it yet. It was the truth, as far as it went.
Dad, Mark, and Nick—I was tired of loving men who deserted me. Dad had no choice…the others had no excuse. Technically, Nick hadn’t deserted me, but falling for my mother felt like a type of betrayal so it qualified. I guess I was cursed, jinxed, or maybe just plain stupid. Maybe it was all of the abo
ve; it kind of felt like it.
School became exhausting. Even though I trained daily all through February, I still had trouble lifting anywhere near the weight load I had before, and I frequently had to stop and rest during my runs.
Right after we moved, I’d run out of vitamins, so I asked Mom to buy more thinking that would help. I hated swallowing pills—a leftover from when I was a kid and had to swallow Penicillin pills that left a terrible taste in my mouth no matter how quickly I swallowed them—so Mom always humored me and bought children’s chewable vitamins for me to take. Unfortunately, the vitamins didn’t help.
By the end of February, I felt even worse.
Sometime during the first week in March, I finally decided I must be coming down with something. I realized I’d have to give in and ask Mom to make a doctor appointment for me.
That Thursday night, I couldn’t even run. I walked to the school, thinking I would do an easy jog, but I was so limp and exhausted by the time I got there that I turned right around and walked back home.
When I reached the apartment, my head was spinning and all I wanted to do was fall straight into bed. Gripping the doorknob, I stood for a moment, trying to find the energy as well as the equilibrium to open the door, to take another step…