“I just. . . I just can’t.” He storms out of the room and slams our bedroom door.
“I’m sorry.” I say it one more time to an empty room, only I’m not really talking to Joel anymore. This isn’t his fault. It’s my fault. He hasn’t changed the unwritten rules of our relationship. I’m the one who violated the terms of our contract. I’m the one who’s causing this ending of ours.
I get up and take a shower. It’s one of the few enjoyable things these days, and I’m not even sure why. It’s just a shower. Just water and soap. Maybe it’s my coconut scented conditioner. I’ve always been sensitive to smells, and the smell of this shampoo and conditioner is one of the few things that makes me feel a little better. How pathetic.
I get out of the shower and wipe the steam off of the mirror with my forearm, taking a good long look at the person staring back. Who is that woman? Why is she so pathetic? Why does she walk around with my face and body, pretending to be me, when she’s only an empty shell who’s stolen my life away?
I slide back into bed, Joel pretending to sleep on the couch in the living room. I close my eyes, alone.
This wasn’t how I planned on spending my night.
But, as Carla always tells me, I guess it is what it is.
Chapter Two
Friday
I come home from a long day at work and find his note sitting on the table in my kitchen.
I stare at it first, frozen in my own doorway. I know what it says without reading it. In my mom’s day, they would have called it a ‘Dear John’ letter, an old fashioned, handwritten letter that a woman would write when she broke up with her man. Only this is backwards—a reverse Dear John. Nice move, Joel. Only you.
I take his letter off of the table, holding it gently as though it were an heirloom. I’m not sure why I’m treating it that way, but I feel like I’m holding onto Joel. I know that makes no sense. I was the one who pushed him away—pushed him to the point where he had to sit down with a pen and paper and compose a god damn letter to say goodbye to me. I think about how difficult that must have been and I hate myself. I should have had the balls to just tell him that I was unhappy and that I wanted—no, needed—out of this thing we had. But I couldn’t. I took the coward’s way out because it was easy, and now I’m standing in my apartment, alone, about to read his letter.
Talia,
I never call you by your full name because you hate it, but that’s not why I’m doing it now. I’m doing it because writing a note like this seems like a formal thing. I’m not angry anymore, even though I realize now I’ve been angry at you for a while. You said it a thousand times and I just couldn’t hear you—and that’s on me. But I heard you loud and clear last night, maybe for the first time, and I hope you meant it when you said you supported whatever I chose to do. Well, this is it. This is my choice. I’m moving on, and I think deep down somewhere that you’re happy about that. I don’t know why. I guess I’ll never know why because I’m still old fashioned, I guess. I grew up thinking that you have to do something wrong to get broken up with, but I guess that isn’t so. And, to be clear, even though it doesn’t really matter, it is you who broke up with me. I’m just the one making it official.
I’m going to keep this short, because we’ve gone on long enough in our little fucked-up limbo, and I don’t think it’s good for either of us anymore, if it ever was to begin with. I’m going to come by Thursday for my stuff. I’ll text you the time. Maybe you can get coffee for an hour or two. Why make this harder than it needs to be?
I still love you, and I think that you used to love me, even though you’ve never said it to me. I’m not so sure of any of that anymore, but it doesn’t matter. I hope you get the help you need for your depression, and I just generally wish you the best. I know it sounds like I’m signing your yearbook or something dumb, but I’m already rambling. The end of this letter is the end of us, and maybe I’m not as ready to let go as I thought I was. Anyhow, goodbye, Lia.
—Joel
I stand there and read his words three times, and each time that my eyes scan over his perfect penmanship, I have three distinct feelings. My first feeling is relief. The relief I felt when my parents finally put Mickey down. My second is guilt. The guilt that comes with knowing that I singlehandedly caused another human being so much pain.
My third feeling is indifference.
I guess that last one says it all. There are two parts of this that really catch my attention that I end up reading a few times. The first is the part about me not telling him that I love him. I have no defense on that one, because I know it’s a strange thing—but I’ve never told a guy I was dating that I loved him. Never. Even when I’ve felt love towards them I’ve never said it, not even when they’ve said it to me. That sounds awful, I know, but I have a lot of trouble expressing those kinds of feelings. Joel would always say it to me and then just look at me, waiting for me to say it back. I think we were doomed from the start because of it. How can you fully love someone who won’t tell you she feels the same way?
The second thing that catches my attention is the line about my depression. I hope you get the help you need. Its sentiment reads like a mixture of resentment and pity, sprinkled with just a little bit of love to make it palatable. My depression. It’s been the defining characteristic of my personality since I was fourteen, when I had my first bout with it. If you tell someone you’re depressed, they’ll most likely think that you’re just really sad. What they don’t see is the self-hatred. The lack of motivation to do almost anything. The complete absence of any feelings that aren’t bad ones. How you slowly lose yourself into an endless abyss of nothingness.
My phone rings as I’m reading, and it startles me. It’s Abby. I could set my watch to her calls.
“Hey,” I answer. “What’s going on?”
“I’m taking you out,” she says abruptly. “I don’t care if you enjoy yourself or not. Do it for me. I’ll explain to Joel if you need me to. I’ll tell him it’s a best friend emergency.”
“First of all, hello.”
“Oh, sorry,” she says. “I always forget that part. Hi!”
“Hi,” I say. “And about Joel.”
“What about him?” she asks.
“He’s gone. We’re done.” I say it bluntly because there’s no need to beat around the bush. I don’t give any details except to say that he’s gone. Abby won’t care, she was never a fan of Joel. She’ll probably be thrilled.
“Oh, shit, are you alright? I mean, about the breakup?”
“I’m okay.” It’s my standard line, even though I’ve been pretty far from okay for a while now. Sometimes getting better for a short time is worse—like going into an air-conditioned room in summer, only to walk out into the disgusting humidity ten minutes later. The relief is nice enough, but it makes the status quo seem even worse than it is. “He left me a note.”
“A note? Like a Dear John letter?”
See. It isn’t just me. “Something like that, but in reverse. I can tell he took some time to write it. I feel bad.”
“So that was it? A note? No phone call, or face to face conversation?”
“Nope,” I answer, wanting to be done with this line of questioning. “Just a note. More like a short letter, actually.”
“Coward.”
“Look, it’s over. It is what it is, right? I pushed him away and he resisted for as long as he could. What does it matter how we ended? He’s not a coward, Abby, you don’t have to demean him for my benefit.”
“Alright,” she agrees. “As long as you’re okay.”
“I told you I am. As okay as I get, anyhow.”
This is Abby 101. She’s the ultimate best friend—dependable, caring, always worrying about me as much as she worries about herself, maybe even more sometimes. I thank God for having her in my life. My parents are in my life, but we don’t have a good relationship. They never knew how to handle my depression, so now we have a one phone call per week kind of relationship.
Hi Talia, how are things? Good, thanks, how are you and Dad? That’s good. And so on. My sister, Carla, is married and working on her own family now, but we’re way closer than I am with my parents. She’s two years older, so we’re close enough in age that I could always tell her things that I could never tell my parents. Mostly about guys. Then later about my spells. The two were intimately related.
“Let me take you out tonight.”
Fuck. I knew this was coming but I didn’t get out in front of it with a good excuse. Abby likes to escape the monotony of her job by going out on Friday nights. She works in an office, uptown in the city, and every Friday evening, like clockwork, I can set my watch to her call or text about going out. Usually I don’t feel like it, and for the past year I’ve had Joel as my built-in excuse, but that’s all over now.
“I don’t know, Abby. I really don’t feel like bars or clubs, or any of that.”
“Who said anything about bars or clubs? We’re not going to a bar. And you know as well as anyone that I can’t dance for shit, so the club is definitely out.”
“That’s true,” I say. “You can’t dance, but who am I to judge? What did you have in mind then?”
“Books.”
“Huh?” I ask, puzzled.
“I want books. I made a New Year’s resolution to read more books, and I want to go to the bookstore.”
Her idea is weird, but so is she. It’s one of the many qualities I love about her. And I love books as much as anything in the world. Books are the one thing that get me out of my own head and into other people’s. I’m down for a trip to the store. “Sure,” I say without protest. I know she’s expecting me to fight her and make up a million excuses, but I give in to save both of us the time.
“What?”
“I said yes. Let’s go to the bookstore.”
“Wow. I was expecting to have to convince you.”
“I know you were,” I tell her. I’m picturing her smile in some kind of best friend victory on the other end of the line. “But can I tell you a secret, Abby?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s hard to convince me to do anything I don’t want to do.”
Chapter Three
After a shower and a change of clothes I drive to the last Barnes & Noble for about twenty-five miles. I love Amazon Prime as much as the next girl, but I’m starting to miss real bookstores. They’re a dying breed, but I need to be surrounded by books that I can touch, rather than just download onto my Kindle. I must have a thousand actual books at my place, but I haven’t been able to get through an entire one in a while—maybe I’ll find something good tonight.
I grab the warm, half full bottle of Poland Spring water that’s been sitting in my cup holder for about a week now and use it to swallow one the Dirty Little Secrets that I have in a medicine bottle. That’s my code for the psych meds no one knows I’m on again. I’m only supposed to take them when things get bad—as needed, in my psychologist’s words—and for the past few weeks they’ve been about as needed as it gets.
I can fake being normal with the best of them. It’s not even that hard for me anymore. I can carry on conversations, laugh at a funny joke, and enjoy a good cup of coffee at Starbucks on a Saturday morning with a friend. But I’m not what I appear to be. Not at all. I’m nothing inside. I’m an abyss with no end, which Joel finally realized before dumping my ass. Right now, I can fake about seventy five percent of it—but I’ll need my Dirty Little Secrets to close the gap. I feel it go down my throat, accompanied by the warm, funky smelling water that I almost gag on. I really need to clean out my car, I’m a mess.
Abby pulls up in the spot next to me and honks her horn as if I’m not looking right at her. I wave and force a smile. She’s maybe the most positive person in my life. My therapist keeps telling me to surround myself with positive people, but I already have that covered. “Don’t look so happy,” she jokes as I open up my car door to get out. I fake yet another smile for her benefit, but she sees right through me.
“What the hell was that?” she asks. “Eww. Don’t fake smile me. I’m your best friend. Be yourself.” This is why I need Abby in my life. She can be supportive yet also call me on the piles of bullshit that I throw her way. I drop the fake smile routine and just let my natural expression take over. “There, that’s better. Sad as hell, but better.” That line gets a real smile, and I hug her for being the best.
The first thing I do when we’re inside is take a deep breath. Bookstores have as distinct a smell as any food does—the flipping of pages create an aroma that can’t be replicated anywhere else. I miss experiencing this more often. Good call on this one, Abby.
“So, what should I get?” She looks at me like a little kid as we stand in the doorway.
“I thought you had some books in mind,” I tell her. “You sounded like you practically had a list.”
“It isn’t like that,” she says. “I’m not organized like that. All I know is that I want some books, and they sell them here. The rest is an adventure.”
“That’s good enough for me, I’m up for a book adventure.”
“You’re not too sad about. . .”
“No,” I say, cutting her off before she finishes asking me about Joel. “We’re good to go. You know how I am.”
“I do,” she says. “That’s why I’m asking.”
“I’m good, Abby. You know how I feel about being treated like a patient. Just be my friend, okay, and help me find some good books.”
“Alright,” she says. “I just worry about you, is all. Let’s explore.”
A great bookstore is an incredible maze, a series of turns that lead nowhere and lead everywhere all at once. I don’t bother reading what genre I’m standing near because a good book is a good book. I love looking at covers, reading the blurbs, and seeing which paperbacks were the staff’s favorites for that month. Now that I’m here I’m feeling less sad than normal. Maybe it’s the books, or maybe it’s my Dirty Little Secret kicking my brain into high gear, but whatever it is, it’s working, and for the time being I’m not going to analyze it to death.
Fifteen minutes come and go. Abby and I walk together for a while before splitting off and doing our own thing. I end up walking through the romance and drama sections, then through the travel books and non-fiction, until I finally end up, coincidentally, in the mental health and self-help section. “Fuck,” I whisper, not taking any note of who’s listening. “Of course.” I have to confess that I’ve never actually seen a mental health section of a bookstore. Or at least if I have, I never paid attention to what it was. But now that I’m standing right here in between two tables labeled ‘best sellers’, and an entire wall of hardcover books, I’m struck by the sheer volume of material that exists in this space. I buy a lot of books on Amazon on the subject, but seeing it in all of its sad tangibility, I wonder how many people are going through exactly what I’m going through—or worse.
If you read about mental health enough—and believe me, I do—you’ll find that authors love to speak about depression in metaphor. There are good ones, terrible ones, and great ones, but it’s always struck me as odd that metaphor is the only way to make someone who’s not depressed understand what it’s like. Physical sickness isn’t like that. If you tried to tell your friend what it was like to have the flu, you’d be very literal—my throat hurt, I had a temperature, I felt like shit. But with mental illness, descriptions are almost always metaphorical.
I’ve bought so many books on the subject that I’ve lost track of which ones I have and which I don’t. I’m so busy staring at all the books on the table and trying to read the titles that I don’t even notice there’s someone next to me until we both reach for the same title, our hands colliding on the front of the paperback.
I couldn’t quantify how many times I’ve touched another person’s skin in my life—hundreds of thousands, probably. It’s a predictable feeling, skin on skin, nothing special. You know the sensation it’s going to cause when you touch anot
her person, but when the back of my hand touches this stranger’s, something happens that completely throws me off guard. It only lasts a second—maybe less than a second—but it’s such a unique thing that I don’t recognize it. And then I realize. His touch is making me feel. It’s something hard to describe, a type of electricity that runs the length of my body in an imperceptible amount of time—starting at my arm and going all the way to the tips of my toes. It’s, like, amazing that I feel like I’ve seen a ghost—a ghost of me—the ghost of the Lia who existed before depression.
“Oh, excuse me, I’m sorry.” The sound of his deep voice draws me out of my moment of self-realization, and I get to put my eyes on the source of my electric shock, the owner of the hand that made me feel something for the first time in forever. “I didn’t see you reaching for it.”
“That’s okay,” I say. “I didn’t see you either.”
“Honest mistake, then.” His eyes are really unusual. They’re grey toned, with flecks of blue throughout, and the way the light is hitting them it’s difficult to perceive which color they are—gray or blue. Either way, they’re piercing—intense without being intimidating, and they look right into me. His face is less intense, an interesting combination of hard and soft—his jawline is rugged, and he has just the slightest bit of brown stubble covering his face, but the expression he wears is one of kindness, and even though I’m not the girl who stares at guys, I’m finding it hard to look away right now.
“Honest mistake, yeah.” I sound like a moron. I can do better than that. “For you?” I ask him, motioning to the book we’re both touching titled “Tackling Your Anxiety—Tips from a Survivor of the Disease”
“No,” he says. “It’s actually for my sister.”
The Me That I Became Page 2