A Tragic Kind of Wonderful(50)
“Would she be right?”
“Yes! That’s why I don’t want anyone to find out!”
“But if they don’t know you, are they truly your friends?”
I fold my arms over my face. “I really, really can’t talk about this anymore. Please. I want to go home.”
“I’m not telling you to reveal your condition to anyone. That’s for you to decide. But you seem to crave true intimacy and that’s not possible with you keeping so many secrets. Not just about your past, but about who you are.”
I shoot her a look. “Do you tell all your friends everything about you?”
“Of course not. But … there will always be a severe limit to how close you can feel to anyone when you don’t even let them know your real name.”
I quickly look away. Tears are coming back. I fight it. I don’t want to be crying when I go back out to Mom in the waiting room.
“It’s just a name. It’s not me.”
“If it didn’t matter, you wouldn’t be afraid of it.”
“Is our time up?” I can’t see the clock from here.
“Yes. Take your meds as soon as you get home. And please think about what I said.”
“What, about the alleged importance of real names?”
“About what it will take to get the relationships you want. Eventually you’ll have to give someone a chance.”
“A chance?”
I think back to Dr. Jordan telling me to give Dr. Oswald a chance. I wipe my eyes again and look at her.
“A chance to know and love the real you.”
HAMSTER IS SPRINTING
HUMMINGBIRD IS FLYING
HAMMERHEAD IS THRASHING****
HANNIGANIMAL IS CRASHING/MIXED
Dr. Oswald told me the pills she gave me would wear off and I should take more to be able to sleep but I didn’t want to sleep because I had a plan so even though Mom watched me take my other meds when we got home she hadn’t heard what Dr. Oswald said so she didn’t say anything when I didn’t take any Ativan.
It took all night to compose an e-mail explaining everything starting with the divorce though nothing about Nolan since that’s not part of this at all plus Holly and Declan don’t know about him but everything else after that like my depression and the move and coming out of it the following summer and then ramping up sophomore year and growing manic and the whole episode with Annie and our blowup and then my onset and hospitalization and diagnosis and the chaotic year trying to balance my meds in as much detail as I could remember.
It felt bizarre at first to explain everything I’ve been trying to hide for so long but once I got going it all came flooding out like a dam broke inside of me even though I still don’t want anyone to know but with that video it’s way worse for them not to know what caused it so I have this terrible thing to explain and the only way to make them understand is to tell them I’m not guilty by reason of insanity.
The final explanation is only a couple dozen pages long but I deleted and rewrote a lot more than that through the night trying to get it all right and not confusing which was hard because of how tangled up all this stuff is and how any one thing doesn’t make sense without all the other things so how could I explain it all when the beginning makes no sense without the ending though maybe I should at least break it up into paragraphs or something but I don’t know how to since everything is connected with everything else.
My clock says it’s 6:08 a.m. which means my alarm is going to ring in seven minutes but I’m wide awake and I’m not going to take my meds yet since I was very late yesterday so I’m going to take them earlier than that today but later than usual to try and split the difference and get back on schedule by tomorrow so I turn off the alarm and think maybe I should set a new one for noon to take them then but no I’ll remember and maybe when the time comes depending on how I feel I might want to take them a bit later than noon.
I get up and go to the bathroom and make some noise on purpose so Mom will hear me and won’t think I’m skipping my meds again today.
“Mel?” She’s waiting for me in her robe at my door. “Take your meds?”
I nod and try to look sleepy from having just woken up to not have to explain anything since she’ll just worry I’ll forget to take my meds later or argue that it’s not a good idea if it didn’t come from Dr. Oswald and it works since Mom smiles and tucks my hair behind my ears and heads for the shower and I think that my eyes being puffy from crying off and on all night long probably helped sell it.
I don’t want anyone who saw the video to think I’m not telling everyone else so I send my explanation out as a group e-mail to all four of them and because I want them all to read it as soon as possible to minimize the amount of time they hate me I also send them a group text telling them to check their e-mail when they wake up.
I see the progress bar for sending my message stretch across the screen and I think about how after a couple texts and unanswered calls from Holly and one from Declan on Sunday asking if I’m okay it all stopped and I’ve heard nothing from anybody since and I think they must be embarrassed for themselves or for me or both and probably just want it all to go away or for me to go away—
The text won’t send—it’s stalled—shit!—I remember now that when Holly started calling my phone Sunday I didn’t want to talk to anyone and I switched it to Airplane Mode to stop getting hammered by it all but still be able to use my alarm.