Under Rose-Tainted Skies(19)

‘Wow. Impressive.’ His eyes widen; he leans back, looks at me like I just invented time travel. And for the briefest second I feel substantial, more than medical terms and mental health. Made of blood and bone, instead of just head-brain-mind. Then I remember that France is a world away and I can’t even step beyond my front door.

I swallow back a lump of sorrow. ‘What about you? What do you want to do after you graduate?’

‘Hmm.’ He looks at his dad’s camper and contemplates. ‘I’m still undecided. As long as it doesn’t involve travel.’

‘Really? Why?’ Maybe that’s too personal a question, but I’m having trouble understanding why anybody who can travel wouldn’t want to.

He hesitates. ‘My mom’s a flight attendant. We used to take a lot of trips. I guess years of jumping on and off planes has me craving something solid.’

‘What does your dad do?’

He glances at the camper again, grimaces, and I wonder what it is he sees beyond the ageing paint job and souvenir stickers. What is it he sees in his memories that makes his face crumple in painful contemplation?

‘He disappears,’ Luke mumbles. He startles at the sound of his own voice, the depth of his honesty, the revelation in his response. Something. The only thing I’m certain of is he’s wishing he hadn’t said it.

‘Luke?’ his dad calls from the front door. ‘Your mom says, isn’t there somewhere you’re supposed to be?’

‘Right!’ Luke leaps up, relieved, I think, that he has an excuse to escape further scrutiny. ‘I gotta get to school,’ he tells me, already sprinting back towards his truck. ‘But you’ll give the party some more thought, right?’

I nod. He can’t see me, but it doesn’t matter. The only thing he’s focused on now is getting the hell out of here. If Luke knew me better, he’d realize that it doesn’t matter how far or how fast he runs away from his comment; he said it, and my brain needs to know more like the body needs blood.





Friday happens, despite my spending all of Thursday wishing for a Sleeping Beauty–style reprieve, for the world to fall into unconsciousness and wake up on Monday with zero memory of Luke’s party or why it didn’t happen.

That would be magical.

Alas, magic is for stories and shampoo that doesn’t sting when it gets in your eyes. Mom calls just before breakfast, and for the first time since records began, I let the machine pick it up. My voice doesn’t feel very steady, and there’s a numbness lingering on my lips that I’m almost certain will warp my words. I don’t want to slow down her recovery any more than I already have with unnecessary stress.

I remember once, when the panic attacks started happening more often, I asked her how she felt about the whole thing. She whispered, ‘Helpless.’ Told me it was like watching her kid drown inside a transparent box that she couldn’t break into. I cried that day, hated myself.

Besides, she’s said all she can say and my brain obviously isn’t willing to believe it. I have no choice but to handle this one on my own.

The machine chimes three times before the sound of her voice fills the house. It makes me smile. ‘Hey, baby. Just calling to check in. See how you’re holding up. Hoping you’re still in bed. I hate it when you don’t pick up the phone. Call me back, okay?’

Three more chimes and the machine goes dead.

And then . . .

One second passes . . .

In a thoroughly predictable fashion . . .

Two seconds . . .

The message tone of my cell squawks from inside my pocket. It’s Mom, saying the exact same thing, only this time by text. I knew she would. Texting works. I litter my reply with half-truths and smiling emojis so she can carry on recuperating.

Meanwhile, in real life, calm is trying its best to stay above the surface while I mope around the house, eyeing the trash can in the kitchen like it’s a giant spider commandeering that corner of the room. The invite is still in there, so naturally the trash can has become enemy number one.

It stalks me incessantly. See, anxiety doesn’t just stop. You can have nice moments, minutes where it shrinks, but it doesn’t leave. It lurks in the background like a shadow, like that important assignment you have to do but keep putting off or the dull ache that follows a three-day migraine. The best you can hope for is to contain it, make it as small as possible so it stops being intrusive. Am I coping? Yes, but it’s taking a monumental amount of effort to keep the dynamite inside my stomach from exploding.

The party isn’t until tonight, 7.30, the invite said, but I decide to take action early.

It takes me less than ten minutes to turn my room into a bunker.

I close my curtains, use stuffed toys and two towers of six books, all of them 332 pages thick, to conceal any cracks. I grab a glass of water, then another – you’ve got to have a backup – and set them both on my nightstand.

I don’t need snacks; eating is out of the question since my stomach is already too tight to fit food in. I put a new paper bag on my dresser, just in case, and break out my spare pair of noise-cancelling headphones. Standing back, I admire the space I’ve somehow managed to make smaller.

I. Am. Crazy. I have to laugh at myself.

It’s times like this when I’m glad no one knows the things I do to make myself feel safe.