She Dims the Stars(20)

My incident had already occurred, and she knew I was in therapy. She’d been the one to find me, and some nights when I can’t sleep I wonder why she didn’t just leave me there. Her life would have been so much easier if she had. But a diagnosis of depression and anxiety at a young age will color a person’s perception of you. She didn’t side step me and treat me like I was fragile. No, she seemed to come at me harder, like maybe I was just a little cracked and she could fully break me.

Patrick tiptoed around me, ever watchful when he was in the room. But I didn’t say anything to him about what was happening behind his back in his own home. Would he even believe me? Or would he say I was crazy and take her side anyway? It wasn’t worth the risk.

The weight gain from the meds came on quickly and so did Miranda’s ridicule. I’d stopped speaking to everyone after what I’d done. Dr. Stark once asked me if I was embarrassed by it, but I stand firm that I’m not. No one knows except the three of us and the doctors. I stopped talking because everyone I ever knew in my entire life knew Byrdie and she technically didn’t exist. How do you talk to people who don’t even know the real you … when you don’t even know who you truly are?

The silence was first. Then the weight. Miranda put me on this really strict vegetarian diet that she would prepare. Then she went on Atkins and would sit across from me, eating a pound of bacon in the morning, laughing as she stuffed her face. Patrick never saw.

Holidays meant nothing to me anymore. The last few that happened while I lived in that house, they travelled on their own, saying they needed more time together. I pretended to understand. Acted like I didn’t care. I was a teenager and didn’t want to be around them anyway.

Miranda’s mother called often and would send gifts but had nothing to do with me. Once, right before Christmas, as Patrick was in the kitchen getting coffee, Miranda held up a pair of diamond earrings her mother had bought her and sighed. “When you see things like this, does it make you miss having a mom?” she asked, the lights from the tree reflected in her too small eyes, like she was innocently posing a question that wasn’t going to send me into an anxiety attack right there on the spot.

I spent the rest of the day wedged between my bed and my dresser grasping for a reason to live.

Panic rises in my chest as the memories begin to bombard me, so I slip out of the blanket and move toward the shoreline as the sky begins to grow a bit brighter. I’ve never seen a sunrise over the ocean before, so I set my eyes on that as I count my breaths and swallow down the swelling in my throat. Fingers pressed to my pulse point, I stretch my other hand out and tap out a rhythm of threes and fours until I’ve calmed myself enough to start taking in air. The tears that have collected in my eyes begin to spill down my cheeks and are instantly swept away by the breeze coming off the oncoming waves.

It’s moments like these that remind me that no matter how hard I try or how many things I do, my life will never be easy or what other people consider conventional. I may fight this thing until the day I die. But at least I’ll fight it.

The thing that’s beginning to worry me is that my mother’s journals show no sign of this being hereditary.

Nagging thoughts of this plague me as I shuffle back to where the boys are still sleeping in the sand. Cline’s snoring is so loud I’m afraid he could set off a car alarm. But Elliot is resting on his side, his arm outstretched toward my pillow like he’s been searching for me in his sleep. My chest aches at the sight, so I look away, reminding myself that we’re all here as friends, on a mission to find answers for the sole reason of getting info on me for Elliot’s game. And along the way, I will find the courage to talk to Cline. Then I can go about my life, and Dr. Stark can get off my back about this little Eight Steps to Happiness bullshit she’s been pushing at me for the last year.

Elliot stirs and his eyes blink open once, then twice, before he sits up and holds a hand to his forehead to shield his face from the sunrise. “Hey.”

“Can I have your keys?” I reach out my hand like I’ve casually been waiting for him to wake up.

He digs in his pocket and holds them out to me, and I take them quickly. “You might want to wake up The Beast over there. I’m sure they’ll start patrolling once the sun is up. We should get outta here.” I give a quick nod and rush as fast as I can through the sand toward his car. Given the short amount of time I have, I open the passenger door and struggle to pull my purse from beneath the seat where I had it stashed away just in case anyone looked inside the windows overnight.

With shaking fingers, I locate the flower-printed bag and pull out my array of bottles. With precision I’ve perfected over the years, I take the tops off of them one at a time and replace them quickly before moving onto the next. Five bottles in all in the morning. The pills are all lined up along the car seat as I step around the back to grab a water bottle from the trunk, and when I turn to walk back to where the passenger door is open, Elliot is standing there, staring at my line of prescriptions.

His eyes hold no judgment as they meet mine. “How many of those do you take?”

I push down the fear of what he could possibly be thinking about me as I move to stand by him and then angle myself in front to scoop the pills into my hand. They all go into my mouth at once, and I have them swallowed with one gulp of water from the bottle. Facing him, I give the best smile I can manage. “Not enough to get full. We should get breakfast. Is Cline up?”