I fold my arms over my chest and lean back in my chair as the waiter places our drinks in front of us. I order what I got the last time I was here. Once he walks away, Will starts in on me again.
“You’ve never seen one, and you desperately need to. Don’t feed me that bullshit about how since you are one you don’t need to see one, either. You got issues you need to deal with. Have you even told your father yet about the depression?” I stay silent and he shakes his head. “How long ago did you break up with her, and what have you been doing since?”
“Did it Friday and been in bed since.”
“I’m telling you this as your psychiatrist. You need a therapist.”
“Have you heard from her?” Okay, so maybe I will ask about her, just to get off this subject.
Will narrows his eyes. “You know I’m not discussing my clients with you unless—”
“Yeah, yeah. I know.”
“Why do you care if you broke up with her?”
“Because I love her,” I mutter.
He laughs. “You definitely need therapy.”
He spends the rest of our lunch alternating between convincing me why I need therapy and filling me in on what’s new in his life. My mind keeps straying to Brittany, though. Eventually, I interrupt my friend.
“I broke up with her because I felt like we were feeding each other’s depression. Like we were hurting each other more than helping.”
Will eyes me for a moment. “It’s possible, especially since you like to keep stuff to yourself. Another reason why therapy would be good for you. You almost sound like you plan to get her back.”
I poke at what’s left on my plate. “I do, eventually.” Damn, I hate that word. “Once I get my shit together, I plan to try.”
“You’re insane.”
“You don’t think it’ll work?” Something else I’m already worrying about. I don’t want to let her go forever. Just long enough for me to get my head on straight.
“I think it sounds like it’ll be hard to do. Going to therapy might help you out once that time comes.”
“I’ll think about it.”
Will gets a phone call. “Dr. Gunner,” he answers and then listens. “Really? That’s great.” He pauses again. “Yeah. I’m on my way. Give them all the time they want. I’ll have a better chance if you leave them be. Thanks for letting me know.” He hangs up and waves the waiter over. “I need to go. That emergency business needs some attending. Keep in touch and go to therapy, all right?”
“Yeah, okay. Go ahead. I’ve got the bill.”
“Thanks, Trace.”
And then he’s gone. I think about what he said once I’m home again. How am I going to fix myself? Maybe I do need more help. Like therapy. A memory of Brittany saying how it’d be odd and how I’d be a bad patient blasts into my mind. God, I miss her so much already. I pick up my phone to call her, but toss it onto the couch at the last minute. Lily jumps into my lap and I rub her head.
“I gotta fix myself, don’t you think?” She ignores me, of course. “I mean, how can I be any good for her when I’m like this?” Lily tries to roll over for me to rub her belly and I laugh. She’s way too big to roll over in the recliner, but she manages to do it.
Finally, I start to truly feel good about my decision. Maybe things didn’t end well, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be saved and put back together at a later date, especially if we’re both in better states of mind. I’ll go to therapy, work my way towards a better mental health, and then work toward winning her back. I can’t hurt her and make her worse in the meantime.
It feels good to have a plan.
Monday morning comes without much sleep the night before. Work is still giving me anxiety even though the low conversations have stopped about me. Irritated with myself, I type up a resignation letter and go to work to turn it in. I don’t know what I’ll do now, but I can’t work in an environment that gives me panic attacks. It’s not worth it. I’ll find another job.
I even follow Will’s advice and book an appointment with a therapist. Just the thought of it gives me a panic attack, but I do it. My first appointment is in two weeks. It makes me seriously nervous because the role will be reversed and I don’t like it. I like to listen, not talk. But I’m going to force myself to make the adjustment. I was able to talk to Brittany, so let’s hope I can talk to this woman as well.
Lastly, I make the first of many steps of making a better relationship with my father. I call him. The phone rings and rings, and I almost think he’s going to ignore it, but at the last second, he answers.
“Hello.”
“Hey, Dad.”
“Trace,” is all he says.
“How are you?”
“Fine.”
Great. He’s not going to make this easy on me at all. I withhold my sigh. “I’m sorry for blowing up at you. It was a bad day for me and I took it out on you.”
Dad is quiet for a moment. I really hope he’s not going to make me work harder at this because I don’t know what else to say.
“It’s okay, son. You had some good points, and I’ll work on that. How are you doing? How’s Brittany?”
Damn. He is working on it if he’s acknowledging Brittany. And of course, I only have bad news. “I’ve been doing fine. Brittany and I broke up.”
“Sorry to hear that, Trace.” He sounds sincere, too.
We continue talking, catching up, and then we hang up. Exhausted with my day, I head to bed. Lily jumps onto the bed, sniffs Brittany’s side, and lies down, letting out a small whine. She misses my girl as much as I do.
“One day, Lily,” I reassure her.
I hope, anyway. I also hope Brittany is doing better without me.
“How are you doing?” The concerned face of my best friend is a good sight to see on Day Five of my imprisonment. This is the first time she’s been able to visit since I decided to leave my room.
I shrug. “How pathetic would it be if I said I miss Trace?”
Rebecca narrows her eyes. “Spill. I still don’t know what the hell happened.”
Once again, I explain what happened. Rebecca gets pissed.
“He dumps you without letting you talk at all? Who does that? What the hell was he thinking?” I open my mouth to defend him—for what, I don’t know—but she stops me. “Don’t even think about it, Brittany. He said he loved you, right?” I squeeze my eyes closed to stop the tears from falling and I nod. “You fight for what you love. You don’t let it go, especially when you’re both so bad off and obviously need each other. He’s a stupid ass.”
Maybe she’s right. I was feeling especially weak yesterday and asked Mom if Trace had tried to contact me at all since she has my cell phone. I burst into tears when she shook her head. My parents are definitely not fans of him now. Dad grumbles under his breath when I bring him up, and I try not to.
“What’s it like in here?” Bec asks quietly as an old lady slowly makes her way into the room with her walker.
“Like hell. My day is breakfast, group meeting, vitals check, lunch, group meeting, visit with the in-house doctor, dinner, and another meeting. Dr. Gunner left yesterday, so I don’t see him anymore.” I can’t decide if that’s good or bad. I don’t know if I can trust him after being in here. However, I do know that I’d much rather talk to him than the idiot in here. “There are some legit, scary crazies in here,” I whisper. “But there are some kinda cool crazies too.”
“She means us,” says a middle-aged man, Ken, from a nearby table, turning to face Rebecca. He’s sitting with John and Marissa. “You can’t whisper for shit,” he tells me.
“Ahem,” a nurse says. Apparently you can’t cuss in the psych ward.
Ken ignores her. “We like to visit the nice nurses every so often and get a break from life. Baby doll just likes us because we’re funny.” Ken calls everyone baby doll. Even the other men.
“Can I have my friend back now?”
He laughs. “Sure thing.” He turns back towa
rd the table and starts up whatever game they were playing.
“When do you get out of here?” Rebecca asks, causing me to laugh a little.
“I don’t know. I’m in here for at least two more days. Ken’s told me how to get out.”
“You sound like you’re breaking out of prison or something.”
I ignore that because I am. We aren’t even allowed off this floor. I’m literally locked up here. “All I have to do is fake being normal, answer positive to all the questions I’m asked, and I’ll be back in the world where I can fall apart on my own terms.”
Bec pulls me into a hug. “You are not going to fall apart. We’re going to take our week vacations at home with our parents, come back, move in together, and forget all about Trace and the psych ward. We’ll rock being adults.”
I’m not so sure. The only reason I’m even sitting in this room is because there’s no way they’ll ever let me out of here if I don’t at least act like I’m getting better. I still want to be in bed. I still want to cry 24/7, which is annoying the hell out of me. I’m not better. I’m faking it. I feel like I need to get really good at it because honestly, I can’t picture my life changing any time soon.
School is over, but work will soon, hopefully, be taking its place.
My boyfriend is gone as well as the person I was able to tell anything to. There’s just me now. It’s not the same to talk to someone else. None of them are Trace. All I want to do is crumble up into a ball. Bec is eyeing me with pity as if she knows what I’m thinking. I just wanna go home. I wonder if I would even be here if Trace had let me talk first. Would he have broken up with me anyway? Or waited a little while longer until I wasn’t thinking of harming myself?
Some of that anger Rebecca showed about my breakup finally starts to break through my sadness. How could Trace do this to me? How could he break up with me when I needed him the most? Even without what landed me here, I still needed him. I’ve needed him since I was in high school and he’s abandoned me. Up and left. He didn’t even seem that torn. Maybe he didn’t care. Maybe he never did.
A picture of us lying in his recliner and him rubbing my back to soothe us both after a long day comes front and center in my mind. It’s followed by him holding me, calming me down from a panic attack, and making me laugh when I didn’t want to. He had to have cared.
But then, why break up with me?
The longer I sit in this hellhole and bide my time until they release me, the angrier I get. My parents take me straight home with them, all the way across the state. Trace’s and my relationship isn’t mentioned. I hang out with them, spend too much time in bed when they let me, and scroll through past text messages from Trace when I feel like torturing myself.
I want to call him, but he hasn’t reached out to me, so I’m not going to reach out to him. I try to replace my sorrow with anger. It’s easier to deal with. Besides, depression and anxiety are bad enough without having to add a broken heart to the mix.
“Brittany?” Dad tentatively takes a step into my bedroom. I haven’t gotten out of bed yet and it’s three in the afternoon. I glance his way to acknowledge him. He comes to sit on the bed, pulling on my arms, so I’ll sit up. He pulls me into a hug and it breaks me.
“I was never supposed to lose him, Dad. He was always supposed to be there,” I cry. Maybe we shouldn’t have ever started a relationship. Then, maybe, I’d still have him. “Now, he’s left me, and I don’t know how to handle it.”
“I didn’t realize you loved him,” he says quietly.
“So much, Dad.”
He takes a deep breath. “My advice is if he’s stupid enough to let you go, then you should take time to heal and move on from it. You deserve better.” He holds me for a few more minutes. “Think you’ll venture out of here?”
I frown at the thought. “Don’t you want to stay in here?” Sometimes, a girl just needs her dad. I need him and my room.
Dad doesn’t debate it like I expect him to. He motions for me to move over and then sits next to me, grabbing the remote and turning on my TV. “How are you doing up here?” He gently taps my temple and I shrug.
“Better, I guess. Could be worse.”
“Thanks for reassuring me.” Dad rolls his eyes.
Between that and his sarcastic tone, I laugh. Dad grins. It’s the first time I’ve laughed since I left the psych ward.
“You’re welcome.”
The rest of the afternoon is spent with us watching TV. Dad manages to talk me into joining them for dinner. Dad’s right. I need to heal and move on. As soon as possible, because this hurts too fucking much. Somehow, I need to do the impossible and forget all about Trace Lexington. At the very least, focus on my anger.
My parents drive me back and even help Rebecca and me move into our new apartment. After they leave, Rebecca and I flop down onto the couch. Being back in town and not talking to Trace is harder than I thought.
“Stop thinking about him.”
I turn my head to look at my best friend. “I’m not,” I lie.
“Yes, you are. You get this look on your face.” She lays an arm over my shoulders. “You’ll be fine without him. You’ll be okay, I promise.”
I nod even though I don’t believe her. Faking it is harder than I thought it would be. Maybe that’s where I went wrong with Trace. I was completely honest with him. If I had lied, maybe he wouldn’t have thought he was making me worse.
Absentmindedly, I grab my wrist and start squeezing. I can only get better, right? It can’t get much worse than a stay in the local psych ward. At least I hope not. But with my luck, who am I kidding? I’m a jobless graduate who can’t maintain a relationship, has never had a job, and suffers from anxiety and depression. Oh yeah. My future is looking so damn bright.
Ha.
“Okay,” Rebecca starts, standing and disappearing into the kitchen. She calls over her shoulder, “You aren’t ready to stop thinking about him yet. That means ice cream straight out of the carton, fried pickles from your favorite restaurant, and Sun Drop.” She walks back into the room carrying all of the items.
“How’d you get the pickles?” I ask curiously and reach for those first.
She laughs. “You would go for that over ice cream.” She shakes her head and sits back down. “That errand your mom had to run? It was to get those. I figured we’d end up here.”
“You’re the best best friend.” I pop a pickle into my mouth. God, it’s been too long since I’ve had these.
“I know. Do you think you’re up for bashing the ex yet?”
“I don’t know.” I stuff my mouth with food.
“Try it. What about Trace sucked?”
I try to think about it, but the only thing I can think of is, “He could use better timing when breaking up with me.” I frown. “I don’t want to talk about him, Bec.”
“Fine. Let’s talk about my ex.”
My eyes widen. “You and Dustin broke up?”
“Yeah. He has some issues he needs to work on and I didn’t want to hang around for it.”
A good friend would ask her to say more. A good friend would wonder what kind of issues he had. A good friend would say I’m sorry. But all I can think about is how that’s basically why Trace broke up with me. I have issues and he didn’t want to be with me while I worked on them.
“Let’s just watch TV,” Rebecca says with an apologetic look.
I nod and eat my fried pickles. Later that night, I’m lying in bed, doing what I shouldn’t be doing. Thinking about Trace. I just want to check on him. He wasn’t in great shape either when I left. I cradle my phone in my hands. Before I can change my mind, I dial the digits so my call will come through as an unknown caller. Trace answers on the fifth ring.
“Hello?”
My chest tightens at the sound of his gorgeous voice. Tears start falling without permission.
“Hello?” he says again. “Who is this?”
But then I realize he doesn’t sound sad. Not even a little.
He doesn’t sound like a man who misses the girl he supposedly loves. He doesn’t sound like he’s going through a hard time. He sounds just fine. I hang up and throw my phone across the room. Here I am, completely devastated, and he can’t even sound upset when he answers the phone?
God, I hate him.
I hate him for doing this to me. I hate him for breaking up with me. I hate him for making me fall in love with him. I hate him! I wish he’d never moved to town. I wish we’d stayed friends. Then I wouldn’t be lying in bed with a broken heart.
I’ll focus on myself, try to get back to a better place, and forget all about him. I have to worry about getting and maintaining a job now. I can’t let my parents take care of me forever. I focus on everything else and try to forget about Trace. As long as I never see or hear from him again, I’ll be fine.
Eventually, Trace will be a faint memory. That’s all I ask, so this pain will go away. For all I care, Trace can go to hell.
Hey, y’all! As someone familiar with depression and anxiety firsthand, characters who deal with these issues are my favorite to write and one of which I am most passionate about. To learn more about these topics or to learn ways to seek help, consider checking out the websites of the National Institute of Mental Health, Anxiety and Depression Association of America, or the American Psychological Association.
Both characters also have suicidal thoughts. Please reach out for help if you find yourself having suicidal thoughts. For those in the United States, there’s the Suicide Prevention Hotline. You can also call the hotline at 1-800-273-8255.
Never be afraid to ask for help—for yourself or someone you know who needs help. Every life matters.
Thank you, Kristalyn Thornock, for being with me for every chapter of yet another book. You’re one of my best friends and you are always helpful. I’m so grateful to have someone like you on this journey with me.
Driving Me Mad (Sanity Book 1) Page 24
