Perfectly Damaged

by E. L. Montes

  I had a talk with Bryson yesterday about not coming in today. I haven’t been myself the past few days, so when I told him I had a personal issue that I needed to take care of, he didn’t question me on it. Instead he said he’d talk to his dad if my whereabouts came up. Uncle George hasn’t been at the site as much, only once a week to check on things. The guesthouse framing and bordering are all up and the exterior is already designed. We’re now working on the interior, so me skipping a day isn’t going to set us back.

  Exactly at 7:58 a.m. Jenna steps out of her house. I’d be lying if I said I’m not nervous—I am. I have no idea where she’s taking me, what she plans to tell me, or how I’ll react to it all. Her biggest fear is how I’ll perceive the information she’s been holding back. Now my fear is exactly the same. How will I accept it? As much as I want to believe that nothing can keep us apart, not knowing how severe the issue is that she’s keeping from me makes it hard to be sure.

  Stepping out of my truck, I walk around and stand by the passenger side. I open the door, shove my hands into the front pockets of my jeans, and wait as Jenna makes her way down the path. With my head low, I try to focus on my breathing. Knowing this may be the last day we’ll ever have together stings. It’s the last thing I want to think about right now, but it’s unavoidable.

  I catch a whiff of her scent before I look up. “Hey,” she says.

  My gaze shifts from the pavement to her face. “Hey,” I respond. The dark circles under her eyes prove that she had just as little sleep as me. The impulse to reach out and touch her face hits me, but I resist, and we both just stand there staring at each other. It’s kind of awkward, and I sense that both of us have a lot running through our heads right now. I gesture for her to jump in the truck. She nods and I pull one hand out of my pocket, helping her to settle in.

  After I hop back into the driver seat, I turn on the ignition. The truck roars to life as I crook my neck to face her. “Where to?”

  She hands me her phone, the screen showing the navigation to an unknown location.

  “Where is this?” I ask.

  “You’ll see.”

  I grab the phone and place it on a holder on top of the dashboard. “It’s a two-hour drive.”

  “Yep,” she responds.

  All right, then.

  The music made up for the silence between us for the past two hours. There’s no getting around it. We’re both nervous about today, so I guess no conversation is necessary at this point.

  Jenna shifts in her seat the moment her phone announces we’ve reached our destination. Making a left, I pull onto a long dirt driveway, driving until we approach a metal fence. I press on my breaks and roll down my window for the security guard.

  Jenna leans over my lap, placing her hand against my thigh to keep herself balanced. “Good morning,” she tells the guard. “Jenna McDaniel visiting Carol Peterson.”

  The guard looks over a list. He then presses a button and nods. The fence unlocks and slowly opens. I drive through, my eyes catching the large sign: Welcome to Brandy Mental Health Facility.

  “Who’s Carol Peterson?” I ask as I continue down the path, following the signs to the main building.

  “My grandmother,” she says softly.

  I don’t respond. I just keep going until I reach a large brick building. It looks like a small replica of a castle from London or someplace like that, something out of a brochure. After appreciating the exterior—after all, buildings and architectural structure is my thing—I pull into the first available parking spot. I shut off the ignition, unbuckle the seatbelt, and twist my body to face Jenna. She has her head low, her hair covering most of her face, and both of her hands fidget on her lap.

  I reach over and toss dark brown waves of her hair over her shoulder. My fingers tug the remaining strands over her ear to view her profile. Then I trace down her jawline and tilt her face until she’s looking at me.

  “Jersey Girl,” I say quietly. She shuts her eyes, huffing out a ragged breath.

  “It feels like forever since you’ve called me that,” she whispers. “Every time you say it, it feels right. Like everything is going to be okay. No matter how messed-up the world around me is, every time you call me Jersey Girl I feel safe somehow.” Her tear-filled eyes pop open.

  I smile. “Everything is going to be okay.”

  She sniffs back her tears, nods softly, and then hops out of the truck. Together, side-by-side, we step into the building.

  It’s not what you would expect a mental health facility to look like. This place is definitely for the upper class and privileged. It feels like I just walked into a hotel lobby. I shouldn’t have expected anything less since Jenna comes from a wealthy family. Not that I’ve ever visited a mental facility, but I’ve seen my share of movies involving the mentally ill. Other than the distant moans and screams, I can’t find any similarities, though. Jenna approaches the front desk and signs us in.

  We’re instructed to have a seat until they’re ready to bring us into the visiting room. I sit next to Jenna and look around before bringing my gaze to her. “How long has your grandmother lived here?” I ask.

  “I’m not exactly sure, but I believe over twenty years. It was definitely after my mother and father got married. She’s my maternal grandmother. My mother’s side of the family isn’t wealthy. I think my father put my grandmother in here so she could have the best care possible.”

  “Why do you say it like that? Like it’s not the best care?”

  She sucks in a lungful of air before slowly letting it out. “Because there was no saving her. She was already in a mental institute for at least ten years before my father had her moved here. When she was in the other one, they pumped her full of experimental drugs and other crap. She’s older now and suffers from Alzheimer’s as well.”

  “What is her diagnosis?”

  Jenna’s mouth twitches and moves around, like it always does when she’s chewing the inside of her cheek. “Schizophrenia,” she mutters.

  “Is she one of the reasons why you want to teach art to teens with a mental health issue?”

  “No, she’s not the reason.”

  Before I can open my mouth to ask what the actual reason is, a nurse strolls out and waves us over. Jenna stands and I follow close behind. We step into an elevator, go to the second floor, and exit into an enclosed entryway. The nurse thumbs in a code, swipes a card, and the door unlocks. The three of us walk into a visiting room.

  Now this looks more like the mental institutions I’ve seen on TV. There aren’t a lot of people in here, probably around twenty. Half seem to be patients of different ages, races, and genders. The rest are visitors or nurses. I’m still following Jenna; she strolls straight to an elderly woman who’s sitting in a wheelchair. Jenna takes a seat across from her. The nurse that led us up leaves to attend to another patient.

  Not sure what else to do, I settle into a seat beside Jenna. Her grandmother is incoherent; she’s just sitting there, zoned-out, blankly staring straight ahead. Her grey hair is brushed back into a ponytail except for a few white, frizzy strands that stand out. I can’t find any resemblance between Jersey Girl and her grandmother. Sure, Mrs. Peterson is older—streaks of wrinkles crease the corners of her slightly slanted eyes, thin lines are etched around her mouth, and dark spots dot the top of her stiff hands—but Jenna doesn’t have the same light green eyes or pale, lifeless complexion as her grandmother.

  “Good morning, Grandma. This is Logan,” Jenna introduces. My eyes narrow, cautiously taking in every detail and potential movement from her grandmother. But…nothing. She doesn’t move or say a word or even blink.

  “Hi,” I say awkwardly, low. This is weird. What does any of this have to do with Jenna’s and my relationship? She said she wanted to show me something. I wonder if she comes here often, but in the past few months I’ve taken up most of her free time. “Do you volunteer here?” I ask.

  Jersey Girl shakes her head with a smile. “No.”
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  “Oh.” I look around, spotting a young teen by the corner. She’s standing there, facing the wall like she’s a toddler on time-out as she mumbles to herself. “You visit her often?”

  “Once a month. I usually take a cab up here.”

  “That’s nice,” I say, my gaze shifting over to a man seated on one of the couches. His legs are up against his chest as he bangs his head into his knee and slams a fist to his temple. He keeps going and going until he’s yelling, “Get out! Get out! Get out!” A woman seated across from him—I assume she’s visiting since she’s not wearing scrubs—tries to soothe him by making hushing sounds, but that just makes it worse. He gets louder and punches harder. A nurse runs over and stabs his arm with a needle; he instantly calms. Then he’s taken away.

  “Are you okay, Logan?” Jenna prods, her hand at my arm.

  “Yeah. I’m fine. How long is your visit for?”

  “Only forty minutes.”

  I nod. I can handle forty minutes.

  During our visit, there was no time for Jenna and me to talk. It was too noisy or something happened with a patient within those forty minutes. In a way I’m happy it’s over. Jenna and I step out of the building in silence. I’m still just as confused as I was when I first walked in there. Nothing has been answered; nothing makes sense.

  We both jump in my truck and sit there. No words are spoken. We just sit there, staring blankly ahead at the brick wall of the building, both of us a mirror image of her grandmother. I shake my head, releasing the thought, then turn to look at Jersey Girl. “Jenna, I’m glad you shared this part of your life, your grandmother, with me.” I pause, pressing my lips together, and then continue. “But I don’t understand what this has to do with us, with you. Is this the part where I get my answers to everything?”

  She brings her head back, her gaze lingering on the ceiling of my truck. “Yes. Just bear with me, okay?” Her lips trembling, she tries to breathe smoothly. “This is hard for me to say.”

  I adjust in the driver seat so I’m fully facing her profile. I sit and I wait. I don’t rush or push her. It’s the longest six minutes of my life until she finally says, “Four years ago, I was diagnosed with a mental illness.”

  On the words diagnosed and mental illness my stomach drops. “What were you diagnosed with?”

  “Schizoaffective disorder,” she says, deadpan.

  I rack my brain, trying to figure it out. “What is that? I’ve never heard of it. What is it?” I rush out.

  Jersey Girl’s eyes are still glued to the rooftop. “There are two types of schizoaffective disorder. The schizo side is when a person experiences schizophrenia-like symptoms like delusions or hallucinations, sometimes both. The affective side is where there are two types: there is a manic type, like bipolar symptoms, or the depressive type where a person struggles with depression.” She says all of this like it’s rehearsed. Then shaking her head, she goes on, “I’ve been diagnosed with schizoaffective depressive type by many psychiatrists.”

  “No,” I shake my head.

  She crooks her neck and finally lands her eyes on mine. “Yes, Logan.”

  I ignore her response. “No.”

  “Yeeesss.” She nods, stressing the word as if it will make me fully understand it.

  “You are nothing like those people in there.” I point toward the building.

  She cocks her head to the side, studying me. “And how is that?”

  “They—they’re…shit. They were—”

  “Crazy.” She fills in the blank.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You didn’t have to. I know that’s exactly what you’re thinking. It’s okay if you are. That’s what most people would say. I’m used to it. It’s normal to hear what others perceive as crazy. But you have to understand that in my head, that’s normal. I think everyone else around me are the crazy ones.”

  This can’t be happening. It doesn’t make any sense. “Jenna, you are not crazy. I spent two entire months with you—”

  She cuts me off. “And within those two months, you didn’t notice that I’m a bit off?”

  I try to catch my breath as I look everywhere in the car frantically. This is bullshit. “You’re shy.”

  “I’m paranoid.”

  I shake my head. “You sometimes make me repeat myself, but I always thought you had a lot going on.”

  “Yeah. In my head. Voices. I hear voices sometimes and it’s distracting. It distracts me from my own thoughts.”

  What the fuck? What is happening right now? This is a lot to take in at once. I rub a hand over my head, my brain reeling with images of every moment we spent together. Everything I ever questioned about the way she acted toward certain things is now answered, and I still feel lost. I still don’t fucking understand any of it. I’ve never heard of schizoaffective disorder. I’ve never met anyone with any mental illness other than depression—and it seems to me that everyone, at some point in their lives, has been depressed; it’s normal. “So what does this mean for us? I don’t understand.”

  Jenna lightly shrugs, her eyes filled with tears, her lips quivering. “I don’t know,” she chokes over her words. “I can’t ask you to take this on. You say you want me, Logan, but my disorder is a part of me. I wish I could split myself in two, toss my damaged side away, and hand you over my perfect side. But I can’t. It’s either all of me or nothing.”

  “Jenna.” I breathe out, lowering my head. I can’t even fucking think straight right now. “I need to think. I mean, my feelings toward you haven’t changed. I just need a day or two to process all of this. You know?” I look up. It kills me seeing her like this.

  With tears running down her cheeks, she nods. “Yeah, I know. I understand.”

  I adjust in my seat, start the truck, and back out of the parking spot.

  The silence in the car is suffocating, like a dark fog seeping through the windows, wrapping its deadly cloud around me. I want to throw up. I knew it. I knew he’d react this way. I shouldn’t have said anything at all. At least then we wouldn’t be here right now, stuck in silence, in nothing but the sound of our breathing and the stupid broken love song playing in the background, which only shoves the knife in my chest deeper.

  Instead I should’ve just told him about my feelings for him and never mentioned my disorder. I hate this disease, this chemical imbalance, as the medical field calls it. I hate myself even more for it because if I was normal, maybe, just maybe I could’ve been wrapped in Logan’s arms right now. Maybe his lips would be covering mine. Or maybe we’d be laughing, joking over a bad impersonation. We could’ve been happy.

  If only I were normal.

  What is he thinking right now? My mind is self-destructing with the rejection. He’s giving up on us after declaring that nothing could ever come between what we have. Yet it was me, my cancer of the mind, that finally destroyed what little hope there was for us.

  “Are you okay?” he asks in a tender tone. I’m rocking in the seat. I stop and press my head firmly against the headrest, willing my mind to tell my body to stop it. I tell my mind to stop the tears. I tell my mind to look away. I tell my mind to close my eyes and just drift away.

  And I do for the rest of the ride. No more words are spoken between the two of us. When he finally reaches my house, I spare us the awkwardness and just exit as quickly as possible.

  I run as fast as I can up the pathway, through the door, up the grand spiral staircase and into my room. I lock it, staring at the doorknob as if it’ll turn on its own at any second. When I realize it won’t, that Logan isn’t running after me, I let go. My body shudders as I allow the tears to shriek out.

  “Jenna.”

  I spin around. Charlie. “What are you doing here?” I ask her.

  She’s sitting on top of my bed in the same clothes she was in when I left her here this morning. Her gaze takes me in, and her features distort into sympathy as her eyes water. They’re tears of sadness for me. “I stuck around, just in case.�
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  Just in case of this. She stuck around because she knew. Sobbing, I walk over to her, climb into the bed and lean into her open arms. “I’m so stupid.” My words muffle against her pink blouse.

  Charlie pulls me in closer and runs a hand over my hair. “You are not stupid, do you hear me? You’re intelligent and beautiful and funny. You’re many things, Jenna, but you are not stupid. He’s the dumb fuck. Not you. You hear me?”

  Sniffing back the tears, I lift my head to look at her. Charlie frames my face with her soft hands and thumbs over my moist cheeks.

  “I’m the stupid one,” I say, my voice drags. “For once, I thought maybe, just maybe I was worth someone’s love. His love. And that it was possible he could love me back, Charlie,” I choke over my words, straining to release my next confession. “I think I’m in love with him. I am so stupid. I’m falling in love with him, Charlie, and he doesn’t love me. And it hurts.” I press my hand to my chest. “I didn’t think it could, but it hurts to even…” I crack, forcing myself to speak. “It hurts to even breathe.”

  “Oh, Jenna.” She leans in, wrapping her arms around me again. I collapse in her arms and just cry. Hard, heavy sobs.

  I don’t ever want to see Logan Reed again.

  “Jenna, you have to eat something. It’s been two days.”

  I tug the comforter back over my head. I don’t bother to respond to Charlie. I don’t bother to look at what she brought in for me to eat. I don’t bother to open my eyes. I don’t bother to do anything.

  I’m just surprised that I’m still breathing.