Arms Wide Open: a Novella

by Juli Caldwell

  He shakes his head vigorously. “No way, Lauren. I mean, do you hear yourself? It’s not your fault some idiot wrecked his bike.”

  I bite my lip as the tears well in my eyes again. I refuse to let them fall. “No, it really is,” I whisper. “My parents told her she couldn’t go to that party. I had her come to my dorm for a slumber party instead...so she could go. I snuck her out while telling my parents we were just having a sister bonding night. Pajamas and popcorn. Nothing could be more innocent, right?” I sniffle. “I drove her there and told her to have fun, get crazy, and I’d come back around three o’clock to get her. My parents had to go identify her body around three instead.” I snuffle again and grab my purse, hoping I can find a tissue somewhere in there. I’m looking just for the sake of doing something other than talking.

  “Oh, man,” he says. He sits back and shoves both his hands through his hair. He looks up at the ceiling as he processes what I just said. “And...what about you?”

  I laugh as I sniffle a bit. My eyes feel bloodshot and I’m looking up to avoid making eye contact. I finally locate a tissue and wipe my runny nose. I sniff again. “Turns out I was quite the head case already. I didn’t know it, of course, but her death made me snap. The night of Coral’s funeral....I spent that night under the dining room table at Grant’s apartment, screaming that I was surrounded. It felt so real, those images so vivid. I swear I was surrounded by faceless creatures in red, hooded robes, and Coral was telling me to come and join her. Grant was fantastic. He was so sweet, talked to me, tried to get me out. I think he finally went to call the cops for help when I ran from under the table and locked myself in the bathroom, where I promptly swallowed every single pill I could find.”

  Oliver’s eyes are wide in disbelief. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “You don’t have to say anything, ” I tell him simply. “It happened. It’s over. This is my reality now. Mental illness is like cancer in some ways. When you’re as messed up as I am, you have good days and bad days, even on the meds. When I’m good, it’s like being in remission. My roommate Harlow knows what’s up and she lets me know if she sees anything suspicious where I need to get some extra help to get back on track.”

  “So...what do you have?”

  I grin, but it’s an empty one. It’s more like laughing politely at a joke that’s not close to being funny. “What don’t I have? Bipolar two and a little self-mutilation, with a side of anxiety disorder. Your eyes are ready to pop out of your head, man. Blink, will you?”

  “I can’t believe none of us ever saw any signs that something was wrong. I mean, we all thought you were crazy, but it was good, fun crazy, like you were a party of one that never stopped.”

  I raise my eyebrows. “One of the hallmark signs of bipolar two.”

  “I had no idea. None of us did.”

  “I tried to hide it from Grant. I made sure to hide all the crazy, even from him, and we’d been together for years. I don’t blame him at all for walking away and not looking back.”

  “You’re wrong,” Oliver says. He shakes his head at me, blond locks tossed back as he does. “He didn’t just walk away. Grant never would have walked away from you.”

  Unhidden Truth

  I tip my head to the side and look at him, confused. “What do you mean?”

  Oliver leans forward again and looks at me thoughtfully. “How much do you remember about those first few days at the hospital?”

  “Not much,” I admit with a shake of the head. “I was really out of it because of the OD and all the drugs they put me on. I remember more once I got on the psych floor.”

  “Grant was there for the first few days,” Oliver tells me. “He called and texted me updates all the time. When you were starting to come out of it, he said your parents pulled him aside and asked that he step out of the picture for awhile so you could focus on getting well. He said things had been rough between you two for awhile and he agreed it would be best if he didn’t see you. It wrecked him, Laur. He wanted to be there with you every day, but he figured you’d look for him when you got out of residential rehab.”

  I never did.

  I was so angry and hurt that I never heard a single word from him that I didn’t even bother. Pride is kind of a vicious creature, and it’s what kept me from looking. I never bothered to ask where he was or why he never came, maybe because I thought if I meant something to him, he would put the effort into seeing me. When he didn’t, I adopted a good riddance attitude even though my heart ached to see him, to find out why, even though I figured I already knew.

  I was horrible to him the last few months we were together. I know now it’s because I was sick and not thinking clearly, but how could he know that? I’d gone from best friend and girlfriend to psycho beast in a short amount of time, and I didn’t think I deserved another chance. I could think of twenty reasons for him not to want me anymore but not a single reason why he might.

  My brow knots in concentration as I think back to the vague memories I have of the first few days of my recovery. I don’t recall much from my drug-induced haze, but I dreamed of him every day. I dreamed he was holding my hand, stroking my fingers gently while he whispered that I would get through this and everything would be okay. He whispered plans of a future, one with both of us. Those hushed promises filled my heart with hope, and then shattered it when they never happened.

  “I dreamed of him...or maybe what I thought were dreams actually happened. I don’t know.” I look Oliver square in the eyes and my head starts to throb from the effort of holding in the tears. “The last thing I dreamed before I went to the psych ward is...him. Us.”

  I’m laying in my bed, hospital gown haphazardly snapped up and the ties loose around my neck. IV tubes shoot from my arm, snake around the bed, and spill off the edge before arching back up to connect with the bag of whatever pharmaceutical cocktail they’re pumping into me. Everything around me is misty and dark, but I can feel someone’s presence. I sense Axe body wash and coordinating cologne. If I could smile, I would, if only to let Grant know he’s the world’s least secret agent and I can tell he’s there. I smell his trademark man-scent from a mile off.

  The chair legs scrape against the linoleum floor with the creak of old wood as the aroma comes closer. Someone sits down beside me. Suddenly he’s in my narrow field of vision, and all I see is his dark head of hair as he leans forward to kiss my hand, and tears drop onto my limp and exposed palm. They’re warm but they chill my hand as they run off. I’m trying so hard to move, to touch him, to tell him to stop being a dork and get us a pizza so we can forget this ever happened.

  “I’m sorry, Laur. I’m so sorry.”

  Quit being a tool and stop crying!

  I want to say it, but the words won’t come. I’m not dead...am I? I can’t get any words out. My voice won’t work. I can’t say anything and it’s annoying me. In the blur I can make out a fuzzy square of light that might be a window, but beyond that I see nothing. The rest is dark, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to see anything, and I’m happy not to feel anything. The drugs make me not feel the agony that envelopes me whenever I think of my sister. I can’t breathe without shots of guilty pain stabbing my lungs. All I want is to tell Grant I’m okay and to stop crying because that makes me want to cry. And I hate crying.

  “This is for the best,” he’s saying. I wish I could stroke his hair, and pull him into my arms. He must’ve read my mind because the bed creaks and lurches, and he’s suddenly beside me, curled up next to me as I lie there like a corpse. He drapes his arm carefully over tubes and wires to stroke my cheek.

  What’s for the best?

  “You need this time to get better. I know you—you’ll understand why someday. It’s not like I want to walk away. I’m not. I’ll never walk away from you, or from us. When you need me, I’m here, even if you decide I’m the worst mistake you ever made. If you marry someone else, if you end up in jail, if you need me to hide a body, I’m there. Always. We
have history, and I will always love you. If you come out of this and just want to be friends, that’s cool. You, me, and Oliver will still be the three amigos. I...” He sighs heavily. “You need to focus on getting better, work on becoming whole without being someone’s girlfriend. You need to figure out who Lauren is and make her better so we can be together again.”

  He snorts a little bit, and then sniffles as he pulls me closer. “That’s what your mom said, anyway, and she’s probably right. You know I never had one, but she’s pretty cool so I think with her and your dad by your side, you’ll pull through this. They’re having a rough time right now, too...first Coral, and now you, so go easy on ‘em. You’re all they have left. I know how pissy you can get when you want something, but just let it go and focus on getting healthy again.”

  He shifts beside me and I feel his fingers caressing my face before he leans in and gently kisses my forehead. “Bye, Laur. Get better and I’ll see you soon.” The indent on the bed lifts as the warmth and weight next to me vanish, and the comforting smell of him is gone.

  “I remember,” I murmur as a rogue tear breaks free.

  “He was there.”

  “Yeah...he was. I remember now,” I repeat, nodding in agreement.

  “So what now?” Oliver asks. He glances again toward the men’s room but I can’t bring myself to look that way. I’m afraid if I see Grant, my resolve will break and I’ll go running to him. I’ll beg forgiveness. I’ll look like an idiot as I apologize and profess my undying love. He’ll probably get a restraining order. He will thank his lucky stars I showed my crazy when I did so he could make a clean getaway. Five years have passed. I can’t erase that time or make right everything I did wrong, even if that time didn’t come close to erasing how I feel about him.

  “What now?” I echo. “Now I go home, Oliver. I give you my number and we can hang out. You make beautiful music with your choir students. Grant passes the bar and goes on to be the most amazing lawyer in the history of lawyers. I look for work and hopefully make a difference to someone in this awful world.” I grab my purse and stand up. The bell rang awhile ago, so the place has cleared out, although people still mill around between tables and talk quietly in shadowed corners. “Life goes on, Oliver. That’s what happens now.”

  Begin Again

  I’m back in my place on the couch, with my denim jacket dangling off its arm. The cute white sundress is now lying in a crumpled heap on my bedroom floor, and my shoes are scattered between the kitchen and sofa. I do have on clean yoga pants with baggy tee shirt fresh from my drawer, something I hope Harlow’s hypersensitive nose will appreciate.

  The TV is off. My thoughts are racing as I stare at the popcorn ceiling, my eyes glazing over and blurring as I think. The little specks of glitter in the ceiling look like distant stars in my distorted vision, and I’m trying to focus only on that.

  The door opens and slams shut. I hear the dead bolt slide shut and the chain rattle as Harlow locks up for the night. I reach for my phone to check the time, and hop up to greet her.

  “So, how was your night with the engineer?” I ask as I walk into the hall. She’s leaning against the door with a dreamy look on her face and sparkling eyes.

  She drops her purse on our little entry table and puts her hands on her head. “Lauren, I want to giggle and scream like a little girl. I don’t even know what to think. I...I’m just gone on this guy.”

  “Harlow has a boyfriend, Harlow has a boyfriend,” I chant in an obnoxious, singsong sort of way.

  Harlow looks up and just laughs. “I think I might. It was so nice to be with a guy who wasn’t playing games.”

  “And when are you seeing him again?”

  She looks at me nervously, like I might judge her. “Tomorrow?”

  “Wow. Good for you!” I say sincerely. I’m a little surprised she’s moving this fast. She’s always master of the calculated and thoughtful move, which is why she’s so great at what she does. She’ll probably own the place in five years. Who am I to judge her on the nerdy engineer boy? If she finds true love, or thinks it’s something close to that, she needs to hold on tight and fight to hang onto it. I lost the best thing in my life because I didn’t believe we were worth fighting for. As the eyeball guy would say, keep your arms open.

  I head back to my daydreaming spot on the couch and pat the cushion next to mine, inviting her to join me. “I’ve seen way too many guys use you to get ahead or have a trophy on his arm. You shouldn’t be paraded around for your looks or used for networking. You deserve a great guy. I’m glad we went tonight, if only so you could meet Pete.”

  Harlow pulls a face. She kicks off her stilettos and slides across the wooden floor to flop down on the couch. “When I got the text that said I was dead to you, I thought maybe you weren’t so glad you went. What happened?”

  I laugh. I hop up to grab a half-eaten pint of Ben and Jerry’s from the freezer along with a couple of spoons, and then rejoin her by plopping down next to her. She takes a spoon from me as I pull off the lid, which I toss on the coffee table. We put our feet up and dig in. “I had a few epiphanies tonight.”

  “Really?” Harlow examines the spoon before loading it up and taking a bite. “How so? What do you mean?”

  I stop and take a deep breath. I wish I could say I knew exactly when a switch flipped on in my head. I spent so much of my time tonight just trying to work through the emotions staging a steel cage death match in my head that I never noticed, I guess. I walked home alone under the orange glow of the street lamps, and my head cleared itself under stars not visible through city lights and fireflies dancing around me as I walked. Maybe seeing Grant was the last little bit of closure I needed to move on completely. He still takes my breath away. I know now that I will always love him. This pain in my heart, the palpable twinge, the longing ache, hopefully will dim as time goes by. As lovers come and go. As these memories fade a little bit every day.

  “I saw him tonight.”

  “Him?” She raises her eyebrows at me and licks the back of her spoon before scraping the inside of the carton for another bite.

  I nod and load my spoon again too. “The one I never talk about. Grant.”

  “He was there? As in, doing to 5 in 5 thing?” She sit upright and turns to face me, a look of incredulity on her face. “Was he one of your dates?”

  “Yup. Round four.”

  She buries her face in her hands while trying to keep the spoon out of her hair. “Lauren, I am so sorry! This is all my fault!”

  I laugh. “Come on, Harlow. Think about it. How could you possibly have known that the guy I never told you about, whose existence you didn’t know of until about ten seconds ago, would be at a dating event you dragged me to? You have nothing to be sorry for. And like I said,” I tell her as I lean further to rest my head against the back of the couch, “It’s all good. I had epiphanies and stuff.”

  She leans back with me. “Epiphanies and stuff,” she repeats, sounding dubious. “So tell me, then, what epiphanies can a girl have while speed dating with socially awkward freak shows and long lost boyfriends?”

  “I have to live the best life I can to honor my sister. I keep her alive through me.”

  Harlow shakes her head. “This is what you get from socially awkward freaks? Impressive! I should take you every week so we can find solutions to world hunger and a cure for cancer.”

  I laugh. “Not really, no, although the eyeball guy has a lot more to him than I ever would’ve imagined. He’s living proof of why it’s never a good idea to judge a book by its cover. Most people would burn that book after the first page.” I scrape my spoon around the outside of the ice cream lump we’ve created in the middle of the carton, wanting to get the soft, melty goods for myself.

  “Quit taking the best part,” she protests, trying to grab the carton from me.

  I let her take it. “We should order some Sharky’s. I didn’t eat dinner tonight, although I came close to eating. An amorous hipster did smear
some food on my face and hands in a pathetic attempt at wooing me.”

  Harlow shakes her head and gets up to put the carton back in the freezer. “Um, ew.” She sets down the carton. “I agree. If I keep eating this, I’ll get sick. Order me a Caesar salad with dressing on the side while I change. Should we pick up or have it delivered?”

  “Delivery,” I say. “I’m not getting dressed again. It’s pajama time for me.”

  “And then I’m gonna need to hear about these weirdos you picked up tonight,” she says as she disappears down the hall and into her room.

  I find the menu stuck to the side of our fridge with a magnet and call Sharky’s, ordering her salad and a turkey avocado on a croissant for me. Harlow returns in her own sweats, hair piled into a wild and loose bun on top of her head, gorgeous green eyes now hidden behind the coke bottle lenses in her glasses.

  “It’ll be here in a half hour,” I inform her as we sit back on the couch to kill some time.

  “So your sister...Coral? How did you arrive at your conclusion about living life for her based on what happened to you tonight?”

  “I don’t know. I was one breath away from another panic attack all night long...and then I saw Grant. He was everything that was good and decent and stable in my life for a long time. Don’t get me wrong, my parents are great, but he was the one I trusted above all others. Sadly, he’s the one I treated the worst.”

  “Isn’t that the way it always is?” Harlow asks, looking thoughtful. “There are times I want to kill my mom, but I’d kill for her, you know? We have the biggest fights sometimes but no matter what, she’s the one who will always be there for me. I always call her first, good news, bad news, bad hair day, broken nail day. Whatever. She’s my rock.”