Book Three_A Codependent Love Story

by Paloma Meir

  I felt very noble as I drifted off to sleep giving up my dream of MIT for the betterment of my family.

  I awoke in the morning having forgotten all of my academic accomplishments, and assumed I would be digging ditches throughout college to support myself. I accepted my fate and looked forward to the backbreaking work. Every brick I laid or piece of wood I hammered taking me further away from my father’s way of life.

  Walking down the stairs I was able to forgive him, almost pity him for the choices he made in his life. By the time I reached the living room, I had forgiven Celena for not being sane, my mother for her alcoholism and Carolina for... well, she didn’t actually need forgiveness. Her worst sin against me was being occasionally obnoxious. In fact I was lucky to have her as my sister.

  By the time I reached the kitchen I was jubilant and gave my father a manly hug. I was grateful for even the rainy day outside. I asked him how my mother was doing. He replied with information that the day before would have sent me into an emotional decline. But that day, it all seemed like a natural part of the process of her recovery.

  Carolina wanted me to take her to Santa Monica to see her boyfriend John. Sure, no problem. Her boyfriend John looking like a street kid. Why not? If my sister liked him, then so did I.

  John mistook my animated mood as friendly. You know what? It was a friendly mood. I said yes to his invitation to join him in surfing, a sport I had never tried before even though Danny and Brendan did it semi-regularly.

  I took to the sport quickly. My body being as strong as my mind. The pattern of the waves rolling in based on the wind direction was simple, not dissimilar to a proton moving through a magnetic field. I loved it and why not? Life was a gift to the living.

  I began to question my sanity mid-ride through the last wave of the day. I had never been an easygoing person, always questioning and seeing where trouble could spring. My realist, sometimes-pessimistic attitude had served me well in my studies but in life had held me back. I instantly let go of my sanity worries and went with the goodness of the day. If I were nuts, it would be someone else’s problem.

  I went to sleep that night with only half a thought that I would wake up as I had been before, tightly wound, brooding over other people’s problems I knew I could never help them with based on the previous few months.

  I woke up with the same new sense of the world, the wonder of it all, the acceptance of what would be. It was as if my powerlessness had set me free to just sit back and enjoy how things unfolded, good or bad. How had I thought for so many years about the infinite universe without seeing how small we really were? Not even a blink in the eye of time is all that our entire history of humanity would ever be from start to finish.

  What can I say? I was sixteen and as prone to dramatic thoughts as a teenage girl. Blame it on Carolina and Zelda. I didn’t understand then, and I don’t even understand now what so radically changed my worldview. Maybe a human can only feel bad for a finite amount of time outside of clinical depression?

  …

  The winter break went on with my mother still in the hospital detoxing. My father spent his days by her side. He didn't want Carolina and me to see her until she was in rehab. It was as if my letting go had freed my father to behave as a father should always behave.

  Carolina took advantage of our parentless home by bringing John to our house for the rest of the break. They tried to be real sly by having him sleep downstairs. He would sneak upstairs when they thought I was asleep. I wanted to tell them it didn’t matter to me, but I didn't want to embarrass them. I again made the choice to let it go.

  I took Celena to the beach with us leaving Carolina and her to sit under the large umbrella together. That winter was a rainy one. Coming back to shore at the end of the day, I could see they were friendly but would never be friends. Fine by me, I was hardly responsible for Celena’s quality of life. Make friends. Don’t make friends. It was her path, not mine.

  I found it easy to be affectionate with Celena in my newfound serenity. Her boring thoughts became a miracle of the delicate nature of chemistry inside her brain. I visualized the lithium feeding her hungry neurotransmitters. The neurons and synapses in her brain as vast and unknowable as our galaxy.

  I told her of my appreciation for the improving chemical framework of her mind. She thanked me which of course was a dull response, but in truth better than it would have been before the medication. The real Celena would have had a screaming fit and most likely tried to hitchhike back to her house leading to a scene of me having to pull her into the car to get her home safely.

  The truth of how I had idealized the “real Celena” hit me hard on our last day at the beach before going back to school. The “real Celena” had been a nightmare of paranoid screaming fits, with small periods of calm and a lot of sex. Yes, I could talk to her when she was well, but that wasn’t that often. The sex though? Other than the breaks, the sex was constant.

  Pre-epiphany me would have been disturbed by my true nature, and what I was capable of putting up with for regular sex. Calling it regular sex would have been an insult to what we shared. Our times had been intense and probably better suited for a more mature relationship between adults. The new me laughed it off and gave her a hug.

  We left the beach early on our last day of the break. Carolina announced she would be staying at Zelda’s house for a few days. I inwardly questioned why she would sleep there on a school night but couldn’t be bothered to ask about it.

  Driving up our canyon we saw Danny, not with Zelda, but with the soulless Liza. I felt relief that negative feelings could pierce my tranquility. I had a lot of work to do in the coming years. Complacency was not something I could afford to have in my life.

  “That’s not good. He’s only going to make it harder,” Carolina said more to herself than to Celena or me.

  “What?” Celena eyes followed Carolina’s line of vision. I slowed down to impartially watch what Carolina seemed to think of as a betrayal of Zelda.

  “My friend Zelda. Danny was her boyfriend. They just broke up, and now he’s with her. He moved on so quickly. Strange.”

  “I used to see him walk with your friend, and I’ve seen him walk with this girl for the past couple of days. He doesn’t like this one. He likes the real Zelda, the way Serge does.” Celena said and resumed her staring her off out the car window.

  “Are you splitting everyone up, Serge?” Carolina laughed.

  “If I had grown up with a more agreeable sister, I wouldn’t have picked up the habit,” I poked her hard in the stomach, “People break up. It’s not a big deal. I’m sure all aspects of Zelda are over it now.”

  “Is it that easy?” Celena asked. “I saw her walking alone a couple of weeks ago, and she looked like she was having a hard time.”

  “How are you seeing all these people?” I asked.

  “I look out the car window when people are talking. She’s broken, and she’s never going to be okay again.”

  I thought Celena was talking about herself, not the fair maiden Zelda. So I didn’t respond to her Cassandra-like warning that would prove to be correct though in a much less dramatic way than she had phrased it. Zelda would be fine, but yes, the crack in her spirit would always be there.

  Carolina didn't know Celena the way I did and took her words very seriously. Her body tensed, and she opened her mouth as if to yell. Instead, she slumped in her seat and stared out the window with a defeated look in her eyes. In the future, I would refer to that year as the year of flat eyes, only to myself of course.

  …

  I changed my school schedule back to what it had been before everything fell apart. No more rushing around, and back to having lunch with my friends. I cut back my tutoring sessions to twice a week. I had completed the required hours of acceptable community service for any college. My transcripts showed I was sixty credits over what a student needed to graduate. All in the STEM fields, thank you very much. All I really needed to graduate were three semes
ters of French, Spanish and English.

  I dumped my elective class of cooking in favor of a free period. I had never in my entire academic life experienced one before. I left the counseling office lightheaded from my act of rebellion. I made a note to myself to not sign up for the linear algebra course I had been thinking of taking. The class was generally for juniors in college not high school. I could take it at whatever school offered me the best financial package. MIT was off the table in my mind, so it really didn’t matter to me anymore.

  Everything was easy after that. I sailed through my classes and ate lunch with my friends again. Brendan forgave me without asking for a word of explanation about my anti-social behavior. Danny would occasionally stare off with the look of misery he had before the break, but for the most part he was back to his upbeat self. That’s not true, he was miserable but made the choice to move on. He was strong willed like no one else. I didn’t worry about him.

  I had an unquenchable desire to be with Celena all the time and would head to her house straight after school. I took her everywhere with me, out with Brendan and Cara, and to visit my mother. Once even with Danny and Liza, but we didn't like that very much. It felt disloyal to Zelda. She didn’t talk much, and I definitely didn’t have any sexual feelings for her, but I couldn’t get enough of her.

  What of the perfect Zelda? I hadn’t seen her in weeks, but Celena claimed to see her sometimes as we drove up and down the canyon. She said Zelda would jump behind bushes when she saw my car. I didn’t quite believe her until the day I was out on a run by myself. I saw a filthy figure a block up the canyon. I remembered Carolina saying Zelda dressed in a homeless style. I thought she had exaggerated because Zelda had always strived for perfection before.

  My sister was accurate in her description. Zelda who I could only see from behind had cut her near waist length hair off in a choppy way that barely reached her shoulders. I tried to catch up with her. I couldn't believe she would wear such dirty clothes, and that her hair would be greasy to the ends. I lost sight of her as I rounded the bend and couldn’t see which way she had gone.

  The next day was my tutoring session with Anthony. He had done a great job distributing my flyers throughout the neighborhood with his friends resulting in three new students. "Where's Zelda? I haven't seen her in weeks," I asked.

  “She leaves before you get here and doesn’t come back until after you leave,” he laid his head on the kitchen table.

  “Why?” I laughed.

  “I don’t know. She’s really dirty. She only talks to your sister.” He sat up. “Maybe you could hide in her room, and when she comes in you could talk to her.”

  “No.” I thought Zelda had grown tired of Anthony’s constant demands for her attention. “Sister’s can be hard sometimes. Carolina cries over everything. Give her some space. She’ll pop out of it.”

  “That’s what Danny said a month ago. He was wrong and so are you. Are we finished yet?”

  “Okay, Anthony,” I relented. He was a good kid. It was the least I could do for him. “I’ll “hide” in your sister’s room and try to talk to her.”

  I went to her room with a feeling of strong embarrassment. What would she think to open her door and see me sitting at her vanity? We had always been close, but this felt like an invasion of her privacy.

  I knew Carolina would tell me if anything was truly wrong with Zelda. I assumed Anthony was overreacting. Her “dirty homeless” look sounded like typical teenage rebellion. What better way to annoy her parents than to lose interest in her appearance?

  I sat phone in hand waiting for the fair maiden. I had an urge to text Danny that I was sitting in Zelda’s room. A cruel impulse I would never act upon, but it made me laugh anyway. Bored, I went to her bookcase. She had a shelf of books and little things I had given her over the years. It was packed. I thought about different gifts to get her for her next birthday. An hour went by without her coming home. I knew Anthony had misunderstood her purpose. It was a coincidence not an avoidance that made it seem she left home before I came over and came back after I left.

  I went home before going to Celena’s house to check in with my father before he left for his daily visit with my mother. I usually went twice a week and on Sunday mornings. Carolina refused to go more than once a week. We didn’t pressure her to go more often. Our mother wasn’t very communicative. Overwhelmed by guilt, she would cry and apologize. It was too much for my sister.

  My father had already left. I went to Carolina’s room to ask her about Zelda, more out of concern for Anthony than anything else. I texted Zelda as I stood in front of Carolina’s door. She seldom had her phone with her. I didn’t expect a reply, and I didn’t receive one.

  “Carolina, Anthony’s worried about Zelda. Is she okay?” I opened the door to find her sitting on her bed, not at her desk, textbooks and notebooks spread out around her.

  “He’s such a brat. I’m studying Serge. Could you go away?” She grunted as if I had wounded her in some way.

  “Answer my question.”

  “She’s fine.”

  “Anthony said she’s dirty and doesn’t talk to him anymore. I saw her the other day... You didn’t tell me she cut her hair off. She did look dirty, greasy actually.”

  “If you saw her, why didn’t you ask her yourself? Wouldn’t that have been easier than bothering me?”

  “Carolina look up at me right now and answer my question. Is there something going on with her?” She was really pushing the limits of my new found mellowness.

  “I’m sorry,” She looked at me with the familiar watery eyes, “She’s fine. She’s sad about Danny, okay? She’s really into the beggar look. It’s not any different than when she dressed up in those Victorian clothes, okay? Except that was pretty, and this is not. That’s all there is to it.”

  “Why isn’t she talking to Anthony?”

  “A better question would be why she ever talked to him before. I don’t know. I’m going to go sleep at her house tonight. I’ll ask her to be nicer to her brother.” She opened her textbook and dismissed me with a wave of her hand.

  I stood in the doorway and considered what she had said. I knew she was hiding something, but I couldn’t imagine what it could be. I let it go. Carolina wouldn’t let anything bad happen to her best friend.

  I sped up to Celena’s house. We had planned to go to the Planetarium show at Griffith Park Observatory for the light show. I pulled up to her home and found her sitting on the porch wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt, her hair pulled back under a headband.

  “The show starts in an hour. Run upstairs and get dressed.” I worried her progress had regressed.

  “I’m not going.” She stood up, “Serge, I don’t want to see you anymore.”

  “Did they adjust your medication again?”

  “No. I hate this. I hate that you think my thoughts are from the pills. This is me now. Every time I look at you, I feel bad. I feel bad about the way I was before. I feel bad I can’t be the way you want. Thank you for helping me, but I don’t want to see you anymore.”

  “You’re wrong. I’ve been taking you out too much. You’re just tired. We won’t go out anymore. I like you anyway you are... I love you Celena.” I took her hand and opened her front door, “Let’s go watch a movie. We’ll stay in.”

  “No Serge. You have to go. I don’t want to see you anymore.” She shook my hand loose and shut the door.

  “Is your mother inside?”

  “Why? So you can ask her to take me to the doctor?”

  “No” Yes.

  “People break up. It’s not a big deal.” She slouched down and looked at the ground.

  “Funny. Using my words against me. You do this all the time and then you come back. Let’s skip this part and just stay together okay?"

  “I’m not that person and I don’t want to be that person. I feel like you’re waiting for me to have an episode. You always called them fits, like I was a baby. They’re called episodes. You make me want
to have one sometimes. Please go away. I’m better this way.”

  I sat down on her porch too stunned to speak.

  “You know what I wish?” She sat down beside me, “I wish we could meet again for the first time. But then I remind myself that if we met for the first time with me as I am now, you wouldn’t have any interest in me at all. You know that’s true.” She ran her hand up my arm and stood up, “I’m doing this as much for you as me. Good-bye Serge.”

  “I don’t know if that’s true,” I yelled out, but she had already gone back inside.

  …

  I spent the next two weeks doing what other people always did, but I had never done before. I talked to my friends about Celena. By friends, I mean Brendan and Cara. I told them everything from the very beginning, on and on I went.