The Me That I Became

by Christopher Harlan

  “What the hell?” I ask. Carla tells me to calm down. She’s probably right. I’m sure it’s just more fake niceness. They disappear into the study for what seems like forever. I feel like I should go in there, but Carla talks me out of it.

  “Just let them have their time. This is what mom does.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of, Carla.”

  After a while I hear the unmistakable sound of a door slam. Mom comes out from the study back into the dining room, alone. I swear she looks happy. “Where’s Brandon?” I ask.

  “He seems to have left.”

  “Left?” I ask. What the hell is going on? “Why?”

  “I’m no relationship expert, but I’m guessing because you lied to him, sweetheart.” Oh. Fuck. She doesn’t need to finish the story. I know what happened, and I’m horrified. “He asked me about your brother? Some character named Henry? Sweetie, are you disassociating? If you are, you really need to go back to your therapist because you’re getting worse.”

  I jump up, not listening to her bullshit any more, and run towards the door.

  Please be there when I open it, Brandon.

  Please.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “What else were you lying to me about, Talia?” he yells so loudly that it scares me.

  So apparently, he is out here. Now I wish he wasn’t. That’s not true. What I really wish is that we had never come here. Leave it to my mom to smash my life open in a five-minute private conversation. “What else?” He sounds angry, and it’s freaking me out. Brandon is one of the most even-tempered people I’ve ever met. I haven’t even seen him annoyed, let alone in a rage like this.

  “Brandon, not here, please.”

  “That’s what you’re concerned about right now?!” He’s starting to yell, and the only thing worse than this happening is the fact that this is happening right outside my parent’s house. At least they have the decency to not peek through the curtains. They’ll let the circus play out. It’s not them that I’m really worried about, I don’t want to make a scene in front of strangers. I try to calm him down some more.

  “Please. Can we just go back to my place?”

  “Are you fucking serious? You think I’m about to sit in a long car ride back with you?”

  His words are hurting me. He feels betrayed. I can see it in his eyes and hear it in his words. I feel like total shit that I made him this angry. “Please. Just come back to my place and we can talk.” He sees that I’m embarrassed, and I can see that he wants to keep yelling. His eyes aren’t soft or sad, they’re angry and intense, and I don’t like looking at them right now.

  “Fine.”

  I wasn’t expecting him to agree, but he does. I go to get in the car when he yells out. “No, forget it, I can’t.”

  “What? But you just said. . .”

  “Yeah, I know what I just fucking said, but I changed my mind! I can’t be around you right now.” He comes around to the driver side and gets in. I knock on the window and scream. I’ve given up all ideas of this not being embarrassing, I just don’t want him to leave. He starts the car and I see that he isn’t going to stop, so I step back and let him go, the tires practically screeching so that he can get away from me as fast as he can.

  I stand in the middle of the street, a hot fucking mess, the tears streaming as the neighbor’s lights start to come on, and I see nosey eyes peering out from behind curtains. I can’t believe things turned so fast. I start to shake, the anxiety coursing through me like it was injected intravenously. I stare into the distance as Carla rushes from the house to come retrieve me out of the street.

  What the hell just happened?

  Chapter Eighteen

  I open my eyes, but just barely.

  They’re so puffy I feel like I went twelve rounds with Floyd Mayweather last night. Actually, twelve rounds of getting my ass kicked would have been preferable to what actually happened. I hate myself right now. I hate what I did, and I hate even more that Brandon found out. Maybe some fucked up part of me thought that Brandon was so great of a man, that even if he found out that I was lying he’d still love me just the same. Typical me. Only I would be mad that the person I wronged is mad at me for wronging them.

  Carla drove me home after Brandon left me standing in the street outside of my parent’s house. She wanted to talk but I just couldn’t last night. I haven’t heard a word from Brandon. I guess he needs time away from me to cool off. I’ve never seen him so angry. And not just that, but angry at me. The way he looked at me was something I’ve never seen before, and it was that look that really broke me. He looked hurt. The tears welled up behind his eyes even as he yelled at me and stormed off. He doesn’t deserve that from me. He doesn’t deserve that at all.

  Who I really need right now is my best friend. I need Abby. An hour after I text her she’s at my door, coffee and pastries in hand, ready to do her best friend thing. “Hey.” I open the door. She walks in with coffee and a few tightly wrapped white boxes that are unmistakably from a bakery. I hear the tone in my voice when I greet her. I’d be worried about me, too. I sound like hell. I was feeling so normal for a while there that I actually ignored the fact that my mind is capable of such darkness. It only takes a trigger—in this case the man I’m falling for screaming and storming away because he discovered that I’ve been lying to him, but it could be almost anything. Before Nana died I was doing okay also—a semblance of normalcy is just a tease sometimes. This is the real me. Fucked up and scaring people half to death. Maybe they should be scared for me.

  “You look and sound. . .”

  “Like I feel, Abby. I’m aware.”

  “Did you sleep?” she asks, softening her tone.

  “Barely. If you even want to call those two hours last night sleeping.”

  “Two hours? What were you doing the rest of the night?”

  “Crying,” I tell her. “Crying a lot.”

  “Here.” She doesn’t try to comfort me, which is a good thing. She knows the drill by now, anyway. There’s no comforting someone who’s in the throes of a depressive episode. The only thing you can do is take care of them. For me that’s company, good coffee, and usually something to distract me, but trying to make me feel better is like trying to cheer up a person with the flu, hoping it makes their symptoms go away. It just doesn’t work like that. “I know that you’re going to say no, but. . .” I cut her off.

  “Then why ask, Abby?”

  “I want to know what happened. I assume it had something to do with Brandon, but you didn’t really say.”

  “Right,” I answer, my voice barely reaching above a whisper because my head hurts so badly. “There’s a reason for that. I don’t want to rehash the whole thing.”

  “But. . .”

  “Abby, stop. I don’t want to right now.”

  She pauses and looks at me, her silence catching my attention. She doesn’t seem her usual, bubbly self. She doesn’t have that motherly tone I’m used to when she speaks to me. There’s a different energy that she’s giving off to me, and I’m not sure how to interpret it yet. My eyes hurt so much. I go to the freezer to get an ice pack while she gets her words together. “Okay,” she finally continues. “I need to say something to you, and I don’t think it’s the appropriate time to say it, but it needs saying.”

  I look at her with one eye—a cold compress attached to the other one that I hope will take some of the swelling down. I don’t know where she’s going with this, but it isn’t how I thought the morning was going to go. “Okay. Just say it, then.”

  “Why do you want me here?”

  “Huh?”

  “Why do you want me here? Why did you call me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She rolls her eyes when I say that. Literally rolls them and looks annoyed like a snotty teenaged girl in math class. Her whole demeanor is throwing me off. I’m supposed to be the one with issues, and she’s the solid one who comforts me. That’s how it always works.
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br />   “Maybe this isn’t the right time. Look, I’m just going to leave the pastries and coffee and get going. I’ll text you later, all right?” She turns to walk away and I stop her. I want to know what’s going on.

  “Abby, what’s up? Why are you mad?”

  She turns around, hesitating only another second before letting loose. “I’m sick of this, Lia. Sick of you using me as your depression nurse or something.”

  “What?”

  “Do you see what time it is? Do you realize that I’m going into work late to be here with you? Did you even think about that? I’m probably going to get in trouble with my boss, just so I could bring you some coffee and fucking danish, and you won’t even tell me what’s going on? You use me, and I’m sick of it.”

  Okay, I really hadn’t expected this of all things. I’m really batting a thousand with the people in my life. “I don’t use you.” I don’t even believe me right now. She’s right, I didn’t think of her job. I didn’t think of her at all. I thought of her only inasmuch as she could help me.

  “Not intentionally, Lia, but you do use me. I’m a person, you know? I’m not just your sidekick. I’m not just your super positive friend. I’m a human being. I love you. I worry about you. And I’m always here for you, you know that. But when you won’t even talk to me and you’re just using me as a coffee delivery service? Fuck that, that’s too much.”

  “Alright, alright, I get your point,” I say. I’m not trying to cut her off, I just can’t take any more. I wish people could see inside of me sometimes, past the smile, past the exterior, and see what I’m really thinking and feeling. I wish Abby could do that right now, because then she’d know that I don’t need her words to think any less of myself than I already do. I put up my hand so that she’ll stop, like a fighter that’s had enough and is giving up, and I fall down on my couch, the tears flowing out of my sore eyes once again. “I get it, okay.” I wish I’d never called her, and just decided to suffer on my own. This is making everything feel worse.

  I don’t hear her come over, I just feel the hand on my shoulder. I turn to her, embarrassed, and wrap my arms around her. “I’m sorry, Abby. I’m not okay right now. I didn’t mean to use you.” She squeezes me. A best friend needs to have the best hugs, and she definitely does.

  “Look at me.” She pulls back and holds my hand. “I’m not angry. I mean, yeah, I was a little angry, but I’m not looking to kick you while you’re down. I just get. . . frustrated.”

  “At me?”’

  “At the situation. We’ve been friends forever, and I can’t really help you, so I feel helpless sometimes. I feel like all I can do is bring fucking coffee, or stop at CVS for tissues, or just be a sounding board when you need to rant, but you. . .”

  “What?” I ask.

  “You just never seem to get better for too long. Everything I do never seems to help. It sucks, and I get mad when you won’t even let me try to help.”

  Leave it to Abby to sum up depression in a few short sentences. I love her and hate her for her words. I love her because she’s so selfless when it comes to me, and I hate her because what she’s saying is so accurate that it hurts me to hear. “I’m sorry,” I say, the tears slowly falling down my face. My tear ducts are their own entity, existing on their own plane of existence. I can’t control them. I stopped trying a long time ago. “I don’t mean to hurt you, or anyone. And the last thing I want to do is cause you constant frustration. But I don’t know what to do to get better. I wish I did. I wish I could just take some pills, have some chicken soup, rest up, and not be depressed in a week. But it doesn’t work like that. I’m stuck, and everyone around me just becomes collateral damage. Like you. Like. . .Brandon.”

  Of all the painful things I just had to say, that last part is the hardest. Even saying his name conjures up images of last night, and I experience the whole thing over again, only in triple speed. Abby squeezes my hand.

  “Is that it? Something happened with Brandon last night, didn’t it?”

  I nod my head as the tears roll down my cheek. “Yeah. I happened. I did what I always do. I fucked things right up.”

  I start sobbing, and Abby does what Abby always does—she wraps me up in her arms and holds me, waiting until I breathe and calm down a little, and then she takes care of me. “Come on,” she says, and stands up. She leads me into the bedroom and lays me down. There are tissues everywhere—a reminder of my night. When I sit on the bed she goes into the linen closet and brings back a few towels and my bag. “Take this with your coffee.” I swallow my pill, and the warmth and sweetness of the coffee are comforting. She hands me the towels. “Now I want you to go take a shower. I’ll be in the living room. Come get me when you’re out.”

  I do what I’m told. The water is like a blanket. I take hot showers, I always have. I used to drive everyone in my house crazy because I’d use up all the hot water by taking ridiculously long ones in the morning. Right now, the heat and the steam make me feel good, and before I wash my hair or suds up my body I just letting the water crash against me. A few minutes later I’m out—clean and a little more relaxed than I was before I got in. I dry off and get dressed, then meet Abby in the living room.

  “I heated up your coffee when I heard the shower turn off,” she says. “It was getting cold and gross. Here.”

  “Thank you,” I say, and I really mean it. “You’re too good to me. I don’t deserve you.”

  “That’s yet to be determined,” she jokes. “But we can discuss all that when you’re back to being yourself.”

  Back to being myself. “I’m not sure who myself is, Abby. That’s the honest truth. That’s why things got messed up with Brandon, and everyone else. I do things I know I shouldn’t do. I act like someone I wasn’t raised to be. And I don’t mean to make excuses, I’m responsible for my behavior, but I’m all fucked up. I have been for a long time.”

  She sits down across from me this time, and I can tell her energy is more serious, but not serious like before—something in between her usual self and the attitude she had before. “I was thinking of what to say and what not to say while you were in the shower. Do you want to know what I decided?”

  “Do I?” I laugh.

  “Maybe not,” she says, smiling. “But I promise it won’t be a guilt trip.”

  “Okay then. Go ahead.” I sip my coffee, take a big deep breath, and get ready for whatever is coming.

  “I know where you are,” she begins. “I’ve never suffered from mental illness myself, and no one in my family has, that I know of. But I think there’s something I can offer you besides coffee, pastries, and a box of tissues, as your best friend. You need to get your shit together, Lia. And I mean that in a loving way, no matter how it sounds. But if you just keep going like you’re going nothing is going to change. You know that old expression about insanity?”

  Doing the same thing and expecting a different result? Yeah, Abby, it’s kind of my life.

  “Well that’s what you do. You go to a therapist sometimes. You go on and off meds, and even when you’re on them you take them only here and there. You drink too much. You make excuses. You do all of that, and then you complain how bad things are. I know that you’re fucked up, Lia. I’ve been here more than anyone else has. But from where I’m sitting there are only two choices—make it your job to be as close to better as you can be, at all times.”

  “Or?”

  “Or don’t,” she says. “But, if you choose not to, then stop complaining. Don’t get into relationships. Don’t text me at all hours telling me something terrible just happened. Don’t do any of it. Just accept that your life is never going to be but so happy because of the choices you’ve made, and live with that. It’s one or the other, Lia. It can’t be both. It’s not fair to you or anyone in your life to ride in the middle of those two choices.”

  It’s hard for people to leave me speechless. I always have something to say, but she’s so spot-on that I have nothing to argue with. “You’r
e right.” That’s all I say. It’s all I have to say. I can see she was expecting a fight.

  “Oh.”

  “You speak the truth, Abby. And by the way, that’s why I love you, not because you bring me stuff and answer my crazy texts.” We smile at each other. “Don’t get me wrong, I love that, too. Keep doing those things, but I guess your point is that you shouldn’t have to. What do I do? What’s the first step? Teach me, master Yoda.”

  “Fix it,” she says. And she says it like she was waiting for the question. Knowing her, she probably was. “Don’t tell me what happened with Brandon. Don’t cry, don’t explain, don’t lie to yourself about how or why it went down the way it did. Go fix it, right now.”

  “I can’t. He won’t answer me. He’s pissed.”

  “Is it fixable?” she asks.

  “I don’t know, it’s not up to me.”

  “Okay I’m going ask you some questions, just give me a quick yes or no. Are you ready?” I nod. “Did you cheat?” I shake my head. “Okay, did you run over his dog with your car?” I shake again, even more vigorously. “Well, then it’s fixable. Go make it happen.”

  “How, Abby? He’s not answering my texts or calls. What do I do?” I know she has an idea when she smiles like the evil genius I know she can be.

  And then she tells me her idea.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The security guard on campus is nice enough to tell me where the D building is, and I wonder if he really thinks I’m young enough to be a student. I’m going to believe that he does. This was a crazy idea. I protested the whole thing the second Abby suggested it, but I secretly hope that it works. It’s not like Brandon to not answer me, he must be really angry, and I don’t know if this is going to help the situation or seal our fate forever.