Friday happens, despite my spending all of Thursday wishing for a Sleeping Beauty–style reprieve, for the world to fall into unconsciousness and wake up on Monday with zero memory of Luke’s party or why it didn’t happen.
That would be magical.
Alas, magic is for stories and shampoo that doesn’t sting when it gets in your eyes. Mom calls just before breakfast, and for the first time since records began, I let the machine pick it up. My voice doesn’t feel very steady, and there’s a numbness lingering on my lips that I’m almost certain will warp my words. I don’t want to slow down her recovery any more than I already have with unnecessary stress.
I remember once, when the panic attacks started happening more often, I asked her how she felt about the whole thing. She whispered, ‘Helpless.’ Told me it was like watching her kid drown inside a transparent box that she couldn’t break into. I cried that day, hated myself.
Besides, she’s said all she can say and my brain obviously isn’t willing to believe it. I have no choice but to handle this one on my own.
The machine chimes three times before the sound of her voice fills the house. It makes me smile. ‘Hey, baby. Just calling to check in. See how you’re holding up. Hoping you’re still in bed. I hate it when you don’t pick up the phone. Call me back, okay?’
Three more chimes and the machine goes dead.
And then . . .
One second passes . . .
In a thoroughly predictable fashion . . .
Two seconds . . .
The message tone of my cell squawks from inside my pocket. It’s Mom, saying the exact same thing, only this time by text. I knew she would. Texting works. I litter my reply with half-truths and smiling emojis so she can carry on recuperating.
Meanwhile, in real life, calm is trying its best to stay above the surface while I mope around the house, eyeing the trash can in the kitchen like it’s a giant spider commandeering that corner of the room. The invite is still in there, so naturally the trash can has become enemy number one.
It stalks me incessantly. See, anxiety doesn’t just stop. You can have nice moments, minutes where it shrinks, but it doesn’t leave. It lurks in the background like a shadow, like that important assignment you have to do but keep putting off or the dull ache that follows a three-day migraine. The best you can hope for is to contain it, make it as small as possible so it stops being intrusive. Am I coping? Yes, but it’s taking a monumental amount of effort to keep the dynamite inside my stomach from exploding.
The party isn’t until tonight, 7.30, the invite said, but I decide to take action early.
It takes me less than ten minutes to turn my room into a bunker.
I close my curtains, use stuffed toys and two towers of six books, all of them 332 pages thick, to conceal any cracks. I grab a glass of water, then another – you’ve got to have a backup – and set them both on my nightstand.
I don’t need snacks; eating is out of the question since my stomach is already too tight to fit food in. I put a new paper bag on my dresser, just in case, and break out my spare pair of noise-cancelling headphones. Standing back, I admire the space I’ve somehow managed to make smaller.
I. Am. Crazy. I have to laugh at myself.
It’s times like this when I’m glad no one knows the things I do to make myself feel safe.
I promise myself that I’m not going to hide in my room until it gets dark. Instead, I slip into the study, hit play on the stereo, and listen to Marie Miraz talk irregular French verbs.
‘Do you understand?’ Marie asks in the same condescending tone she’s been using since lesson one.
‘J’ai compris,’ I tell her. She rambles on, instructs me to follow, but movement next door has caught my attention. Luke’s parents.
His mom is on the doorstep in her nightgown. His dad, standing just outside, leans in and kisses her hard on the mouth. It looks as if he’s leaving.
He is leaving, grinning from ear-to-ear as he trots off down the driveway. But she, Luke’s mom, in complete contrast, is swiping what look like tears of anguish off her cheeks.
I shouldn’t be staring.
I wish I could offer her a tissue.
I need to stop staring.
Right. I dash to the stereo, put Marie on pause, and flee the study.
For the following hours I ferment on the couch and try to submerge myself in talk shows. I’m cringing at the sight of jilted spouses beating up their toothless exes when I hear an engine growl outside.
Ignore it.
The car pulls up next door, and I find myself second-guessing the party’s start time. It’s just before four. They wouldn’t start now . . . would they?
Ignore it.
But what if something is happening that I need to know about?