“Walk? But it’s cold. We’ll give you a lift.”
The thought of being in a car, after the chat I was about to have with Oli, was too much. “It’s okay,” I said, firmly, in a voice far more authoritative than usual. “I’m happy walking. But thanks.”
His mother bristled, but straightened and walked back to her husband. “Remember, Oli,” she called over her shoulder. “Half five. I’ve got to get dinner on.”
“Okay, Mum.”
We stood, not talking, as the cinema emptied around us. When it was obvious only I was going to break the silence, I did.
“So…” I pulled out my phone and looked at the time. “Half five, we’ve got forty-five minutes. What do you fancy doing?”
Oli shrugged. “I dunno. We could grab a coffee?”
“Riiiight. Do you want to go to the same cafe as your parents, or do you want to go to a different one?”
He blushed, and I felt instantly guilty, though it’d been an honest question. “A different one is fine.”
“You sure?” My voice sounded as patronizing as his mother’s.
“I’m sure.”
It was almost dark when we walked out into the car park, but bright enough to feel disorientated after sitting in the cinema for two hours. Sensing I would have to be The Decider on this date, I steered us wordlessly towards a little coffee house I knew around the corner.
It was winding down for the day – the waitresses looked tired and ready to go home. I ordered us two lattes and took them to the table. Oli’s foot was a-tapping like crazy and he wouldn’t look at me when I put the drinks down.
“Thanks,” he said to the table.
“It’s fine.” I was surprised by how calm I felt, and in control. Maybe there’s such a thing as relative anxiety? If someone else is more nervous than you, you therefore feel calmer or something? Either way, I had an instinct today was A Big Day for Oli and I hoped I could show some compassion.
He stared into the steam of his drink. I waited for him to talk. He didn’t.
So I sipped and I waited.
Still nothing. Just the tap tap tapping of his shoe and the slurping of caffeinated beverages.
When we only had twenty minutes left I gave in.
“What’s going on, Oli?” I asked gently, putting my hand on his. He flinched initially, and then relaxed into my hand. I didn’t even think about the germs on his skin, which was evidence to back up my relative anxiety theory.
I watched as my question broke him, like a grief wave crashing against a cliff. Oli’s arm began to shake, his face screwed up. When he spoke I could hear the repressed tears in his throat.
“I’m sorry…” he stumbled. “About my parents… I should’ve told you they were coming. I’m such an idiot…” The disdain in his words was heartbreaking. The self-hatred. I knew it so well. You can’t help getting sick in your head, but, by golly, do you forget that. Daily. You despise yourself for being the way you are, like you’re doing it on purpose or something.
“Why are they here?” I asked in my same calming voice. I felt like I was hovering above the situation; it was too surreal to freak out about. Things had got too weird too quickly and all I could do was go with it.
“I… I…”
“It’s okay, you can tell me.” I realized I sounded like Sarah.
“I find it hard…I used to find it hard…” His voice shook with his hands. “To go out sometimes.”
Ah, agoraphobia. That old chestnut. And by “chestnut”, I mean misunderstood and totally debilitating clusterfuck of a mental illness. It made sense now, thinking it all through. By the looks of things he was a year behind me in recovery terms.
“That must be hard,” I said.
Notice how I didn’t say
“I’ve been there.”
“I understand.”
“I get it.”
“I once didn’t leave the house for eight weeks. I really get it.”
Or any of the other things you would think I’d have said. All the things I probably should have said. All the things that probably would’ve helped. Because there’s nothing more comforting than someone who actually gets it. Really gets it. Because they’ve been to the same hell as you have and can verify you’ve not made it up.
I didn’t say anything like that.
“It’s hard…” he continued, both of us utterly ignoring our drinks. “I’m getting better. I’m seeing…someone. I probably wasn’t ready to…you know…date, I guess. But when I first saw you in film studies, I just felt something, like maybe you were different… I liked how intense you were when you answered questions…and…well…you look like that…”
I blushed.
“I didn’t think you’d say yes if I asked you out. And then you did. And I was so happy, and then, so panicked, and I knew I would screw it up, and I have screwed it up. Who brings their parents on a date? Who? WHO?” He suddenly slammed his drink down on the plastic table. Coffee splashed everywhere.
“Woah, Oli, it’s okay.”
He bashed his cup down again, more liquid flew everywhere. “It’s not okay. It’s not. I’m a freak. I’m such a FUCKING FREAK.”
And then, of course, he cried.
I know what you want to have happened, or maybe I don’t. But I reckon that, at this point, you would like it if I’d reached over and taken his hand again. If I’d opened up and told him all about my brain, and how I was sectioned once, and that he’d get through this and we’d work it out together. And maybe we would kiss, and he would go home feeling amazing about his day, rather than humiliated and broken.
That’s not what happened though.
I let him cry. I walked him back to his parents, saying “it’s okay” over and over again while he continuously apologized. His mum gave me a dirty look as I delivered her son back. I wanted to grab her face and yell, “I’m not a horrible person, I’m not. But I’m broken too and I’ve never been on the receiving end of this behaviour before and I can’t handle it and I have to look after me first, before anyone else.”
I just said, “It was nice meeting you.”
Then I turned and left them to tend to their son.
I ran home quickly to change for the party, my phone buzzing with messages from the girls asking how it had gone. I had a horrid feeling in my stomach.
Guilt.
I packed my bag, chucking lipsticks and all sorts into it. Why hadn’t I opened up to Oli? It’s not like he would judge me. He would get it, much more than anyone else. He wouldn’t have thought any less of me, and it would’ve reassured him so much.
Just as I was about to leave, I looked at myself one more time in the mirror. Really looked. My hair was up, my top clung in all the right bits, a bag hung off my shoulder. I looked like any other sixteen-year-old on her way to a party. From the outside, nobody could tell what had happened to me, and I’d worked so hard to make it that way. Then I understood why I’d done what I did.
I enjoyed being the healthy one. That was it.
For the first time ever, I was the normal one.
And it had felt intoxicatingly good…
Seventeen
A couple of hours later and I was getting acquainted with the treacherous world of shots. Sambuca shots to be precise. Screw the medication, I was on hardly any now anyway.
“Woah, Evie, where have you come from?” Guy yelled over the music. He’d just stumbled into Anna’s kitchen and witnessed me doing two shots. Alone. Because doing shots alone is a great sign of mental well-being.
“I am doing shots,” I told him calmly. “It is a perfectly reasonable thing for a sixteen-year-old to do.” I did one more and winced.
Guy took the sambuca bottle out of my hand. “Yeah, but you’re not usually like this.”
“Like what? Fun?”
“No…like everyone else.”
We held the sambuca bottle between us, looking at each other a bit longer than two friends would usually look at each other. Amber came in.