Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
How had I convinced myself that I couldn’t see artistic beauty in anything anymore?
Crescent was all of that and more, down to the way he cut the potatoes on the cutting board.
There was an elegance to how his wrist lifted and how it fell.
We’d just gotten home from my therapy session after he’d worked all day, and he’d decided we needed to eat as soon as we got home.
I wasn’t really complaining, but it was our second day home since his parents’ house, and we still hadn’t talked.
I watched him finish the final slice, putting the knife aside.
He had his earbuds in and his hair pulled up in a hair tie, showing off his handsome face.
“So, I’ve given you some time, and I’m all therapied and taken care of for the day.
Can you tell me about what’s been going on that you haven’t told me? ”
Crescent paused, holding some of the potato slices in his hands, right above a large, boiling pot of water. “Is it bad I really hoped you’d forget all about that?”
“I don’t think it’s bad, but it was definitely inaccurate. You do remember me telling you I love you, right?”
The potatoes tumbled into the pot, some of the water splashing out and onto the stove.
It sizzled, the sound almost pulling me away and into a bad memory.
One of Jude and an incident with the kitchen stove.
I took a deep breath through my nose, reminding myself of where I was.
Reminding my nervous system that I was safe.
I shook the memory away just as Crescent started to speak again. “Oh, I absolutely do, baby. It’s just a little scary. Makes everything a bit more real.”
Yeah, I definitely understood that. “I know, honey. But I’m here, no matter what. I just want to help you in any way I can, just like you want to help me in any way you can. It’s the same.”
He sighed, grabbing a pack of steaks out of the fridge.
“Looking back, I’ve struggled with sadness of some sort for a very long time.
I didn’t realize it for an even longer time.
Like, until I’d been in therapy for a while.
But one day, when I was seventeen, I woke up and I didn’t want to exist anymore.
I was so sad—I didn’t want to kill myself, but I didn’t want to wake up the next day, either. It was different. Heavier. Lonelier.”
Seventeen. “When I left?”
“It was some time after, and it wasn’t because of you, but yeah.
If you want to get technical, it was around the same time.
” He flipped one steak over, seasoning it.
“I dealt with the depression for a while, just going through it without really telling anyone. I truly felt like I was losing my mind. Getting out of bed, or even opening my eyes, was exhausting. Everything took ten times more energy. That wasn’t the hardest part, though.
“The hardest part was when I started hearing shit. Random words here and there that no one around me said. Then, they turned into complete sentences, and multiple at a time, then screams and yells and…” Shaking his head, he closed his eyes for a moment.
When he opened them, the lines around them had deepened.
The golden brown I’d come to love was dull.
A dull brown. “And then I started seeing shit, too. Nothing crazy at first. And then it was these weird fucking holes everywhere in the most random places. Black, empty voids. Then, there were the shadows. Shadows without faces or determinable human features. Those scared me a lot. Still do. Sometimes, I’d see a person in front of me I knew, and they’d be off to the side, and I’d look back only to realize they were a hallucination too. It was fucking terrifying.”
I had to force back a shiver, feeling the fear as if it were my own. “Did you tell anyone when that started happening?”
He laughed, though it was humorless. More of a breath through his nose than anything. “Fuck no. That’d be too smart of me, huh? I kept it all a secret. The symptoms came and went, along with the depression. A constant cycle that never truly ended.”
“When did you go to therapy?”
“When I had my breaking point. After years and years of slowly losing myself, I tried to end it. Truly end it.”
Crescent turned around, lifting the lid of the pot. I didn’t want to see his back. I wanted to see his face. The face I’d always known and always trusted. The face of the boy I grew up with and the man I fell in love with.
I think, in a past life, we’d been angels together.
Soaring through the skies, hand in hand, looking down at the world below us.
Because he, too, had known the urge to fly without wings.
Maybe even with broken ones. We’d both gone to the highest point, looked down across the waters below, and convinced ourselves we could jump off and find the answer to everything. Everything, yet nothing.
When he turned around, he wouldn’t look at me. His eyes were turned down, staring at the steaks. I understood it—the vulnerability in his very soul. “The bridge?” I whispered.
“No. The bridge was a little over a year ago. This was around two years ago.”
Twice? He’d felt that desperate two times in his life, and I hadn’t been there? “Fuck, Cres.”
The potatoes were ready to strain. He kept himself busy with them, walking around the kitchen, keeping his eyes everywhere but on me.
“Yeah. So, I started seeing Lee after that. He was great. Truly awesome. But, I don’t know—after about a year, I decided I needed a clean slate.
Therapy and meds had helped so much, and I hadn’t had an episode in forever.
Lee pleaded with me not to end our sessions, or at the very least, to let him find me a therapist here before I moved.
I ignored him, and I left. Moved here. Learned how to bake at Love ’n Sugar, which became my lifeline.
Baking made everything that much better.
I fucking love it, El. I love it so much.
I can just zone out with it; not worry about the world around me, and create something beautiful and tasty at the same time. ”
“Like me with painting.”
“Yes, exactly that.” He poured the potatoes into a bowl, spooning in butter and salt, before mashing them all together.
“After a while, I stopped my meds. I didn’t have a psychiatrist or doctor to prescribe them anymore, so I did what no one should ever do, and I weaned off them myself.
It didn’t take long for the shadows and voices to come back, and when they did, they were ten times worse than before.
After a few weeks of dealing with them and my depression getting worse with each day, I went to the bridge. Just to see.”
I tilted my head, searching his face. “See what?”
The fork he was holding clanged against the bowl over and over, the mashing getting more aggressive by the second.
“See if I could do it. If I wanted to, I guess. When I got on that bridge and threw my legs over, I was really planning to do it, you know? I’d made it that far, right?
But, the most insane thing happened that made me stop.
” He pulled away, placing his hands on the table, looking up at me.
We locked eyes, his gaze more intense than sad.
“I thought I heard you call my name. Probably a hallucination, but I heard that shit. Your voice stopped me. The reminder of you reminded me of the life I still wanted to live. Just in case I got a second chance.”
My voice didn’t want to work. Neither did my brain, actually. “You stopped me, and I stopped you. Sort of.”
“Yeah, baby. That’s part of why I told you back then that I couldn’t pretend this doesn’t feel like something I shouldn’t give up on. Realizing we lived in the same town, seeing you on that bridge—the same bridge where I’d tried to jump, and you had saved me.”
“I’m so fucking sorry, Cres. That you’ve had to go through all of that alone, and that you’ve felt this way for so long.”
He grabbed one of the steaks, dropping it into the heated pan on the stove.
“No reason to be sorry. I hadn’t had an episode in a while when we finally met again.
I’m not exactly sure what changed, but it happened.
My earbuds help with the voices, and I’ve gotten better at ignoring the visual hallucinations.
I fucking hate that it started when it did. ”
I stood from the table, walking behind him.
The need to feel him in my arms was far too much to ignore.
Wrapping my arms around his middle, I pressed my forehead against his back.
“You’ve been so strong, honey. So fucking strong for me.
I don’t need you to struggle silently, though.
Do you think they have someone who could help you at the office I’m going to? ”
“I’m sure they do.”
“Will you look into getting in with someone?”
I stepped back as he turned around in my arms, facing me. He cupped my face, staring down at me. The way he held me was gentle, his thumb swiping over my cheekbone. “You don’t think I’m crazy?”
My face must’ve said a million things before my mouth did. Crescent’s eyes were darting all over my face. “Fuck no. Absolutely not. Why would I think that?”
“I’d never heard of my type of depression before, so I assumed I was going fucking insane for a very long time. I think I was scared you wouldn’t want to depend on me if you knew.”
Leaning forward, I pressed my lips to his in a short, sweet kiss.
“No, sweetheart. Never. I’d never think you were insane, or crazy, or undependable.
You’ve done nothing but be there for me.
As kids, and now. I love you. No matter what.
That isn’t going to change. What I do want to change, though, is the lack of help you’ve gotten.
If medicine worked before, I think it’s a good idea to start on it again. ”
“God, what good thing have I done to deserve you?”
Holding his cheeks in my hands like he always did mine, I looked up into his eyes, looking for the golden brown I knew lived there. “Existed. You’ve existed, Cres. That’s all you need to do for me. What you deserve is everything and more.”
The sides of his lips turned up in a soft smile, his nose scrunching the slightest bit with it. “I fucking love you.”
“I love you, too.”
We stood there, holding each other in our own space, in our own bubble. I never wanted to come out of it, content to be with him there forever.
Until smoke started coming from behind him. “Um, I think the steak is charring a bit.”
His eyebrows shot up, and he whipped around, forcing me away. “Fuck!”
I ran to the counter and grabbed a baking sheet, handing it to him. He slammed the sheet over the fire, smothering the flames.
For a moment, I was transfixed by the sizzling sound coming from beneath the baking sheet.
Like the water on the stove, it made me freeze.
The muscles in my body were tightening to run from an invisible danger, despite me being completely safe.
A ringing started in my ears, echoing over and over until it turned into the sound of fire alarms in my old house.
Jude running down the hallway to turn them off, only to run back to me, his mouth contorted into the grimace of the devil himself.
His hands were raised, his fingers already curling into claws, ready to close around my throat.
I’d backed against the stove, right into the burning pot.
It’d startled me so badly, I’d jumped right into Jude.
An angry Jude. A really fucking angry Jude.
“Baby? You okay?”
I looked up, blinking at Crescent in front of the sink.
“Come here. I’ve got you.”
His arms were outstretched, both of his hands relaxed, inviting me into his embrace. No anger on his face. No grimace. Just worry and love.
I fell into his arms, guiding myself through a breathing exercise. He mumbled from above, chuckling to himself. I could feel it from his chest. “I finally burned something around you again. Let’s just call the pizza place for delivery, yeah?”
I couldn’t help the smile on my face. It was big and happy, and so content I could’ve cried. Yeah, he’d burned our steak dinner, but he was here, and he was mine.
We were going to be just fine.