21. Lydia
Lydia
The doorbell rings, and I know it’s Simone by how many times she hits it. It makes me smile as I walk down the stairs, swinging off the last step and rushing to the front door.
I swing it open, and she’s standing there in denim cut-offs and a huge Texas A I feel like I’ve neglected everyone lately. Especially you.”
We get into my room, and I shut the door behind us as Simone flops onto my bed. “Busy?” She arches an eyebrow. “You kinda dropped off the planet, girl. I thought maybe Elon Musk flew you to Mars without telling me.”
I laugh, grateful for the jokes. “Nothing that interesting, sadly.”
I stand there, restless, chewing on the straw of my coffee.
I don’t feel like myself today. Well, it’s not just today…
I don’t think I have for a while now, actually.
I feel like a broken screen. Everything still works, but the cracks make it all look and feel ruined.
I’m one drop away from breaking completely.
I keep pulling my sleeves down and fixing my hair so it’s in front of my shoulders out of habit. Simone notices the shift. She notices everything. It’s her—shitty for me—superpower. She tilts her head. “You okay? You look…off.”
“Didn’t sleep great,” I mumble. “The usual insomnia.”
She studies me a second longer, then shrugs it off and launches into a story about some drama going on at her school.
I nod and laugh at the right times, but my mind feels like it keeps trying to drift off.
I’m trying not to zone out, but the constant anxiety that sits with me is making it hard to focus.
I turn to grab the TV remote from the shelf on my wall, and as I stretch to the top shelf, my sleeve rides up. Simone’s gasp is small but sharp.
“Lyd…what is that?”
My arm freezes in midair.
“It’s nothing,” I say quickly, almost dropping the remote, trying to pull my shirt down.
Simone quickly walks over to me and gently grabs my wrist, angling my arm toward the light, bruises litter my forearm. Her eyes flick to my throat, and I can feel her notice the small discoloration there.
“Nothing?” she repeats, voice lowering. “Did…Eli do this to you?”
“What?—No, it was—” I swallow. “I don’t even remember what that’s from, honestly.”
She lets go and folds her arms. “You don’t remember, or you don’t wanna tell me, Lydia, cause this looks really bad.”
“It’s not what you think.”
“Okay, then tell me what it is.” Her tone is gentle, but it backs me into a corner faster than yelling ever could. “Because last month I swear I saw a bruise on your back, too, at the lake.”
“Simone, can we not do this? I’m fine. Honestly. It’s nothing.”
She doesn’t move. I look up, and her eyes are shining with worry…or maybe anger? Both, probably. Everyone is always angry with me.
“It could have just been from rough sex,” I blurt, desperate. “We get carried away sometimes. That’s all.”
Simone’s face hardens, and I instantly regret saying that. “You’re telling me Eli leaves finger-sized bruises on your neck and arms because he can’t control himself when you’re fooling around? Lydia, that is not a flex, that’s a red flag.”
I slam the remote on the bedside table. “Just drop it, please.”
“No.” She sets her coffee down. “I’m your best friend. You don’t try to hide bruises like this from me and expect me not to ask questions.”
This irrational anger and dumb protectiveness take over. “Maybe I wouldn’t hide stuff if people didn’t judge me the second they saw it.”
“I’m not judging you. I’m worried about you!”
“Well, stop! You don’t know everything.” My voice starts getting closer to a shout. A part of me registers that Sarah is upstairs with Huxley, but I’m too heated to care.
Simone’s eyebrows knit together, and I see the hurt in her expression. “I’m trying to be here for you. But if you shut me out and snap at me—”
“I said, drop it! God, just leave it alone.”
Her shoulders slump. She stares at me like she’s seeing a stranger. “What the hell is going on, Lydia? Why are you acting like this?”
“I’m not acting like anything.”
“You are! You have been since you started dating Eli. I’ve stopped seeing you as much. You’re always cold and distant now when we do talk; you two fight all the time, and now I see bruises all over your body. I’m really worried about—”
“Shut up! Please, shut up!”
She sits back down on my bed, looking at me, almost defeated, like she wants to cry.
But I don’t understand why. It’s not her going through all of this, it’s not her who’s slowly becoming her shitty mother who couldn’t stand up to a man, it’s not her who wakes up in the middle of the night from panic attacks, barely able to breathe or look in the mirror without questioning who the hell is staring back at her, it’s not her who wishes she could just not wake up one morning, just finally be back with her sister, the only person who would have understood her…
really understood her. Nobody understands me here… not even Simone.
“I don’t understand what’s going on, Lydia.” She speaks so quietly that I know she’s trying to be disarming, but I’m too angry at the world right now to care where it goes, so her efforts are pointless.
“Of course you don’t understand! How could you understand!
Your life is perfect, Simone! You have perfect parents who are still alive!
Who love each other! Who never made you feel worthless!
You have a perfect boyfriend and a perfect relationship.
You couldn’t possibly understand what it’s like to be in my shoes! ”
I watch as a single tear makes its way down her cheek.
I know I should feel sorry; I should want to make this right with her.
I love her so much, but I can’t see past the rage; I can’t see past the hurt, and this feels like the only way to get her to leave me alone, to not have her be a part of this fucked up cycle I’m in.
“I’m far from perfect, Lyd. My relationship is far from perfect. But he doesn’t put his hands on me. That’s not a normal thing. You have to know that.”
I have to get her out of here. I have to stop the questions. I have to make this all go away.
“Fuck, Simone, you’re so pathetic. You want to play ‘pretend therapist’ because it makes you feel important or something?
Go back to your picture-perfect life and stop digging into mine.
I’m not a charity case for the girl whose biggest problem is chipped nail polish, or what she’s wearing tomorrow. ”
Simone’s jaw goes slack like she’s just taken a punch from me. For a beat, she can’t speak. There’s only the shaky rise of her chest and the tremor in her fingers as she wipes the lone tear off her cheek.
“Wow,” she says, voice breaking. “Pathetic? That’s how you see me?”
I watch as she swallows the rest of her tears, straightening up. “I have never treated you like a charity case, Lydia. I love you like a sister. I asked because I’m scared for you.” She shakes her head, almost laughing at my cruelty. “But if caring makes me pathetic, then I guess I am.”
She steps back toward the doorway, eyes never leaving mine.
“I can’t keep walking on eggshells, begging you to let me in while you keep choosing someone who’s hurting you.
” Her voice steadies, but it’s all tired and sad now.
“I’ve given you every piece of myself I know how to give, and all I get is your anger lately. I don’t recognize you anymore.”
Funny, neither do I.
Simone grips the doorknob, lingering just long enough for one last try, but the silence between us is a wall now. One I have to leave up.
“Call me when you remember I’m not the enemy,” she says softly. “Because until then…I can’t do this anymore.”
She closes the door behind her with a quiet finality. No slam, no dramatic gesture, just the sound of something precious slipping out of the room and, maybe, out of my life.
I quickly grab the closest thing to me—a lamp—ripping it from the plug, and throw it at the door, watching it break.
“Fuck you! Fuck everyone!” I scream.
I sink down onto the floor, wrapping my arms around my legs, shaking.
How fucked up can I be? To protect the boy I love who keeps hurting me? Who keeps telling me he loves me? Who keeps fucking with my head?
I hear Sarah at my door instantly. She comes into my room, carefully stepping over the broken light, and kneeling down next to me.
“What happened, Lydia?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I say through the tears.
Stop crying.
I’m so sick and tired of crying.
Everything that has ever made me happy in this life has been cruelly ripped away from me, like the universe wants to see how far it can keep pushing me before I finally snap. And I’m pretty fucking close to snapping.
Focus, Lydia…breathe…calm your heart rate… this is still reality…you haven’t gone too far yet.
“What can I do to help?” Sarah asks, pulling me back into the moment.
Everything feels like it’s swaying. My brain feels uneasy.
It feels like I’m watching everything happening, but I’m not actually here.
It’s all going in and out of focus, and I know the feeling too well.
I know the panic attack is trying to take over.
I need something to make it stop, to distract my mind and my body, to quiet the noise.
I press my phone to her. “Can—can you call Eli? Tell him I need him. Now. Please.”
She just nods and searches through my contacts until she finds him and sends him a text.
* * *
He’s standing at my bedroom door thirty minutes later. The anxiety is still at its peak, and I just need him to make it stop for me. I nod my head at the door, signaling for him to close it, and then I lift the cover up for him to get in the bed.
It’s times like these that I’m grateful for the hands-off parenting Sarah and Mark tend to go with.
They never care if they leave me alone, and they never fight me when I want Eli to stay over.
They probably know I’ll find a way anyway, and would rather not deal with the fight.
Either way, I’m thankful right now for whatever the reason is.
I pull him closer, wanting his weight, wanting the intensity that drowns everything else out.
I’m desperate to quietly tangle my body in his, wanting it to pull me out of the panic, out of the rage, out of the pain.
But somewhere in the haze, I feel it, that hollow place inside me widening instead of filling.
His kisses make my skin feel on fire, yet the chill underneath doesn’t thaw.
My heart is still cold and barely beating.
Eli dozes off with his arm draped across my waist, and I just lie there staring at the ceiling.
I can feel my pulse thrumming behind my ribs and in my veins, but my heart feels oddly empty.
The high I keep chasing, this fierce closeness I’m searching for, it evaporates faster every time, leaving me with a deeper ache.
I don’t know how to stop needing it, even when it’s not working.