Medicine
*
Take the red pill to feel better.
Swallowing a tiny red pill was supposed to fix my entire existence? Maybe I was placeboing myself into hope. Either way, I took the damn thing.
It had been three days since my appointment with Paige, and I’d popped in to see my family doctor for a walk-in.
It was almost comical how easy it was to get antidepressants.
“I’m melancholic, and it feels like the world is pointless under this capitalistic, manufactured nightmare,” I’d told him.
I was being dramatic, but wasn’t it true?
He’d ignored my cynicism with a curt, “Take 100mg of Zoloft once a day. Check in with me in a month.”
Now, I looked at myself in the mirror over the sink. Robert lay in bed behind me, his highlighter squeaking softly across a stack of papers.
“So, is it just us for Graduation tomorrow?”
Robert stopped, then said quietly without looking up, “No.”
I raised a brow, turning to him as he said, “William is coming.”
I tensed. William was Robert’s biological father. I was there back when Robert first met him. It had started out fine, but like most dysfunctional families with absent fathers, William kept finding reasons to leave in the eight years he had been back in Robert’s life.
“Why?”
Robert sighed, putting the papers down. “Honestly, I don’t know. His new wife is lovely. She must have convinced him that having a child would prevent him from being in a nursing home.”
I wanted to snort, but I realized how much of a chasm was between us right now. I walked over to the bed, climbed up on it, and knelt next to Robert.
“Do you want him there?”
Robert shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”
I scowled. “That’s bullshit. It does matter. You are the first in your family to finish college. You worked your ass off for this. What do you want?”
He smiled at me, brushing some of my hair out of my face. With a smirk, he said, “If I said I didn’t want him there, would you act like a bouncer tomorrow and tell him to leave?”
I nodded. “Of course.”
He chuckled and leaned forward to kiss me. My heart clenched when his lips touched mine, and I nearly wanted to cry.
“Thank you, my tiny bodyguard. Alas, I can handle William taking photos to show his friends and then ignoring me again for a year.”
I lay down, placing my head on his chest. I expected him to recoil, but he seemed to melt into me. It was as if the argument of the last few days was gone.
“I can ruin all of the photos for him. Bring a poster that says something like ‘Guns kill people,’ so he can’t post them on social media.”
Conservative icon William could not risk others knowing about his liberal kids.
Robert snorted and kissed the side of my head. We sat silently until he finally said, “I’m sorry I walked out the other morning.”
“You don’t need to apologize—”
“No, I do. You were obviously in a crisis, and I let your words hurt me.”
I hesitated. I needed to discuss this with him.
“Rob, I have to be honest with you. I have wondered for years if we wouldn’t be together if we hadn’t randomly met.”
Robert chuckled. “To be fair, that’s how most meet-cutes start.”
“Yes, but—let me explain.”
I took a deep breath and then sat up to look into his eyes. He smiled weakly as I continued, “I used to think we were only together because we were both broken, from crappy families. We clung to each other like barnacles on a whale.”
Robert smirked at that comparison, which made the scar on his chin more prominent.
“But, over the last few months, I’ve realized that we are together because we love each other.”
He laughed. “We’ve been married for five years, Bree. It took you until last year to realize it?”
“Shut up, Rob.” I laughed as he smiled. “But seriously, I’m with you because I want to be with you. Not because I need to be, or like you were the last kid to get picked for dodgeball.”
His eyebrows were nearly to his hairline as he said, “Thank you for wanting to be with me.”
“Now you.”
“You want me to thank you for wanting to be with me?”
I touched my forehead. “No. Do you feel the same way?”
Silence.
Panic seeped in. “Rob, I don’t want you ever to feel like you are only with me because you feel stuck. Something like you think you can’t survive alone, so your only option is to stay tethered to me.”
He rubbed the back of his neck, moving his gaze to the carpet.
I felt like the world was crashing down around me. The paint peeled off the walls as they crumbled.
Robert opened his mouth, then closed it. He ran a hand through his hair before reaching for the papers beside him. My stomach dropped.
I did what I could to keep this reality here. I kept rambling. “Like the idea of a drowning victim pulling down their rescuer. I know I’m complicated. I know I’m a mess—”
“Bree, just be quiet for one minute.”
At that moment, the destruction seemed to pause. It was as if drywall pieces stopped in midair as I waited for Rob to resume.
He held up the packet of papers next to him. “I’ll admit, the other day, I felt like I had put myself in a position where I was tied to you.”
Tied to me—like an anchor tied to his legs, keeping him in deep water.
“I knew if I didn’t find something for me, I’d forever feel like I had to tiptoe around you, just as you did for me.”
Wait, what?
“What?”
Robert exhaled deeply. “I know it wasn’t easy to be with me when we first moved out together. I made the money, and I had a temper. I had never been taught how to argue. I didn’t know why I was so angry at the world. I took that out on you constantly.”
I wanted to push back. I wanted to say, “ No, babe, you were great. ” But he was right. He had been an asshole.
And I’d stayed.
“We both are working through our shit. I plan to stay as long as you will let me. Nevertheless, I need to make sure if the decision ever happens, I’m not screwed.”
He handed me the paper. My breath hitched. Not divorce papers. Not something devastating. A contract. For eight weeks in Wyoming?
“What is this?”
“I have to get experience before graduate school, or the degree will be useless. This is a field school. It’s already paid for, but I have to complete it.”
He turned to me. “Originally, I wasn’t going to go. With your mom—”
“You’re not allowed to ruin your future over me.”
“I knew you’d say that. I was willing to wait until next year to do one, even though it could postpone my ability to find work for one to two years.”
I nodded. Two years with no school or a job. Rob would go insane.
“I’ll be working for ten days and off for four. It’s a twelve-hour drive. If anything happens, I’ll hit the road immediately and ask to be released.”
I wanted to push back. I wanted to be selfish. Yet, what could Robert do for me? My mother had months. She could die after we had already moved to England.
I shook my head. “You need to go.” I steadied my voice, “I want you to go, and I want us to be okay when you do.”
Perhaps the red pill wasn’t magic. However, for the first time, I didn’t need rescue—I just needed a chance to swim alone.