Chapter 30
Sophie
I never thought there would come a day when diamond painting art would elicit no feelings in me.
Or actually, that’s exactly why I did these hobbies and crafts.
Because I wanted to be numb, and yet, here I sat, in my bubble of safety, back to the steady, unadventurous life I had before, still feeling all the things, missing all the things.
And by things, I meant him. Pace.
I also missed *gasp* leaving the house and seeing people.
Even if I hated the process leading up to it, I was always glad I’d done it.
It made me think again of Pace’s insistence that the cost of admission to community was being put out from time to time.
And looking back on these months with Pace, there was nothing I regretted, because everything led me to feel more confident in myself and got me to spend more time with Pace.
In the weeks since the ball, I made myself an appointment with Dr. Spinner even though I hadn’t talked to her since the “breakup.”
Do it scared.
I drove out to her office in the city, dealing with the drive on the interstate and parking with other cars around.
I was anxious as I planned it out, but I did it all and imagined Pace there with me.
It hurt to imagine him cheering me on when he’d been so different the night of the ball.
So scared. But he was with me as I drove into town.
I pretended it was him patiently talking me through scary downtown parking and again as I studied the map to pick a place to have lunch by myself afterward.
His safety and presence were there in my mind as though he was still next to me, rooting me on.
My catch-up with Dr. Spinner left her with a stunned smile.
“Sophie, wow. You did all that? And you came here today. That’s incredible,” she said, her eyes gleaming with pride behind colorful rimmed glasses.
“It was easier with Pace,” I admitted. I wondered if it would still count if she knew I’d had him there for so much of it.
“People with broken legs still need crutches. You were still the one who made things happen. You were the one who wrote the list and put all of this into motion. I’m extremely proud of you. No matter what you think, everything you accomplished is huge. You should be proud of you too.”
I agreed that I was proud but planned to talk to her again next month in the new year.
She apologized again for ever making me think that she was breaking up with me, and in hindsight, I may have been a bit touchy about the whole thing.
I knew even back then that she was right.
That I’d stagnated in life, using my mental health diagnosis to keep me from trying to change my circumstances.
I was one of the lucky ones, and while I wasn’t diminishing how real and hard things were for me, I also recognized that I was privileged enough to be physically able to change things in small ways.
That my mental health issues weren’t everything about me, just a part of me.
And I could be nice to myself when I needed rest and recovery for longer than most.
It was this fact that kept me from reaching out to Pace.
I couldn’t fathom why he’d proposed to me in the heat of the moment.
Did he think it would stop the judgmental looks?
He was obviously terrified. I’d never seen him so desperate to keep me around, but he hadn’t meant what he said.
He’d proposed out of fear and not love. That was not the foundation to build a life on.
From the beginning, it had never made sense why he wanted to help me, but now I feared it hadn’t been about me at all.
He was running from something in his own life and needed to work it out.
I loved him. I always would, and my life without him was bleak and dark, but I couldn’t continue to be raw around him as he put up walls. I had to give myself that much.
And I hadn’t heard from him either.
Maybe he realized the ball was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to being with me.
It had to be exhausting to be around someone like me.
Hell, it was exhausting for me, and it was my own mind.
I couldn’t imagine how it was for him, someone who had always been carefree and full of life, to feel chained to me.
It was the Winter Ball that I kept fixating on, the one piece I couldn’t lay to rest. I had to keep picking it back up every time I thought I was done, examining it from a new angle to see what I could have done differently.
We had both been a mess that evening, both of us reacting poorly to our worst fears.
I’d retreated to who I was before I met him.
I’d been so humiliated, I just wanted to run and hide.
Why had he proposed like that? Why had he said words that I, in my quietest moments, deeply desired and dreamed about, only to throw them at me like a curse he wanted to transfer to somebody else?
I couldn’t think about it without flushing with shame.
I wanted to remember the amazing, beautiful parts of the evening, but my mind kept looping back to the dark parts.
I’d spent hours, days likely, replaying the one-sided conversation with Vicky, saying everything I’d wished I’d said, how I could have better handled things.
A sassy retort that would have put her perfectly in her place.
But then I would think about how it wouldn’t change anything.
She’d still be her, and I wouldn’t feel any closure.
How could I let somebody whose opinion I didn’t even value have such power over my emotions?
But still, I replayed the imaginary conversation over and over. Every word I said or action I took, I tried to pinpoint exactly where I went wrong.
I could reach out to him, explain my side of things, but the list was done. Our perfect list of reasons to hang out was marked off completely. And I was still . . . just me.
As if I would ever be with a person like you . . .
But then later, I hyperfixated on the more glorious moments of our time together.
And nothing made sense. I would remember how he patiently explained the systems of the businesses in town, so I knew what to expect, without being condescending or getting impatient.
I would recall the almost boyish innocence of his eagerness in bed.
How he would sometimes look at me like I was a marvel and give me the most wonderful compliments as though they were obvious.
But then I would physically cringe when I thought of every tripped-over sentence, or what he must have seen when I rushed out of the bank with blood streaming down my face. Or how I just shut down the night of the ball. And how much work I was.
There were no safe thoughts.
Grandma had walked in on me arguing out loud with myself more than once. Sometimes it was with Vicky or a random person from town, but usually it was with the imaginary Pace in my head.
“If you can’t be honest with me, then what’s even the point?” I grumbled as I dusted some of the shelves in the shop.
“You’re doing it again,” Grandma El said from behind me, making me jump.
“I know,” I said miserably.
When I felt her hovering behind me, I reluctantly stopped pretending to dust the puzzles and turned to look at her.
I knew that face. That was a strap-in-for-a-lecture face, and while normally I’d make an excuse to run, any voice besides the one going in circles in my mind would be a welcome respite.
“You know the great thing about imaginary arguments?” she asked.
I didn’t answer. I knew what was coming.
Is that you always win them . . .
“Is that you always win them,” she said.
This wasn’t the first time I’d heard this.
But it hadn’t stopped my shampoo bottles from receiving supremely delivered dressing-downs over the years.
“The person you’re arguing with will always say exactly what you need them to say to set you up for the perfect response. ”
In my mind, this only went against her argument, but she wasn’t done.
I set down the duster.
“But you’re always going to keep coming back to it. It’s never going to give you closure because you’re smart enough to know that it’s not real,” she said.
“It still feels good to work out what I want to say,” I said.
She nodded.
“Maybe if I practice enough in my head, one day I’ll get it right in the moment,” I added.
“Maybe,” she agreed. “But you still need to have the hard conversations with actual people to find out if that theory is true or not.”
“Ugh. I would rather not.”
“Listen,” Grandma said. “I’m sorry again about the list. I would never do anything intentionally to hurt you.”
“I know. It’s okay,” I said, as I had the first few times she’d apologized. Her remorse was real, but I could see her beginning to lose patience with me.
“But I’ve been thinking. Is it so bad that it got leaked?” she asked. “Not that I’m trying to make myself feel better or anything.” She cocked a hip, resting her foot up on her thigh, in a casual yoga stance. “But like . . . did you die?”
“No,” I admitted on a sharp sigh. I thought of Pace because, of course, I did.
“I noticed you didn’t take it down yet.”
“I figured that would look weak. And it’s already out there. The worst has happened, and you’re right. I’m still here.” I shrugged.
“I know you don’t think that I understand what it’s like to be trapped in your own brain.
But I do. Trust me.” She cleared her throat, and I realized she was nervous.
She was working herself up to share. Grandma El was not one to talk a lot about her past. “I was with your grandpa for over forty years, forty,” she said, avoiding my gaze.
“Most every morning, I would wake up and think, today I will leave him. I deserve more than this. And then every evening I went to bed berating myself for my cowardice and weakness. I was trapped in a miserable marriage as much as in my own head.”