Letter Nineteen #4
And maybe because I could understand what it felt like to choose a different kind of pain when the other kind threatened to swallow you whole, I allowed you to timidly reach out again. To touch my wrist. To drive your fingers up my arm, pushing back the sleeve of my sweatshirt.
It helped that you’d said, “I just got you back.” As if you couldn’t bear to lose me again.
Still, I wasn’t quite ready to let the incident go. “Why couldn’t you have—? You chose a stranger. A stranger over me.”
“That’s just the point.” You dropped your gaze to my arm, firmly massaging my skin with your thumb. “They don’t know me. They don’t know it’s my birthday. They don’t ask me to talk about it.”
“I wouldn’t have asked you to talk about it, either,” I said, allowing some vitriol to enter my voice. “I know better than to ask about your past. You want to talk about shutting people out? That’s what you do. That’s a problem you have. Especially with me.”
“Yeah,” you said thickly, gaze still dropped, thumb still kneading my arm. “That’s—you’re right.”
A couple of tears slipped down your cheek, pricking my heart. This small—okay, big—part of me wanted to kiss them away. Not just the tears, but the grief. The wrinkle between your eyebrows. The pain of having a shitty birthday. All of it.
In the end, that part of me won out—probably because I’d wanted to wipe away your tears so badly the year before—so I compromised by swiping a tear off your cheek with my thumb.
Roughly, though, because I was still pissed.
Your tortured gaze met mine as you slipped off the coffee table, dropped to your knees, and—to my astonishment—buried your head in my lap.
My heart stuttered as your hands drifted up my legs and settled at my hips, gripping me hard, fingers digging into bone.
Over and over again, you whispered “I’m sorry” into my lap, your voice vibrating through me, sending a warm, tingly, thrilling sensation through my body.
Sensing we weren’t alone, I glanced up to find Nic and Michael watching us from the doorway. Michael’s gaze pierced mine for one terrible, gut-clenching moment before he stalked off. My dad remained a bit longer, then followed Michael to the kitchen.
I’m not sure how long you clung to me that day, but my heart throbbed as I dragged my fingers through the dark silky waves of your hair. Your grip on me didn’t loosen, and your whispered apologies didn’t cease, until I leaned down and whispered, “I forgive you.”
Later on, after we’d eaten dinner and it was time for bed, I paused in the entry hall, gripping the newel post.
On the stairs, you turned to see why I wasn’t following. The panic must’ve been evident on my face, because you hurried back down. “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t,” I said, backing away from the stairs. “I can’t go up there. I don’t want to be alone.”
A flash of regret crossed your face. “You’ve really been affected by this, haven’t you? Being left alone?”
I nodded.
“Look,” you said, eyebrows pinched together, “what if we sleep on the sofas tonight? Will that help?”
“You’ll sleep down here with me?”
“Of course I will,” you said softly.
“Okay,” I agreed.
“Let’s grab some blankets and pillows.”
So we gathered extra blankets from the basement and pillows from our bedrooms, then moved to the Garland Room. I made my bed on one sofa, while you made yours on the sofa across from mine. We lay on our sides, facing each other, the coffee table between us.
Quietly, you said, “I didn’t mean to leave you for very long.
I knew Michael was coming by. I knew he’d be here within minutes of you getting home.
But that’s no excuse—I should’ve been here.
” You propped yourself up on one elbow. “I just—I knew you’d try being helpful in some way, and I couldn’t face you.
The way I get…I didn’t want you to see. But you did, anyway.
” You glanced down, toying with the edge of your blanket.
“I hate for people to see me like that. I hate that I’m still not over what happened with my mum… all these years later.”
“Maybe you should go back to therapy,” I suggested, because by then our therapy sessions had paused.
You sighed, meeting my gaze again. We stared at each other, quiet for a long time. “What happened with the panic attack?”
“I don’t know,” I said, propping myself up on one elbow, too. “I don’t know what that was.”
“I didn’t realize you’d never been left alone.” You paused, seeming to hesitate. “Nic’s never left you for, say, ten minutes? Even to pop in down the street, for example, at the Harrises’?”
I shook my head. “Never. He always took me with him.”
“But that doesn’t make sense.”
“Does anything about my life make sense?”
“That’s—I mean, it’s a bit…”
“Messed up?” I finished. “I’ll be nineteen in a few months, and I’ve never been left alone inside my own house—not even for ten minutes. It’s definitely messed up.”
“And when you realized I wasn’t here, you…panicked?”
“Something like that.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. It felt like…something was trapping me. Like I was drowning in my own body. Like I couldn’t get free.”
I didn’t tell you about the clawing. Because the only thing more messed up than never being left on my own was the fact that I’d clawed deep gouges into my chest after being left alone for less than ten minutes.
“I’m sorry you had to experience that because of me,” you said. “All because I was too scared to let you be there for me.”
I shrugged.
“I won’t do it again,” you said. “I won’t leave you next year on my birthday.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Promise?”
“Promise. I’ll stay put and allow you to help me through it, even if I’m still a mess. I don’t want you ever feeling like that again.”
You wouldn’t leave me the next year, would you, Casey?
I’d leave you.
The rest of that week, Garland watched over us as we slept, because the panic attack still haunted me.
I had this fear it might happen again in the middle of the night, and who would help me come out of it if no one was there?
If you or my dad couldn’t hear me? If I couldn’t get downstairs for help?
Nic was okay with us sleeping downstairs together if it made me feel more secure, but he also didn’t like that I couldn’t let the attack go.
“It won’t happen again,” he told me one night while you were upstairs taking a shower.
“You don’t know that, Dad. I don’t know why it happened in the first place.”
“You were alone and scared. You got a little worked up. That’s all.”
“A little worked up? It was terrifying. I never want to go through that again. And what about the clawing? That’s not normal.” I clutched my chest. “Why would I do that to myself?”
Nic reached for my hand. “Elliot—”
“You know what else isn’t normal?” I asked, rearing back, trying to get away from him. “How I’ve never been left alone inside my own house. Maybe that’s why I freaked out. Because you’ve sheltered me too much, and it’s screwed with my head.”
“Elliot,” Nic repeated softly. “It was only a panic attack. And it’s over.”
“There you go,” I said with an incredulous laugh. “You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“I’m saying how strange it is that you’ve never left me alone, and you’re ignoring me—like you always do.
Whenever I bring this stuff up, you dismiss it outright, or you act like I never said anything at all.
You refuse to acknowledge what I’m saying.
You refuse to acknowledge how this stuff makes me feel. ”
Nic stared straight ahead, hands folded in his lap. “I care how this stuff makes you feel, honey—I do. But you’re my daughter, and it’s my job to look after you. I don’t like leaving you alone. I feel better knowing someone’s here with you. I feel better knowing you’re safe.”
“But why wouldn’t I be safe in my own house? We have an alarm system.”
He didn’t respond.
“Is it because you don’t trust me not to hurt myself? Is that what it is?”
“That’s…one concern of mine.”
“So you think I’m a danger to myself.”
“I don’t like leaving you alone,” he said. Refusing, once again, to acknowledge my statement.
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t.”
“That isn’t a good answer, Dad. I’m the only eighteen-year-old in this city who can’t go anywhere without an escort, and it makes me a freak. It’s not normal.”
“You’re not a freak. I don’t ever want to hear you call yourself that again.”
“But that’s what everyone thinks! You keep me locked in this house, you have Casey and Hal follow me everywhere, and everyone knows it. The kids at my school? They talk about it. They say stuff to me about it. According to Bree, even Libby’s friends talk about it.”
He drew back. “What?”
“Yeah. Libby’s friends talk about what a freak I am. How it’s my fault you don’t date because you have such a troubled freak for a daughter.”
“That’s bullshit.” Nic’s gaze flashed darkly. “I don’t date because I don’t want to. I don’t date because your needs are my main concern right now, and I don’t want anyone else getting in the way of that.”
“But what about what you need? If my needs keep yours from being met, that makes me a problem, Dad. Don’t you get it? I’m such a problem you can’t ever leave me alone.”
“What I need,” Nic said, “is for you to be okay. You might legally be an adult now, but you’re still my little girl, and your well-being will always trump mine. Always. You are not my problem. You’re my child. You’re part of me, and my number-one priority is keeping you safe.”
“But I am safe. At least, I felt like I was before I clawed myself. I was never afraid to be left alone before, and now I am. Casey’s having to sleep down here with me like I’m a kid who’s scared of the boogeyman or some shit, and it makes me pathetic.”
“But you don’t need to be afraid, because he’ll never leave you alone again.”
“Never again? For the rest of my life? How is that even possible? By never leaving me alone, you broke me, and now I can’t be alone.”
“I broke you? No, Elliot. No. I—”