Chapter 5 #2
Dean, who is following me closely, wraps the coat around my shoulders when I stop, and hugs my back. I’m crying so hard, hot tears drip from my face and melt the snow they land on. This is so pathetic. I’m mortified when my tears turn to laughter.
“What? Are you laughing or crying?” Dean says into my neck. He frees me from his arms, and I drop my tote bag into the snow to put my arms into my coat.
“I don’t fucking know, man,” I say with a laugh and a sniffle. “This is fucking insane.”
“You curse like a sailor,” Dean remarks, snow crunching under his feet, he doesn’t look directly at me, but instead takes in the trees surrounding the property.
“It’s been so long since someone did that to me.” I use my sleeve as a tissue, even though I have tissues stuffed away in my bag.
“This has happened before?”
“Yeah, but when Andy was still around. And it was mostly about him.” I look off into the distance, avoiding making eye contact with Dean. He essentially rescued me.
“You need to be more assertive.”
“No, shit.” I laugh coldly. “I need to be a lot of things. Assertive isn’t exactly at the top of the list.” I pick up my tote bag, dusting off the snow that stuck to the bottom of it.
I pull out a throat lozenge and pop it in my mouth.
I don’t even know what a lozenge will do for me right now, but I need something to do something to take away the panic that’s brewing in my gut. “I know I’m fucking crazy.”
“You’re not crazy,” Dean assures me, his nose already turning pink, the light from the restaurant dimly shining onto his face.
“Yes, I am.” I laugh again, and I feel like I sound like a maniac. Which I totally am. I hold up my tote bag, shaking it as I speak. “I have a whole ass bag, dedicated to remedies for—for illnesses that aren’t even real!” I shriek, shaking the tote bag like a maraca, pills jangling around.
“But they feel real to you, Madeline,” Dean tells me. I stop my shrieking and hollering for a moment. He has a point, they do feel real to me. They feel so real and sometimes it’s all I can think about. He knows I’m not fucking insane, that this isn’t all in my head.
“They do,” I agree.
“It’s a disorder,” Dean tells me. “But that doesn’t discount what you actually feel. And that doesn’t make you crazy for reacting as if it were real. Because it’s all real to you.”
“It is,” I agree again. Dean’s managed to pace a couple steps away from me, but our voices are still quiet like we are nose to nose.
“I tried to do this road trip before.” I admit. “The year after Andy died.”
“You have?” Dean asks, coming closer again.
“Yes. But I had my first panic attack. I thought I was having a heart attack because of a pain in my shoulder that wouldn’t go away.
It was a literal dark and stormy night, and I had gotten about an hour from York Falls.
I had read online that shoulder pain could be a sign of a heart attack earlier that day.
I couldn’t focus on anything but the pain and the thought of having a heart attack, and so I crashed my car into a telephone pole. ”
Dean nods solemnly.
“I saw a cardiac specialist after that. I had an EKG done. They said there was no evidence of a heart attack. I didn’t believe them,” I swallowed hard. “So I had a stress test done. And those results showed I was fine.”
“Did you have bloodwork done?” Dean asks me.
“Yes. And that was fine too. But I was still convinced something was wrong,” I note.
“So I took supplements. Fish oil. CoQ10. I was convinced I was sick, and my heart was in danger. I was alone. And I had a full-on meltdown when the vitamins didn’t help my pounding heart and shoulder pain.
” I laugh. “A breakdown.” I correct myself.
I feel so ashamed of the things I did in a panic, thinking I was going to die. But Dean is right, it all felt real to me. It feels real in the heat of the moment. The fast heart rate is a heart attack, the pain in the neck is paralyzation, the headache, a stroke.
“I went to the ER. And they did a CT scan on my chest,” I continue.
“Which turned up nothing?” Dean guesses.
“Which turned up nothing.” I confirm, scuffing my feet on the ground. “A nurse suggested I might be experiencing anxiety related to my grief. I called a psychiatrist after that.”
“Do your meds work?” Dean asks.
“They do. For the most part. I still have my routines, my remedies. But it’s better than crashing cars into telephone poles and ER visits.”
“Anti-anxiety medicine paired with an anti-psychotic medicine makes a difference, right?”
“It does,” I agree. Plain anti-anxiety medicine worked for me, for a time. But then things had gotten worse again a few months ago, and my psychiatrist added the anti-psychotic. “But it’s not a long term solution.”
“You can take those medicines for years.” Dean reminds me.
“But they’re not a replacement for coping mechanisms,” I remind him. “Which I’m still working on.” I jingle my bag again, and the pills clatter around in their bottles. My tote bag full of remedies is just a crutch. A security measure. Therapy isn’t enough when the problem runs much deeper.
“You’ll get there if you keep working at it,” He says.
I can’t help but roll my eyes. “I am working at it. You sound almost like a real doctor.”
“I am a real doctor.” Dean says snidely, and it seems like I picked a bone with him. “I have a doctorate in pharmacy.”
“Whatever. You’re not my doctor.”
“Yes, I am. I fill your prescriptions,” He says roughly. He’s a little peeved now, and I can’t help but roll my eyes again to irritate him. I feel like I know how to push all his buttons. “Stop rolling your eyes at me.”
I raise my eyes to meet his. They’re dark and fierce and look vaster than the black sky.
I’ve been vulnerable all night, telling him about Andy, and after that batshit insane man came after me, and I still feel like I don’t know anything about this man and why he’s doing all this for me other than the fact he probably thinks I’m a pathetic little puppy.
“Was the song written about you?” He asks me. “Is that why you didn’t want her to sing it?”
“Of course it was about me,” I swallow. “Why are you driving me on this trip? Seriously?”
“Because…” He trails off, breaking our eye contact. He shifts the leftovers from one hand to the other. “Are you trying to change my mind?”
“No.” I want to take back my question, but part of me needs to know. “Be honest with me. Is it really because I’m your charity case? Because you feel bad for me?”
“Craig told me you come into the pharmacy every single day at the same time, and you ask him incessant questions about every symptom you have. He tells me he’s even walked you home.”
“Yeah, I know Craig. He’s the owner of the pharmacy.” I remember him fondly.
“And when he hired me, he told me he’d pay me a five-thousand dollar bonus if I could get you to stop coming to the pharmacy for a week.
I think he was just joking at the time.” Dean continues, rubbing his forehead.
“But the opportunity just fell in my lap. When I told him I was taking off to take you on a road trip, he wired me the money and said he’d pay me for all seven days, including the weekend I was meant to visit my mother.
He said to think of it like a work trip.
And to convince you to change pharmacies. ”
All I can do is stare blankly at him while I try to process everything he’s just told me. He’s here because he got a hefty work bonus, not because he wants to be. I’m not a charity case. I’m not a pity party.
I’m a fucking paid vacation. He’s a babysitter with a fat paycheck waiting for him at the end. And I handed it right to him.
“And you asked me to pay you for you to be here?”
“I needed the money,” He says, staring at the ground.
“It’s fucking cold. I’m going inside.” I announce, brushing past him, my tote bag cradled in my arms.
“Madeline, wait—” Dean calls after me.
“No!” I feel tears brimming on my eyelashes. I’m not even good enough to be a charity
case. I’m a work trip. A work bonus. I’m a piece of work. And fuck Craig. I trusted him.
“I’m telling you because I think it’s terrible, too! I don’t want your money anymore!” Dean calls, but I’m nearly running and he’s several paces behind, stuck in the snow. I take big strides in and out of the uncleared snow.
I yank open the door to the mansion and burst into the warm lobby and slam the door. I look around the lobby, torn on what my next move should be. Dean swings the door to the lobby open after me, his glasses immediately fogging up.
“Madeline, please,” He says, his tone utterly serious. He’s a little panicked now that I’ve gone rogue. “Come back here and let me explain.”
“Fuck off, Dean.” I mean every word. I pivot towards the staircase, and I take them by the twos. He follows me silently, except for his heavy breathing that I can't escape. I fumble with my tote bag, looking for the golden key to my room, and to silence.
After the longest thirty seconds I’ve ever felt in my life, I still can’t find it. Dean has stopped huffing, and he’s unlocked his own door.
“Madeline. Just go through mine.” He hangs his head, averting his eyes.
“No.” I insist. “I have my key.”
I dump the contents of my tote bag onto the floor and begin sorting through them.
Pepto-bismol tablets. Liquid pepto-bismol.
Ibuprofen. Aspirin. Antacids. My daily medications.
A half full bottle of hand sanitizer, a lip gloss and a travel pack of issues.
Andy’s postcards and letters. My scarf. A deck of playing cards, my house keys and the keys to the now wrecked truck. No resort key in sight.
“Madeline,” Dean repeats.
“I’ll be damned before I go through your door.” My voice is my titanium shield. I check inside the packet of tissues and inside every crevice of my bag. But no key. I carefully place each item back in the tote bag, nearly resigned to my fate of having to face Dean.
I shove my hands in my coat pockets when I feel something hard and metal. The darn room key. “Ha!” I pull it out, pleased with my success. I fumble with putting it in the lock, but I manage to get the door open. He’s standing directly behind me, breathing his stupid breathy breath down my back.
“Good fucking night!” I say decisively and slam the door in his face.