Dreams of 18

“I haven’t had to take them in a while,” I tell him before he can say anything else. “I just took one when I was driving out here but other than that I didn’t need to.”

That, at least, is true.

I took the pill because I was anxious. I was freaking out about the journey and about seeing him, but after I actually saw him, I didn’t need it anymore.

After I saw him, something calmed in me even though I thought he hated me in those early days. But I had something to fight for, then.

I had a purpose. A goal. To give him peace, to make things up to him.

Maybe that’s why I didn’t need them.

“Is that why you put it in the closet.”

By it, he means the hobo. The thing I can’t do without.

He noticed that?

Of course he noticed that. He notices everything about me. Of course, he noticed that I hid the hobo in the closet of his other room when I came in weeks and weeks ago to help him detox. I put it in there so he wouldn’t find out. So he wouldn’t stumble upon it accidentally and rattle its contents.

“Yes.”

He’s silent after that and I gauge the distance between us like I did the first night I saw him at the bar and we were talking about him touching that queen-like woman. I look at him, standing by his couch and me in the hallway and I try to think how many steps it would be before I can touch him.

How many steps before I can feel his warmth again, breathe the same air as him, feel the beat of his heart beneath my palm.

“What’s Heartstone.”

He asks the question after what feels like ages. And again, it’s not a question because he probably already knows the answer.

I stopped writing in those journals the night they sent me there. That’s my last entry, going to a psych ward, and then I stopped. Until I picked it up again the day Brian called me and I found out that Graham was watching me as much as I was watching him.

I breathe out a long, long breath. “A psych ward. It’s, uh, it’s in upstate New York. Heartstone Psychiatric Hospital.”

“You were there.”

“Yeah. Yes. I was.”

“How long.”

“F-for a couple of months. They have this, uh, six-week program but I wasn’t making much progress with it so they extended it and I had to stay there for another six weeks.”

“When was this.”

I swallow and grip the hem of what I’m wearing. I realize it’s the plaid shirt of his from yesterday.

I put it on after he fucked me in the truck, wished me a happy birthday and carried me inside. We took a shower together and he washed me up before fucking me again in the shower, slow and lazy like we had all the time in the world. Then, I put on his shirt and we had microwave-heated pizza – the one he bought for us before we got sidetracked.

His soft plaid shirt that still smells like him gives me the strength now that I probably wouldn’t have had otherwise. That and this emptiness inside of me after being full of him for so long.

“L-last year. In the summer and a little bit of fall.”

In fact, I was the second last of our gang to leave Heartstone. Willow was the last one; she had some major incident a night before she was supposed to leave.

“Why? Why were you there?”

The first question he’s asked me that sounds like a question. That sounds like his voice is changing. His expression is still blank though, still lifeless, but something is going on inside of him and I don’t know what it is.

Don’t be selfish, Violet.

Tell him. Love him.

Let him kill you, it’s okay.

“Because I have Panic Disorder.”

Finally, I see a sliver of a movement on his face. I think it’s a wince; I can’t be sure. It was very tiny and it was over in a flash. Gone before I can really tell what’s going on.

But in any case, it’s out there now.

I’ve told him.

He knows.

And now that he does know, I tell him the rest. I tell him even though there’s a chance that he might still think I’m defective and weak.

“I…” I swallow and pull at the hem of his shirt. “I’ve always been kinda shy and away from the world. Well, except when it comes to you. Uh, anyway, I’ve never liked people. I’ve never liked their eyes on me. Mostly because they always looked at me like I was this weird girl with the mousy blonde/brown hair and these giant brown eyes that always make me look like I’m startled or something…”

I chuckle nervously. “But it’s mostly because I’m not used to it. I’m not… used to being seen. Not really. So when I kissed you… that night and I suddenly became this, this thing that everyone was seeing, I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t deal with it. It freaked me out.” I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and go back to fisting his shirt, fraying it with my fingers.