First Love, Take Two

Some days, giving my all wasn’t enough.

I sat in my car in the parking lot after the hideous nightmare-incarnate day. The light in the apartment was on. Daniel was home.

My phone pinged with a text.

Yuvan: Still mad at me?

Was that really all he had to say after I essentially broke things off with him? Or did he think I was simply upset and would go running back to him because who else in the community would marry me?

I couldn’t deal with him right now. I didn’t respond, nor did I answer his call ten minutes later.

My eyes fluttered closed as my thoughts drowned in wave after thrashing wave of anxiety. My head throbbed. My legs and back ached.

I finally dragged myself out of the car and lugged my backpack after me. The strap snagged on the seat belt buckle. I tugged harder and harder, but the thing about loops was that they didn’t just unsnag themselves. I crawled back into the car and undid the loop, but the backpack was so heavy and forcing it to squeeze between the console, and then against the wheel, turned into a battle.

I wanted to scream. Why couldn’t the freaking bag just come out! Why the crap did I always try to lug the stupid thing through my side? Why didn’t I just walk around to the passenger door and open it? Wouldn’t that make sense?

When I succeeded in the most basic thing I had to do today, I took the elevator to the top floor and opened the front door to my apartment. My shoulders drooped beneath the weight of the backpack as I took off my shoes and nearly stumbled over them. For goodness’ sake. Could I just do something right today?

“Ready to talk?” Daniel said from his desk. He wasn’t slumped over his work. He had the TV on and was eating out of a bowl.

I really hoped he’d at least cleaned the stupid kitchen. Fortunately, when I glanced at the countertops through the corner of an eye, I saw only a spotless kitchen. Even the dishes that had been left on the drying rack this morning had been put away.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

I could’ve said a number of things: My patient lost her baby today. I was having an anxiety attack. I was on the verge of depression. I was on the cusp of hating myself for not being good enough.

“Yep,” I said instead, avoiding eye contact and lugging my crap into the bedroom. I dumped it all in the corner by the window, grabbed my sweats, undies, and towel, and went to the bathroom.

My shower was neither as hot nor as long as I would’ve liked.

Once dressed, I fished through the medicine cabinet and checked out my options. NyQuil always knocked me out fast and hard, but it left me feeling groggy in the morning. Maybe Motrin PM? Yeah. I was a lightweight and didn’t need two tablets. One would suffice, although two or three seemed tempting.

I downed one pill and anticipated the druggy sleepiness that would hit soon.

“Do you want something to eat?” Daniel asked cautiously when I emerged. He washed his bowl and fork in the sink.

“No, thanks.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yep.” I pressed my lips together and turned toward the bedroom.

“Pree?” He walked around the counter. “What’s going on?”

I wanted to tell him, because I just needed to unload on someone. Anyone. Part of me knew without a doubt that he’d understand, because he had been there for me in times like this before. But part of me knew better than to lean on him in any way.

Even a conversation.

Even when I needed him.

Even when I knew that his response would alleviate the tension burning in my veins, a wildfire scorching my insides to ashes.

I’d come home looking a haggard mess with dark circles beneath red-streaked eyes, furrowed brows, slumped shoulders, and a quiver that came with every breath.

No one had ever seen me get this bad, except once when I had too many classes and too many projects and too many labs and studying for the MCAT on top of worrying about my entire future and letting my parents down.

I’d crashed that day. Literally. Into a tree while riding my bike across campus in the evening. Liya had taken one look at me and demanded to know what was wrong. I told her, but there was nothing she could do. So she’d called Daniel, despite me warning her not to.

“Great distress leads to desperate measures. Or else I call your parents,” she’d said.

I hadn’t wanted anyone to see me that way, out of control and agitated beyond belief. That had been a dark, scary time.

I’d pushed Daniel away, even snapped at him. He’d gotten frustrated, upset, but always came back to try again. He never left me.

He’d sat with me through many nights and checked in on me throughout the days. He’d asked what had happened, listened to me rant about feelings, sat with me when I didn’t want to talk. I’d leaned on him for my life. That was how Daniel found out about my anxiety, how it sometimes led to depression.

It wasn’t easy in times like this to simply look to God or prayer, to talk to friends, to remember how all the blessings outweighed the bad. There was no way to take a minute and calm down, or view things in black-and-white, to give it an easy fix.

Daniel had seen me then, and he saw me now.

His eyes went wide. “You’re having an episode.”

He took three long strides across the expanse between the kitchen and the bedroom. For a second, my shivering stopped and I closed my eyes, relaxing.

He maintained a short distance, didn’t speak, didn’t touch me, didn’t probe. He knew me better than anyone. He knew that I was hard to read at times, that a gentle touch could either soothe or trigger. He waited. I leaned toward him, almost as if I’d fallen asleep.

I jerked back. The calm vaporized.

“I can’t. I just can’t,” I snapped before hurrying into the bedroom.

Daniel came after me but the door went flying shut in his face. Oh, no. I didn’t mean to throw my anger at him.

I heaved and backed away from the door as if it were about to explode.

A knock. A gentle, calm-evoking knock.

“Please go away. I just want to sleep,” I said from the darkness of the bedroom, my lips quivering, trying to keep it together. Even now, I spiraled into depression, that vortex of negativity, losing the chemical and mental fight.

Anxiety attacks were like being on the failing side in the battle to keep the Alien facehugger from attaching to my head. When it did latch on, it not only suffocated the airways, but the tentacles clawed into the brain and squeezed. If it squeezed even one second too long, a full-on mental breakdown ensued.

Daniel’s shadow faded beneath the door.

I was alone, which meant my hands and my mind needed busywork.

I was in my favorite sweats and concentrated on positive things. I had a happy playlist on my phone for such episodes. There was a compilation of comedic shows and movies that fluttered through my thoughts because pairing auditory and visual was best in order to use up as many senses as possible, reducing the chance for my brain to start thinking and dreading again. I needed something for my mouth to do. Singing was an option, no matter the level of tone-deafness. Eating or drinking was better, though. Hot tea. Cinnamon and orange pekoe black tea with a sprinkle of sugar.

I had a tea bag somewhere in my backpack, but just looking at the bag slumped in the corner had me seeing red. It was illogical to get this upset at an inanimate object.

Even as I rummaged around the bedroom, my thoughts fought an imbalance. I had to try harder to keep negativity out, but pessimism was a wildly strong beast that grappled to the death. And mental health decline was surreal. I’d experienced it one too many times, and I didn’t want to get near that again.

I swallowed hard as words formed in my head, all triggers that created holes in my poorly barricaded mental fortification.

Bad doctor.

Worthless.

Incompetent.

Pointless.

Each word created splintered images of my poor patients and their sobbing families.

Tears stung my eyes and my lips quivered. Then a new section broke open at the sight of Yuvan’s name flashing across my phone.

Bad wife.

Can’t cook.

Can’t be touched.

Can’t commit.

Has a history.

Why did he want to marry me, anyway? Didn’t he see that I was worthless? He was already getting agitated with me.

No. I am not worthless. I have to fight it.

Even as I thought the words, they disintegrated. The darkness rose like colossal waves and crashed down with the weight of a million suns. The mental assault was becoming less and less bearable and more and more critical. My breathing escalated, turning harsh and ragged. My pulse raced.

Maybe wine instead of tea? Or maybe more sleeping pills? The fogginess and sleep wouldn’t erase it all, but it would blur the sharpness of misery.

I scratched down my arms to alleviate some of the tension building inside my bones and grunted out a muffled scream. Just as tears rolled down my cheeks, music floated through the room.

I glanced around for an entire minute trying to figure out where the sound came from. The TV was off and my phone wasn’t playing music. My confusion ebbed away when I realized that the music hummed from the living room.

It took another moment to pinpoint the song. That melodious, humbling, comforting song that dove straight to my soul. It was a soothing balm, placating the fires and torrents that tried to destroy me from within.

The heaviness in my chest receded. The gnarling thoughts gnashing around in my head subsided. My skin cooled.

“Oh,” I breathed, staring at the closed door that separated me from these healing sounds.

Thrumming music.

Daniel still played the guitar?

The music got a little louder, a little closer. The ideal medicine that had helped me years ago came back in that heartbreaking way. It was a magical remedy to these acrid mental wounds.

The music started low, quiet. He played right outside.

I rested my forehead against the door as tears streamed down my face. On one hand, Daniel’s gesture quieted the storm raging through my mind. On the other hand, he reminded me of just how much I’d loved him.

Daniel was…as easy as Sunday morning. Maybe that sounded cliché, but it was the truth. Remembering every song he’d ever played for me and how much it meant was as natural as waking up to a lazy Sunday morning. A morning spent wrapped in blankets and sipping on hot coffee with the right amount of robust flavor and a dollop of homemade whipped cream. The smell of country ham and bacon mixed with sweet maple syrup drizzled over pecan waffles on those amazing, unexpected long mornings when he had time to cook masterful meals. Buttery sweet grits and honey-glazed buttermilk biscuits. A pitcher of fresh-squeezed orange juice. The spread on white lace tablecloths around a bouquet of purple and yellow wildflowers when I’d stayed over at his place. Clanking fine china and silverware muted by haunting laughter and conversations those times when we ate with his grandparents and Brandy.

Sunday morning was about comfort and grace and gratitude and all the feel-goods life had.

Sunday morning was about blessings and taking a step back from hectic life.

Sunday morning was…any morning waking up beside Daniel.

As his fingers strummed against the strings, the tune vibrated through the walls and straight into my chest.

His shadow crested beneath the door, moved to the left, and stayed there. Music softly, delicately filled the space between us.

Please be enough. Please let this music floating beneath the door be enough.

He remembered this after so long? This music that had been my safety line, the only thing to grab on to when there was nothing else. In a world where tangible things weren’t enough, when I felt like I was mentally and emotionally drowning, these intangible notes had become the only thing I could latch on to.

Back then, it had been just enough to keep me from reeling away and tripping over the edge.

Please be enough again.