Only Saints

« xiv. »

"Paul—"

I hold a hand up to cut Drew off. I can't talk to him right now. I can't face the fact that I tried to run away from everything and I got caught—I got stopped—because I was too stupid and sentimental to disappear without a trace. If I hadn't said anything, I would've been fine. If I had just waited until I was out of state to call, I wouldn't have felt so guilty that I had to turn back.

I need to disappear. It's like an itch underneath my skin. It's like breathing, something so natural that it doesn't even occur to me that it could be wrong. How can I not draw another breath? If I were to stop long enough, I'd pass out, my body forcing me to resume normal function.

I need to disappear.

Like breathing.

I could have just stayed in my car when I got back. But he was sitting on the porch waiting for me. Florie's outlined in silhouette behind the blinds, leaning on the kitchen counter and listening in. My aunts and mother are probably huddled on the couch just inside with Jenna and the other kids.

I light up my fourth cigarette in the last hour. My hands are shaking bad enough that it becomes a chore. At this point I'm not even doing it for the nicotine, just to have something to do with myself, to have something to think about, to have something—anything—besides my family in my life. I wish I was an alcoholic. I wish I was anything besides just selfish.

"Listen," I stammer out, collapsing in one of the folding chairs on the porch. "I'm not here to—I'm not here to—not—" Not, not, not, echoes the word in my head, smaller and faster as it crosses my lips until I'm nearly inaudible, just tasting the consonants where they touch my teeth and tongue.

I'm not here to argue with him.

I'm barely here to exist.

"God," I mumble, a prayer to any deity listening to strike me down, "I'm so—so—" So, so, so.

So fucking useless.

Why are you so fucking useless, Paul?

Drew sits in one of the porch chairs across from me. He kicks his feet up on the table and folds his hands in his lap with a smile. He'll wait, that smile says. It's equal parts reassurance and warning that whatever I'm trying to avoid will always come for me in the end.

Finally, when we've both been quiet for a long damn minute, he extends the metaphorical olive branch: "What happened last night?"

"Panic attack." I can barely tell the truth. When I do, it's mumbled along with half-lies that buzz in the back of my mouth, a swarm of bees threatening to sting, filling me and pouring out of me, filling me and pouring out—Psalm 23:5, 'my cup runneth over'—but is it supposed to run over with this awful feeling swelling in my chest and throat?

"So you drove to Jacksonville."

Chase the bees away with smoke. Hold my breath as long as I can. Exhale and watch the swirl of dust and invisible gnats in front of me as they catch the dying sunlight in their intricate dance. "Pretty much."

He laughs. It's not amused. "I really hate you sometimes, you know that?"

"Yeah."

"Dude. That was a fucking joke. Can't you take a fucking—" Drew grits his teeth and throws his head back, like he's pleading with God to strike me down too. "What happened? Really happened. Why were you having a panic attack?"

"Because I have clinical depression and a panic disorder for which I've been medicated since I was fifteen?" I suggest in my sharpest tone of voice.