The Beautiful You

Nineteen - The Other Side

"Drink some water," Michelle said as she handed me a glass cup.

"Thank you," I said as I took it from her hands. She sat beside me while we waited for Mei and Lee to return to the guest bedroom.

Michelle sat beside me slowly, keeping some space between us. She knew I wanted her to keep away from me. It was because of my embarrassment, and discomfort. She knew something about me that no one else did; it was insufferable.

Maybe she was uncomfortable, or disgusted to be around me. Her family was religious too, and her dad's death was something controversial at the time. But I'm not sure what she thought about it all. If her dad went to hell, if he's reincarnated, or if he's nothing. I don't want to ask her. I'm afraid of what she'll say.

What she'll say about Jackson.

"I must have looked so stupid. Everyone saw," I sighed.

"You didn't. Everyone was actually kind of scared," she said.

"I'm not sure which is worse," I admitted. Her gaze was drawn to my cross necklace. It was the same one Jackson wore all the time.

He wanted me to have it. At least that's what his mom said.

I never read the note. I didn't want to read it.

The necklace was more like taking back something I had let him borrow since it had been my necklace. I let him have it for soccer tryouts and said it was for good luck. He never took it off after that, not until he died. I wish they buried him in it.

"That wasn't the first one you've had, right?" She asked.

"Huh?"

She chuckled and said, "Panic attack."

I nodded while rubbing the cross between my fingers. "Sometimes they feel different, but it always starts the same. Sometimes I even faint, but those are the worst ones," I said. "At least I think that's the reason why I do. My doctor said something about an anxiety disorder—"

"Yeah, I have it too," she mumbled. "Anxiety, panic disorder, PTSD, to name a few." She stuck out her fingers as she listed each.

"That sounds terrible," I said, taking a sip of the water.

"There are some difficult days, but it's gotten much better." She gazed up at the ceiling fan. "It's nowhere near what it used to be like," she said, smiling.

"What do you mean? Doesn't that stuff stay with you your whole life?"

"It can, but I'm not afraid of it anymore. At least not when I'm in the middle of it. I used to be so scared, scared of when the next one would come, scared of leaving the house, scared of being around people..."

"When did you stop being scared?" I asked.

She shrugged and said, "It took time. I wasn't ready for help after my dad died. Those couple of years were the hardest, the most terrifying." She chewed on her bottom lip and chuckled. "You know, I would lie to my therapist, my psychiatrist, and everyone else about how I was coping. I wasn't ready for them to tell me what was wrong with me," she said.

She turned to me and continued, "I mean, I thought I knew what was wrong with me! My dad killed himself for fucks sake, why wouldn't there be something wrong? It was scary facing that reality. After all that, I was left to pick up all the broken pieces of the mess he left behind." She started tearing up, but wiped them away as she pulled her knees to her chest.

I rested my head on the matress of the bed behind us. I wanted this to be over. The whole waiting for things to get better. I didn't want to wait another year, or years, for it to stop hurting. For Michelle it took years, and I can barely get through eight months.