I JUST WANT YOU TO LIKE ME | ✓

▬ 22: descent

            'He hates me.' Curled into the sofa with the same crochet blanket Ziri were tied in before he left, I can't stop crying. The house in my mind has flooded.

'He doesn't hate you,' Sonia says once more, though xyr patience is starting to wane; this is the fifth time during this phone conversation alone, to say nowt about yesterday and the day before. 'Ziri didn't even hate you when he tried — and he tried.'

'But he hates feeling like he's under surveillance,' I sob, my annunciation lost into the sofa cushion. 'You didn't see the way he left — he wouldn't even look at me. It's like he couldn't bear to be in the same room. And he won't answer any of my texts.'

'I'd bet he hasn't looked at his phone. You know how he gets. He said that needed space... Also, it's been like three days. He's probably just sleeping.'

Sonia's voice of reason falls on deaf ears. He probably is sleeping; he's dealing with the plummet from mania and readjustment to his meds at the same time which means he probably feels much worse than I do. But I can't stop imagining him rolling his eyes every time my name lights up his screen. He couldn't stand to look at me once before he left. Hatred were palpable; it oozed out of his pores.

'I shouldn't've stopped him going out. He'll hate me for it, for acting like a doctor, like he's hospitalised again.'

'What else could you have done?'

'I dunno. I could've gone with him.'

'He would've hated that too.'

Xe's right. There is no option that Ziri wouldn't hate. Mania convinces him that he's completely sane and he hates being made aware that he ain't. And no matter what we do, he will eventually realise it.

But I'm too deep in it now, drowning in my mind, and I can't stop crying. 'My whole family hates me. Like actually. They'll never forgive me for being gay.'

There's a pause on the line as Sonia considers what to say. Xyr voice shifts, becomes more sympathetic, and if there were any part of me that were still in denial about it, it's smacked into reality by xyr compassion alone. 'They might come around still. My grandparents did not react well at first and now they're almost too supportive. The last time I went to SA, they introduced me to everyone as their lesbian grandchild — like, to the delivery man and the taxi driver...

'But if they don't, they don't. You don't have any obligation to stay in a relationship where you're the only person trying. Like, my parents were really angry when I moved to Ireland to live with a girl I met two months before. And maybe it was a little crazy, but it's like an ultimatum for them: either you support me or you don't but this is what I'm doing. It's up to your family if they want to be in your future or not. You can't keep making yourself smaller to fit them in.'

I don't respond. My flooded mind is even slower than it is regularly and I have to go over her words several times before I can decipher any meaning out of the alphabet soup. Sonia allows me my silence. By the rhythmic background clinking, I assume xe has started knitting.

I miss my dad. He'd probably have disowned me already but I miss him. Even if all I heard from his mouth were rejection, I'd be happy — I don't remember what his voice sounded like.

I do remember what Dr Qureshi's voice sounds like, the sonorous rumble of it. He would remind me that two things can coexist: I can miss my dad and fear what my life would've turned out like if he hadn't died, I can love my family and choose not to have them around. If someone cares about my well-being, they'll respect boundaries.