Evelyn's Lesson In Recovery

Lies

I look at Chloe from my seat on the couch.  She sighs and shakes her head.  "I know I put those freaking notes over here!  What did I do with them?!" she mumbles.  "Lose something?" I ask.  "Yeah, Harper gave me her notes yesterday and I put them over here, but I can't find them." Chloe says.  I shake my head, laughing.  "What's funny about losing those?  Harper will kill me if she doesn't get her notes back." she says.  I laugh harder.  "You're always so organized and now you've finally lost something." I say.  Chloe sighs, smiling.  "I knew they were over here.  I didn't 'lose' them.  I misplaced them." she says.  "You don't think this is funny?" I ask.

"Nope, Harper is so particular about keeping up with her notes and giving them back exactly how she gave them to me.  She screamed at me for twenty minutes for bending the corner of one page." Chloe says, beginning to sound amused.  I laugh more.  "Okay, I guess this is kind of funny." she says, moving a stack of binders off of her desk.  She sighs.  "Who cares if you lost her notes?  They couldn't have had anything that important in them." I say, feeling Harper wrote down I was hiding something.  "I care, she cares........" Chloe says, still moving things around.  I start laughing.  Chloe rolls her eyes.  She moves a few more binders.  

"Found them!" she exclaims, laughing also.  "Wow, for someone to be 'perfectly' organized, you sure do lose things easily." I say.  "Yeah, I don't know how I could have lost this so easily." she says.  I shrug, not laughing anymore.  Chloe sits beside me, reading through the notes.  I see surprise in her body language, but she quickly goes back to neutrality.  She puts the notes down and picks up her binder and pen.  "Okay, I need you to be honest with me.  Harper has noticed you've been acting different lately.  Those differences aren't just you stopping your antidepressants without Liz's permission.  They are unaccounted for and very worrying.  Is there something going on we should know about?" she says.  "No, there's nothing I need to tell you; everything is fine." I say, trying to hide the fact I'm nervous.  

"Evelyn, there's something going on.  I can sense that.  If you want, you can tell Harper instead of me." Chloe says.  "I'm fine.....really.  I have nothing to tell either of you." I say, forcing a smile.  "Please tell me what's going on.  I promise I won't get mad, no matter what you're going to say." Chloe says, a reassuring tone to her voice.  "Okay......umm.......I have been cutting......everyday this past week." I say, avoiding eye contact.  "I'm glad you told me." Chloe says, no anger or surprise in her voice.  "Y-you're not mad?" I ask, looking into her eyes.  "Of course not, relapses happen and if I get angry with you for them, then you're just going to try harder to hide them." she says.  "How bad are the cuts?" she asks.  I take a shaky breath.  I'm still really nervous right now.  It's so uncomfortable talking about this.  "From my point of view, they're not bad at all, but you would probably think they're really bad." I admit.  

"Okay, does Suzanne know what's going on?" Chloe asks.  I hate lying to her, but Suzanne can't know about this.  "Yeah." I lie.  "Don't lie." she says, shaking her head.  "No." I say.  "Well, do you want to tell her in front of me or do you want me to tell her in front of you?" she asks.  "I don't want to tell and, honestly, I don't trust you enough to tell her." I say.  "Well, who do you trust enough?" she asks.  "Harper." I say.  "That's good considering you need to tell her what's going on anyway." she says.  "I'm scared." I admit.  

"Of what?" she asks, the usual distant concern making her seem approachable.  "Harper will be mad at me for not telling her the truth." I say.  "Maybe, you know she can be irrational and emotional at times, but she will only be in that state because she wants to help you and you wouldn't let her." she explains.  "I don't want her to be upset with me." I say.  "Well.....you should have told her the truth, but I see how that would have been really hard." Chloe says, sighing quietly.  "Can we.....keep this from Suzanne?" I ask even though I already know the answer.  "No." she replies.  I groan.  "How do you think she'll react?" she asks.