Slate | ✓

TWENTY-THREE | WILL

"Like the outside looking in?"

"Sometimes," I say. "More like from the inside, but, like, way deep down, like the bottom of the ocean."

"Do you feel like that now?"

"I don't know." The more I talk, the more capable I feel of saying what I need to say. "It sounds dumb, but I think these panic attacks are killing me a little bit. Like, I know it's in my head or whatever, but every time I think I've reached some sort of limit, there's, like, a whole other level to it that I didn't know before." Ella's thumb traces gentle circles on my skin. "Do you want to hear something stupid?"

She nods.

"The past couple of months I've been imagining I have some sort of internal metre. You know, like on a car or something."

"That's not stupid," Ella says.

"I thought that if I could just avoid ending up back here, then it would be fine. I would be like how I was again. I could get back to you, I could be ready for school again, and I could stop being a fuck up." A bitter smile curls my lips. "I've missed you so much, holy shit."

"We're both here now."

"Yeah, I guess we are."

She leans forward and presses her forehead against mine. "You're going to be okay."

"How do you know?"

"Because you're talking again."

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I'm a body: a bag of bone and blood and flesh. A cohesive mess in which any fuck up—no matter how small—could remove me from the equation. A bundle of meat set loose and told to feel happy. It all seems like too much, like more than I can handle. 

I want the ground to swallow me whole. I want Ella to leave. I need her gone. If I don't move now, I'll die.

Beside me, she turns over—oblivious. Something like hate, bitter and rancid, floods my throat. I could scream. I could tear her down. I could make her leave. It wouldn't feel worse than the patience she has for me. The misspent faith that she hasn't yet realized is wasted, even as she lies here beside me.

I say nothing. I stare at the ceiling and wait for the blackness to recede, to return to wherever it goes when I'm not paying attention, or at least spill out, like a cup that's overfilled. Instead, it lingers—a torturous, inexpressible in-between. A void.

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I tell her about Damien in a series of hushed whispers. We're wound so tightly together I can feel the rise and fall of her every breath. She listens with those wide, brown eyes of hers and stares at me like she's still searching for something to protect me from. I tell her about how I used my best friend, about how I took advantage of Damien's vulnerability, about how cruel I was.

Ella reassures me. She says that Damien will understand, and that what happened was a two way street.

I feel I must have said something wrong, like I somehow managed to lie. It would explain the dissonance between the unwavering look in Ella's eyes and the truth. She shows no disgust. No how could you do that?  Her plain certainty seems an attempt to make me less responsible for being a shitty friend. Maybe she doesn't realize she's doing it, but it feels more insidious than anything else.

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Ella talks. I listen, I smile, I nod. We both talk and talk and talk about nothing. Conversations that are easily had and then quickly forgotten. We used to do this for hours on end, but the old rhythm gets disrupted every time it starts to feel like too much again. I'll go quiet. Ella will wordlessly understand, and suddenly we're two distinct people again, laying on dirty sheets as we wait. I don't think either of us are quite sure what we're waiting for.

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I don't know how long we've been together when Ella finally responds to the countless calls and messages she's been ignoring. The stillness breaks apart and Ella is, once again, far out of my reach. She lingers on the edge of my bed before she goes. "I'll give you a call later, Will."

"Alright."

"And you're not alone here, okay? Athena's home, Annie is around. They're going to keep checking in. If it gets bad," she pauses, "Talk to them. Don't— don't think you've got to do it by yourself."

"Yeah."

Her face is a blur. Her voice is increasingly distant. "You—you should see a doctor. I know you don't think you need it, but—but it's worse now, isn't it? Worse than how it was before?"

"I don't know," I mumble. "Yeah. It's bad." It's getting harder to remember what anything that isn't this feels like.

"Then it's time for change." Her phone buzzes in her lap, but Ella's eyes don't leave me. When she leans down to place a kiss on the corner of my mouth it feels terribly final. She tells me to call if I need anything. I nod, and then it's just me.

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Another day goes by, I think.