wow i managed a longer chapter. the story isn't dead yet, somehow, which is also amazing right? but yeah i'm depressed so why not make the character i based on myself depressed too y'know? i need a bit of an outlet so danny can talk for me to people i made up to listen to my problems.
enjoy.
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There was a lot happening by the time Carlos woke me up. He leaned on the wooden banister with his arms crossed under his chin. He smiled when I acknowledged him.
"Morning," he greeted. I sat up quicker than I'd meant to and smacked my forehead on the ceiling. Hard. "Glad I didn't say good morning, huh?" He laughed and stepped back. He was almost as tall as the bed still. I hated it. I would have loved to be taller. Any height was better than barely five-six.
I slipped out of the bed, trying to ignore the throbbing in my forehead. Everyone else had cleared out. "What time?" I asked, shuffling through my bag for a tampon and some pants. I was surprised with myself and Carlos for not realising I was wearing a large shirt and underwear. I thought I'd worn shorts to bed as well.
"Breakfast just got over, so probably to the Pit." He looked over his shoulder and out the door; he'd left it open. It was warm. Not hot, but not cold. Perfect temperature. Like that sort of sixty degrees on a beach or in a small town that makes you feel right? It was nice - not enough to make me want to smile, but enough to make me feel a little less shitty.
I stood up with a pair of basketball shorts, a bottle of pills and the hoodie I'd successfully stolen from Theo and looked at Carlos. "I'll meet you there?" I said, trying to sound more like I was just suggesting it. I really didn't want him to ask any questions or make it awkward.
He shrugged. "Or I can walk with you?"
I didn't sigh. I didn't nod. I didn't shrug. I just said, "Okay," and didn't try to stop him. He walked with his hands in his pockets and held the pills when I motioned for him to take them. I'd scratched the label off—starting with my name and then moving to the rest of it. Originally it had been for antidepressants. Now it held my cramp pills, nausea pills, some antidepressants, and a mix of regular Advil and Aleve.
"You've got a medicinal trail mix and I am loving it," Carlos commented, having popped the lid off. I slipped the hoodie on over the shirt I'd worn to bed. I was wearing a bra instead of my binder and even under the clothes you could tell quite well. I wished I'd thought to change that.
"Yeah, my mum's a bit psycho," I laughed. She wasn't in that sense. That was all me. I was the one who wouldn't leave home without my own mix of painkillers. They all did something.
We stopped by the bathrooms and Carlos stood by the sign. It told a bit about the area like a regular state park would when they had hikers. No one had said anything about hikers around the area, but it wouldn't be too surprising.
I hated these bathrooms. They weren't horrible, but they weren't very good, either. Like a gas station sort of bathroom with showers, bigger mirrors, and more filthy skylights. Jango had commented on it when we were being shown around the first night. The lights weren't very good, so going at night was a waste of time. Zaila had made a point to pee in the woods the first few nights because she couldn't stand the bathrooms. She only used them now to brush her teeth and shower when it's cold.
I tried to move quick so I didn't spend more time in the room than I needed to. It wasn't even a building—it was like a cinderblock room. It was wonderful.
Carlos was still toying with the now-closed pill bottle when I walked out. "Why do you use the girl's?" He asked. It was a completely innocent and harmless question, I could tell by looking at him while I tried to come up with a response, but it made me feel terrible.
"I can't throw out tampons in the boy's bathroom," I answered. It was the simplest thing I could say and not freak out. I suddenly wanted to cry and I hated it.
"Makes sense," he nodded. He held the bottle out to me and I took it, almost forgetting he had taken it. I slipped it into the pocket of the hoodie so it wouldn't bounce around and rattle. Carlos, Chrissie, and two counsellors knew about the bottle. I didn't need more publicity to my fucked up everything.
We walked to meet the groups at the Pit in boring silence. They hadn't seemed to move much and looked like they weren't even planning to do anything for a while. Carlos waved at a couple of guys and the girl with yellow hair—April—and asked if I needed him. I didn't see why I would. I could function without people who thought I needed them around every minute.
Before I had a chance to settle around a group, preferably a group who didn't want to talk much or have any interest in me, Theo and Zaila appeared.
"You missed breakfast," was all Zaila said while she struggled to get a string out of her jeans without taking out the entire stitch. They looked like new jeans—they were definitely mom jeans from Macy's or Old Navy—but they looked good on her.
Theo slipped his arm around mine and settled for continuing his conversation with Zaila. He slipped his hand into his pants pockets and didn't move this time when I pulled his hand out and made him hold mine. He didn't seem surprised or caught off by the action, but instead welcomed it. I tried to hone in on their conversation so I could participate, but they were talking about whether the PlayStation or Xbox was better. I had no input.
"Have you tried playing Fallout on the Xbox?" Theo cried. "It's the absolute shittiest graphics! And the controls—"
Zaila stopped him by placing her hand over his mouth. He had been waving his right hand, keeping his left hand practically motionless. I appreciated the gesture. I didn't want to have to let go of his hand for a while.
"Go for a hike! Get out of your little bubbles!" Jeremy shouted, louder than a bear. I shuddered at the thought of calling Jeremy a bear and erased it from my mind while Zaila walked backwards, flipping a sideways peace sign at us before (literally) running into Carlos and April along with a couple dark haired guys.
"Looks like it's just us," I said with more malice than I had intended. Theo nodded, smiling softly out at the woods. He either didn't hear me right or he wasn't hurt by the tone. I was grateful no matter how he took it. I hated to admit it, but I needed someone who was steady on their feet and would manage to keep me grounded.
"Where should we go?" He asked. "Mountains, lake, rivers, middle of the woods?" He pointed at the different areas and listed off the places the trails would take us.
"If we go out to the middle of nowhere, we're gonna find a cabin and we're gonna be killed," I said, looking up at him. He smiled more at that and nodded.
"Exactly."
This time I actually laughed. "Oh my god, sure. Let's go get murdered. Why not?"
He dropped my hand to hold the top of his pocket while he dug his other deep to find something. I watched through the side of my vision while leading him towards the path that was really just a nature walk and required minimal effort. It sounded nice enough. No one else was going this way, anyway.
"Shit, I thought I grabbed food," he muttered. I looked at his empty hands as he searched all the pockets he had. "Empty. Sorry. You just weren't at breakfast and I figured you'd be hungry because. . ."
Because what? I didn't make a move to make him finish his sentence, but I definitely was waiting to see where he would go with it. Or if he would even continue.
"It's alright, don't worry. I'm not very hungry."
"Are you doing okay?"
I figured he had waited until we were more away from the other campers we'd been surrounded by to ask. Why else would he have sprung it on so randomly once we were away from them?
I nodded immediately. Even when somebody like Mum or Maddie asked if I was doing okay I would say yes instead of telling them the truth. Mum worried me—I wasn't so sure I could trust her with things. Even things she understood like depression. I got it from her, anyway.
He shot me a sceptical look and took my hand back again. I walked closer so I could pull our hands to my chest and wrapped my other hand around his. He looked at the ground for a minute before looking up at the path. I wasn't looking at the path at all. I held my chin to our hands and tried to forget that emotions and people and everything existed except us and this beaten down path in the middle of the woods.
"I don't know." I wasn't lying. Emotions were hard and I couldn't tell if it was just my period or if it was everything happening and everything that could happen and what had already happened that made me feel so numb and angry at the same time, but I was feeling a lot and nothing and I couldn't figure out how to deal with it.
"I get upset about stupid shit that doesn't matter and I don't care enough about things that do matter and people feel like useless objects. Being sent away from home makes me feel like a burden for everyone and going to church doesn't help but where else am I supposed to go when I don't have anywhere? I feel a lot and nothing, and right now, I feel content."
For me, contentedness meant happiness. It meant there wasn't much bad and the 'good' was weighing out the bad. That's where I was when it came to how I was doing. Theo was like that rock I needed to keep me grounded. I just needed to figure out whether it meant grounded above or below shore.