“My eyelids are heavy, but my thoughts are heavier.” – c.o
Ever since I was a young kid, I was told I was emotional for a boy. At such a young age, I had no clue how my gender had anything to do with how I felt about my mum having to ‘pretty herself up’ every morning. I thought she was fine just the way she was and I told her as such. However it was only as I grew older, that I learned how society expected me to act. Unaffected, stoic, composed, unemotional. I was a boy, and therefore I was not allowed to feel. I was not allowed to use emotive language to express myself in English. I was not allowed to describe how I saw a girl if I used the words pretty, perfect, fabulous, radiant, beaming, glorified, stunning. I had to use words like hot, sexy, and curvy, fine, cute, smoking, and awesome.
It was only as I left high school, that I realised how I didn’t have to fall into this stereotype. However it was a little too late, society had influenced my behaviour, I second guessed showing my emotions, and I cursed myself for giving away when I was attracted to someone. I wouldn’t cry in front of anyone, and built this body image to hide away in. There was only so much I could do to let myself know that I could show emotion, I didn’t have to be this impassive mass-bred follower, I could be who I was and not feel bad about it.
I could feel and not be ridiculed. It helped that I didn’t have any friends that would tease me, it helped that no one really knew who I was. Yet in another way, it would’ve been nice to have that one person to remind you that you weren’t a sob story that just because you weren’t like anyone else, it didn’t mean you were any less human. For me that should’ve been Georgia, but she was always too busy to see me at my worst. In the mornings in which I turned to face my mirror, it would’ve been nice to have someone to remind me that I didn’t have to be the bags under my eyes, I could instead by the beating of my heart. The reminder that I still went on even if I was so exhausted all I wanted to do was collapse.
But that night I went to ‘JumpRs’ with Emily and her friends, I knew she had always had those people around her. What I never realised was that sometimes people weren’t enough. Because you always had to be there for yourself, before anyone else could even try. There had to be a meta-physical being standing behind your physical body, a subconscious behind your conscious and a net behind your falling body. Without those things it was almost impossible to pick yourself up again. Broken bones and broken souls weren’t mended easily, they were intricate and complicated, Emily’s more so than most.
And that night, I realised she didn’t have that safety net, and she knew it. She didn’t have that self that would catch her when she fell, because all her friends, as nice as they were, were so engaged in their own lives to even notice something was wrong with hers and she didn’t trust herself enough. They couldn’t see that she was crying out a silent plea for help, they couldn’t hear her, so they ultimately couldn’t save her.
I had to be the person to show her how to trust herself. Someone who was so focused on the fact that nothing was going on in his own life that he focused on a girl who had been overrated all her life. She was expected to keep going, because that was who she seemed to be, but if I had learned anything about Emily in the few days I had known her, was that she was full of surprises and you couldn’t just slot her into a category. She was constantly changing and moving, and you couldn’t make her stay static when all she wanted to do was grow.
I remember the way she walked into the club, face almost white under the harsh lighting while she sported a grin just about as fake as a Barbie doll. While her friends barely looked at her, all wrapped in their own little bliss, I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. Emily was subdued and I was concerned what was happening had something to do with what had occurred at the fair just the other day. Only if she fell apart in here, regardless of the cause, she wouldn’t be as safe. There would be men and even the occasional woman, all over her helpless self.
The immediate alcohol should’ve been seen as a warning sign, and although it rang alarm bells in my mind, I shrugged it off with the adolescent need to break the drinking law. It wasn’t until Emily began to look more than a little tipsy, that I began to feel worried.
Walking up to where her body was swaying on the dance floor, I tapped her on the shoulder. “Hey, Em.” I had to shout to be heard over the noise of the music. She turned to face me, eyes wide and breathing uneven.
“Jason!” She grinned, flinging her arms around my neck before she buried her head in my shoulder. “You know,” She began to mumble into my shoulder, “you’re really cool.”
Rolling my eyes, I patted her on the back before I tried to pull away, leaning my head back pretty far in order to see her face. “Yeah, yeah. Look, do you maybe want to sit down?” I asked, watching as her swaying slowly turned into something more along the lines of classy stumbling.
“Nooooo.” She drawled, grabbing my arm for support.
Not sure what to do, I simply ignored her reply and escorted her to the seats we had been occupying since arriving at ‘JumpRs’. Even though she attempted to struggle out of my arms when she saw where we were heading, it didn’t take long for her to give up due to too much effort. As soon as we slipped, or in Emily’s case more or less collapsed, into the seats, she leaned down to smack her head on the table.
“Woah, watch it.” I chuckled, pulling her head up once again. She grinned at me, a dopey smile full of alcoholic breath and deep sadness. I had no idea what made her binge drink the way she had, but she’d certainly achieved the end goal. She was absolutely pissed.
“I want another drink.” She chimed, raising her arm to get the attention of the rotating staff, which also happened to take orders. Shaking my head, I had half a heart to smack it on the table a couple of times in annoyance. There are different kinds of drunk people, and so far Emily was falling into the annoying category.
I attempted to signal the waiter off, but eager to make a sale, he advanced to our table any way. “What can I get you?” Giving the guy my best evil eye, I clamped my hand over Emily’s mouth in order to keep her quiet while I replied for her.
“Water, thanks.”
He looked somewhat disappointed, probably hoping for an order that cost a lot more than what I had requested, however he also seemed to catch on to my glare, so he left within a few moment of shuffling foot to foot.
“But I wanted vodka.” Emily whined, pulling a sad attempt of a puppy face. Had she been sober, and I probably wouldn’t have been able to say no, yet when her bottom lip jutted out so far over the top that she looked like she was trying to eat her own mouth, and her eyes were glazed over with inebriation, it was easy to settle for no. She didn’t need any more alcohol, no matter how much she thought she did.
“I think you’ve had enough.” I reasoned, holding back her hand as she reached to one of the beers her friends had left at the table.
“But I want more.” She complained, lightly bouncing up and down in her seat as she begged with me, a pleading look in her eyes.
At that moment our waiter returned with two tall glasses of water, both of which I made her drink. She downed them no problem, and I was hoping she’d stop with the whining about alcohol, but it only seemed to increase, this time she tried to use her ‘good behaviour’ as leeway.
“But I drank that clear stuff!” She shouted, smacking her hand on the table with a pathetic amount of force. It was moments after that in which she began to giggle, curling over into a ball as if that would help stop it.
I couldn’t help but roll my eyes, by this point I was well aware that she needed to go home. If she was to begin puking here, and from what I could see the puking stage was not far away, there’d be hell to pay and she’d be twice as messy as she was now. Convincing her to leave was going to be just as hard as trying to find her friends to tell them we were leaving. Only, I decided against doing the last, figuring they wouldn’t really care at the state they were currently in. Drunk, excited and blissfully unaware.
“Hey, Em.” I cooed, leaning down closer to where she had slumped and picking up a piece of her hair so I could tuck it behind her ear, “We need to go.” Trying to keep an entertained expression on my face, I tucked one of my fingers under her chin so I could lift her face up to meet mine.
“But we just got here.” She groaned, her drunken pout reappearing on her face.
“No, we got here two hours ago. And you’ve been drinking alcohol ever since.” Raising an eyebrow, I couldn’t help but smirk at the confused expression on her face. I was experiencing conflicted emotions, one part of me extremely worried about her, and the other part reveling in how adorable she was being.
“Really? Wow.” She had dropped her mouth open to form a small ‘o’, her eyes doing the same. She cracked a smile, and leaned her head on my shoulder.
“I don’t want to go, I want to sleep.” She mumbled, holding my arm to help her stay a little upright. Even so, she was epically drooping towards my lap. In another circumstance I might’ve liked the idea, but right now I wanted anything but a drunk girl drooling on my favourite pair of jeans.
“No, no. Wake up!” I clicked my fingers right beside her ear, and when that didn’t work, I just gave up and lifted her up. It was harder than it sounds, a semi unconscious girl weighs twice as much as a conscious one, but when a semi unconscious girl also happens to intentionally laze around as she doesn’t want to be picked up it gets far more difficult.
After I had finally stood her upright, one of my arms clamped tightly around her waist as a support while the other one was ready to prop her head back up every time it drooped down, we slowly made our way to the exit. Halfway through, Emily seemed to give up trying to fight me and began to walk with more independence.
The crowd was intense, jumping and raving and screaming all around us it was as if they were physically in our own ears. It was hard to fight our way through, made harder with an intoxicated Emily at my side. However, about halfway through she stopped walking and stood where she was. I turned to look at her, my hand now gripping on to her wrist.
“You okay?” I asked. I didn’t receive an answer, and as I paid closer attention I began to notice something was really wrong. She was shaking again, however this time it was twice as noticeable as before, and her eyes were flicking around the room in panicked motions. Her breath came out raspy and uneven, and when I focused on her pulse beneath my fingertips, her heart was beating two or three times the normal pace.
I had no idea what was going on, and seeing Emily in such a state brought me back to the day at the fair, where she had curled into a ball on the ground, tears streaming down her face and hands covering her ears to keep out the noise. If the noise was bothering her back then, I can hardly imagine what it must have been doing to her now, let alone the proximity of the crowd.
“I need to get out of here!” She suddenly cried, tears welling up in her eyes. There were bodies all around bumping and grinding on us, the people hardly aware of what was touching who. I nodded, if there was one thing for sure, it was that I had to get her out of ‘JumpRs’ before she resorted to curling in on herself.
Grabbing her by the wrist, I this time had much more determination as I shoved the crowd to the side, creating a parting that I filled with our bodies before pushing more aside. The startled cried of the crowd as they were shoved into others against their will suddenly became my mantra, as I moved people in order to get the girl beside me out. She was breaking down, why, I had no idea, but all I knew was she couldn’t stand a moment longer in there.
Finally we broke free of the crowd and I all but ran her out the front door of the club and into the refreshing autumn air. Emily almost collapsed on the ground, her breath extremely uneven as her hands shook with an uncontrollable force.
“Holy shit, Em. Are you okay?” I asked, my voice laced with concern that I no longer cared to hide. I was done with disguising my emotions in order to protect my masculinity, I didn’t care any longer. So what if I showed people how I felt? I was human, and that’s what human’s did.
“I’m fine.” She insisted, but it was clear she was anything but. Her knees were dug into the ground as she leaned over, attempting to restore her breathing to normal. It wasn’t working very well, so I whipped out my phone and dialed the taxi service.
My first thought was to dial an ambulance, however I had a feeling she wouldn’t want that, and more importantly didn’t need it. Yes, what she was experiencing seemed horrifying and most of all terrifying, but she could clearly handle it and it didn’t seem like her health was in danger because of it. To me, it made more sense to get her home where she felt safe and sound.
“Hi, yes. I need a taxi, I’m outside ‘JumpRs’ on Friedman Ave.” I told the cab driver. Because everyone knew where the club was, there was really no need to tell him the street it was on, but I wasn’t really focusing on the technicalities at the time, instead my gaze was fixed on Emily’s slumped figure.
After the taxi driver told me he’d be here in five minutes, I crouched down on the concrete. Tucking my phone back into my pocket, I leaned over to where Emily was still trying to regain her breath. From the smell of it, she was still incredibly intoxicated but the fact that she was somewhat aware of her surroundings was a good sign.
“Hey, Em,” I began, trying to get her attention as I peered around the curtain that was her hair, “I’m going to take you home, okay? But I need your address.” I couldn’t see her face, and therefore could not gauge her reaction. As it turned out though, I didn’t really have too.
“I live at 14 Henderson St.” She panted, her breath slowly returning to normal. She looked up at me, and even though the glaze over her eyes was still present, it was pretty clear she has sobered up a fair bit in the last five minutes.
Or so I thought, as she leaned over into the gutter and emptied her guts of everything she’d eaten that night. Wincing, I was half inclined to block my ears, as the sound of someone throwing up had always made me feel queasy to the point of wanting to copy them, however I wanted to show proper manners, even if she was too drunk to appreciate them.
The taxi pulled up to the curb a few moments after she had wiped her mouth along the hem of her sleeve. I grimaced, and stood up to give the address to the driver, before picking her up and assisting her into entering the car. As soon as she was sitting down, she collapsed, her head rolling back on the headrest as her arms fell limp by her sides. She wasn’t asleep, I could tell that as her eyes still roamed the ceiling, however she was far from aware.
It was a peaceful drive, I didn’t speak as I didn’t want to disrupt her ceiling examination and the cabbie was polite enough to leave us be. After a ten minute drive, we entered the posh side of the city, with five bedroom mansions and high class apartments. From what I could see, Emily apparently lived in one of these places, and I tried to fight my surprise but it was just too hard. I pictured her to be a lot of things, but wealthy was not one of them.
When the cab pulled up beside a huge white and grey themed townhouse, I decided then and there that the almost unconscious girl beside me was loaded. It seemed to explain a lot of things though, how she had shouted me the large and extremely expensive lunch at the vegan café, and was more than willing to do so. But there were also plenty of things it didn’t explain, like the late night escapades, the unusual break downs and unique personality. Perhaps it was more than a little close minded of me to presume that most rich people were pure-bred shopaholics with a severe case of narcissism, but it was all based on previous experiences i.e. my mother and her posse of Monday morning Pilates attendees.
Emily stumbled out of the car when it stopped, and lumbered up the green lawn to the door. I paid the cabbie and quickly jogged over to her, grabbing her fist right before she was about to smack it on the glass panel of the door, which would’ve ultimately woken her parents. Regardless of the fact that I wanted to meet them, it was definitely under the wrong circumstances, I doubt they’d be too happy with a nineteen year old boy bringing home their inebriated daughter, no matter how polite I acted in front of them.
“Do you have a spare key or something?” I whispered to Emily, looking her in the eye. However all she did was giggle and then smacked the palm of her hand over her face. It seemed that she’d completely recovered from her melt down only twenty minutes before, and that fact not only surprised me but also made me twice as curious. I would expect that she’d still be somewhat shaken, however her drunken state probably countered it.
“I just remembered, mum and dad aren’t even home! And I was just about to knock!” She laughed again, looking at me through the gaps in between her fingers.
Rolling my eyes I gave her a flat look, “Ha.Ha. C’mon, Em. How do you get inside?” My arms were crossed over my chest. I was well aware I was being impatient, but in all honesty I just wanted to get her inside and up in bed, so I could go home and finish my studying. What had been a fun night had instead turned into one of responsibility, and I was quickly getting sick of it.
“With a key!” She offered as she bent down for a second, ruffling around in the pot of a plat she proudly brandished a little silver key. A spare, I hoped. Smiling at her, I took the key from her hands as it was more than obvious that she couldn’t fit it in the lock by herself, I did it for her.
Opening the door I was faced with the townhouse of all townhouses. Classy, elegant and large were the only words to describe the place, and even so it didn’t really do it any justice. Whatever Emily’s parents did for a living, one thing was for sure, they were really well paid.
I followed Emily as she lumbered up the stairs and down the hallway, before shoving open a door which apparently led to her room. I was expecting something classy and composed, however extremely functional, like the rest of the house. Yet this seemed to have escaped the design the rest of the interior had been subject too. Her room was messy and idyllic, with posters of her favourite bands, Polaroid photos of memories collected and other knick knacks decorated the walls while an expansive double bed was situated by the window.
A bed which she immediately collapsed onto. Rolling my eyes I walked over to her, ignoring the light as she had done. “Night, Emily.” I muttered as I pulled some kind of throw blanket over the lower half of her body. She was lightly snoring in moments, so I quickly made my way to the bathroom to find a bucket, which she may need in the night. Without turning on the lights, I managed to find her en-suite, and then a little blue bucket.
Taking that back to slide underneath her head, which was hanging off of the bed, I was half tempted to swap her shirt, which I was certain had vomit at the hem of it. After I realised she’d probably freak out over the fact that I’d swapped her tops, and how much I would freak out at simply seeing her in her bra, I decided against it. Instead I took to the bathroom once again to wash my face before leaving.
It was as I leaned down by the sink to splash some water on my face that I saw it. The little brown bottle sitting beside the tap with a pharmaceutical label stuck on the front. Retratac prescribed to Emily Vunderbeet. To take one pill a day, every day. I picked it up, and rolled it around in my hands, there was a niggling feeling in my brain. I know that medicine, I thought to myself, trying really hard to think back to my psychology classes. How do I know it?
And then, I remembered. Retratac is used as a remedy for harrowing anxiety. It was in those few seconds following my discovery that everything slotted into place. The meltdowns suddenly had a reason behind them, her random disappearance after I helped her to the entrance of the fair, was explainable.
It was also in those moments that I noticed Emily’s cry for help. It was in the way she cowered from people wanting to show her how much they cared, because she was afraid they’d get hurt when they saw how much pain she could cause. I figured out how she trusted very few people, but loved many and how it was that exact method that prevented her from accepting her own disorder. She hated crowds that much was obvious, but I had a sense that she also hated social interaction, regardless of how good she was at it.
What I believe she hated about it was the give and receive aspect. You always had to give away a little piece of yourself in order to learn something new about someone else, and she didn’t want to do that. Because once she got past the basics, she was left with the naked truth, her disorder, her fears, what she worried about when she was alone and what was constantly following her around like a shadow. There were parts of herself she didn’t want to bring to light, and the way she would act, like three different people all thrown in one, was a demonstration of how she needed someone to ground her to who she was.
Her friends and her family seemed to preoccupied, from the grandeur of the house I guessed her parents weren’t home a lot and as everyone reached their last months in high school, her friends would become too involved in their own lives and relationships to notice that she was spinning out of control. Because not everyone realised that drugs and crude behaviour was not the only form of a cry for help, there were others too, I should know, it was once me in her position. And because I know how hard it is to be spiraling, I decided to be the one to show her the safety net she was capable of creating for herself. I was going to be the person to show her how to catch herself when she fell, whether she liked it or not.
//a.n// okay so first things first: amaryllis... no jokes haha. what i wanted to say was this chapter is exactly 4200 words so um... 420 blaaaaaaze it. *grins at you all* heh.heh.heh. right, moving on.
I really hope you liked this chapter and i hope em's break down was realistic, and jay's monologue was realistic too. i feel so bad bcuz i should be skyping ppl or writing but in reality i am lying on my bed with oily legs *hell yeah* whilst watching parks and rec. i just remembered i had to update. really sorry. i was at a birthday party all day so yeah. anyways, comment what you think: POINT OUT ANY MISTAKES!!!!!!! and vote and shit and yeah. love y'all.
oh, and dedicated to the lovely lily and beth because i should've skyped them but i didn't so it's an apology. yeah. love you two :* xx
- nala