“Lunges,” Naomi said.
“Missionary,” Sherry countered.
Naomi tapped her finger to her chin and screwed up her eyebrows. “I’m gonna use my skip for this one.”
Sherry nodded. “Octupus.”
“Pearly gates.”
“How the hell do you guys know this stuff?” I asked.
They both ignored me and Sherry took her turn. “Q… I’m obviously skipping this one.” That was when Derek and Gabe walked in carrying everything we needed for dessert. Derek took the bags from Gabe and walked into the kitchen. Sherry and Naomi mumbled quick and distracted hellos.
“Reverse cowgirl,” Naomi said.
Gabe’s eyebrows rose as his gaze shifted between them. “What the hell is going on?” Gabe whispered just before he kissed my temple and settled in next to me.
“Shh…”
Derek rolled his eyes as he walked in from the kitchen. “This is how they make decisions. So what is it this time?”
“They’re trying to figure out who’s going do the dishes,” I said with a nod of my head to the disaster area he just came from.
“Scissors,” Sherry countered.
“Twister.” Naomi raised her eyebrow in challenged.
“And why aren’t you in this game?” Gabe asked as he nibbled my ear.
Laughing, I pushed him away. “Because I cooked. The cook doesn’t have to clean up.”
“Under the hood.” Sherry grinned.
“Victory.”
“Washing machine.”
“X… dammit,” Naomi muttered and slammed her hand on the wall behind her. “It’s always the motherfucking X that gets you,” Naomi grumbled as she moved into the kitchen to start cleaning up.
Sherry lifted her arms and proceeded to do an obnoxious victory dance around the living room. I let out an obnoxious laugh, quickly bringing my hand up to cover it, but it was there for only a second. Gabe’s hand grazed my lips as he pulled mine away, and I definitely wasn’t laughing anymore. “Don't,” he said. He was staring at me with nothing but sincerity, but I wasn’t sure what I wasn’t supposed to be doing. “I don’t like it when you do that.” I continued to stare at him with a frown slowly forming, still not understanding what he didn’t like and all too aware that he was still holding my hand. “Your smile is too beautiful to cover up.” And then he was the one smiling.
“You two are nauseating,” Sherry said as she sat on the floor.
Gabe shrugged before standing and pulling me up with him. “Well we’d hate to make you feel uncomfortable in any way. So we’ll just…” He trailed off as he headed to my bedroom. I laughed as I followed behind him.
“It’s been like two weeks since their first date, right? Isn’t the honeymoon phase…?” Sherry’s voice faded as we moved into my room.
The second the door closed I was pushed up against it and his mouth was on mine. “Hey,” he whispered into my neck a few minutes later.
“Hi.”
“How was your day?” he asked as his hands moved to my waist and his lips moved down my neck.
“It was…” I gulped as his tongue traced my collarbone. “Good,” I rasped out as my head fell back against the door. “So good.”
“Hmmm…” he said as his hands slid under my shirt. I shivered at the contact as he slowly inched toward my bra. He pulled back to look at me as his hands molded over my breasts. I froze; it had been so long since someone saw me this way, felt me this way. I was generally satisfied with my body, but I couldn’t help but see things through his eyes. Would my boobs be too small? My butt too big? My stomach too soft?
“God, you’re so beautiful.” He punctuated this with a squeeze and I moaned in response, scattering all my worries to the far recesses of my brain.
It’d been two weeks since Sherry’s Halloween party and our first kiss, and only a little over a week since our first date. And we were ridiculous. I mean make-fun-of-and-punch-us-in-the-face-repeatedly ridiculous. I’d hate us too… if I weren’t so damn happy.
I took a deep breath as I made the decision to let him really see me. “Off.” I mentally patted myself on the back for keeping my voice level before I lifted my arms so he could raise the shirt over my head. His hands immediately returned to their previous spot, kneading my breasts as he licked his lips. Breathing in deeply once more, I leaned forward and quickly slipped my arms behind my back and undid my bra before I could change my mind. As I pulled down the straps, Gabe moved his hands so my bra fell away, leaving me completely naked from the waist up. His eyes flared and my breathing picked up as he stared with clear lust in his eyes.
Okay, this is fine…
No, this is good…
Minutes passed and he made no move to touch me. And while part of me was still worried I was disappointing him, I’d honestly never been this turned on before, and I didn’t know how much longer I could stand there without his hands on me. I closed my eyes, disbelieving I was actually about to do what I was thinking.
Taking a deep breath, I placed my hand on my stomach and slowly started traveling upward. I opened my eyes to see Gabe’s immediately zoned in on the movement. I stopped within an inch of touching myself, almost daring him to stop me, but he must have been testing how strong he was because he still made no move. I had just started pinching my nipple when his control snapped.
He eyes grew hotter as he shoved my hand out of the way, replacing it with his own and squeezing roughly. I jerked against the door when I felt his breath against my other nipple, and a second later it was completely covered in the warmth of his mouth.
“Gabe,” I panted as my hands grabbed on to his shoulders. I felt his grin against my skin a second before he pinched one nipple while biting the other at the same time. Moving my hands to his waist, I gripped his shirt and started tugging until he understood. He quickly stepped back and ripped his shirt over his head before coming back to me. Gabe roughly grasped my cheeks and took my mouth in a hard, claiming kiss. Our bodies came together and—
“Hey!” Derek yelled as he pounded on the door by my head. “Get out here. We’re watching a movie.”
I groaned as my head fell against his bare chest. “Go away,” I yelled as Gabe chuckled above me.
“I thought Sundays were about having fun.” Gabe paused and looked down at me with more heat in his eyes than I thought possible. “And I’m having tons of fun.”
“It’s supposed to be a group activity.” This came from Naomi, and I was slightly horrified to think about how long they might have been out there.
“You guys want to watch?” Gabe asked with mock horror. I burst out laughing as Derek groaned and Naomi snorted. “What are the chances they’ll leave us alone?” he whispered to me.
I pulled back and arched an eyebrow. He let out a pained breath before grabbing my shirt and fixing it so it wasn’t inside out. I lifted my arms as he helped me into it, and once it was on he gently pulled my hair free until it fanned across my back. He smiled and gave me a quick kiss before reaching for his own, which he pulled on roughly, and I smiled at the contrast between how careful he was with me.
“We can finish this later,” I whispered as I slipped my bra on underneath.
“It doesn’t matter.” Gabe shrugged and pushed my hair behind my ear. When I quirked an eyebrow in question, he continued with an easy smile. “It doesn’t matter what we’re doing. I always have fun when I’m with you.”
“Yeah, me too,” I said softly. And as we walked back into the darkened living room I realized that, for once, I was more comforted by his confession than terrified.
If someone had asked me three months ago if I’d feel as good as I did right now, I would have laughed at them. I still couldn’t believe it myself. I had a great job, amazing friends, and even though Alara and I hadn’t officially said we were dating, there was no doubt in my mind that that’s what we were doing.
So as I waited in my father’s office for our “meeting,” I felt a little sick at how quickly I found myself in my old life. But I’d be a fool to disregard Sam’s warning.
“Gabriel.” His voice sounded from behind me before he closed the door and made his way toward his desk. I closed my eyes and prayed for patience before standing and turning around. I looked into eyes so similar to my own, but instead of feeling the love and respect I should feel toward my father, I felt nothing.
“Dad.” I nodded my head and stuffed my hands in my pocket. “How are you doing?”
I wasn’t surprised when he ignored my question and started in on business. “You know, it would have been nice to see more than your taillights when you first came home. Even a phone call would have sufficed. We have a lot of things to discuss and since you’ll be returning soon—”
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I sighed and cut him off. “I’m not returning.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. I’m not coming back to the company; I’m not going back to Miranda. The only part of my old life I want anything to do with is Sam.”
He was silent for several minutes as he absorbed my words. “That’s not what we agreed to.”
I rolled my eyes. “We agreed to nothing. You made a statement and as usual, you expected me to just roll over.”
“You’re my son, it’s expected of you to—”
And just like that, some of my anger returned. “Oh, now I’m your son? What was I when you missed a little league game? What was I when you forgot about my birthday?” My voice had risen, and I paused to take a deep breath and rein in some of my anger. “What was I when Mom got sick?”
“I was working. I was supporting this family.”
Shaking my head, I said, “We didn’t need money. We needed you. Mom needed you. I know you won’t understand this, but money is worthless in the end. Money couldn’t save Mom, money couldn’t make Sam happy, and money certainly won’t keep me on your leash.”
“You wanted to be here and you wanted Miranda; don’t make it seem like you were unhappy,” he said as his jaw tensed.
I nodded. “You’re right, I did want that. But the key word is did. I don’t anymore, and you have to accept that.” I stared at him expectantly but he said nothing, his expression revealed nothing. When he finally opened his mouth to respond, he was interrupted as his secretary’s voice filled the room.
“Mr. Monayhan. I’m sorry to interrupt, but Mr. Sanders is on the phone and he says it’s urgent.” My father walked over to his desk and pressed a button on his phone before speaking.
“Give me just a minute. Gabe and I are almost finished.”
I shook my head and made my way to the door. I don’t know what I expected; I had to make a freaking appointment to see him, did I really expect him to have the decency to put the rest of his life on hold for ten damn minutes?
“Don’t bother. I’ve said all I needed to.” I slammed the door on my way out.
I hadn’t seen Gabe since Sunday—between school and work, it just never worked out. It was Wednesday night and I thought I’d surprise him; I had just lifted my hand to knock when the door swung open and there he was. He stopped short when he saw me and then shook his head like he didn’t believe I was really there.
“Hey,” I said cautiously. He looked agitated when he opened the door, and unfortunately that hadn’t changed since he saw me. My stomach dropped and I shifted nervously.
“Hi. Sorry, did I know you were coming over?” he asked as he stepped back and waved me in. I didn’t enter.
“No, I just thought…” I trailed off and pointed over my shoulder. “I’ll just leave, it’s obvious you were headed out.”
He shook his head and reached forward to grab my arm and pull me in. Thankfully some of his expression cleared as he shut the door and wrapped his arms around me. “No, no, sorry. Please stay. I was just going for a walk. Today just… it hasn’t been a good day.”
“Oh,” I mumbled against his chest as I returned his embrace. Resting my chin on his chest, I looked up and gave him a small smile. “Do you want to talk about it?”
He shook his head and gave me a sweet kiss on the lips as he rubbed my back. “I’m glad you’re here. I’m sorry if it didn’t seem like it, I was just surprised.”
“Yeah, that was the idea.”
“C’mon.” As we walked back to his room, I scanned the apartment. “He’s not here,” he whispered in my ear. I shivered and turned into him. Our kisses were slow and soft as we shuffled toward his room. We weren’t in any kind of hurry, and for Gabe this seemed more about comfort than anything else. And even though I had come over with a slightly different purpose, I couldn’t deny how perfect it felt.
Gabe stopped us at the foot of his bed, placing three sweet kisses on my lips before pulling back. “Do you want something to drink?”
I smiled up at him as I ran my palms down his arms until we were holding hands. “Sure.”
“Water?” At my nod, he gave my hands a quick squeeze before leaving the room.
As I heard the ice machine clunking and sputtering I wandered around his room, really looking at the photos for the first time. I picked up a picture on Gabe’s desk and was still studying it when he came back into the room. He set the glass down and gently took it from me before rubbing his thumb over it with a reverence and sadness that hurt to watch.
“Your mom?” I asked quietly. His nod was almost imperceptible. “She’s beautiful.”
“Yeah, she was.” He slowly put the picture on the table and turned fully toward me. “She was always beautiful. I’m sure no girl wants to hear that all the work they put in on their wedding day was unnecessary, but…” He trailed off as he nodded to the candid shot of his mom. “But she was always beautiful.”
I nodded and grabbed his hand as we walked to his bed. “Sam looks just like her,” I observed.
He blew out a heavy breath as he leaned against the headboard and wrapped his arms around my stomach until I was seated between his legs and laying against his chest. “I know. It used to seem like such a blessing, but now I wonder if it’s more of a curse,” he said against my ear.
We sat in silence as I dissected what he said. Were those really the only options we had in life? Did it have to be one or other? Or was it all in the way you saw things? The truth of life was this: you show up, shit happens, and you can either make it positive or negative. That was it. And even though grief can temporarily alter how we see things, ultimately we have to decide we want more for ourselves than just the pain. Right?
As we sat and Gabe absentmindedly stroked my hair, I couldn’t help but wonder if he would always see things this way, if he would always see the negative in the flaws of life. Internally I laughed at the irony; I had flaws in spades, and when I was in the darkest days of my depression all I saw were the negatives. But I also liked to think I could recognize that some of those flaws may have saved my life. Being anxious certainly caused problems, but ultimately it stopped me from ever doing anything permanent during the lowest period of my life. Maybe our curses could keep us alive as much as our blessings.
If Gabe looked at this positively he’d see how lucky he was to still be able to see his mother every day. But he only saw the pain that her existence left, not the joy of the mother he loved. It made me wonder how bad it had really gotten.
“What was it like?” My whisper felt loud because of the silence that had settled.
“What?”
“Having to take care of her?” His hand paused in my hair before he slowly resumed stroking it. He was silent for so long I didn’t think he would respond.
“It was unbelievably excruciating. All I wanted was to take her place, to take her pain. Obviously those thoughts were unrealistic, but I couldn’t get over how little I could actually do for her. So I was just really, really angry. Like… all the time.” I squeezed the arm that was still wrapped around my stomach as he continued. “At the end, I felt like I failed her…” He trailed off.
“Why?”
He paused and took a deep breath before continuing, “My mom told me she didn’t want to live anymore.”
All the air seemed to leave the room at his statement. I licked my suddenly dried lips before responding. “S-she did?”
“We knew that depression could be a side effect. But I just never thought… I thought we’d be enough to keep her happy.” My eyes closed at the pain in his voice. I wiped my sweaty palms against my pants and my heart was beating so loud I wouldn’t be surprised if he heard it.
“But it wasn’t… it wasn’t what I thought. She wasn’t sad, she was just in a lot of physical pain and she didn’t want to suffer anymore.” He paused to take a deep breath. “And I think she thought of herself as a burden.” His hand dropped from my hair to join the arm he had banded around my waist. “I don’t know if she ever talked to Sam about it, God, I hope not… but one day she asked me to help her.”
“What’d you do?”
“I told her no.” Gabe’s voice was incredulous as his arms left me and he disentangled himself. Once he was standing he turned around and stared at me like I was crazy. “I wasn’t going to help her kill herself.”
I felt the blood drain from my face as I pieced together what he was telling me. “I thought she wanted you to get her help, as in medicine or talking to someone. I didn’t think…” I trailed off and swallowed hard before continuing this conversation that was bound to end in disaster. “She wanted you to do it? To… kill her?”
“No, but she did want me to get the drugs for her. She said she’d inject herself and take care of everything else.” He shook his head and stared out the window. “That was her main concern. She wanted me to know that none of the blame could fall on me so I wouldn’t feel guilty. Never mind that just getting the drugs would make me an accomplice, but she actually believed I would do that to her.”
“For her,” I whispered.
“What?”
I cleared my throat and scooted forward until I was sitting at the edge of the bed. “She wasn’t thinking of it as something you’d do ‘to her’ but ‘for her.’ I think there’s a difference.” I shrugged and leaned forward to rest my arms on my thighs. This certainly wasn’t how I imagined telling him, but I couldn’t keep it to myself now that the topic had come up. “I get it. Can you imagine being in that much pain and knowing it’ll never get better? I—”
“Is that how you would justify it?” He cut me off and turned toward me. His eyes were blazing with anger; any blood that had returned to my face quickly retreated. He gave me no time to reply before continuing. “Because that’s bullshit. She didn’t know. You don’t know. She could have gotten better.”
“Did she?” I asked as a little of my own frustration seeped through.
His face morphed into undisguised sorrow and his next words were clipped. “No, she didn’t. But she had no way of one hundred percent knowing that, and her giving up like that was selfish.”
“How can you possibly say that when you have no idea what she went through?”
“I was there. I know what she went through.”
I shook my head as I stood up. “No, you saw what she went through. But you don’t know. You didn’t feel it. You got to leave the hospital room while she had to sleep there. You got to eat without having to worry about whether or not you were going to throw it up. You could run around doing errands all day without being exhausted after getting halfway through the first one.” I took a few steps forward and paused so he took in the full weight of my next words.
“You didn’t know. Even though you took care of her, you got breaks from it. You had periods of time where you could go somewhere else and unwind for a while. You had one distinct advantage; you could leave and pretend it didn’t exist anymore, you could have a few hours of peace… she couldn’t. She never got that. It was always there.”
I could still see the anger radiating off him, but for the first time since our conversation started, he seemed uncertain. But he was stubborn, and as he shook his head I knew he was still trying to deny it. “Alara, I’m sorry, but you have no idea what you’re talking about. She even agreed with me when she eventually came around.”
The few steps I had taken were quickly erased as I slowly backed away from him. “What do you mean she agreed?” I paused as I replayed all his words. “Did you… did you actually tell her it was selfish?”
He finally broke our stare, trying to hide his embarrassment. But his non-answer was an answer, and I repeated myself.
“You did, didn’t you? You actually told her it was selfish.”
“It was selfish!” he barked out, swinging his gaze back toward me.
“Yeah, maybe it was,” I yelled back, raising my voice to him for the first time. “But wasn’t asking her to stay alive with all the pain she was in, knowing that it was never going to get any better, that if anything it was going to get worse, just as selfish?” I paused, trying and failing to regain any composure. “You talk about her like she hung the goddamn moon. You tell me stories about how much she gave up just to make you and your sister happy. That she turned her back on her parents, stayed in a loveless marriage, and pretty much gave you all her time and everything you wanted. And the one time she asked you for something, you threw it back in her face. So yeah, maybe it was selfish of her. But I think after giving you everything and leaving nothing for herself, she probably earned that much.”
Without waiting for his reply, I grabbed my purse and stormed out.
…
For the first time in months I began feeling anxious again. As I wore the rug thin by pacing at the foot of my bed, I stared at the full pill bottle in my hand while dozens of questions floated through my mind. Do people really want to die when they palm and down the whole bottle? Or are they just hoping that if they take enough it’ll fix them? Heal them? And are they thinking that those might be the same thing? Do they think they’re going home, to a place where they’re understood and happy and loved?
Frowning, I carefully put the pill bottle back on my dresser and made my way to the bathroom. I stared at myself in the mirror and wondered when I became the person staring back at me. When did I become the person whose only options seemed to be feeling too much or not enough? I lifted my hand and slowly traced the scar. As tears slipped down my face, I walked back into my bedroom and took out the crumpled piece of paper I hadn’t looked at since Naomi gave it back to me months ago.
My vision blurred as I stared at the familiar words and the familiar pain, and I began to wonder if I’d ever truly be better. I hadn’t had an episode in over ten months, but I’d always be wondering, wouldn’t I? Would the fear of depression simply take the place of depression? And how could this ever be fair to another person? Gabe and I might not even be fighting right now if it weren’t for this.
I shook my head and slowed my breathing as I smoothed out the paper and carefully put it away. Eventually the tears dried but I still wondered, could I be in a relationship like this and deal with the fallout if it didn’t end well? I certainly didn’t seem to be handling it well right now.
But was it because of my depression, or was it just a part of life? Were the two even separate for me anymore? And if they were, how was I ever going to learn the difference?
I fell asleep to the soundtrack of our words; I repeated them over and over again right until sleep pulled me under. And as much as I wanted to regret them and wish for it to be different, I didn’t see how it could have been. I meant what I said. Even though I knew suicide wasn’t the answer, even though I never had any real intention of acting on it, whenever I was in a low period I always thought the same thing: if it was selfish for me to want to leave, why wasn’t it selfish for people to ask me to stay?