CHAPTER 23
Graham
“You’re not crazy, Graham,” Lauren said gently as she sat back down in the chair she’d vacated just moments before, which surprised the hell out of me. “Bipolar disorder is a disease. Something that isn’t working right in your brain, and it’s probably hereditary. It’s no different than having any other medical disorder.”
I let out a bark of bitter laughter. “You don’t have to tell me the clinical definition. Believe me, I already know.”
“I wish you would have told me,” she said wistfully. “Jack and I could have helped. I would have found a way to get to the East Coast to be with you if I’d known about this when it was happening. I’m sorry about your mom. And I’m sorry about your dad. You never seemed to want to talk about your parents.”
Now that I’d blurted out my biggest secret, I wanted to pour out the whole story. “He was a Navy SEAL. He died in action. Once he was gone, my mother was so distraught that she stopped taking her medications. Eventually, she lost touch with reality and her only kid. I came home one day from school and she was dead. She’d shot herself in the head with one of Dad’s side arms.”
“Oh, my God,” Lauren said with a gasp. “You found her? That must have destroyed you.”
I looked up and met her eyes cautiously as I nodded. “For years, I wondered if it was my fault. I felt like if I had helped her more, it might not have happened. If she loved me more, she would have stayed with me. Eventually, I started to forget both of them. Maybe I wanted to forget. By the time I met Jack in school, I’d already been through all of the relatives I had, and I’d already had multiple foster families. Nobody wanted an angry, crazy kid.”
“You are not crazy,” Lauren repeated. “Were you having symptoms as a child? Bipolar disorder isn’t usually diagnosed until the effected person is an adult.”
I didn’t see pity in Lauren’s soothing gaze. All I saw was…understanding.
I finally answered, “You know I was diagnosed with ADHD as a kid, but my doctor thinks it was probably the early manifestation of bipolar disorder. Getting misdiagnosed happens a lot.”
“What happened at the college?” she asked, her eyes fixed on my face.
I shrugged. “Just like I told you. I had manic episodes closely followed by bipolar depression. It happened several times, but I fought it. I wanted to be somebody, and losing my damn mind wasn’t part of my plan. But I eventually found out that my will couldn’t fight my disorder. I had to ask for help. I didn’t have any choice. I was lucky to be at a university that had tons of studies going on with bipolar disorder, and good doctors. It took a couple of years, but they finally got me stable.”
“You haven’t lost touch with reality since you were in the hospital?”
I shook my head. “No. But the possibility is always there, and it scares the shit out of me. I don’t want to drag anybody down with me, especially not you or Jack.”
“It could happen,” Lauren admitted. “But it hasn’t. You were treated young, and there are studies that show early treatment could help you stay stable.” She took a deep breath before she continued, “Nobody can say what the future holds, Graham.”
My jaw was tight, my body tense as I answered, “That’s why I don’t want to be with anybody. I can’t be with anybody. I don’t know what the hell will happen.”
“Nobody can predict the future. Bad things happen sometimes, and we don’t have control over those episodes. What about Hope?” she asked.
“She’s as fucked up as I am in many ways, so we understood each other,” I explained. “I had to tell her, but she didn’t care. Outward images meant more than private ones to her, and she wanted to be married to an NFL player. If I had an episode, she wasn’t going to get hurt. She was what I needed.”
“No. She’s what you thought you deserved,” Lauren said tearfully.
I opened my mouth to deny her observation, but I closed it again. She was right. I’d settled with Hope because she’d been safe for me.
No real emotions.
No real pain.
But it didn’t change the fact that I couldn’t be with somebody who cared about me. I’d never know if and when I was going to lose my shit, and the things that could happen during a meltdown could destroy lives.
“It hasn’t happened, Graham,” Lauren said like she was reading my mind.
“That doesn’t mean it won’t,” I answered tightly.
“It’s a very real fear,” Lauren acknowledged. “But you can’t let that possibility change your life. Medications can be changed if it happens.”
“This whole damn thing has changed my life,” I growled. “One day I’m in college on a football scholarship with a good chance of going pro, and the next day I’m in the fucking hospital trying to remember what in the hell I’d done the previous night at a party.”
“You shouldn’t have had to go through that alone,” Lauren said with a hint of admonishment.
“It was better that way. I didn’t want anybody I cared about to see me like that.”
Lauren saw me as a hero. The last thing I wanted her to see was me rattling on like an idiot in a hospital bed.
Honestly, I was pretty surprised she was still sitting in my apartment like I hadn’t just told her that I was fucked up.
“Better for you, maybe,” she mused. “But I would have preferred to know so Jack and I could have been there to help you get through something that had to have been terrifying.”
“I’m good now,” I said, wanting to stop talking about my condition. “Now that the doctors have me on the right meds, and I’ve stayed in counseling, I’m playing the best ball of my life. I try to avoid all the triggers. I eat right. I exercise. I try to stay away from anything mind-altering. I succeeded until that night in the cabin when I decided to drink more beer than I should have. Not that I’m all that sure that I wouldn’t have done the same thing sober.”
“Why didn’t you answer my call after our time at the cabin?” she asked, sounding vulnerable.
“I thought it would be best if we just ended it. I knew if I talked to you again, I was never going to want to give you up.” I hesitated before adding, “I was being a coward.”
“I know about your mental illness now,” she pointed out. “And I’m not running away.”
“Then I have to assume you’re losing your mind, too.”
“I’m not afraid of you, Graham,” she said, rising to her feet.
My chest ached, knowing she was going to walk away. But I couldn’t say I blamed her. “You got your closure?” I asked sharply.
She moved until she was standing in front of me, and then lowered down to sit on her haunches. Taking my hand, she muttered, “What happens between you and me is your decision. I have to go out of state for my new opportunity at a think-tank, but I have my cell phone. You can text me if you still want my help with the accuracy of your throwing arm. Or if you just need to talk.”
I felt like somebody had opened up my chest and was ripping my heart out with a pair of very sharp claws. “Why? Tell me why you even want to see me again after what I did to you.”
Her eyebrows scrunched together. “Because I understand that you were motivated by fear. I get that you don’t want to hurt me, but if you want to stay friends, you have to be honest with me from now on. I’m done with fairy tales. I don’t need my friends to be perfect. I just need them to let me know who they really are.”
“Even now, when you know that I could go off the deep end?” I asked gruffly, my throat suddenly going dry.
She snorted. “I could go off the deep end, too. And I don’t have bipolar disorder.”
“I don’t know if I can just be your friend, Lauren.”
“I think that’s all either one of us can handle right now,” she said with a sigh. “I have to trust you’re not going to bolt, and that’s going to take time. You need to focus on being well and playing football.”
My heart was racing as I asked, “Did you really do all those things on the list?”
She smiled weakly. “I have the pictures to prove it.”
“But not the sea cows?”
“Not that one. It was one of the things I saved because I’d hoped I could do that with you. You did promise me a trip to Disney.”
I owed her a hell of a lot more than a trip to Florida. “Thanks for understanding,” I said huskily. “I’m sorry. About everything.”
Lauren slowly rose to her feet. “Thank you for trusting me.”
I stood up. “I always trusted you,” I told her. “I guess I just don’t trust myself.”
There was probably never going to be a day when I didn’t wake up normal and was pretty damn grateful that I’d gone another day without going over the edge.
When we were face-to-face, I took off her glasses, cleaned the lenses with my T-shirt, and slipped them back on again. “Be careful on your trip.”
She nodded at me, and then turned to leave.
I sprinted to the door, catching her just the way I had when she’d wanted to leave before.
“Lauren, I—”
She turned and quickly put her fingers to my lips. “Don’t say anything else. Just think about my offer. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll assume you decided to end our friendship, but at least I’ll have my closure. I’m grateful to you for that.”
“You’ve changed,” I observed. I wasn’t quite sure what had happened to her since I’d left her sleeping at the cabin, but she was different, more confident. The self-assured demeanor suited her.
“Maybe it was just time for me to grow up,” she said as she turned around and opened the door.
She left my condo quietly, not saying another word as she walked through the door.
I closed it behind her, feeling like an enormous weight had been lifted off my shoulders.
She knew, and it hadn’t changed the way she felt about me. I could see the same look in her eyes that she’d always had when we were together.
For some reason, I was still her hero.
Lauren cared, and I’d hurt her pretty badly. I couldn’t expect her to just take me back as a friend. I’d need to prove myself to her.
But she was willing to give me another shot.
The ball was in my court, and I knew I was going to take advantage of that for all it was worth. I wasn’t the type of guy who wasted a good opportunity, but this time, I’d be playing ball for something a hell of a lot more important to me than football.
And I wasn’t planning on losing.