The door closes behind me, and I squint up at the sky. It doesn’t seem real, the sun shining through the palm trees. It’s like looking at a postcard of this happy scene while I feel hollowed out and overcaffeinated. Nauseous yet hungry.
I look down at my hands, watching as I squeeze them into fists and open them back up, slowly, again and again. My old therapist used to recommend movements that caused release, to tighten and then relax your muscles. Hoping it will cause my brain to do the same. I’m not sure if it’s easing my tension or making it worse.
I try to dispel this feeling of nervousness, of anxiety, but it’s hard to do when it’s so amorphous. You can be nervous about a test or job, and though it bothers you, at least you know that in a week or a year it will be decided either way. It’s easy to logic your way out of rational stress. I’m worried about this test, but if I don’t ace it, I just have to do better on the paper. But when the stress doesn’t have a rational source, when it’s simply anxiety about life, it’s so much harder to cope with. How do you shake the feeling that something inside you is slowly killing you, when you don’t know what that something is?
This used to happen junior year, when I would wake up feeling like I was dying and throw up in the shower.
When I would check all my water bottles and coffee cups for mold every three sips.
That was about the SAT, just like this is about the project. Both are just the seed that makes me worry about what I’m doing with my life.
And now I feel paralyzed because I can’t be perfect.
So worried about doing the wrong thing that I do nothing.
That’s why, in my totally untrained and not at all qualified mind, I think anxiety and depression are so commonly tied.
When everything is rushing past too fast, when it’s so scary and there’s so much to do...
Why not just lie down, close your eyes and try to sleep away your problems?
And maybe that’s all it is; maybe I’m just tired. Maybe this isn’t junior year again, and it’s just the lack of sleep and nothing more making me feel like this.
Maybe when I wake up tomorrow, the way this lie is eating away at me, the way I feel like my body will be ripped apart straight down the middle by my torn-up mind...maybe when I wake up tomorrow all of that will be gone.
I just need a nap, or another cup of coffee, or a shower, and I’ll be all right.
Which is always the part that makes me more confused. How much is self-care, and how much is actually needing coffee to keep myself together?
Where’s the line between getting enough sleep so my mind is healthy and giving in to the desire to sleep my life away?
I squeeze my eyes closed and reopen them. Another one of the moves my therapist talked about.
It works about as well as when you smile and hope it makes you happy.
I exhale and start to make my way across the quad, empty at 8:00 a.m. in a world where life begins at ten in the morning as people rub their eyes and crawl out of their twin beds.
They say this campus is like a bubble because people get so caught up in this tiny world.
And I feel like I may suffocate inside it.
It’s not until I reach the door that I realize I don’t have my key card. As I dump out the entire contents of my bag, I think I may start sobbing. I’ll just have to sit here until someone comes along to find me crying on the steps of my frat.
But then I remember the back door.
After shoving everything back into my bag, I walk around to the back, where luckily the door is propped open. The screen door slams as I stumble into the kitchen.
I set my messenger bag down on the island with a thud.
“Walk of shame?”
I spin around. I hadn’t even realized anyone else was here. Jordan is standing near the cereal cabinet, wearing a worn T-shirt with the sleeves cut off and tight workout shorts. My eyes linger on his really quite beautiful arms and—
Nope, nope, nope, look away, Cassie—this is a bad idea.
“What?” I make a concerted effort to meet his eyes, which also aren’t too bad a view.
“Those are the same clothes you were wearing at dinner last night.”
I look down. He’s right, of course. I roll my eyes. “Saddest walk of shame ever.”
“Long night?”
I laugh, and it barely floats across the room. Slumping onto one of the stools by the counter, I take off my glasses, rubbing my eyes.
“Long night, long week.” I rest my head in my hands.
“Final papers?”
I nod. You literally don’t know the half of it, I think.
He tosses his gym bag onto the stool next to me. “Well, I just got back from practice and don’t have class for another hour, if you’d like to have breakfast and talk about it.”
I look up, and even given my blurry vision, his smile is cute.
“I mean, if you’re going the nap route, I don’t want to keep you, but if you want caffeine, I can make coffee.” He grabs the pot in a sweeping motion, and a bunch of cups clatter to the ground. “Oh God,” he says under his breath as he scrambles to pick them up.
I slip my glasses back on and smile. “Sure.”
“Okay, first coffee, and then tell me about what has you doing the walk of shame.”
“It’s not really—”
“Okay, okay.” He holds up his hands innocently, coffeepot still in his right. “But you can’t blame me for thinking that.”
He fumbles with the filters and then pours in what’s probably way too much coffee.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He turns around. “Oh, c’mon, there must be so many guys after you. Didn’t they just beat up that Sig A that was being an asshat? Terrible taste in guys, by the way—and I’m not just saying that because of his frat.”
I laugh. He pulls out a frying pan and stares at it. He turns it around and examines the back, as if there might be instructions or something.
“So yeah.” He turns on the burner and flinches slightly when it lights. “It’s not a ridiculous suggestion. I mean, that story alone proves there’s at least one person here you’re sleeping with.”
“Actually not. That, uh, that would be why he got mad the other night.”
He looks up. “Are you shitting me?”
“Uh, no. Believe it or not I am an eighteen-year-old virgin. We do exist.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “I mean, that’s what he was mad about?”
I nod.
“Shit, Cassie, I’m sorry.” He pours two cups of coffee, hands me one and then pulls a carton of eggs from the industrial-size fridge.
“Yeah, I mean, it happens.”
“Well, if you ever want to talk or, like, for me to beat the shit out of him—”
“Fire!” I stand up and yell. A dish towel too close to the burner has erupted into flames. The smoke detector begins to blare.
He spins around and looks rapidly from the fire to me and back to the fire. “Shit.”
He grabs the pot and dumps the coffee over the flames, which sizzle and then fade.
His shoulders fall, and he turns around to face me. When our eyes meet, we both burst out laughing.
“That was impressive.” I raise my cup to take a sip, smiling.
He shrugs. “How about cereal?”
I nod quickly. “Yeah, that’s probably a better idea.”
He pours the Lucky Charms carefully and then sets the bowl in front of me. “Madame.”
I smile. “Thank you.”
He grabs the milk from the fridge and presents it like a bottle of fine wine. “Alta Dena’s finest skim.”
I inspect it. “That’ll do.”
He nods and unscrews the top, pouring the milk into my sugary cereal with a show of ceremony, holding it high above the bowl.
Milk splatters, and I let out a squeal that turns into another laugh.
“The finishing touch...” Jordan yanks open a drawer and slides a spoon across the counter to me.
“Thank you, sir.”
I take a bite, and I must say, it may be the best cereal I’ve ever had.
“You know, I’ve never made a girl breakfast before.”
I cough as I try to swallow. “Huh. I would’ve pegged you as the type to have a lot of girls coming in and out of the house.”
I mean, I’ve seen them, I add silently.
“Well, I mean...” He puts the milk away and turns back to me. “I’ve hooked up with girls, but I guess I’ve just never had any of them stay for breakfast—or the night, really.”
“So what you’re saying,” I grumble through a mouth full of cereal, “is that you’re usually an asshole.”
He laughs. “I guess so.”
I raise my eyebrows. Part of me wants to ream him out, rant about the sexual politics of college hookup culture, about objectification and third-wave feminism.
I don’t do it.
“Well,” I say as pick up another spoonful, “I, for one, am happy that you changed your ways today, because this is delicious.”
He laughs and settles onto the stool next to me with his own cup of coffee. I look over at him, trying not to smile so much so I can sip my coffee. And something about it just feels right.