Sunny:How do you feel about me using you to nudge my parents out the door?
Beth:We’ll nudge together. Team effort.
Sunny:See you around two!
* * *
“You did not haveto do this.” I held up the cutest damn PJ set in the world. It was soft like a baby blanket and printed with dogs in various states of snooze. “And there’s a matching eye mask! Awww, Bethy. You’re the best.”
“Actually,” she said, wiggling her shoulders, “it’s from me and Mel.”
“Ohhh really.” I folded the pajamas and set them back in the gift bag. “Tell me more.”
She shifted on the sofa, tucking her legs beneath her. “We’ve had some ups and downs, but we’re going to give this a try.”
I clapped my hands together. “When did it happen?”
“We had a feisty little moment last week,” she said, rolling her eyes. “She picked up a whole mood and I told her I liked the game, but I was tired of playing it all the time.”
“How did that go over?”
She glanced away, smiling. “She stuck with the mood for a minute, but then we had a really good conversation.” She giggled. “And then she broke my vagina. I’m still a little woozy.”
“I am so happy for you.”
“Thank you, babydoll.” She rubbed her palm over my forearm, her pretty smile sliding into a pout. “And I miss you. When are we going to get you back?”
“Soon,” I said. “I should be able to come in for shorter shifts starting on Monday, which is great because I’ve been driving myself crazy here.”
The truth was, I was going to snap if I didn’t get back to my life soon. Being cooped up here, in my childhood home, in the middle of the summer, was straight out of my own personal horror movie.
“Then you should really try to not get hit by cars,” Beth said. “This seems like a super preventable problem.”
“Is that what I’m supposed to be doing? Huh. No one told me.”
“Well, now you know,” she said. “So, tell the gross, gnarly truth. How are you really doing?”
I took a breath before I responded and that gave me a second to figure out whether I’d tell Beth everything oreverything. She could handle either version, that I knew, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to put one of them into words yet. If I held it close, it would exist only in my mind, which wasn’t real. But holding it close was costing me. It was draining my energy like a crockpot left on for days and days.
I laced the tips of my fingers, pressing my middle knuckles together hard for ten seconds and releasing for five before repeating the process several times. It was one of many mechanisms I used to claw my way out of the prodrome and aura phases before they manifested into a seizure. It was always the strangest things that worked for me. Sitting in a dark spot and focusing on every inhale and exhale. Thinking about the scent of lavender, the taste of basil. Imagining the feel of the ocean rushing over me as my feet sank into the sand. Singing. Closing my eyes and counting to ten while forcing the image of each number into my mind.
Most of the time, these things—plus meds and my entire way of life—functioned well enough for me. But I was working really hard at convincing everyone that I was doing just fine since the accident and my body kept tossing out little flares and asking,Are you really?
So, I steepled my fingertips and visualized numbers because the epilepsy I lived with was a hoarder, always hunting around for enough stress and fluctuating hormones, skipped meals and the neighbor’s flickering twinkle lights to spark some irregular electrical activity.
Since I didn’t have time for this shit, I thought about pesto and low tide.
“Physically, I’m feeling better,” I said, nodding to my cast. “My head is back in the game, mostly. I get tired pretty fast and I get a lot of seizure symptoms but they fizzle out before they get going.”
“All good things,” she murmured.
“Emotionally, I’m a little fucked over,” I said. “It’s not even the accident itself bothering me, but the feeling that I am trapped and powerless all over again. I know it’s irrational though I feel like the only answer is to plan my escape.”
“Then do that. Make those plans. Decide where you’d go if you could go anywhere, do anything. Write up the itinerary. Research the flights. Whatever. Just feed that need inside you to know that you arenottrapped.”
“Wejustopened a café together. We have contracts and shit,” I said. “This doesn’t freak you out?”
“No, because I look at houses for sale in Laguna Beach, California every night before I fall asleep. These places are millions of dollars for houses that are so spectacular, they don’t even make sense to me. I zoom in, I look at all the angles. Imagine how I’d change the floorplan or redecorate. I don’t have ten million dollars for a house and I’m not moving to California, but sometimes I need to pretend that I am. And you need to pretend that you’re leaving on your next great adventure.”
