“You were, but your insistence…” I breathe out shakily. “Saved me.”
Shortly after we talked at the aquarium, we came back to my house. While we decided to get back together and expressed how much we love each other, there is more we need to talk about.
We’re currently in what used to be his room, looking at the stuff Vienna had stored for me here. It was the things Daniel gifted me and I couldn’t bear to look at when he was gone.
He drops his hands and snakes them around my shoulders, hugging me.
Flashbacks of that night play in my head. I’m scared thinking that I almost ended it all, but I’m also relieved that he was there.
“Do you want to talk about that night?” he cautiously asks.
“I don’t know how to get the words out,” I quietly say.
“You don’t have to talk about it now, but if you ever want to, I’m here.”
“No, I want to now,” I answer a little more confidently.
I pull back and tug him down to sit next to me on the bed. He laces his fingers through mine and with the other, uses his index finger to draw patterns on the top of my hand. I roll my shoulders back, closing my eyes as that night plays in my head. I rest my head on his shoulder and exhale an anxious breath.
He stays quiet and circles an arm around my back. “Take your time. I’m not going anywhere.”
I nod, looking down at our joined hands as more flashbacks flood my brain. “After Mom’s death, I tried to live normally or at least find my new normal. I thought, how hard could it be?” I pause because I know how bad this is going to sound, but I say it anyway. “You’re going to think I’m a shitty person for thinking this, but I thought, we weren’t close, we lived together but we hardly saw each other unless it involved swimming and even then, we didn’t know each other well enough. So why should I have cared that she was gone? She died, so what? It’s not like she gave a damn for me physically or even emotionally.”
“I don’t think you’re a shitty person,” he softly says, kissing the top of my head.
I smile because of course he’d say that. He somehow always finds the good in me that I struggle to find. “Well, I felt like a shitty person because for days I felt that way. I thought, it is what it is, she’s dead, her not existing wasn’t any different than when she was alive. It wasn’t until I was told to take bereavement…” My chest grows heavy and I bite my bottom lip to stop it from quivering. “That I started feeling her absence in a way I hadn’t when I first received the news she had passed. And then there was a culmination of things that felt so insignificant in the moment they were happening. But they felt that way because I kept brushing them off until I couldn’t any longer. Like accepting that she had a will in my name. She had left everything to me and I couldn’t understand why, when she never once uttered she loved me or said she was proud of me.” My knee bounces anxiously. “It all suddenly came crashing down. I didn’t know how to navigate my feelings or begin to understand what I was feeling towards her. It was so overwhelming. And then I started drowning in my emotions, suffocating with the realization that my life’s purpose was to fulfill whatever she demanded.
“I tried to keep going, thinking of what I had at the moment: school, swim, and Bryson. But then I thought, ‘then what?’ Those two words were constantly revolving around my head. I couldn’t shut them down, no matter how hard I tried. And the people around me didn’t make it easier. They didn’t see me. No one did. They saw my Mom and everything she did. No one ever saw me. They just saw her in me. I was so lonely.
“And then he cheated, but even then, despite the hurt, I also didn’t care. Then I stopped caring about school, about swimming, about everything. I tried hard to come back from not caring, but those two words were so persistent. And then it wasChristmas Eve, the anniversary of her death. That day the ‘then what’ was quiet, everything was. It was weird but so peaceful because it had been the first time in…ever that my head was quiet. Everything was, and then I just…knewI was done trying to make sense of those two words, my complicated feelings towards my mom, and being alone.”
He pulls me up and I straddle his thighs. I bury my face in the crook of his neck, and he embraces me in a firm, protective hug.
“The silence was nice,” I plainly admit. “It was the nicest thing I had ever experienced and I never wanted it to stop. So I didn’t think. I walked and walked until I ended up at the cliff and was ready to die. I was ready to welcome silence forever, but then you showed up, pulled me back, and begged for me not to go. God, I was so mad at you for doing that…”
“I know,” he says in a hushed voice, rubbing my back. “But I’d do it again.”
I smile into his neck. “You won’t have to. I promise. I hadn’t ever thought about ending it all until that night but after then, I could never bring myself to do it. I was scared because your ‘please don’t go’ words wouldn’t stop echoing in my head. They were annoying at first, but it was because I felt like I was your pity project. I didn’t think you actually cared, at least that’s what I kept telling myself. Jarvis says I was self-sabotaging because deep down I knew you weren’t, but I couldn’t let myself believe someone actually cared. I also didn’t want someone to care for me. Because who would be stupid enough to want me? I wasn’t worth it, but you made me feel like I was.”
“Because you are worth it.” He draws back a little and hooks a finger under my chin, making me look up at him. “You are worth it, Josefine.”
“I feel that now, but in the moment, I didn’t and then that night when you got drunk and you said those things…” I don’t want him to feel bad or blame himself, but he nods at me,looking at me thoughtfully, letting me know he wants to hear it. “I started to believe that maybe I really wasn’t. Because I thought you were making yourself miserable to make me happy. You are so precious to me and the thought that you were so unhappy made me hate myself.”
He sighs, eyes flickering with regret. “I’m so sorry. I hate that I made you feel that way. I wish I could take it all back.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s really not, especially because of what I’m going to tell you.”
I nod, letting him know it’s okay for him to proceed.
“This is going to sound bad, but there is no other way to say it. Jarvis says, I was using you as a crutch after I opened up to her and told her being with you has been the safest I’ve ever felt. And because it was only with you, I was seeking grounded security. With you, I felt free of judgment, and in my drunken state, I thought because you’d been through it too, I could tell you what I was feeling. So I bared my heart to you because you were my safety net, but in doing so, I let it all out and I hurt you. I didn’t mean to; that’s not how I wanted to tell you then or ever, really. I also didn’t mean to use you to ground myself, but being around you, I couldn’t hide who I was because unknowinglyyousaw me and I felt good, but I despised myself for it. I didn’t want anyone else to suffer because of me, but I still managed to fuck it all up because you did. I’m sorry, Josie. I really am.”
“Don’t be.” I cup his cheek and softly rub the pad of my thumb along the bone. “I’m not mad. You were hurting—we both were—and that made us do and say things.”
“Things I regret but I’m…I’m working on them, Josie. I really am. Like I told you at the aquarium, I’m trying to get better; it’s just going to take some time because my head, it’s really dark in there.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” He doesn’t meet my stare like he’s embarrassed or struggling to accept he said that out loud. Either way, it doesn’t matter because I’m not going anywhere.
