Another long silence. She finishes her second glass and holds it out for a refill. I hesitate.
“I’m fine,” she says. “I need this tonight.”
I pour.
“I feel like I’m drowning,” she says quietly, staring into her glass. “Like I’m underwater and everyone else is on the surface and they can’t hear me screaming.”
“Why are you drowning?”
“Because I’m not who everyone thinks I am.” She drinks. “I’m not this capable, confident person who has her life together. I’m barely holding it together. Every day I wake up and put on this mask and pretend I know what I’m doing.”
“You’re only human.”
She looks at me with eyes that are too bright. “Or maybe a fraud?”
“There’s a difference between imposter syndrome and actual fraud.”
“What if I can’t tell the difference anymore?”
I set down my glass. “Samantha, what’s going on?”
“Everything. Nothing. I don’t know.” She’s on her third glass now, drinking faster than she should. “I’m under so much pressure. From other people’s expectations, from myself. And I feel like I’m lying to everyone, including myself, about who I am and what I want.”
“What do you want?”
“I don’t know! That’s the problem.” She’s getting drunk now, words slightly slurred. “I thought I knew. I had this whole plan for my life. But now everything’s different, and I don’t know if what I wanted before is what I want now or if I’m just confused because everything’s happening so fast.”
I move to sit beside her on the couch. “Slow down. You’re not making sense.”
“Nothing makes sense anymore.” She leans against me. “I came here thinking I knew exactly who I was and what I was doing. But now I don’t know anything. I don’t know if I’m a good person or a terrible person or just a confused person who’s in way over her head.”
“You’re not a terrible person.”
“How do you know? You don’t know everything about me.”
“I know enough.”
“You don’t.” Tears start falling, mixing with wine-flushed cheeks. “You don’t know what I’ve done, what I was planning to do. What I might still do.”
I pull her closer, and she buries her face in my shirt. “What were you planning to do?”
“Nothing. Nothing…”
“Samantha—”
“I’m so tired.” Her words are barely coherent now. “I’m so tired of pretending. Of lying. Of trying to figure out what’s real and what’s not.”
She’s drunk. Really drunk. And whatever she’s trying to confess, she’s in no state to do it coherently.
“Come on.” I help her stand. “You need to sleep this off.”
She tries to walk but stumbles. Without thinking, I lift her into my arms, carrying her bridal style. She wraps her arms aroundmy neck and presses her face against my shoulder. “Don’t leave me,” she whispers. “Please don’t leave me alone tonight.”
“I won’t.”
I carry her through the hallways to her room. She’s light in my arms, fragile in ways I didn’t expect.
Her room is dark. I kick the door closed and carry her to the bed, laying her down carefully.
