Loreena doesn’t get mad. She bites down into her bottom lip and rolls it between her teeth. Her hands clench into tight little balls in her sweater. She sighs, the sound filling the kitchen painfully. Will she keep doing it until she can disappear?
“You don’t know anything about how the mind works if you think that. I’d die if I went outside.”
“You would be afraid. Uncomfortable. You’d panic, but you wouldn’tdie.” It’s disturbing that she’d say that. Can you actually be frightened to death? “I’d be right there with you, protecting you.”
“That’s not true.”
“How do you know that it’s not?”
“Because I’ve tried.”
“You haven’t tried it with me.”
She laughs suddenly, a sharp sound that sends a hot wave of shame washing over me, until I’m burning up in my own skin.
“That’s so arrogant to think that you can solve my problems when you don’t really know anything about me.”
“It’s arrogant to assume I can’t, when you don’t really know anything about me either.”
She inhales sharply. Maybe no one has challenged her on this bullshit. I doubt that’s true, but why aren’t people helping her? She mentioned she isn’t close to her family. Is this why? Did they get tired of trying to understand this and just give up on her? Did they let her drive them away?
“You’ve seen doctors, I assume?”
She nods, surprising me with how readily she volunteers the information. “Online. Yes. I’ve talked to regular doctors. Psychologists. Specialists. I’ve been put on every medication you can think of, but nothing has been a good fit. I can’t just numb myself out to the point where I can’t work. If I can’t work, I won’t get paid.”
“Have they got you to try any exercises to get through this? Maybe locking yourself outside. Stepping out the door and pitching the key so you have to go a certain way to get back?”
“I’ve tried to take steps outside. I’ve tried to count them. I’ve tried medication, rationalizing it all away, picturing myself in a different place, deep breathing, meditating, army breathing, all the yoga you can think of. I’ve tried to mentally talk myselfdown for days before I take that first step outside. I’ve even tried sinking into the panic and just letting it ride until it can’t anymore, but it can. It always can, and it always does. Just imagine holding your own head under water.” Her eyes flash, darkening to a deeper blue. “There’s only so long that you’re going to be able to do it before you have to come up for air.”
She unfurls suddenly and gets to her feet. She snatches back the bag of coffee grounds and pours some of them into the little handle of the espresso maker. She jams it forcefully back into place. After she puts a small cup underneath, she hits the button, and a stream of steaming coffee pours out. The dark almost burnt aroma fills the tiny kitchen.
I get myself off the floor while she busies herself steaming milk in a little metal pitcher. I don’t want to sit. I don’t want to stand. I don’t know what to do with myself.
I watch her add the froth to the top of a mug. She holds it to me. Her whole demeanor is resolute.Decided. She’s certain that I’m going to be just like everyone else in her life who has probably failed her.
“It’s not fair to ask you to come here all the time. I would never expect someone to share their life with someone who—” Her throat bobs as she swallows loudly. “Someone like me. I’m so sorry. The last thing I wanted to do was disappoint you.”
“That smacks of self-pity.” I sip the coffee, even though it’s scalding hot. It burns my tongue, but it does taste amazing. It’s the best thing I’ve had in ten years, I can say that for certain. “But the coffee’s good.”
A strangled, angry sound tears out of her. “That smacks of a lack of compassion,” she snaps. “I’m sorry, but if you’re going to be unkind, then I’d like you to leave.”
Her hand twitches at her side as though she’d like to smack me. I wish she would. She needs to do something to excise all the shit that’s crammed down deep in her, rotting her, making her sick. I’m no doctor, but I think that maybe a little bit of alternative advice would help if all the other stuff didn’t.
She can’t keep her face from crumpling. She has to quickly turn and start dumping out the grounds.
Nothing in her body says that she wants me to leave. If she truly did, I’d go.
“I know about the world,” she says harshly. She refills the holder and shoves it into the machine. “I wasn’t like this until- I- I had two decades out there. I have a phone, a laptop, and the internet. I know what’s happening locally, nationally, and internationally. I haven’t seen regular doctors. I’ve seen naturopaths and homeopaths. I’ve tried hypnosis. Books. Videos. Podcasts. Phone calls. I want to get better but want has very little to do with it.” She steams the milk, then the machine hisses as she drains it off.
“I’m not taking no for an answer.”
She whips around, thankfully not with a cup of coffee in her hand. “Excuse me?”
“I’m not just going to leave you here. You don’t have to sacrifice yourself. I want to be your friend, and I want to help.”
I feel the heaviness of her living like this, straight down into my bones. Anger curdles the pit of my stomach. I want to know what happened to make Loreena this way. She said she had two decades out in the world.
Something hurt her.
