We stare at each other for a minute and I feel like my stomach is a tidal wave inside me. He seems to be contemplating something.
“Give me your phone.”
I look at him with suspicion, but ultimately hand it over.
He types something in and hands it back. “Now you can call me later… if you want,” he says, giving me that shy smile again.
“Sure– I mean, maybe,” I say entirely too fast, feeling my face on fire.
He chuckles. “Nice to meet you Olivia.” I watch him walk away into the crowd.
I utilize the length of my legs to speed walk over to my friend, feeling like I’m floating on air.I can’t believe how well tonight is going,I think to myself as I hurry over to Lily. It’s like everything I set out to do has somehow fallen into place without me having to really exert any effort. As I approach Lily, I notice our attitudes are in complete contradiction to each other and feel myself dim a little.
“Why were you talking to him?” Lily spits, taking me by surprise.
“What? Who— Will?” I feel the confusion written all over my face.
“Clearly, Olivia…” she says in the voice she uses to make me feel like an idiot.
“I—” she cuts me off, sighing dramatically.
“Look, I know he’s like the exact type of guy you’d have a crush on, but I just don’t think you guys would be a good fit. Not to be a bitch, but I just don’t want to see you get hurt or embarrassed. I get the feeling you're not his type.”
She twirls her hair like this is something she’s nervous to say to me, but it isn’t something I hadn’t heard from her before. I feel my throat thicken thinking about the boys I’ve liked over theyears, all too popular, or too into her, for me. Tears prick in my eyes and I do everything in my power to keep them from falling.
“Oh… I?—”
She quickly cuts me off again, staring off into the party, not even noticing the effect her words have on me.
“Liv, I’m just over this party and my head is killing me.” She smiles tightly. “Let’s go home.”
2
Ben
Two years later, the start of Ben’s senior year
Everything is the same here at Astor Hill, but thankfully I’m not.
Panting, I lean against the edge of the bridge I’ve stopped on. Beechwood Park is emptier than I thought it would’ve been at 6:30 in the morning. The cool weather alone was enough to convince me the park might be teeming with students, but the sunrise this morning is otherworldly. It feels criminal that I’m the only one here, on this bridge, witnessing it. I’m not complaining, though. After two years away from this place, I want to enjoy the beauty of this campus, not be thrown head first into shallow Ivy small talk while I try to finish my run.
I check my watch. 6:45 a.m. I don’t have a class till this afternoon, but I want to be out of the way before the hordes of tittering Astor Heads shuffle their way to classes. If I start now, I can get two more laps in.
I pick up my pace, unzipping my hoodie as I feel the morning sun begin to warm the air around me. I let out a small huff, surprised and amused at myself. I’d worked up this day for months in therapy with Morgan, my therapist, helping medevelop action steps for when I get overwhelmed, affirming my decision to come back here every time I had doubts. But running along the tree covered path of Beechwood, the same path I used to take with my former teammates, I feel none of the anxiety or angst I used to feel. I guess a year of intensive therapy will do that to you.
When I left Astor, I was burnt out. It wasn’t until I was in the calm quiet of Pop’s townhouse that I felt the permanent angst in my chest start to unfurl, felt the weight of everyone’s expectations lift off my shoulders. In isolation, I don’t think that night would have messed with me the way it did. It was just a party; Will, my brother, was just being a stereotypical dickish freshman; I was just being ogled in the same way I’d been for years. I don’t even know when it all started to grate on me.
Coming to Astor was always the goal. Playing ball was always the goal, being captain was most definitely always the goal… and suddenly it all felt suffocating. Like I couldn’t catch a breath, couldn’t even get close to the surface. I’d been having panic attacks for months by the time it happened at that party, but I was so sure there was a tea I could drink, a walk I could go on, a meditation I could listen to that would quell the anxiety roaring in my chest. Anything to make the feeling disappear. When I tried to talk to mom about it, Dan just wormed his way into the conversation. Told me to grow the fuck up and be a man. Told me that it’s normal to feel overwhelmed sometimes, but a real man wouldn’t complain about it to his mother. Told me I better get my shit together, because the Chapman’s have an impeccable reputation at Astor, and he’d be damned if hisstepson sullied it for him. He always emphasizes the step part.
So I tried what he said. I stopped complaining, to my mom and to myself. I got my shit together, putting in two hundred percent at every summer training drill, organizing separate practice drills for the incoming freshman. I accepted my friends’offers to go out, picking up girls and taking them home like we’d always done. But it all felt like a hollow attempt to perform a version of myself I no longer identified with. That felt the most suffocating of all.
That night it felt like the universe, out of everyone, was listening to me. For the first time in months, I felt like I could move on from the anxiety, just turn a new leaf and be someone new. But nothing comes that easy, I’ve learned.
The path toward healing ended up involving a lot of uncomfortable self-reflection, hard work, and cognitive behavioral therapy.
Thankfully, my grandfather— myPop, when he’s in earshot— let me hide away and figure my shit out. By the end of what would’ve been my senior year, had I stayed, Pops gave me an ultimatum: go back home to Dan and my mother, or go to said therapy. I chose the latter. With Morgan’s help, we worked through the dad issues, the step-dad issues, the brother issues, the validation issues— all of it. But just like practicing your three pointer for hours only matters if you get a chance to implement your technique mid game, talking about why you’re fucked up and reframing years of deeply engrained beliefs about yourself is only effective if you’re out in the world applying your newfound self-knowledge.
And I knew this, deep down. That at some point, I’d have to come back and live my life again. I’m ready; I know that whole heartedly. I just don’t know what living my life is going to look like now, especially with Will here.
