Stop it. You like Buckbourne.
But do I? I moved here because London scared me, and it was far enough away from anyone I knew that I didn’t have to live with the fact thatIscaredthem, but that doesn’t make it home. Nothing felt like home until Aidan.
“Ludo.” Rita sounds distant even as she stands and comes to where I’ve ground to a halt by the window. “I have ten minutes before my next patient. If we’re going to get anywhere, you need to talk tome, not yourself.”
I turn to her. “It’s myself talking to myself about myself.”
“I know, but maybe we should try speaking out loud for the time we have left. Then I’ll give you a new notebook to take home.”
Super.
* * *
I leave Rita’s clinic with two new notebooks and a prescription for a single Valium dose. The pharmacy is on my way home. I consider walking on by, but three days of peak ridiculous is taking its toll. I need to eat and sleep and sensibly think my way out of this mess before it turns into something I can’t fix.
Back home, common sense tells me to wait until tonight before I take the sedative. That sleeping all day will only lead to the kind of night I fear most—sleepless and afraid. But I’m so done with the noise in my head that I can’t fight temptation.
I swallow the magic pill and go to bed.
* * *
I wake to the darkness I don’t want to face. Mouth dry, I crawl out of bed and stumble downstairs. I gulp water and scour the fridge as my stomach grumbles to life. Finally I’m hungry. Famished, in fact, and I eat everything edible left in the fridge while leaning against the kitchen counter.
When I’m full, I take Bella for a quick spin around the block, then feed her too, guilt at neglecting her all day nibbling the edges of my sedative haze. I walked her for miles before visiting Rita—I had to, to avoid Aidan’s precious tree—and I know she was perfectly content to share my bed with me, but she’s the happiest dog in the world. She doesn’t deserve my silence.
We play ball in the garden. Somehow she knows to be careful of the herb patch Aidan hasn’t yet finished.
I can’t look at it, but in the cool air of the late evening, my thoughts have finally slowed enough for me to catch up with them. Rita’s notebooks are on the kitchen counter next to the empty blister pack the Valium came in. I clear the rubbish away and take a notebook to the couch. Challenging my negative thoughts is a way of life for me. CBT, talking therapies, I’ve done them all, and they work when I have the wherewithal to let them.
Chewing my lip, I retrace my steps to Sunday, when I last saw Aidan. He was standing at my kitchen sink, washing up, whistling through his teeth despite the fact that I preceded dinner with a mini meltdown over something he hadn’t even said. Yeah, he was right about that. People don’t listen to me, so I spoke without giving him the chance to try.
Idiot.
No.
I’m not an idiot. I’m living with a mental illness. Sometimes I fuck up.
I write it down and then cross out the F-bomb. Aidan is right about that too.
It takes me an hour to piece together the anxiety trail. An unscheduled nap, a bad dream, failure to catch my negative thoughts before they spun me into a vicious cycle of fear and self-loathing. It’s a pattern I’ve drawn a thousand times, and I ponder if I’ll ever stop.
Still. The Valium and my full stomach have thrown up a roadblock. For the first time in days, I can think clearly. I find my phone and scroll through the messages Aidan has sent me over the last few days and my sporadic replies.
Aidan:snuck out while you were sleeping. speak tomorrow
Aidan:morning. going to work in a bit. call u later?
Aidan:hope ur ok
Ludo:I’m fine.
Aidan:um, good? u wanna walk after work?
Aidan:sure ur okay?
Aidan:hello?
Ludo:I’m fine
