And it really did help. I liked the group and talking to a bunch of other people with weird, fucked-up lives. I had group sessions online, and there was no one in there that was ‘normal’. Not even ‘normal’ by mentally ill standards, like just a straight up-and-down depression diagnosis. No, it was all people who were truly fucked up, most of whom had some kind of unhinged childhood, just like I was coming to realize I’d had. A bunch of C-PTSD babies, each trailing a sack of various diagnoses and horror stories behind us.
It made me feel less alone, which isn’t something that happens to me very often. And the whole thing centers around teaching you skills to deal with your emotions. They’re supposed to be simple and easy to remember, so you build up your little mental tool box and then when shit goes sideways in real life, you whip them out.
There’s a lot of acronyms. So. Many. Acronyms.
A lot of the time it helps. Especially for strong, overwhelming emotions. But this kind of sucking numbness is my greatestenemy, and my mind immediately locks down so hard, all of those thoughts and skills seem completely inaccessible.
It sucks. All that money, all that time and energy, and especially all the time I had to spend sitting around dwelling on things I definitely would have rather forgotten, and what did it get me?
Some days I think it just made me worse.
I’m still alive. That’s what Cade always points out. But am I really alive on days like this, when I feel completely outside of myself, and a goddamn chicken sandwich was all it took to send me spiraling into the couch?
I hear more rustling in the kitchen, which is probably Cade inhaling the food like he said he would. I know he won’t throw it away. He’ll do a lot for me, but for whatever reason, throwing away “perfectly good food”, even if it’s just garbage, isn’t one of them. I expect him to come in after I hear the trash can lid open and slam shut, but he doesn’t.
I wonder if he’s more angry at me than I thought. I would be. Having to tiptoe around me like this has to be annoying. But I’ve been living with Cade for a while now, and while he’s far from perfect, he’s reliable about that. Nothing ruffles him. Not me, at least.
His mom? Yes. They still fight like alley cats. But I also think that’s how they bond, in some sick, twisted sort of way. Any mention of his dad will also set him off, and some of the other people in town, if they start acting like small-minded dicks. We haven’t gotten a lot of shit from anyone, but on the few occasions when we have, it’s taken all my energy to keep Cade from catching a felony charge.
But when it comes to me and the girls, he has the same kind of patience he manages to pull out of his ass for his patients at work. I don’t know how he divides his personality like that, but I appreciate it.
It doesn’t explain why he hasn’t come in here yet, though. It’s never taken him more than four and a half minutes to demolish a bag of Sonic.
I stare at the fabric of the couch, allowing my eyes to unfocus until the image blurs, and try not to think about it. I try not to think about anything at all, until I begin to drift.
“Sit up for me, baby.”
Cade’s voice snaps me out of my stupor for the second time tonight. I do as he says, rust falling from my limbs in brittle chunks as I force them to articulate and reassemble the pieces of myself into something vaguely human-shaped, sitting on the couch with my feet in front of me, feeling only slightly stiff.
“Here you go.”
He puts a paper plate in front of me. I hate the paper plates—they make me feel like I’m still living out of motels instead of a home—but it’s another habit that’s so deeply ingrained in him, it doesn’t feel like it’s worth the argument.
Fighting with Cade is probably the most excruciating thing I’ve experienced, even if it doesn’t happen very often. Because I spent a lifetime learning to rely only on myself. Then he eked open my walls just a little, just enough to squeeze himself inside and make me need him. Just enough so that whenever something bad happens, he’s the first person I want to turn to.
And every time we fight, I feel the same way. But he’s the one making me feel that way, so the whole thing makes me freeze, like a system error in human form. The thought of losing him after I never thought I’d find him terrifies me to my core, and I know I’ll ultimately fold over any issue, contort myself into any shape he wants, just to keep him here.
I’m sure that’s not healthy. My therapist says so, at least. But I also think it’s pragmatic. And it’s not like Cade demands a lot from me other than to… I don’t know. Try to be a person?
The plate is piled high with a bunch of different food: apples slices, peanut butter, cold chicken breast in pieces, bread, cottage cheese, tomatoes cut into ragged chunks, and a very sad hard-boiled egg that he must have rescued from the back of the fridge. It’s messy, because cooking will never be Cade’s forte, but at least it’s all food, and none of it is fried.
This time it’s my heart that clenches, not my stomach. I’m still not hungry, but it gives me a swooping, weightless sensation to know he went to all this trouble.
“Thank you,” I mutter, not really knowing how to express myself more meaningfully than that.
Cade doesn’t say anything, his energy light. It’s deliberate, I’m sure. He steals a piece of apple, swipes it in the peanut butter and then shoves it in his mouth as he nudges the plate closer to me.
“Eat,” he says, leaning in to kiss me on the temple, holding my head with the heel of his hand so he doesn’t touch me with his sticky fingers and making the world around me smell like peanut butter for a minute.
His tone is light as well, but I hear the undercurrent of warning in it. He doesn’t stay to watch me, though, which I appreciate. I’m aware that I’m weird about food and it’s not a challenge to guess where it came from. None of this is news to me. Someone staring me down like a criminal isn’t going to help.
Once he’s disappeared and I hear the shower turn on, I look at the plate. My stomach clenches again, but I try to ignore it this time.
It’s already been a weird, pointless day. Don’t make it worse, Silas.
Chapter Two
Iwant to say it’s not deliberate that I take the world’s longest shower. It was a grueling shift, and my muscles are sore. I’m still not totally used to having the water pressure we have at Silas’s house, as well as the amount of hot water that comes from only two people using it, not four, so it feels like a luxury on a daily basis.
