Me:I’m back. Date sucked. Billy told condiment jokes. Teetering on the edge of a flare. Shower and bed for me.
Jemma texts back immediately.
Sorry we put you through that. I’ll sleep on Mom’s couch so you can rest. Love you.
Tears prick my eyes. Until I was twenty-four, my body was reliable. Weekend mountain biking, late-night study sessions, pushing myself however I wanted. Then CFS hit like someone had pulled my plug without warning.
Thank God my doctor believed me, though—not every physician thinks the condition is real—and my family believed me as well. From the beginning, they’ve been my biggest allies, finding ways they can help alleviate the symptoms and cheering me on when I announced I wanted to open my own practice—and, somehow, keep working my maximum thirty hours a week while doing so, since any more risks a flare.
After a hot shower, I put on my warmest pajamas—flannel pants with dancing penguins, an oversized PT school sweatshirt. But in bed, my exhausted body won’t let my racing mind rest. The cruel joke of chronic fatigue: too tired to function, too wired to sleep.
The last sounds of the night trickle through the house—Jemma going out the back door, Jude and Henry flicking off the lights in the living room and hallway. I lay on my side, staring at the wall, thinking about the date with Billy, thinking about how I haven’t dated in years and how maybe the spoon theory is an excuse—a convenient shield. Maybe I’m just afraid after what happened with Oliver.
And then Oliver floods my mind: how he looked in the pizzeria last week, spooked and out of place. That shattered confidence.
What happened beyond the wrist injury that ended his career? The investigation rumors, whispers about it not being an accident—what’s he running from?
I throw off the covers. With insomnia, busy hands tire the mind faster than staring at ceilings. The closet holds relics—yearbooks, stuffed animals missing eyes. In a box marked with my teenage handwriting, I find them. Journals.
Spiral-bound, sticker-covered, spanning decades. I started writing in journals the moment I started school. The red one draws me like a magnet. New York. The last years with Oliver.
My hands open it against my better judgment. There—my younger handwriting, hopeful even when describing pain. Happy entries about PT practice dreams, Fourth of July fireworks reflected in Oliver’s eyes. Then the other entries. The not-so-good ones.
Like the championship qualification night, date circled three times in red ink like I was trying to contain something radioactive. The memory floods back with nauseating clarity.
I was flaring but pushed through. Arena lights stabbing my skull, crowd noise like physical blows, my body screaming for rest. Melissa—that was her name—saw me swaying and offered her car for a halftime nap. Fifteen minutes in the backseat while nothing happened on the ice. But Oliver was furious I wasn’t visible when he looked up. Said he needed to see me, got in his head, almost cost them the game.
They won. Champagne in the locker room. Didn’t matter.
In the car, his voice turned to glass shards. I went numb, couldn’t speak while he ranted about my selfishness. At home, I sobbed while he snored.
The journal entry, in shaky handwriting with tear-wrinkled pages:
February 15th - 2am He’s sleeping and I can’t stop crying and he doesn’t even know. Or care? The gap between us in this bed is an ocean. I tried SO HARD to be there for him tonight. Doesn’t he see that? Doesn’t he see ME? I keep thinking if I just try harder, if I can just be better, he’ll understand. But what if he never does? What if this is all I am to him—someone who exists to make him feel good about himself? I’m so tired. Not just flare tired. Soul tired. But I love him. That has to be enough, right? Love fixesthings? Mom always said if you love someone enough, you can work through anything. But what if I’m the only one working?
My younger self’s desperation bleeds through every word. The way she—I—made myself so small, blamed herself for not being enough.
Now? I wouldn’t even attend an event during a flare. My health comes first, full stop. Anyone who can’t accept that isn’t meant for me.
But reading this, I see how I never told Oliver his expectations were too high. Never said I was a person with limitations, not an emotional support accessory. I wasn’t aware of our codependence—him needing me to regulate his emotions, me needing him to feel worthy.
I didn’t even tell him how his words carved pieces from my soul I’m still trying to regenerate. Instead, I bottled everything like poison in mason jars, waiting for him to finally see me.
The realization sits heavy: I can’t blame my past self for not having tools I’d later develop. But what if I’d known then what I know now? What if I’d set boundaries from the start? That night, what if I’d woken him and said, “You hurt me. You don’t get to treat me this way.”
Would he have changed? Would we have survived? Did he ever know the real me, or just the version I presented to keep peace?
Two tears track down my face. All these years painting Oliver as the villain, me as the victim. But I stayed. I chose him over myself, again and again.
Sighing, I close the box like shutting a coffin. Enough memory lane for tonight.
Back in bed, I find the world’s most boring podcast—the history of cement manufacturing. The monotone host drones about aggregate sizes. Through the window, bare branches scratch against the dark sky like skeleton fingers.
My body thrums with that specific exhaustion-but-wired sensation CFS brings—muscles heavy as soaked wool while electricity runs under my skin. My joints ache in their sockets. Behind my eyes, pressure builds like storm clouds. Every few minutes, my leg jerks involuntarily, startling me back from the edge of sleep.
The podcast host explains Portland cement versus hydraulic lime. I think about Oliver in Niall’s garage apartment. Is his wrist hurting tonight? Does he lie awake replaying his mistakes like I’m replaying mine?
When we were together, he never had trouble sleeping. Could drop off mid-conversation while I lay there, mind spinning. I envied that ability to just... stop. To not be haunted by every word said or unsaid.
