And I hate that part of me wishes they wouldn’t bother trying to include me in conversation. Iwantto be here, and Iwantto connect with them, but it’s like something is blocking me. It has been for a while. And now, the only way they know how to reach me—through my work—is slipping through my fingers. So I have nothing at all to give them…
“Well,” Darren shrugs, giving me a weak smile, “at least you have more research time in the summer. Where you at now?”
I can’t do this anymore.
“You know, you don’t have to do this,” I say, glancing around the table. “I’m fine just sitting here listening to you talk about hockey.” I gesture between Dad and Darren.
Dad exhales sharply and lowers his gaze to his plate, and Claire’s eyes flick to Darren. Then she quietly gets up from the table and heads down the steps into the backyard with the kids.
I watch her leave, and brace myself for what’s coming.
“Cade…” Dad starts.
But I lift my hand. “Let’s not.”
Mom leans back in her chair with a sigh, staring out over the yard. I watch the way she presses her lips together like she’s holding something back.
Anger or tears… I’m not sure.
Darren shakes his head. “Cade, enough.”
I turn to look at him, and he glares back at me.
“We’re trying to help you,” he says. “How many times do I need to say that? We’retrying. And you’re not.”
Heat rises in my chest as I stare back at him.
“I’m not trying?” I ask.
Darren shrugs and throws his hands up. “No. All you do is snap at us.”
The muscles in my jaw tighten, as I try not to snap again and prove his point.
Because all I fucking do is try.
I try to wake up and get out of bed every morning when everything in me says I can’t. I try to teach students when my brain feels a thousand miles away, and my body doesn’t feel like it belongs to me. I try to play the part of professor, brother, and son, and act like everything is fine when all I can think about is how that bottle of rum may help me feel something. I try to act like the pressure to function doesn’t bury me alive every single day.
And they sit here and tell me they’re trying, while they poke every raw spot I’ve been working to cover up. While they drag it all out in the open and call it care. They think they want honesty… they think they’re ready for that. But if they really saw what’s going on inside my head, they’d wish I never said a fucking thing.
But I can give them one thing they’ve been asking for.
I pull out my phone and scroll to Alder’s name. My thumb hesitates for a second before I tap out a message.
Fuck, I hope he knows how to check his texts.
SOS. 131 Blackwell Dr
Now I have to kill at least an hour and a half until he can get here from Fredericton.
“Cade, we’re trying to talk to you,” Dad says.
“I know,” I say, slipping my phone back in my pocket. “You’re trying. I’m not. I get it.”
Darren shakes his head and leans forward. “No, you don’t get it. Not at all.”
“What is it you want then, Darren?” I ask. “An intervention?” I lean forward as well and look around at the faces of my family, as they all stare back at me with a mix of concern and disappointment. “You want to talk about how I can’t get through my day without some rum in my coffee? How I can’t feel a fucking thing unless it physically scars me? Or how it feels like I’m just watching my own life happen from somewhere outside my body?” I shift my eyes to meet Darren’s gaze. “Or maybe you want to hear how every sound, voice, and question scrapes along the inside of my skull until all I can think about is how fast I can disappear. Into a bottle, silence, or someone who doesn’t ask me to explain why I’m like this.”
Darren’s eyes fill with emotion, and I see them glisten before he blinks it away.
