Page 86 of None Of Your Business

Stress.

Sensitivity.

Anxiety.

A reaction to Mom.

For years, doctors gave us versions of the same story, and eventually it became the one everyone understood. Nobody had to keep looking for a physical explanation if the problem was already sitting inside my head.

I believed it too.

I became so convinced my own mind was inventing the pain that part of the reason I moved out was to test the theory. I wanted to separate myself from the family, from Mom’s illness, from all the things everyone said were making me anxious, and see whether my body suddenly stopped hurting.

It didn’t.

The pain came with me.

The dizziness came with me.

My parents love me. I know they do. But love didn’t give any of us an answer. After enough doctors suggested stress or attention-seeking, that became the story underlying everything else.

I wasn’t sick.

I was dramatic.

And Dad doesn’t know he has just repeated the part that hurt the most.

That whenever something was wrong with me, somebody somewhere wondered whether I was only trying to make people look.

All I ever wanted was for someone to look twice.

Dad is still standing in front of me, and I can tell he knows he has hurt me, even if he doesn’t understand how.

I don’t have it in me to explain.

Not today.

So I lean in and kiss his cheek, letting the familiar silence settle over everything we won't say.

“I’ll be there,” I tell him. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Love you, Dad.”

His face softens. “Love you too.”

I make it down the porch steps and halfway across the drive before my eyes start to burn. I hold back the tears until I’m inside the car, the door shut, with the house partly hidden behind the trees in my rearview mirror.

I sit there, gripping the steering wheel, trying to force everything back into whatever place I normally keep it, but it doesn’t fit.

The first sound that comes out of me is broken and furious, and once it starts, I can’t stop it.

I scream until my throat hurts, until tears blur the windshield, until there’s nothing left to hold in.

Twenty-Four

I did something stupid.

I got drunk.

I’m not a drink away my worries kind of person, but tonight I thought I could give it a try.