Bombora (11 page)

“I don’t know.” Nate rubs his hands against his thighs and stands up. He wanders over to the window to peer out at the ocean for a few minutes, brow furrowed. “Even if I bumped into her today, I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t want to talk to me. Same as Emilia and Liam, she put a lot of trust in me, and I betrayed it. I didn’t mean to, and I sure as fuck didn’t want to, but there you have it. No changin’ that fact now.”

We are both quiet for a little while, there being not much else to say on the subject, but then Nate turns back around to face me with an inscrutable expression.

“How come you never mentioned Phel before this?” he asks.

The question stumps me for a few moments. There’s no good answer to that. “I don’t… I guess it just never occurred to me. He’s pretty low-key, for one thing, and in a way… I didn’t feel right burdening you with my problems. It’s like Phel and I are each other’s therapists sometimes, and it felt best to keep it private. In case I accidentally wound up talking about his issues as well as my own.” I shrug at the ineffectiveness of this response, but Nate nods in a way that seems to indicate he gets it. That’s one thing about Nate; it doesn’t take a whole lot of explaining to get him on the same page.

“That’s okay, dude,” he says. “In all fairness, I kept a hell of a lot from you for a whole year.” I snort, because Nate is the king of the motherfucking understatement, but in actual fact I wouldn’t have it any other way. Especially when I tend toward overstating things a little myself. There are so many questions I have about that time, where Nate met this woman, how he knew she was different from Emilia, what about her could have changed his life so fundamentally, but there will be time for all that later on.

“Just… no more secrets, okay?” I plead. Nate looks down at his hands, which maybe isn’t the response I want, but we’ve had enough awkwardness today to last us a lifetime. I can stand to let him off the hook just this once. “I can’t be an awesome brother to you if I don’t know what’s going on.”

“Fair enough.” I think that’s the end of it, until he blurts out, “So does he still love the guy?” Nate’s also the king of the non sequitur, apparently. Sometimes his train of thought is more like one of those insane Shinkansen from Japan than your average locomotive.

“Who?”

Still not looking at me, though. Fuck, at the rate we’re going, I’m going to need to brush up on my psych textbooks just to decipher my own brother. “Phel,” he clarifies and, wow, that’s pretty random, even for Nate. “Does he still love the guy who broke his heart?”

Since I can’t think of a good way to hide my surprise, I don’t. That Nate knows how wrecked Phel is feeling after one meeting might say something, but that doesn’t mean I’m at liberty to start divulging secrets behind Phelan’s back. I wouldn’t do that to Nate if the shoe were on the other foot. “Why do you care about that?”

Nate shrugs and finally meets my eyes with a steadiness I don’t expect. “I don’t know, Hugh. I guess I just want to know if there’s still hope for someone like me.”

Because there’s no better way to respond to someone who is hurting and lost and kind of alone except for the dubious comfort of your presence, sometimes the only thing you can offer is a hug. So I rise from the bed and go to put my arms around Nate, my broken, well-meaning brother who has nevertheless managed to make significant disasters of a bunch of people’s lives. Try putting that on a Hallmark card. Instead Nate accepts the embrace for what it is, sort of awkwardly since we haven’t done this in a while, and doesn’t try so hard to hide the fact that he’s leaning most of his weight into me.

“Phel’s situation isn’t the same,” I tell him gently, “but it’s not for you to worry about. You and Emilia and Liam… I’m sure everything will all work out. There’s hope for you yet, you idiot.”

Nate is wearing a brave smile when he pulls away, but it doesn’t reach his eyes and he’s gone back to not looking at me. I sigh and say nothing, because even though I’m just his brother, it’s painfully clear how badly he wants to believe me, but doesn’t.

Phel

T
HERE
’
S
a moment, just before you’re about to catch a wave, where the only sensation you’re aware of is of pure force—not the burn in your arms of paddling out, the salt spray in your face, the anxiety of not popping up in time, not anything else in your life—just water and power and sheer exhilaration. It’s like flying, hurtling along on your stomach at an incredible speed until that last second when you push yourself up, surfboard hopefully angled in the direction of the swell before it breaks. Suddenly you’re on it, balanced between riding the wave and racing it, fighting every impulse of mind and nature to hurl yourself against that wall of water again and again, carving into it like your whole body’s the knife.

It’s probably stupid that I came out here alone, but as long as no one cuts into someone else’s priority, aloha spirit dictates we all look out for each other while we’re here. Though it’s getting late in the afternoon and the tide is almost out, there are plenty of surfers doing the exact same thing as me, trying to squeeze in a few more waves before they call it a day. I’ll stay out until the end, I think, surfing to make up for lost time. The past few days without it have felt… empty.

True to my word, I didn’t go back to the beach that day after running into Nate, hopped up on Xanax to the point where I’m lucky I made it home in once piece. It started to rain on the way there, but I was so loopy and numb from the drugs I barely registered the wetness, or how cold it got with my clothes soaked through. Doesn’t mean I didn’t miss the waves, though.

When I first came to Palermo Springs and got set up in my little apartment here, Willa gave me a contact card listing what’s considered to be the three most important pieces of information in the patient’s arsenal: the number for emergency medical services (overdoses or self-injury), the number for client services (housekeeping, security, or not enough food in the fridge), and, finally, the assigned counselor’s direct line for emergency therapy sessions. I know one of those things is not like the other, but if there’s anything they take seriously here at Palermo, it’s health, comfort, and mental well-being.

Before the front door was even closed, I started tearing through the drawers in my tiny kitchen, unmindful of the water I was tracking everywhere, looking for that damned card because I went ahead and listened when Willa asked that I not program her number into my phone. She wanted to discourage me from calling her direct every time crisis struck, a dubious luxury reserved for higher-maintenance patients. At the time, I kind of liked that there was a level of trust between us; she didn’t think I needed her on speed dial, and counted on me not to abuse the system. I know Willa isn’t a friend, but this is something that keeps me feeling like there is an element of reciprocity to our professional relationship. As she probably intended, it gave me a much-needed sense of control over my actions, confidence that I could rise above losing my shit over every little thing.

Yeah, right.

I couldn’t find the damn card anywhere and got so frustrated that I contemplated calling emergency medical services and faking a suicide attempt or something; naturally, that was the number I’d memorized. Except that with Xanax, the feeling of frustration becomes abstract, conceptual, more like you’re aware that you
should
feel upset about something, but don’t. So while I likely couldn’t have scratched my own ass right then, much less faked a convincing suicide attempt, dialing out to emergency services was an idea that came and went like a slow-moving tide.

Instead I flopped onto the couch and melted into the cushions for a few minutes—hours, maybe—coasting along on that feeling of nothingness unique to benzodiazepines. I felt like part of the air, completely insubstantial and weightless. For a while I considered going to sleep, which of course was when I spotted Willa’s card in its usual spot in the middle of the coffee table. Independent living patients are given a “private” cell phone for the duration of their stay, reachable only by switchboard, and I fumbled it out of the pocket of my jeans, amazed it hadn’t suffered water damage. My first few attempts to dial out were unsuccessful. On the fourth or fifth try, I managed to get Willa on the line.

“Phelan?” Since I never called her like this, she picked up right away. “Phel, is everything okay?”

Some people think drugs like Xanax and Valium turn you into a complete mess, and I’m sure in large enough doses they do, but I was perfectly coherent, if numb, capable of stating the facts without hyperbole. “I need to see you,” I told her. “Can we set something up before our scheduled time this afternoon? Right now, maybe? I’d really appreciate it.”

The thing about Willa is she makes each word sound like she’s paused to think about it, a trait that usually gets on my nerves if I’m in a heightened state of anxiety. Right then, however, it was instrumental to my being able to follow along. “I’m sure we can,” she answered, “but first, can you tell me why you feel this urgency?” A second later she added, “Phelan, have you taken anything?” She must have recognized something different in the cadence of my speech to indicate I was under the influence.

“I took Xanax for my panic attacks, just like you told me to do in an emergency,” I explained.

“How many?”

That, I had to think about for a moment. “Just two. No more than that. Like you said. I read the label. But the Paxil wasn’t cutting it.”

She sighed a little with relief. “That’s okay, Phel.” Another pause. “Did you have alcohol with those?”

“No.” When this seemed to meet with her approval, I said, “Remember that guy I told you about? Nate? The married man?” This seemed a pointless question, since I spoke of little else during our sessions. By her silence, I took it she found the clarification unnecessary as well. “Well, he’s here.”

“Here, as in… your house? He’s with you now?”

“No, of course not. He’s in
Cardiff
, staying with Hugh.” It was time to prove my sarcastic streak could still function even when medicated. “He’s Hugh’s brother. Isn’t that fantastic? This whole time, another mystery just waiting to be discovered. Are you surprised? I was surprised.”

I thought I heard Willa murmur an
Oh dear
, but what she said to me was, “And you just found this out? That’s why you had a panic attack?”

Although she couldn’t see me, I nodded once.

The message must have gone through nevertheless, or Willa knew my habits too well. “Any thoughts of hurting yourself, or hurting someone else? Or are you just anxious?”

“Don’t worry,” I assured her. “I’m not going to do anything to fuck up my program. I just… I couldn’t breathe and I had to take the Xanax, and then I left Hugh’s and came here. But now I need to talk to you.” That sounded entirely reasonable to me. This is why I’ve been here so long—three months ago, I doubt I’d have been able to keep myself from falling apart all over again. Now I have a better idea of how to act, how to hold it together until I can lose my shit in a controlled situation, like under Willa’s supervision.

“Well, Phel,” she began, “I’m happy to meet with you at any time, you know that. But if you’ve taken 0.5 mg of Xanax already, my concern is you might be in need of some sleep before we really get a chance to talk about this. You might feel more comfortable if you have a rest and let the effects wear off a little bit first. Then we can sit down and have a proper chat. What do you think?” This was something else Willa always did, asking me my opinion on matters in which I had little to no say.

“I could sleep,” I answered neutrally, because neutral was about all I had in me right then. I’d only broken into my emergency stash of Xanax once before, only a single 0.25 mg dosage, but I could more or less remember being overcome by tiredness after a couple of hours, to the point I couldn’t keep my eyes open. No doubt Willa had too many patients to see that day to deal with someone falling asleep on her in midconversation.

“Okay. That sounds like a good bet,” she agreed. “How ’bout you drink some water and go lie down, and I’ll come by in a few hours to check in, see how you’re doing?”

For a minute I chewed my lip, considering. Then I said, “Alright. I’ll leave the door unlocked.” I was pretty sure she had a key anyway, but we’re all about the appearance of normalcy here. Even though some patients aren’t allowed cutlery in their rooms, or windows that open.

I suppose I must have slept through the rest of the day and all of that evening, because I didn’t meet with Willa until the following morning, when she greeted me over breakfast with a smile. Despite my earlier urgency, this suited me fine. Thanks to the Xanax, I’d had no dreams, no opportunity to dwell upon what had happened the previous afternoon. What might still happen.

We remained in the quiet sanctuary of my apartment for almost three times our regular session length, and the threat of further anxiety attacks kept me inside the rest of the day—that, and the fear of whom I might run into. For three days I refused to leave the safety of the compound in spite of Willa’s urging to carry on with my life as normal, but today’s the day the hiding ends. We met again this morning for a couple of hours before I ventured outside and down to the beach, late enough that I could be reasonably sure of having missed Hugh. And Nate, of course, though I was doing a pretty good job of not thinking about that.