Driving Me Mad (35 page)

“What’s wrong?” I ask
quietly.

“I’m just frustrated with
everything.”

There are so many ways I
could respond to that, but none of them feel adequate or reassuring
enough. Nothing I say is going to make her feel better. Nothing I
do is going to make her feel better. I just keep doing what I’m
already doing. Almost as if it’s inevitable, like when the
temperatures naturally fall as the sun disappears among the
horizon, we feel worse as the night wears on. We eventually go to
bed early.

“Trace?”

“Just leave me alone,
Brittany,” I say through my hands. I’m sitting on the edge of my
bed, my face in my hands with my elbows propped on my knees. I feel
frozen. I feel dead. I feel too much and nothing all at the same
time. I need peace. Just a moment of it. That’s all I’m asking for.
It’s Saturday; I don’t have to leave the house. Why is it a bad
idea for me to climb back into bed?

The house needs to be
cleaned.

Lily needs to be let out.

Brittany is here.

It won’t help.

It could make it worse.

I should probably go grocery
shopping.

But fuck it! Such simple
things seem so daunting. I turn and get back under the sheets.

Brittany’s voice is soft and
closer now. “C’mon, Trace. Get up. Please?”

“This is the one, calm
warning I can give you. Leave me alone for a bit at least. I can’t.
I just fucking can’t.” My anger seems to build and explode so
rapidly. I sit up to look at her. “Can you get out? Just get the
fuck out! All I want is some peace and quiet and to be alone.
That’s all I’m asking for. Stop being so fucking selfish and needy
and just
get out
!” I shout.

She stares at me with wide
eyes. The color has drained from her face. I wish for anything that
I could care, but I don’t. I just want her to get away from me.
Unfortunately, she seems frozen in place.

“Get out!” I’m louder this
time.

She jumps from the fury in my
voice. She doesn’t hesitate to leave the room, letting the door
slam behind her. I collapse on the bed, not feeling the least bit
better. Big surprise there. She’d probably be better off without
me. I’m obviously not doing a good job at treating her well, and
I’m definitely not helping her get better.

Deciding that she should
leave, I grab my phone and text her.

Me:
Go back to
campus. Calling the grinch.

Maybe if I use her phrase,
she’ll listen. I can’t function today, and I can’t deal with her
being in this house, but not near me because I don’t want her
around. She needs to leave. That’ll be one less thing I have to
worry about.

The door to my room swings
open.

“I am not leaving you like
this!” she shouts, now as angry as I am.

“Why? Why won’t you give me
some damn space?”

“I can do that from another
room. You wanted me to get out, I got out, but I am
not
leaving this house, Trace. You can yell and be mean to me all you
want, but I’m not going anywhere.” She folds her arms over her
chest and stares me down.

“That’s exactly why you need
to leave!” I lower my voice and add, “I don’t want to hurt you, and
I don’t want to deal with that.”

“Tough shit, Trace. Be mean,
yell, tell me to get out, whatever. I don’t care. I’m not leaving
you like this.” Without giving me a chance to say anything back,
she swivels on her heels and leaves the room, slamming the door
once again.

This is bad. She should be
leaving. She should care. She can’t be worrying about me and
putting herself at risk to be further hurt and get worse because my
actions aren’t helping her. This is bad. This is bad. This is bad.
Brittany doesn’t need to be here with me like this. What is she
going to do? Stay in the living room all day with Lily? She could
be doing other stuff. Somewhere else, I might add. Somewhere not so
negative. Somewhere she doesn’t have to deal with an angry,
depressed guy like me.

But if she wants to stay,
fine. I roll onto my stomach, get comfortable, and close my eyes.
If only I could shut off my mind that easily. I still haven’t
called my dad. Despite how it’s been lately, I
do
have a
good relationship with him. Well, I did. He probably isn’t too
happy with me right now, not that I can blame him. I did the exact
same thing to him as I’m currently doing to Brittany.

How can I be doing this to
her? She’s the best thing in my life, I’m treating her like crap,
and yet I can’t care enough to stop. I can’t get in control enough
to stop. What’s it going to take for me to realize I’m bad for her?
That I can’t help her like I thought I could? At what point are we
making things worse for one another? I feel like that’s where we’re
headed, if we aren’t there already. What are we supposed to do?

Later in the day when I’m
starving, I lie in bed, debating whether getting out of bed is
worth satisfying my hunger. Just when I’ve decided that no, it
isn’t worth it, there’s a knock on my door. Brittany pokes her head
into the room.

“Say please.”

I roll over. Even though I’m
not sure what I’m saying please for, there’s no fight left in me at
this point. “Please.” She steps into the room with a plate of food
in one hand and a can of Sun Drop in the other. The words are out
of my mouth before I can think twice about it. “I love you.”

“Better. You’re a piece of
work.” She hands the plate to me and sets the drink on the
nightstand. She turns and heads to the door. “I’ll leave you alone
now,” she says over her shoulder.

Guilt swallows me whole.
She’s being nice, sweet, and doing as I’ve asked and I feel like a
piece of shit. Why couldn’t she have just left?

April chugs along without
many changes for us. It’s the Friday before finals start, and
Brittany is staying with me one last time. Then, I’m making her
park herself at campus to prepare for her finals. She hasn’t at all
because she’s stopped caring, which is scary as hell. She doesn’t
need to have worked hard and stressed so much to blow her finals
off.

When not worried about her,
I’m thinking about my job. Work has been giving me a ridiculous
amount of stress and anxiety. Mr. Hanifin seems to be watching me
more closely, as if I’m going to make a mistake in the office.
Conversation is still stopping when I enter the break room from
where they are yet again talking about what happened. These people
need to get a life. The only good thing is that I haven’t seen
Dustin. I don’t think he’s come in to see anyone, but as long as he
doesn’t come see me, I’ll be fine.

However, that doesn’t mean I
don’t worry about what would happen if he
did
come in. There
are too many annoying unknowns and I hate it. I come into work
every day and instead of looking forward to it, I wish I was back
home with Lily and Brittany. The passing of time both helps and
makes it worse because I’m still wondering when it’ll get better or
when it’ll happen.

We continue to fall further
into the seemingly bottomless pit of depression. I can’t even
remember the last time we had a good, actual conversation that had
substance. Something other than
how are you doing today
or
empty reassurances. It’s hard to care and be sure about those
reassurances when the only change we’re seeing is us not getting
better.

I also haven’t been able to
stop thinking about whether or not we’re honestly good for one
another. I was so sure when her father asked me if I would affect
his daughter’s mental health due to my own that no, I wouldn’t. Did
I unknowingly lie? When she has texted me that her day has been
okay, she comes over to my house and watches me like I watch her.
Seeing the signs of our anxiety, seeing the tired, defeated eyes,
and maybe we’re subconsciously feeding off of each other’s
negativity, growing our own.

Would she be able to maintain
and maybe even get better if she wasn’t around me? If she wasn’t
listening to my complaints and watching me spiral further and
further? God, I love her so much and to think that my current bad
state might fuel hers is too much to bear. What started as
occasionally wondering about it has nearly turned into an
obsession.

“Babe, I can hear you
thinking over here,” Brittany says, and I turn my head to look at
where she lies next to me in bed. “Stop it. It’s keeping me from
falling asleep.”

“Sorry.”

“What’re you thinking about
anyway?”

“Nothing important.”

The light from the TV allows
me to see her eyes narrow at me. She can be pissed if she wants
about me not sharing. I don’t want to tell her what I’m thinking.
For one, I know it won’t make her happy, and why would I add my
doubts to what we’re already dealing with? She can’t handle much
more. Hell, neither can I. Honestly, I’m amazed at how she’s
fighting with this quiet strength. It makes me feel weak that I
keep thinking about giving in.

I’m not strong right now. How
can I be a source of strength and comfort for her anyway? I can’t
be. It doesn’t seem possible. The few times I’ve been this bad off,
I did give in. Maybe it’s my current warped thinking in this state
of mind, but I did eventually get better after I gave in. You have
nowhere to go but up once you hit rock bottom, right? But I haven’t
gotten there yet by the determination to hold on a little longer
for Brittany.

I don’t know how much longer
I can.

It’s so tempting to give in.
Let it take over, run its course, and hope it eventually leaves or
lightens for me to start working on building myself up again. Like
acid, it eats away at me to do just that while berating myself
because I’d for sure be in no shape to be around Brittany.

A whisper of a thought that I
haven’t had since college enters my mind.

Do it. End your life. The
pain will go away for you and you’ll stop hurting Brittany and
making her worse.

The ways to make it happen
start filtering through my mind. It’s nearly impossible to stop
thinking about it now. Fucking hell. How can I be thinking about
suicide while looking at this beautiful girl who I love so much? An
entire new set of problems is now on my plate. I probably should’ve
told her my full history by now. I probably should’ve told her what
happened to my mom already. I haven’t told my dad about my issues
because my mom suffered from depression and she killed herself
because of it. Dad would think the same thing would happen to me. I
can’t put that kind of burden on his shoulders. That’s what telling
Brittany would be like, too. It would be a burden, and she doesn’t
need that right now. Then again, I probably should be doing
everything differently because I’m convinced I’m doing it all
wrong.

Her anger begins to fade into
worry. Her hand moves above the sheets to grasp her wrist. “You’d
tell me if it was something serious, right?”

“Of course,” I lie.

***