He swallows, his eyes misting, and it’s all I can do to keep myself standing.
“My doctor got impatient waiting for them and finally left me in his office after giving me the news I was in remission. A few hours later, my parents finally showed up, but not for the appointment.”
“Oh, my God.”
“My Dad wasn’t a violent man, but I’m positive they were in a horrific fight when they crashed. It was a sunny day, not a cloud in the sky, no adverse weather conditions.” His voice is guttural when he speaks. “After all their sacrifices, my remission was the one gift I could give them to possibly salvage their relationship, maybe save my mother from herself, and they died on the way to get the news.”
I stare on at him, obliterated.
“They spent half of my life worrying if I would die, only to leave me first. I couldn’t understand any of it. There was no reason in the world for me to move on. Nothing made sense. I fucking hated the gift of life given to me and the way it taunted and tortured us all—me especially after they died. By the end of the first year, I was getting stronger, day by day, but every single day was hard both physically and mentally for a very, very long time. The amount of chemicals I had pumped into me—it was just…hard. But in my mind,” he looks up at me, “it was always coming back. It was a given and just a matter of when.”
He takes another step toward me.
“After regaining some strength my first year at UNC, I went a little crazy my sophomore and junior year. I drank, I partied, but no matter how hard I tried to blend in, I couldn’t relate to anyone because I was so far behind the norm. I tried out for track junior year and, by surprise, made the team. Instead of embracing it, I put myself through the paces. It was like I was taunting my illness to try to outrace its shadow, but anxiety reared its ugly head and I couldn’t compete. It was the noise that got to me the most. Every loud bang was the collapse of the hospital bed rails. Every crowd I landed myself into became a haze of doctors and nurses hovering above me. A majority of my attacks were debilitating, and I couldn’t deal, so I quit track. By senior year, I managed to ditch the self-sabotage and started to try and take care of the gift I was given. But it was the fear instilled in me that kept me from taking any real chances.”
In between anger and tempted to fling myself at him, I shake my head. If I thought our breakup hurt, it was nothing compared to the knife’s edge of the words pouring out of his mouth. Empathy and ache fill the entirety of my body as he looks through me, his face solemn as if he’s trapped in that time while telling it.
“I was finally getting strong enough to start thriving, a word so foreign to me I had no idea what it could feel like. My health had greatly improved by senior year, but that was short-lived because my mental health was deteriorating. I’d spent two years outrunning what happened, avoiding it, my anxiety ramping up because I wasn’t numbing so much. I’d found a pathetic sort of stride and convinced myself that my routine was close to living.” He looks over to me. “And then you crash-landed into my life.”
His lips lift in a faint smile. “I knew, the minute, hell, the second that I saw you, something good had finally happened to me.”
I cover my mouth, doing my best not to ugly cry and falter.
“Bee, please don’t. Please don’t.”
“I’m not,” I say furiously wiping my eyes. “N-n-no fuck that, it’s impossible, sorry. You can’t come at me with this and expect me to be okay. I. Am. Not. Okay. P-please don’t stop.”
“Okay…，” he clears his throat. “With you, I sort of played into the Casanova thing because I couldn’t deal with what happened. It was like coming out of a horrific murky war into a clear day. It’s impossible to explain the mind space I was in. But I didn’t tell a soul. Not a soul. I didn’t want that life to be the one I had—and outside of being sick—I had no idea who I was.”
“So much makes sense now. Jesus, Eli, this is why you got irrationally angry when you got sick and refused to let me take care of you?”
He nods. “I was pissed at my body, that my parents’ death seemed cruel and senseless, at everything—and at times, I took it out on you. It wasn’t fair, so when I felt that way, I retreated. Fuck, I hate this…”
“You can tell me.”
“I know,” he swallows, “still isn’t easy. It took a hundred hours of therapy to get here. But you…you,” he shakes his head. “You gave me a reason to smile again without forcing it. School, running, and my routine were all background noise, something I did to get by until the next scan. My eyes were always on the clock. I felt sentenced—like I was just waiting. But you…” he smiles again, and my chest constricts. “You gave me something to look forward to. But I was still battling it. I was still so far in my head. Not only that…it was hard for me to give you what you needed emotionally…and at times, it was hard physically.”