AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Inhaling deeply, I recline back against my chair, tipping my head to stare up at the ceiling as I continue, measuring each word carefully. After all, it’s the first time I’m really giving voice to it.
“I’ve always been terrified of people leaving me,” I confide in a soft voice. “For as long as I remember. I’m sure it started with him, but…sometimes it feels like I’ve just always been this way. Like I was born terrified of being alone.” My voice hitches the slightest bit.
I sense more than see Cleo nodding, silently encouraging me to keep going.
So I swallow—hard—and do just that.
“For nearly a year after he left, I…I was convinced I’d lose my mom too, all because I remembered hearing him tell her she couldn’t live without him. She told me that wasn’t true, but it…” I shake my head slightly. “It made no difference. It messed with me.
“I mean, sure, I went to school. Hung out with my friends, stayed over at their houses… I went about my days like I always did. I didn’t want to…worry my mom, I think. I didn’t want anyone to know how scared I was. I wanted to be tough, just like…just like Dad always wanted. And I… I was a kid. It was…easy, in a way to just keep going, when I needed to, despite it all.”
Clasping my hands together, I sit a little straighter and lean forward, resting my forearms on my thighs. My brows knit, and the room around me grows hazy as the words continue tumbling out of me, memories teasing along the edges of my awareness.
“But I remember some nights, how I’d just lie awake for…hours, and imagine the worst. Not just losing my Mom, but losing Gavin and Linda, losing my friends… Then when Phoebe came along, losing her…” I frown. “For years I’d hoped my dad would come back into my life. Now I just wish he was dead.” My chin trembles, voice cracking.
I hang my head with a sniff, half-expecting Cleo to interrupt me at that, but when seconds pass without a word, I keep going.
“Anyway, it became this sort of…compulsion, I guess you’d call it.” My voice grows stronger. Succinct. “A ritual. Before bed. To…visualize it. It was like… if I could prepare enough to lose the people I love, it won’t hurt as much when it actually does happen. Or, I don’t know, maybe if I imagined it hard enough, I’d somehow jinx it—prevent it from ever happening at all.”
Cleo still says nothing, and rather than bite back more words like I would in the past, I force myself to keep going, giving voice to things I’ve never told anyone before. Not any other time in therapy. Not to anyone. No one knows just how messed up in the head I am except for?—
“Jeremy,” I find myself blurting in a whisper. The floor blurs. And in the deep recesses of my mind, I hear rain pinging against windows. I see stars overlooking a dark garden in the middle of a maze. I feel arms wrapped around me tight, warm breaths on my neck.
A chair creaks, but my gaze remains unfocused.
“He’s the only one I think who knows about this. He had really bad anxiety growing up. Like, debilitating at times. He couldn’t…pretend and go about his days like I could. He just couldn’t. And I remember…I remember thinking, He gets it.” A short disbelieving laugh escapes me. “And when he’d look at me sometimes, I think he saw it in me. This fear that I’ve lived with. When no one else did.” The corner of my mouth twitches, creeping up. “As if he could sense that it wasn’t just him being tortured by this…this thing in both our heads. Even if it took us years to really…talk about it, and even then, it just…it went unspoken…”
My voice fades as a memory rises to the surface, one from when we were nine years old. Jeremy had just gotten home from the hospital, where he’d had to spend a night in the ER for observation after having developed an ulcer from all the stress his body was under. The bullying, his anxiety…
It burned a literal hole in his stomach.
When I’d read that in the library…
I’d never been so scared.
Not since Mom’s fender bender…
“JJ!” Izzy exclaims when she races into his room. Just before she can jump on his bed, Mr. Montgomery catches her by the shoulder, reminding her to take it easy.
I hover on the threshold, watching as Izzy nods and slowly approaches the bed, standing up on my toes when she blocks my view of him.
My heart’s beating real fast in my ears, and I feel myself growing impatient, but still, I can’t bring myself to join her by the bed.
Mr. Montgomery gives me a small smile, and gestures for me to let him pass. Leaving just me and Izzy and the too-quiet lump in the bed.
He’s always quiet, a voice reminds me.
I frown. Not this quiet…
Mom’s outside, talking to Mrs. Montgomery. They said we have five minutes with him, because he has to rest. And I wish I asked for five minutes each, because I suddenly don’t wanna share it with Izzy. She lives here. She can see him whenever she wants. I can’t.
I clench my teeth together, forcing the stupid angry tears back.
This is all Clay and Ethan’s fault. They made everyone hate Jeremy, and for what? He didn’t do anything wrong. He just wanted to be left alone. It’s not fair, and remembering makes me want to fight them all over again.
They made him sick…
“Yeah, we’re grounded, but it’s okay,” I hear Izzy say. She steps to the side, and finally, I see him.
