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“Let me start at the beginning.”
A cool gush of air swooped between us as I straightened up to take him all in.
“While in Scotland, I started having these weird… episodes.”
I leaned closer, my breath catching in the back of my throat as I uncrossed my legs. “What kind of episodes?”
Aimlessly, he rubbed at his beard, finding a spot just below his chin to focus on. “I’d just go blank and stare off into space, but not like being in a zone or anything, like you’d sometimes get when you’d be deep in thought. My roommate said it was super weird as these episodes would happen mid-conversation as I’d just stop talking in the middle of a sentence. Kicker was, I never remembered doing it. Thought it was something in the air.”
I raised a questionable brow.
“Yeah, dumb, I know that now. After a year in the UK, I transferred to Switzerland.”
I remembered – it was incredibly hard and looking back, it was the start of when our communications grew distant. Whereas it had been days between emails and phone calls, the distance painfully grew to a week, and then longer.
“Then one day, after one of these spells in the auditorium, I started shaking uncontrollably and the professor called for medical help.”
I swallowed, terrified the loud sound would cause Carter to stop talking, but it didn’t. Leaning in closer after I wiped away my tears, I continued listening with all my heart.
“They ran a few tests at the hospital, a lot in fact, and it turns out I have adult-onset epilepsy. I am one of those who didn’t develop it from a brain infection, or a prenatal injury. Mine seemed to be triggered by a genetic abnormality which kicked in.”
Over and over again, I replayed his words in my head.Adult-onset epilepsy.My gaze wandered all around the kitchen, jumping from the stove to the canister of utensils to the Keurig machine and back to settle over his handsome face – the one staring at me, begging me to say or do something.
My skin tingled with a slight discomfort, and my voice warbled to nearly inaudible levels. “Epilepsy? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I wanted to, believe me, but I couldn’t. I had a tough time understanding it all myself. It was so much to take in, a whirlwind of testing, and in such a short time too.” He looked away as he shrugged. “I started spiralling down a dark hole and shut myself off from the world. I didn’t know how else to handle the change, and the worst part was I didn’t know how to tellyou. I couldn’t just drop the diagnosis on you, like it was dropped on me. It was… I was… it wasn’t the best of situations.”
Reaching out, I held on tight to his hand. “I would’ve understood. Oh my gosh, Carter, you were so far away from all of us. I would’ve dropped everything and rushed over to be with you, to have supported you through all those tests, and been a second set of ears to hear everything the doctors said. I loved you so much, there wouldn’t have been anything I wouldn’t have done for you.”
“You loved me?”
Yeah, that’s what he was going to take away from my sentence. Typical Carter.
His head bobbed, and he sighed loudly as a weak smile tickled and then faded on the edge of his lips. “I know that now, and maybe back then, I knew you would’ve been what I needed, but I was just so scared and unsettled, I didn’t know what else to do, so I did what I knew best – I retreated.”
Which, ironically, I understood all too well.
When Dad died, despite everyone’s incessant offer to help in any way they could, I refused and pulled into myself. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t know how to live in a world where my dad wasn’t a part of it.
After a while, and after my standardized rejections, friends stopped calling and reaching out. When I truly needed them the most, even just a quick hello to let me know they hadn’t given up on me, they had in fact abandoned me. I’d never felt so alone.
Is that what Carter had felt?
“I would’ve supported you and taken care of you. I still would.” I reached for his hand which had chilled slightly.
Inch by inch, his gaze searched my face and touched the edges of my soul. “I didn’t want you to be watching my every move, watching for the moment when I’d get a blank look, ready to help me when I had a seizure.”
My shoulders slumped, also understandingthatall too well. Dad had been the same way, and despite his objections, I did watch his every move. He even called me his little mother hen as I couldn’t help myself; it was a natural thing to do. How in the world could I ever stop feeling?
As I sat there, clipped sentences that wanted to be given life stayed stagnant, and I recalled previous moments, searching our latest history for something I may have missed. Something he may have hidden from me.
The metaphorical lightbulb went on and my mouth remembered how to vocalise my thoughts.
“Wait a second. That second day I met you in the Coffee Loft when you handed me a sample and you sat with me for a few minutes. You suddenly got all weird and jumped up and disappeared. Were you having, or were you about to—”
He cut me off before I finished, and his blond hairs flew through the air as his head dropped. “Yes, I was about to have a seizure.”
Holy. Cow.
