Down and Out
Good lord, of course I want to get out of bed. This is going on two weeks and shows no sign of letting up. Sean's been bringing food, water, hell, he'd bring wine and cheese if I asked. He thinks I might be sick, doesn't understand that I wish I were sick—I'd be so, so good at sick. I wish there were something I could point to and say that! That right there, that's why I can barely make it to the bathroom, sit at the kitchen table for maybe five minutes or the back porch for a cigarette, before almost literally crawling back for the bed. The smell of the sheets bothers me, they feel almost painful against the skin of my legs like they're crawling with bits of fire. But I just can't lift myself up, like a flashflood and I'm sinking in it. Nothing even happened, that I can tell, I'm just depressed.
Slivers of light dim around the edges of the drapes, it's evening, and Sean eases the bedroom door open. It creaks more when he does that than if he swung the damned thing in one motion, but I love him for trying to be quiet. He brought chicken and leek soup for dinner, he says.
"Not sure if I can eat," I clear the books off the nightstand but it looks more like my arm flailing and books crashing to the floor. You Are Not Your Brain! and other positive-thinking nonsense.
"It's good cold, too." He sets the tray down and pushes his sleeves up his forearms. "Anything I can do?" But he should know by now. No, no there's nothing he can fucking do—except maybe stop rhyming his sentences.
"Thank you, sweetie. I'm fine."
Saving my strength like it's a bank account, like taking a little out each day so it builds up while I don't really notice. My best friend is throwing me a Get Well party—kind of a tough-love get out of bed and have a good time thing. Sean's going along with it, even though he's never been a huge fan of my friends and they'll be everywhere. Anyway, it's this Friday and I'll have to be presentable, for an afternoon at least, while they put on that self-righteous pillars of strength act, all care and concern for their depressed friend. Even just thinking about it maybe I'm a little tired of them myself.
Sean sits gingerly on the edge of the bed, smoothing absently at the comforter. We'd met during the mid-20s realization that college really was the place to find a spouse. No one's ready to commit—but then? The office's out of the question—it's terrible when it blows up, and if it doesn't you're sitting across the dinner table talking about what? Exactly. And the bar scene, well if he ever doesn't come home on time one night you know precisely what he's doing. So it was a friend of a friend of a sister's friend kind of thing and we settled into a routine pretty quickly. Don't get me wrong: I thought Sean was sexy as hell. He had this artist's perpetual slouch going, like he was always vaguely somewhere else, but it looked just as much hard-to-get as bashful. Of course I know now it was all bashful and no hard-to-get, that it was feeling so out of place that he hardly knew where he even was. Couldn't pinpoint what style he should be fitting into but it came across as I Couldn't Give A Fuck.
Besides, I like guys in waffle-knit henleys and scarves. Call me crazy.
"Maybe you'd like to lay on the couch for a while. Watch some television?" He's tugging at the blankets, mostly playfully, almost a smile.
"Lie. It's lie on the couch."
Sean puts his hands back in his lap. These are kind of how our evenings have been going. Our mornings, too. He proposed about a minute before I was just going to go ahead and ask him, we both figured out it was time months before. He was so cute. Like acting out what a proposal should be, or one he'd seen somewhere, he got me all dressed up and took me to a dinner we couldn't afford. When he ordered the bottle of wine I knew but naturally he waited until dessert was on the table. I'd like to say it's been a roller-coaster since but lately it's only that first drop, without the arms in the air or the screaming.
Sean leaves when I close my eyes, the door slowly creaking behind him.
###
The ladies are already bottles-deep into the case of two-buck Chuck and it's only 3-something o'clock. Sean came in, said hellos and turned right back around to make another run to the store. Can't say I blame him. I didn't even know we had this many folding chairs.
This morning, or, rather, the time when I woke was about exactly as I'd expected. Sitting up, swinging my legs to the floor, something was running laps around my head. Standing took a few minutes. I couldn't bring myself to get out of the shower until the water went cold, forcing me out. Standing on the cold tile—why, oh why had I insisted on this beige, freezing Spanish tile?—in front of the mirror fogged over and streaming rivulets of water, I forced the whole world into focus. My goodness, I couldn't help thinking, I've really let myself go. Holding the weight of my breasts, letting them go, squeezing the tiny bit of fat around my middle, even as the mirror showed all evidence to the contrary—objectively an hourglass figure—all I saw was a 34 year-old unshaven slob. Almost compulsively I stroked my fingers through the damp and overgrown hair that wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.
In the bedroom I rifled the closet for a dress I could hide in. It's counter-productive, of course, baggy clothes make everything worse but no one who feels the tiniest bit self-conscious can help themselves. Opening the underwear drawer, though, and sorting through cotton, frill, and lace I settled on a see-through black thong that Sean had surprised me with it seems like a lifetime ago. Seemed somehow the bare minimum I could do, a small naughtiness only I'd know about. Stepping into them, feeling them not uncomfortable but definitely tighter than the last time I wore them, nowhere near covering my bush, they were like a weird talisman to get me through the day.
My friends mercifully entertained themselves in the living room while I poured an unreasonably full glass of wine in the kitchen, hoping to drink it down to a decent level before rejoining them. Mindy appeared at my shoulder. "How're you holding up, sweetie?" she rubbed tight circles around the small of my back.
"Oh, I'm sure you know..." she's the only one of my friends Sean would ever talk to about anything.
She pulled a chair out from the table, "They're killing me with their gossip. Why don't we sit for a minute? Catch up."
But what could I say? I bored even myself: yes, I'm still in bed maybe 20 hours a day. No, I don't know what's wrong, and no, I have no idea what anyone can do to help. Sean is super-supportive, he's an angel. How many times can I say the same thing over and over and over?
But Mindy listened to it again anyway, an elbow on the table and chin resting in an upturned hand. Sipping her wine often enough that it was OK for me to drink mine. She's too much, sometimes. I heard my voice cracking—I'm sure she thought it was self-pity or whatever but really it's just that I'll never be able to tell her how much she means to me. She sat up straight, took one of my hands in hers. She had a glint in her eye I couldn't explain.
Mindy has a PhD in something literature- or psychology-related, I can never remember. Or the psychology of literature, maybe. At times if feels like she's my shrink, especially lately—she's so good at getting me to talk.
"It'll get better soon. Shh, shhh, shhh. No, I have a good feeling about this. Just give it some time and I'm sure you'll feel a lot better." But surely she's lost all touch with reality. I drank off the rest of my wine, refilled the glass.
"Well," turning back from the counter, "OK, I guess we have to go back out there."
I knew they would all have to leave, eventually, but the evening felt interminable. I was barely conscious saying the last of the goodbyes, both drunk and exhausted. This must be what alcoholics describe as a blackout—my body did move, did hold me upright. My mouth formed I guess the proper words, judging by everyone's reactions, though my God I couldn't tell you how. Again finally in the bedroom I kicked my heels into the corner and lifted my dress over my head, tossing it off to join the shoes, and literally fell into bed. The closest to bliss I'd felt in weeks, but really just relief, washed over like a rising tide and sleep crashed into me.
###
I woke in the dark. No that's not right. I woke with something covering my face and I couldn't see through it. Must've pulled the blankets up in my sleep. But I felt cold. Reaching to take off whatever it was I found that I couldn't. Reach, that is. My arm caught on something. Shifting, I felt the comforter under the bare skin of my back, reaching again I found both my arms restrained. What the hell? Tried to curl up, but my legs were, too. Panic. My pulse jumped immediately through every part of me, banged away at my temple. My breath quickened to gasping and gulping and felt stuck at the same time. I just lay there pinned like a butterfly, squirming and tossing my head, blind, back and forth. After I've no clue how long, and I don't know what it was exactly that did it, I started to calm down.
Resignation, maybe.
I took stock in the situation and tried to mentally catch up to myself. Last things I remember. I undressed and collapsed into bed. I was saying goodbye to the last of the girls to leave. I didn't feel drugged, I don't think. Tired, beyond tired. I was definitely drunk. Too drunk and too tired but no, nothing more than that and, besides, I was at home and Sean was right there next to me, arm around my waist. It's not like I was abducted or anything, surely I'm still here safe at home. There has to be an explanation. Mindy was last to leave, that's right, and I was standing with her there in the doorway, she was holding the screen door open and I was looking past her into the night sky. It was late, that's right. She gave me this soothing hug and I went to kiss her cheek. She turned toward me, quick and awkward, and I caught her on the lips then we laughed. Sean walked her to the car and they talked for it seemed a little long while he held the car door, she sat there giggling in the glow of the interior light. I held up the living room wall, that's right, standing and waiting for Sean to come back inside. He sent me up to bed, said he wanted to clean a bit. Maybe he wanted to drink alone for a while, as he has been lately late at night, and who could blame him? After the day he had. Hell, after the weeks he's had.
I'm realizing I'm on top of all the covers, on my back bound spread-eagled to the bed and the familiar tightness of last night's panties still thankfully digging into my hips and, with the rolling and tossing earlier, riding up and tingling in other places. Wow, haven't felt that in a while.
