Page 79 of Past Present Future

NYU marches on without me, with one week left until spring break. I manage to email one professor that I’m sick but don’t have the energy for the others. My bones pin me to the mattress, my body heavy with an unbearable weight. I get flashes of my dad doing the same thing, remembering those days he couldn’t get up. If anything, that should motivate me to bolt to my feet and face the world, plaster a smile on my face.

All I can do is roll over and go back to sleep.

“Adhira brought over some psych handouts,” Skyler says the next day, a softness in his voice I haven’t heard before. A long pause. “If there’s anything you need—just let me know, okay?”

I nod into the pillow, vowing to find a better way to express my gratitude once all of this is over.

I only wish I knew what over looked like, because any version of it without Rowan is too painful to contemplate.

I can sense Skyler’s pity, our invisible third roommate, and it fills me with such intense shame.

I should be grateful.

I should be humble.

I should be better.

So on Wednesday, I grit my teeth and pull back the covers. Haul myself to the shower. Sleepwalk through my classes, fake my way through tests I can’t afford to miss.

“We’re all going to go to UCB tonight,” Adhira says in psych. “If you want to join? It might help you feel better.” Then she places a gentle hand on my shoulder. “I went through a terrible breakup last year—being away from home can make it especially brutal. I’m here if you want to talk.”

Even though I haven’t said anything, this is what they all assume. We were supposed to get together on Sunday, but I sent a quick cancelation text: Change of plans, can’t make it. So sorry. The assumption is only partially true. What happened with Rowan feels more like a breakdown than anything else. Impermanent.

I wish I were capable of spending time with them in my current state.

“Thank you,” I tell Adhira, “but I don’t know if I’m there yet.”

“I get it. Whenever you’re ready.”

Physically I’m in class, but my mind wanders, reckoning with Rowan’s suggestion. Depression sounded sinister when she said it, something sunk so deep that it would take much more than therapy to climb out. But I’ve researched online and in my psych textbooks, and the more I think about it, the more I come close to diagnosing not just myself but my father, too.

Every time I’ve navigated to NYU’s mental health counseling page, I’ve wavered. Wondered if I’d be taking a spot from someone with a case less hopeless than mine. If I’d just be wasting everyone’s time.

I’ve never seen you like this, Rowan said.

What if this is simply how I am now? Because that’s the other option, isn’t it? I’ve hit adulthood and I’m doomed to life as a servant of the Moods, these unpredictable things that make me push away the people I love. My father had plenty of darkness, listlessness in between the bursts of anger. I haven’t experienced that anger yet, not unless I count the time I snapped at Skyler—but what if it’s on its way? What if there really is some hidden violent streak in me and I won’t know until it’s too late?

That night as I’m drifting off, it comes to me: a way I might begin that treacherous uphill climb.

It’s terrifying.

And unsettling.

And it might also be my only option.

* * *

The flight home is a red-eye, a bumpy, near-constant tremble through the clouds that convinces me I am not used to air travel quite yet. I get precisely zero minutes of sleep.

I hadn’t initially planned to go home for spring break because mine doesn’t coincide with Rowan’s. Fortunately, I was able to snag a cheap last-minute ticket, and my mom was overjoyed when I told her the news.

“It’s so good to see you,” she says when she picks me up at Sea-Tac at six o’clock in the morning. A hand comes to my cheek as I slide into the passenger seat. “You look exhausted, poor thing.”

“Rough flight.” I close the door, thank her for picking me up this early. “I hate to admit this, but there might be a slight ulterior motive for this visit.” Then I let out a long breath, steeling myself for the confession. “I’m going to see Dad.”

Her hands freeze on the steering wheel, her engagement ring catching the light of the early-morning sun. “You’re sure?”

When I nod, I hope it comes across as confident instead of timid.

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