Page 90 of Those Two Words

It’s very difficult to describe the emotions of that day and those that followed. Numb and excruciating are probably the most accurate.

Despite my dad pleading with me to see a therapist, I refused. It felt like a way of keeping alive that traumatic memory, being forced to talk about her and that morning with a stranger.

And that’s basically how my journey with denial grew, slowly branching off into depression and the root cause for my Generalized Anxiety Disorder.

I experienced bouts of low moods throughout my teens and early twenties, but I brushed it under the rug and hid it well. Being an adult is hard, tiring, and demanding, so nobody questioned if I wanted to stay in bed for days on end or lost interest in things.

Life was busy.

But it was on this day six years ago that everything I’d spent years hiding—the grief, anger, and anxiousness—refused to stay hidden any longer. And like a dormant volcano, it blew up in my face. I was no longer able to put on a mask and show the world I was okay.

Because this day six years ago, despite how joyous it started, ended in misery.

Patrick and I had spent our first night together, crossed that line between friends and more.

The night before, Patrick and I were closing the restaurant together. It was like any other shift, easy and full of laughter. We worked together like a well-oiled machine, teasing and joking with one another. But in those last few months before I left, the air had been shifting between us. I lived with my dad at the time and Patrick had a small apartment a few blocks away from the restaurant. After we closed, we weren’t ready for the night to end. I think we were full of energy from a busy shift and sleep wasn’t going to find us anytime soon.

We headed to Patrick’s for a nightcap, which turned into half a bottle of whiskey—which led to more, so much more. The more I had wanted for so long. That night confirmed that we’d held the same quiet longing for one another for years, both too afraid to make a move.

It felt like we went from zero to sixty in the blink of an eye. Like the moment his lips touched mine, a switch was flipped. I’d been looking at him with tinted glasses all my life and when we finally stopped fighting it, I saw him in a kaleidoscope of colors.

It wasn’t love at first sight, because I had loved him my whole life. It just shifted to something I hadn’t realized was possible.

We made plans to go on our first date later that week, though when I look back, it’s funny to think what difference a date would have been compared to all the other outings we had been on together.

We never did get to go on that first date.

The restaurant was closed the following day for some scheduled maintenance. Patrick left me in his bed to head over there and meet his dad. I showered and locked up with the spare key I had to his apartment, but the moment I turned the key in the door, my phone rang. And I just knew. I knew something was wrong. I can’t explain it, but I did.

I’ll always remember that phone call. The sheer panic and distress I heard over the line. How he couldn’t get his words out to tell me what was going on. My heart broke at the sound of tears in his voice, begging me to come to the restaurant.

It’s bad, Jo. It’s so bad.

Ted’s death, much like my mom’s, was without warning and cruel. He was refitting some light fixtures and on top of a ten-foot ladder when he fell.

He never felt a thing, and we had to take comfort in that knowledge.

Only I couldn’t. Because another person I loved had been torn from my life.

When I reached the restaurant, medics and police were already there. It wasn’t chaos like I expected. It was eerily calm. The air was heavy with misery and grief. When I saw Patrick sitting on the curb, eyes bloodshot, skin blotchy, and pale, I threw myself into his arms. The devastated look on his face was one I knew all too well. I held him as he sobbed and sobbed in my arms, clutching my T-shirt like he was petrified I would slip away too.

He was living my worst nightmare, while I relived it.

I didn’t cry. Not until I got home that evening. At first, I thought I was desensitized to it all, but the second I shut my bedroom door behind me, the blocker my mind put up fell away. Crumbling and bringing me down with it.

I crashed. Flashbacks of my mom’s death hit me with the force of a freight train.

And I had my first panic attack in four years.

My brain switched off after that, giving me just enough energy to carry out basic tasks, like eating and sleeping. We kept the restaurant closed while we all mourned. I went to see Patrick a couple of times, going with my dad to be there for the Sadler family, helping them grieve.

I was there, but I wasn’t present.

It was after my eleventh panic attack in eight days that my dad met the end of the line, the one I’d been dangerously tightrope walking across for so long.

“Do I need to call an ambulance?” Dad says from beside me on the sofa, his hand rubbing in wide circles across my back.

“It’s over. I’m fine,” I rasp out.

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