Page 29 of Days You Were Mine

‘Phen-el-zine.’ I sound out the word like a child learning the alphabet. ‘These look heavy-duty. What are they?’

Jake puts down his razor and turns to me, his half-shaved chin segmented by white foam.

‘Antidepressants and antipsychotics. I’ve been on them for years. Ever since I was sixteen.’

‘Psychotics?’

‘That doesn’t make me a psycho, if that’s what you’re thinking. Just a depressive. But not any more. I stopped taking them a while ago. I hate the way they fur up my brain. I can’t write properly when my mind is all blurry, it slows me down.’

He takes the first packet of pills from me and starts popping them out, one by one, into the lavatory.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Moving on. Like I should have done a long time ago.’

This is all happening too fast. I want to stop him, to snatch the pills out of his hands and put them back in the cupboard. Just in case. I am just getting used to the information that Jake has spent the past ten years on heavy medication, and now, in a heartbeat, he is throwing it away. What if his symptoms come back? I feel in this moment completely out of my depth.

‘Jake! Stop. Shouldn’t you talk to the doctor first?’

‘Do I seem depressed to you? Or euphorically happy?’

‘Well, happy right now, but …’

I watch, helplessly, as he picks up the next packet and empties out the contents.

‘Come here,’ he says.

He closes the loo seat and sits down, pulling me onto his lap.

‘I promise there’s nothing to worry about.’

‘What’s it like?’

‘Depression?’

I nod, too full of the moment for words, too fearful of what I’m about to find out.

‘It’s like being underwater while the rest of the world rushes by. You’d like to come up for air, only you have no energy, none at all; you might as well be paralysed. So instead you exist in a curled-up ball of bleakness.’

I press my cheek against his, eyes squeezed shut. My tears are a weakness when he’s been through so much.

‘Alice, look at me.’

I open my eyes, and he kisses me.

‘There’s no need to be sad. You have to believe me when I tell you that it’s over. I’ve felt good for a long time, even before the cataclysmic, life-changing arrival of you. Do you believe me?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. In that case, only two rules for the rest of the weekend,’ he says. ‘No clothes to be worn at any time. And no more questions.’

I was in love, you see. And I wanted more than anything to believe him.

Now

Luke

When Alice arrives each morning, Samuel and I are waiting for her. She always knocks, never uses her key, and I throw open the door with a flourish; it’s part of our stand-up routine. Alice pulls one of her funny faces, mouth and eyes remoulded into a surprised ‘O’, and is rewarded with an instant chuckle. Samuel stretches out his arms and leans his whole torso towards her. This day after day after day.

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