Page 59 of The Someday Daughter
“It feels wrong,” I say, straight down at my fingers twisted in my lap. “I thought I’d fixed it. I thought—I worked so hard to become an EMT, and I never messed up like that again, and I just—I thought I was better than this but here I am, again, doing the same thing.”
“Honey,” she says, ducking her chin so I’ll look at her. “There is no value judgment. Nobetter, because you are not bad.” I feel the tears rise in me. “And no matter how much you’ve learned, how smart and impressive and self-possessed you are, you can’t white-knuckle yourself out of anxiety. You can’t pretend a panic attack away.”
I close my eyes.Anxiety. Panic attack.When I open them, Camilla is blurred by my tears. “I wish I was different,” I whisper.
“No,” my mother breathes. “Audrey, I don’t wish you were different.”
My throat is too tight to speak through.
“You’ve always pushed yourself so hard,” she says. “And your perfectionism, it—it motivates you to excel but it also comes out this way sometimes. It tells you things that are untrue. That certain losses are a reflection onyou.”
I think of Silas:That’s too much pressure for anybody.This doesn’t mean anything about who you are.
“I’m so embarrassed,” I whisper.
“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”
“There is.” I swipe my eyes with the backs of my knuckles. “Right after I got the email, I went to the wrong room by accident.” I swallow, trying to dredge up the words, but my mother just nods.
“Silas,” she says.
I wince; I can’t help it. “I made a fool of myself.”
She cocks her head to the side, eyes never leaving mine. “By showing him how you really feel?”
The memory floods me with thick, licking heat. “I didn’t want anyone to see me like this.”
“Audrey,” she says slowly. “Needing help is part of what makes you a person.”
It rises in me so fast, a deep-coded response:I don’t need help.But I do. God, I do.
“We aren’t made to manage our emotions all on our own.” My mother takes my hands and squeezes them. “We need eachother—it’s in our brains, in our DNA. Needing help from the people around us, and giving that help back to them in turn, isn’t a sign of weakness. It’s what makes us human.”
I look down at our fingers locked together, maybe the first time in my sentient memory that we’ve touched each other like this. Maybe she’s right: maybe what happened between Silas and me was normal, the natural order of things. Maybe I only imagined how enormous it felt. Overestimated both how horrifically I imposed on him and the weight of the gift he gave me in handling it how he did. His hand pressed over his eyes, his elbow jutted out beside him. His arms locked tight around my rib cage. The wet mess of his shirt collar.
But I’m thinking, too, of Sadie on that airplane. The way her whole body tensed the minute I tried to open up to her about Camilla. How uncomfortable she became the second I showed her the scared, unsure part of me.
And I know that even if my weakness is what makes me human, not everyone wants to see it.
Not Sadie, not Ethan. Not even me.
“Audrey?” The voice is muffled, but I’m so on edge it makes me jump. My mother and I turn in unison to look at the door. “It’s me. Um, Silas.”
Camilla makes to stand, but I stop her. When she looks at me, I shake my head sharply and she lowers herself back onto the bed.
“I just wanted to make sure you’re okay,” he says. “Will you open the door?”
My mother and I stare at each other, holding our breath. Neither of us move.
“Okay,” Silas says finally. “We’re, um. We’re about to head outfor the show and it—it feels weird to leave you here. I get it, if you want your space. I just—” He breaks off, and I feel a sharp twinge of guilt. I picture him standing in the hallway, speaking to my closed door, and hate myself. “I just hope you know I’m here. And I hope you’re okay. There’s something I need to tell you, so, um. I’ll try you again in the morning.”
I close my eyes.There’s something I need to tell you.
“Puddles is in my room,” he says. A flat white rectangle slips beneath the doorframe—his room key. “If you need her, okay?”
He taps a knuckle on the door, soft echo in the quickly falling dark. “Okay. See you soon, I hope.”
His footsteps retreat. I tip my forehead against my mother’s shoulder and cry.
