Page 30 of My Best Friend Is Broken
“I understand that. And this isn’t a sectioning, you’re not being held against your will. But I would strongly recommend staying voluntarily so we can assess your needs properly and get you connected with the right services.”
Voluntarily. The word is supposed to be reassuring, but I know how thin the line is between voluntary and involuntary in places like this. How quickly “recommendation” can become “requirement” if you don’t comply.
“Can I see Nicky?”
“Of course. I’ll get him now.”
She leaves, and I’m alone with the beeping machines and the smell of industrial cleaning products that takes me right back to prison. Everything in hospitals is designed to be sterile, impersonal, safe. But safe for whom? For the patients, or for the staff who have to deal with us?
When the door opens again, it’s Nicky who comes through it, looking like he’s aged ten years overnight. His hair is disheveled, his clothes wrinkled, and there are dark circles under his eyes that speak of a sleepless night in uncomfortable waiting room chairs.
But it’s his expression that cuts through me like a blade. The careful way he looks at me, like I’m something fragile that might shatter if he breathes too hard. The fear in his eyes, not fear of me, but fear for me. The way he hovers by the door like he’s not sure he’s welcome, not sure if I blame him for what happened.
“Hey,” he says softly.
“Hey.”
He moves closer, pulls the chair Dr. Hassan was sitting in up to the bedside. “How are you feeling?”
“Like an idiot.”
“Liam…”
“I ruined everything,” I say, the words tumbling out before I can stop them. “We were having a good day. We were beingnormal. And I fucked it all up.”
“You didn’t fuck anything up. You had a panic attack. It wasn’t your fault.”
But I can see it in his eyes. The knowledge of how broken I really am. I don’t know if it was something I said or something I did, but he knows. The truth. All of it.
Shame wants to eat me up, but strangely I’m not too dismayed. It was a lousy, hopeless secret that was never going to stay mine. It is obvious and cliched and the source of endless jokes about dropping the soap in the prison shower.
I was eighteen. Too cocky for my own good. Good-looking, not that appearance means jack shit. But put all that together with the state of me, and it is the world’s easiest puzzle.
I’m glad Nicky knows, and now it is something I’m never ever going to have to put into words. But I’m sad at the pain it has caused him.
Yesterday, he could maybe pretend I was getting better, that with time and patience I’d heal enough to be the person he remembers. Now he knows the truth. The full truth. I’m not getting better. I’m not healing. I’m just learning to hide it better until something triggers me and I fall apart completely.
“The doctor wants me to stay for a few days,” I tell him.
Something flickers across his face. Relief, maybe? “That might be good. They can help you here.”
“You think I should stay.”
“I think...” He runs a hand through his messy hair, and I can see him weighing his words carefully. “I think I’m in over my head. I want to help you, but I don’t know how. I don’t know what you need.”
The honesty hurts more than any lie could. Because he’s right, he is in over his head, and so am I. We’ve been pretending that friendship is enough, that wanting to be better is the same as actually getting better. But yesterday proved how naïve that is.
“I’m scared,” I admit, the words barely above a whisper.
“Of staying here?”
“Of everything. Of being here, of going home, of trying to be normal when I don’t even remember what normal feels like anymore. I’m scared of what I see in your eyes when you look at me.”
He leans forward, and for a moment I think he’s going to reach for my hand. But he stops himself, and the space between us feels like an ocean.
“What do you see?” he asks quietly.
“Pity. Fear. The way you used to look at wounded animals when we were kids. Like you wanted to help but didn’t know how, like you were afraid of making things worse.”
