Page 69 of Shadows and Whispers

“You really gonna call me a pussy?”

“Are you really going to act like one?” I arched a brow and he chuckled lightly but he was still on edge, uneasy about what I now knew.

“This is something I don’t share with people.”

“I can respect that but I’m notpeople. I’m going to be your wife.”

We remained in a standoff. He wanted me to bail. To make this easy, but I wouldn’t.

“What do you want to know?”

“Whatever I need to know.”

He cleared his throat and his fingers flexed and closed into fists at his sides. His body looked like it was pulsing the way his muscles tensed and relaxed consistently.

“I was diagnosed when I was thirteen.”

Feeling that I needed to make this as easy as possible for him, I walked over to the sitting area and sank onto the leather sofa, posture relaxed, hands clasped together in front of me.

He joined me in the space, leaning against the wall opposite where I was seated. His jaw tightened several times before he continued.

“I got into a fight with Ez. I don’t remember what it was about but I know it wasn’t anything that should have warranted the reaction I had. I blacked out. Completely lost control. When my father pulled me off him and threw me across the room and I snapped out of it, I was so fucking lost. My head was in a fog but I could still feel the anger pulsing through me. I was looking at my brother’s face, busted lip, bruises swelling and the worst part, the fear in his eyes but I still felt enraged. The anger was pushing so hard in me that I didn’t know what to do.”

“Then what?”

His fingers were in motion again. When he noticed my attention drawn to them, he shoved both hands in his pockets.

“Ez and Lucas both were afraid of me. They wouldn’t come near me for days. My parents spent a lot of time whispering about me and a week later, I was sitting in a doctor’s office listening to him explain to my parents that I had bipolar disorder.

He prescribed meditations but specified that he needed to watch me to determine what worked best. Bipolar is different for everyone. There’s no one size fits all. After a while they realized what I have is rapid cycling…”

“What does that mean?” I kept my voice as level as possible. Didn’t want him to shut down on me. This was a conversation we needed to have but I also didn’t want him feeling like whatever he shared would make me run. I wouldn’t run. I had already chosen him whether he believed that or not and this wouldn’t change my mind. I just needed to understand him a little better.

“Cycles of highs and lows. Most of the time it’s weeks even months where I suffer from periods of mania but mostly depression. With me, my cycles are shorter and less frequent. Hours but I can go from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other back to back. I’m also fortunate enough that the periods between my cycles are less frequent. Months at a time.”

“Is that what happened tonight? A cycle?”

He quickly shook his head. “Things trigger me. Most of the time I can feel when it’s happening. My chest gets tight, my pulse gets erratic, mind starts racing. If I’m triggered I usually just walk away. Sometimes I can’t. Tonight I couldn’t.”

“Your brother knows.”

“Yeah.”

“Does mine?”

“Maybe, but not likely unless Ez told him. He probably wouldn’t though. It’s not exactly something you bring up in conversation.”

“Is that why you didn’t tell me?”

“Partly.” His brows pinched like he was deep in thought. “For the first year after I was diagnosed, my mother kept dragging me to different doctors. Here in the city then different states where there wereexperts. Nothing changed. They all said the same thing. There was no cure, no fix, but with proper management and medication I could live a normal life.”

“Which is good, right?”

“Not with a family like mine. My father wrote me off after the first diagnosis. He didn’t bother being hopeful the way my mother was. All of his attention moved from me to Ez and Lucas. My mother kept trying. She never got the answers she was looking for so after a while she was done with it too but neither of them discussed it outside of our home. My disorder was a weakness, a blemish on our family’s pristine reputation, and they couldn’t have that.”

That made my heart ache for him because parents were supposed to be the only ones we could count on for unconditional love. I knew that wasn’t the case because my mother always had conditions. But this was different.

“But you and Ez are close.”

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