She never expects him. The Monster kind of just creeps up on her. Just as she’s settling into a comfortable pace at life, he blindsides her from behind with his tranquillising presence. Sometimes in the middle of a client meeting, or in aisle four of the grocery store, he shows up and sucks out all the life from her. Dampening her morale. Eroding any sense of stability the two of them worked tirelessly to cultivate in the moments since the Monsters last appearance. Every episode is worse than the last, and he don’t know if he has it in him to stick around any longer for her.
***
She can only but feel him. His weight on her chest. His drag in her step. But I see him. In the day-old, half-eaten takeout food, mushroomed around the house. I see him in her amazing paintings, most of which he never lets her finish. As if he controls the valve to her energy, only letting it flow in his absence.
“I’m doing better these days,” she says. Time and time again. Usually whilst staring out the window, or while scrolling through her phone. Always speaking at me but never with me. Never allowing herself to see the sadness in my eyes. As if I haven’t grown accustomed to this sickly persona that takes over her every so often, weeding itself into our relationship and ruining everything it touches.
“We can’t keep living like this babe,” I say halfheartedly, as I offer her water and medication, knowing it’ll pile up on her bedside like all the other dosages. But for the sake of feeling like an accessory to the solution and not the problem, I have to try something, anything.
“You saw it yourself. I went a whole 3 months without losing it,” she says, and I hate the enthusiasm in her voice. Enthusiasm that only shows up when she’s in defense. When she’s pleading her case for more grace.
“I barely fell off. I only missed like five days of work. I ate well on most days, I even did the laundry a couple of times. If that isn’t progress, then I don’t know what you want from me.”
Despite my feelings of neglect, I have to admit she’s not wrong.
My money was on six weeks, tops. I’d become so accustomed to adulting for the both of us, I couldn’t imagine a time when she’d be holding her own. But then I started making deposits into my savings account, instead of the usual withdrawals her inability to cough up rent would have forced me into. I was having drinks after work with friends I hadn’t seen in months, re-activating my dusty membership at the gym and even picking tea over whiskey for my nightcaps. She was finally resembling the blessing I’d met her as, and not the burden the Monster made her out to be.
The glow in her skin was back, her smile reaching every corner of the room again. Her complete canvases were telling of the rebirth of her dedicated work ethic, focused from the first to the last stroke. The blissful nature of our relationship was finally filtering back in as all the gloom seeped out. It was as if the Monster had gotten bored of us.
Alas, I thought wrong.
I called to see if I should pick up dinner on my way over but it went straight to voicemail, first red flag. I was hoping in my heart of hearts to find her intact. But as I ran into her apartment, the spot on the bed she usually assumes when the Monster makes his appearance is bare. “I guess all good things have to come to an end,” I say as I make my exit and begin my search for this girl I’m not sure I want to find.
My first instinct is to rush to the bus terminal. The last time the Monster was around the two of them rode around the same bus route till one driver felt he’d seen her on the same bus, in the same spot, one too many times throughout his shift. “Miss? Is everything okay?” But she just ogled at him, before letting her head droop back into the window she’d been staring into for the last five hours.
This time is different. She isn’t at any of her favourite spots. Not at the gallery, nor at the bar. Her boss said she hadn’t shown up to work the past 3 days. Her parents said she was doing just fine when they saw her on the weekend. But it’s Wednesday, and not a single soul knows where she is. Second red flag.
Exhausted and needing to refuel before my next search, I regroup in her kitchen, but a few things are out of place from when I was last here. Wine corks on the floor. All the blinds are closed shut. She’s been here.
Between making a sandwich and ringing her phone for the umpteenth time, a crash draws my attention to the bathroom.
And there they were.
Her phone dancing across the floor because of the ringer vibrator. The two of them nested in the bathtub with a blanket and an empty bottle of Rose. Makeup ruined by what could have only been hours of endless crying. The Monster, perfectly curled around her like a python. Gripping his prey just tight enough to keep her in one place, but loose enough to keep her alive.
I don’t know if it was the disappointment or frustration that kept me starring at her from the door for so long. Whatever the feeling was it guided me to the conclusion that I can’t keep trying to save someone that doesn’t want saving, so I let her know, “I don’t think I’m up for another round of this.”
***
I was banking on him to come and pick up my pieces as soon as I fell apart. But he’s just walked out. Without offering to run my bath. Without trying to put me back together. For the first time I might have to face the Monster on my own.
I want to chase after him but what would I say once I’ve gotten his attention? I’m sorry? I’m sorry that I can’t do better? I’m sorry that I don’t? I could, but I’m scared. I’m scared that if I was normal you wouldn’t feel as obligated to stay with me. Care for me, love me. I’m scared that if I got my life together you’d do the same and finally leave me.
Uncharted waters, his resentment. It’s never been towards me but always at this condition, at this thing that’s just always been the third party in our relationship. He hates this Monster and what it does to me. Does to us. But now the resentment feels diluted. A growing grey area if he’s starting to see the Monster and I as one and the same.
I hate that I’m this way. A walking cancer. From a young age I envied the kids who were able to be chipper for no reason. Laughing on the playground and chatty in the cafeteria. I wished I could be like the normal people, who never had to have their class teacher call an ambulance for them because they were worryingly unresponsive during first period. How do you even explain psycho-motor retardation to your peers? You don’t. You just put your head down and hope the corner seat in every classroom, lecture hall, office space, is empty so that when it does kick in you can suffer behind the backs of everyone in the room.
Mom and dad tried their best to help, despite how much of a grown up I claimed to be. We saw doctor after doctor, tried an array of medications, but they always complicated the situation more than they solved it. Weight gain was part and parcel of most antidepressants, and if I was lucky they caused manageable insomnia and let me keep just a little bit of my libido.
The only thing that hurts worse than the Monster’s grip on you, is watching how it drags down everyone you love with you. I’ve watched friends lose sleep over a sickness they have no business enduring. Lovers lose themselves trying to rescue a girl who just can’t be saved, and my parents ruin their finances trying to get me the help they feel I need. I can’t bear to watch them fall apart for my sake. So every so often I make an effort to cut their losses, and put on my brightest fake smile and do as much work where I know my beloveds will see, just so they can have a breather and take the weight of my problems off their shoulders.
And It worked for a while. Mixing doses of my medications with Adderall and alcohol. These cocktails afforded me weeks of absence if I could conjure them up in time to fuel the facade of a well-adjusted, high functioning woman at just the right time to meet my deadlines and save my failing grades. I only needed to keep it up, usually, for roughly a weeks-worth of days in a month. The rest of my life has comprised of days lying in bed with the light shut out, a dim phone screen feeding me images and videos of the lives I wish I could live, and rising only when I can’t go on without food or drink.
Excuses of busy work schedules deterred possible suitors from sticking around longer than two dates. I managed to convince new friends and coworkers I was a travel vlogger as a cover up for every time I’d be missing in action for long periods of time, but really the content I uploaded was just photos and videos from places I’d been to whilst seeing new doctors who thought they could fix me.
This front. This facade I put on when I’m at my weakest, when I’m being tormented by this disorder that grows stronger every time I try to confront it. I managed to keep it hidden from everyone. Everyone except him.
When we first met I assumed our connection would fizzle out after I flaked on the dates that follow the initial spark, but he never let the fire die out. Dinner reservations turned into takeout deliveries. Ignored texts only drove him closer to my doorstep the longer I took to respond. His relentless efforts to love me despite my resistance inclined me to push past my fears, and let him see the real parts of me that were held hostage by this Monster.
He took the time to understand me and my condition, humanising me in a way that no one else ever had. He saw a future with me despite how broken I was. Built me up from the remnants of the person I used to be. He catered for me when I couldn’t be bothered to eat. He paid my bills when I couldn’t work. He was strong enough to support the both of us when everything was falling apart for me, and for that I owe it to him to at least try to cut this Monster out of my life.
It’s been a month since my last episode and the love between us is going stale by the day. Every time we sit together, the space for a third grows just a little wider. He barely cooks when he’s over, and when he does it’s barely enough for two. He’s stopped checking in as often. Kissing me as often. Loving me as often. His absence screams volumes of his disappointment in me, yet he still hasn’t left me. Probably because he knows it would break me. I don’t know how much longer I have to make things right. This might be my last chance.
*Singing*
“Sounds like someone has crossed back from the other side,” he says under his breath as he cracks open the door.
“Why hello there darling, I wasn’t expecting you so soon,” she says, abandoning the pots she was tending to. “Let me get your jacket. Would you like something to drink?”
“Um, just water. I tried calling but your phone just rang so I just thought…you know.”
“Don’t be silly! That was weeks ago,” she snaps back. “I’m sorry, I’ve just been so busy making dinner and getting this place ready for my baby, I completely forgot about my phone. What do you think?” Pointing out the spread she’s laid out for dinner, hoping it’ll be a good enough start to winning him back.
“The living room looks amazing. And you really outdid yourself with this dinner, but you shouldn’t have,” and he really means it.
“I had to. I haven’t been doing right by you and that’s all changing today.” She says as she moves towards him for an embrace.
But he steps back, shying away from her advance, “I think it’s a bit too late for that. we need to talk,” and the words send chills down her back.
“About what?”
“About us. This thing that’s always in between us. I don’t know if I can take it anymore. I really love you and wanted to make this work, and sometimes it does. But it never last. It feels like I’m constantly bending over backwards to help you when you don’t even want to get better.”
“That’s not true! You know how hard it can get! You’ve seen what it can do to me!” Tears welling at the base of her eyes.
“Yeah, but that’s just it. You keep blaming this monstrous illness as if you have no power to do anything about it. There’s the medication,” glancing at the unopened pill prescriptions in the kitchen cabinet, “but you never take it. There’s the doctors but you never want to see them. I can’t keep living like this. Your reluctance to seek help is ruining me and it feels like you don’t even care!” Breathing heavily to catch his breath as if a pipe had burst in him, forcing the words to come gushing out at her.
And just like that, the one good, constant thing in her life was now slipping away. She’s lost for words. He didn’t come to have a conversation. He came to make a statement. A closing remark. He stomps off to their room to pack his bags, and the sight of him emptying his drawers cue’s her Hail Mary.
“Wait! Wait! Wait! Baby please don’t go. It’s you and me remember? It’s always been you and me. I can’t do this without you. I need you. I need us,” stepping in front of him to stop him from emptying out his things.
“What about what I need?” Looking into her eyes, searching for a genuine care.
“You don’t deserve this. I know that now and I’m committed to taking the necessary steps to become the girlfriend you ought to have. That’s why I put this whole night together. I wanted to have that conversation with you. Plan a way forward. I’d even called my mom’s to get the number of the doctor I used to see when I was a kid. I want to get better, I really do.
“Show me then,” hands folded across his chest.
Instantly she scrambles to her side of the dresser, digging through drawers for evidence she needs to make her case. “Here look,” handing him a piece of paper with the details, “This is the time and place for my appointment. It’s next week. I’m not lying, I really do want to get better.”
Surprise breaking down the frown on his face, “And your job? Your already prescribed medication?”
“So I’ve already gone through the first stage of interviews for these two entry level jobs, the first stage was done over the phone and I made it clear to them that I suffer from Persistent Depressive Disorder. One of them were more than understanding and said if the rest of the interview process goes well we can definitely work around my illness to accommodate for any pitfalls.”
“Whao, okay. That sounds great. You admitting your illness to someone other than me is something I’ve never seen bef-,” but she cuts him off and pulls him by the arm and out the room. She’s not wasting an ounce of momentum and hurries him back to the kitchen to show him even more of her progress.
“I’ve thrown out all the liquor and Adderall, and I’ve started taking my meds at the right doses. See baby, I’m trying,” eyes gleaming with enthusiasm that finally has something to do with him. “I can see that,” tears falling down his cheeks, “I’m so proud of the changes you’re making. It’s all I’ve ever wanted for you.”
As she takes him by the hands, “the guilt has been eating away at me. I feel terrible for the person I’ve held you back from becoming. You have all this potential. All this good energy, but you’ve wasted too much of it taking care of me and I just can’t stand it anymore. I promise baby, I want and will get better. I promise.”
And for the first time in a long time, he felt like it was just the two of them in the room. She wasn’t speaking from under the influence. And he wasn’t listening out of obligation. She was closing the rift between them and he was stretching his arms out to meet her. He didn’t want to leave her, he just wanted better for the both of them. And if she was willing to meet him halfway, he was willing to carry her the distance.
He cries. They hug. His forehead resting on hers. Both of them locked in the other’s gaze as she details all the other things she plans on doing in her climb back to normalcy. He can’t help but laugh. Giggle, almost. He’s waited years for this moment that he thought would never come, but like all good things you just can’t rush the process.
Epilogue
Life isn’t as clear cut as we often envision it to be. Sometimes we pickup unwanted illnesses and fall into unpredictable circumstances along our journey. We begin to feel as if these negative aspects are telling of our whole story when in actuality they are just thorns waiting to be plucked out from beneath our feet. We all have Monsters we’re running from but the moment we turn and face them head on they shrink and crumble. They are parts to our story but not the whole and definitely not headline. In facing our fears we realize how miniscule they are and how easy it could be to overcome them.
