My mom places her hand atop mine and squeezes tight.
“Do you need your medication?” she asks.
It takes everything I have to bite my tongue. I want to snap and say, of course not! I’m allowed to be sad. Being sad doesn’t make you crazy. I’m not going to have another episode. I will not freak out. I’m allowed to be human!
I don’t say any of those things though because I know my mother doesn’t understand. To her, the darkness, anxiety, fear, loneliness—they are all the same thing, one giant blob of black that’s hurting her daughter, that she wants to erase from existence.
“Ian overdosed,” I say finally, because there’s no other way to say it. My father nearly drops the hot chocolate he has drawn to his lips and sets it down on my desk with trembling hands. “He’s okay now, but he overdosed.”
“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. Did you know he had a problem?” my mother asks. She’s really asking, Do you do those things with him?
I shake my head. There goes my bottom lip again. I bite it to stop the quivering. “I should’ve seen the signs though. I should’ve known.”
“Oh, sweetie,” my mother hands her cup to my father and takes mine and hands it to him as well. She draws me in for a hug, and I’m crying, breathing in the mint and vanilla scent of her shampoo.
Over my mother’s shoulder, my father looks like he is going to be sick. His hands wring together in his lap as he says the words, “What did he take?”
“James,” my mother chides, but my father doesn’t hear her. He is elsewhere, staring at my arms like maybe if he looks hard enough he can see track marks underneath my sweater.
“I don’t know,” I say, shaking my head. I start to cry again. “I don’t know. Pills—some kind of pills.”
My dad closes his eyes as if the conversation ages him with every word and he’s so tired. “Are you and the boy still…”
Together. He doesn’t say the word though. He looks so pale, the lines of his brow drawn tight. I worry it might kill him if he says the word.
“I don’t know,” I croak. I am shaking, rivulets of tears running down my cheeks. I hiccup as I shake my head ferociously. “I don’t know. I just…”
My lips move to form the words, but nothing escapes my mouth.
“It’s okay," my mother says, patting the back of my head.
Her words are a faraway echo. I am gone, lost in my head and the thoughts of Ian that swirl like fog around me.
Maybe I fucked up.
Maybe I did the wrong thing.
I waited as long as I could before I left for home.
I made sure he was okay. I gave his mom my number. I tried to wait for him to wake up, I truly did, but I was drowning on dry land.
I felt cheated. I felt tricked. I had already maxed out my daily dose, but I needed more, and that terrified me. When the numbers and the pills can’t keep the darkness at bay, I have to be strong, and I don’t have any strength left. I don’t know if there’s enough left of me to stand against the impending tide.
My mind drifts like a feather caught by the capricious wind. I am floating down, down, down to that note I scribbled on the back of a sheet of music and laid on his bed.
I’m sorry. I need time, Ian. I need to find my way out of the dark.
All my love, all of me,
— Harlow
37
Harlow
The days pass like cars on the freeway, in a blurry and never-ending line.
I sit at my desk with my Calculus notes in front of me, trying to study for finals next week. My phone buzzes, and I look up to see Ian’s name flash across the screen.
I should ignore it. I should study.
I unlock the screen with a swipe of my thumb.
Ian: plz talk 2 me.
My throat squeezes. I think I might cry, but I don’t have anymore tears left. The blood in my veins runs cold without his warmth.
Over the last few weeks, he has texted me. He’s slipped notes in my locker and played with my hair during class.
We’ve been through this.
I am brittle. I feel myself splintering at the edges, cracks spiraling through the center of me. Pills and therapy aren’t going to hold me together much longer.
Me: I can’t.
I silence my phone, but the screen lights up with his reply. I turn it off.
Memories of Ian, his body limp and surrounded by pills on the bathroom floor collide in my head with thoughts of William lying on the carpet like a deflated balloon, surrounded by needles.
I should have seen the signs, but love is a blinding bitch.
When Ian was distant, when his eyes seemed a little too dilated after practice, when it seemed like he would drink just a little too much, I ignored it. One misstep every now and again is easy to ignore. It’s harder to ignore when the person you love wanders off the path completely and falls into a damn ravine.
Two tears plop onto my laptop and stay there on the keyboard. I slam my Calculus textbook shut. Molly doesn’t notice. She is used to my mini-outbursts as of late.
I can’t be in here, in this room, just waiting for the darkness to come and swallow me whole.
I need out.
I need away.
I snatch my coat off the back of my chair and swing it over my shoulders as I head for the door. I skip the elevator and take the stairs. Before I know it, I am outside, the first snow of winter stinging my cheeks.
I want to forget. I want to play my violin until my knuckles ache and my fingers bleed, but I can’t go to the
