#i wrote the last half while high and wrote myself into a cry session
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in a relationship, there are two keys parts of love. the loud love and the quiet love.
steve and eddie were good at the loud love. the pda, the gestures, the constant physcial presence of one another. that was their daily. from the moment they started dating, steve was determined to make sure of it.
at first, it was smaller things. this was steve’s first queer relationship so there were some baby steps involved for him.
in the beginning, it was dropping eddie off at school or going to hellfire club meetings with him, just getting comfortable being seen with eddie. or sometimes it was even just talking about their relationship within the group, openly gushing about eddie.
for eddie, it was different. he was more comfortable in his queerness, but less comfortable with relationships as this was his first one.
for him, it was letting steve meet corroded coffin, clueing him into their upcoming songs, mingling with the other guys. other times it was bringing steve home to wayne, letting him weave into all the nooks and crannies of their lives.
all of these were great, but it's the quiet love steve cherished the most.
the soft moments in the morning when steve wakes up first, photographing the way eddie looks in the soft morning sunlight into his mind every day; on their bed with their coffees, discussing their dreams or nightmares (usually nightmares)
or it's eddie sitting on the counter of their kitchen while steve fries their eggs, two different ways: scrambled for eddie and fried for steve.
or it's eddie recounting the plot of the moving they are watching because tv's are hard for steve to hear. eddie always summarizing the plot with joy. excited like a puppy, reciting the characters to steve with a wide grin on his face.
so yeah, steve was partial to the quiet love.
#i wrote the last half while high and wrote myself into a cry session#stranger things#st#st4#steddie#steve harrington#eddie munson#steddie fic#steddie ficlet#steddie drabble#fic#text#text post#ficlet#lindz writes
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Aidan Bissett Wants You to Know It’s Okay to Be Alone [Q&A]
Photo: Brooke James
Aidan Bissett’s sunny and effortless disposition contrasts the chaotic ode to classic rock that is his latest track “Dumped.” The introspective and cathartic nature of his latest offering speaks to age-old feelings of heartbreak while doubling as an optimistic reminder that cloudy days cannot last forever.
Releasing soft-spoken tracks followed by headbanging, classic-rock inspired hits, this young artist’s music truly feels alive, shifting and evolving from one release to the next. With a soulful dedication to “music first, lyrics second,” Bissett is steadily creating his own lane defined by a relentless drive for experimentation. We had the chance to talk to Bissett about his creative approach, his latest single, “Dumped,” and plenty more.
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Ones to Watch: So, tell me the story behind “Dumped?”
Aidan Bissett: Wow, that’s a good question. I wish when I wrote it, it came from like, I had just been dumped… Well, okay, I had sort of been dumped. I don’t know how to explain that, but let’s just say I was in a relationship, taking time off, in a sense. When we were writing it, it was me, my friends, Ryan and Sean, and we were writing in a zoom session for like three hours. It was not a good song, and none of the three of us wanted to say it was a bad song. So, we were like, “OK, we are going to go take a break for a little.”
Then I pulled my guitar off the wall and started messing around, because when I get bored, especially in sessions, I like to try and take my mind off things. I’ll play random chords and sing random lyrics, like ad-lib over them just for fun. So, I started playing like three chords that are all throughout “Dumped,” singing this hook line that—it’s going to sound really weird—“I’m taking dumps all the time.” The guy I was producing it with was like, “OK, gross,” but that actually could be really cool… what if we change it to “I’m getting dumped all the time.” And I was like, “Woah.” That’s kind of how it started and we were on a roll and wrote the whole song in two hours.
And the song does mean a lot to me, because I have actually been dumped, multiple times. It sucks, it’s not a fun feeling, so every time I listen to it, it is kind of an “f you” type of song. Like, “yeah, I got dumped but I’m better off on my own anyway.” I always like that feeling better than wallowing in sadness. So, for anyone who does listen to it, I hope that it helps bring you out of the mourn and into a new light.
In the music video, you are seen reading an “Idiot's Guide To Love.” What was the last book you read?
I do love reading, I’ve always liked reading. I have not, in the past year, read a ton of books, which sucks because I actually do like reading. Well, okay, my senior year of high school I read like 13 books but a lot of them were for school. But they were still good books! I’m in the middle of reading Dune, which is very good so far. So, hopefully, I can finish that before the movie comes out. But yeah, I do like reading… when I have the time to sit down with my ADHD mind.
“Dumped” is a noted sonic transition for you. Can you tell me about how you approach your genre-spanning sound?
I don’t really like putting myself in one genre. I’m in a certain lane in the sense I do indie-pop, I do alternative, but I don't want to do straight pop. I feel like it's such a box, and it’s so limiting. I just love exploring different sounds, so even from the start, I put out “Different,” and then the second song was “Worst Girls Of All Time,” which was a completely different sound than the indie-pop wave that “Different” is. So, me putting out stuff like this after “Communication” is me exploring new sounds. To be honest, the things I like to hear always change, the bands that I’m listening to are always changing, and I take a lot of inspiration from a lot of different bands. I just love trying new things. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, but it just keeps me on my toes instead of just doing the same formula over and over again.
What are you listening to right now?
That’s a good question, it’s kind of all over the place. There’s this one girl, Remi Wolf, who I’ve been non-stop listening to… I have been listening to her for a minute. When she put out her first EP, I loved it. But now, she’s putting out these new tracks and Solomonophonic, her producer, he’s just incredible and her voice is incredible. They are doing so many things that just aren’t normal in this time of music; it’s just so her own lane. I find that really inspiring in the sense that she’s carving her own path and not following in the line of others.
I feel like I’m always listening to Wallows no matter what. I always have them ready to go. COIN. Role Model’s rolling out new stuff so I’m excited for that, he’s kind of taking a change in his own discography. [The] sounds that he is doing are definitely a lot different from his earlier stuff. This guy, binki. He’s actually opening for Role Model on this tour. Oh my gosh! His music’s insane, so cool. It’s got so many sounds going on, similar to Remi Wolf, there’s so much going on, you’re like ‘wow.. I’ve never heard something like this before.’
For those who don’t know, you write, record and produce your music all by yourself. Can you walk me through your creative process?
Yeah, I’m very musically-driven. Everyone has their own thing, I feel like a lot of artists, like the Olivia Rodrigo types, are lyrically-driven. I’m definitely music first, lyrics second. So, when I sit down to write something I try and get something I latch onto. I’m like, “Oh, this sounds cool. Lyrics could sound cool over this.” Anytime I go into a session or I’m recording by myself, I try to lay down some form of music, and then I’ll freestyle lyrics or freestyle melodies over the top, or pick a melody I like and throw lyrics over that melody. Whether that’s a hook or a verse, that kind of just depends on how I’m feeling. It’s definitely a bit unconventional compared to other artists. I feel like artists are a bit more put together when it comes to writing music just because I’ve only been doing it for like a year-and-a-half. But I have my own process, and it works. Every time I write something I learn something new. I’m excited to see, even a year from now, what my process will be… and even if it's completely different or efficient, who knows?
Tell me about the influence of music in your childhood and the decision for you to be a musician at a young age - you started playing electric guitar very young - what was your household like? Musical family?
My dad wanted the kids in our family, I have two other siblings, to play an instrument for two years during our young adult life. He wanted us to play piano before we got to pick, so we had two years of piano and then we had to pick an instrument. So, my sister went and played two years of piano and didn’t really stick with it afterward. Then, it was my turn and I was like, “Well, I don’t really want to play piano, can I play guitar?” And since I was the only one who asked, who expressed interest in a different instrument, he was like, “Sure.” I started in second grade and I’ve stuck with it the entire time. I took lessons for years, and that’s how I kind of got into the classic rock scene. My dad was a huge classic rock fan so he showed me all greats… and that was all I listened to for years. It definitely had a large impact on what I did. I would even play in little recitals, and I always played classic rock songs like AC/DC or Guns N’ Roses.
It wasn’t necessarily a musical household, like my dad isn’t musical, my mom isn’t musical. The reason he wanted us to play an instrument is because his mom made him play an instrument as a kid, so he was like, “You guys get to do that, too.” But it is true, one of us ended up using it.
What do you want people to take away from “Dumped?”
It’s an amp-up song. I want them to feel energized, to be happy with yourself. Getting hurt in relationships happens all the time, but it's okay to get hurt in a relationship. It’s kind of how you bounce back, and I want this song to be like a bounce back. Like, you hear it and, “Oh! This is me bouncing back! I don’t need to sit and cry anymore, because that’s not fun.” Sitting and crying is okay, everyone’s done it, but there’s a point that you reach, in that break-up phase, when the crying needs to stop and you need to go out and live and be the person that you are, independently. So, I would hope that it inspires you to be your independent, wonderful self again.
Is there anything else you would like to say about your music, or in general, that you want to take the chance now to say?
Well, I’m sitting on a lot of songs. So, I’m excited to get all the rest out, and again, everything is so diverse. All the music is so diverse, I just feel like each song is its own thing, which I really enjoy. I feel that’s really unique to my own music, where you’re getting something new every time. I’m moving to LA. That’s the other thing. So, if anyone sees me in LA, please stop me and say hello!
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Love in many ways
Okay, so… I may not be aromantic myself, but my best friend is. And every time I see/hear/notice the stigmatization surrounding aromantic people I picture them and get angry about just how down right laughable that is. I know that my friend is one of the most loving people you will ever meet, and they are valid and they are real. So I wrote this short drabble. I do hope that I could do all you amazing aromantic folks out there justice with this.
Patton was full of love. You could ask anyone who knew him, they would most certainly tell you that no one was so willing to show their love and affection and had as much love to give as Patton.
Patton was a doting father, for one. He’d rescued the twins out of a car after the incident that had cost them their biological family. They didn’t remember, had been too young for their brains to capture the happenings for more than a few moments. Patton had taken care of them after that and, when they had been old enough for adoption, taken them in. And he’d taken care of them like his own, gave them all the support they could wish for, made sure they felt loved and safe every second of every day. Honestly, it was quite exasperating to hear him as he keep going on and on about the two of them.
Patton also loved his friends.
He loved his high school friend Virgil, who was introverted and anxious but also sassy and sarcastic when he knew you well enough. He loved when Virgil would babysit for him, loved how Virgil and Roman would get into half-hearted fights ending in make-believe slaughter. He loved how he got protective of Remus and made up for they boy’s missing self-preservation instinct. He loved how Virgil came over for talks and baking sessions. Patton was always there for Virgil when he needed to talk or a shoulder to cry on or someone to let all his anxious thoughts out on. He may not been able to talk Virgil down form panic like Logan did, but he sure as heck validated the living daylights out of his friend and made sure he would calm down afterwards. “Let’s not get stormy thoughts again sleep-overs” were a tradition at this point.
He also loved his college friend Logan. Logan the professor of astronomy who’s been fondly exasperated by his coworker, the professor of psychology, for since his first day at the job. “Janus, you have stolen so many things from poor Logan. His time, his favorite doctor who pen, the position of the supervisor of the debate club, his patience, his breath, his sleep and now even his last name. Logan, watch out, he may be coming for your crofters next.”, he’d begun his best man speech. He loved how Logan could complain about his husband and laughed whenever he would make a compliment while complaining. He loved Logan’s helplessness when it came to feelings and was almost not jealous that it was Janus who helped him with it now. He loved to watch Logan be Janus’ financial self-restraint and hear him mutter “Lord give me patience, because if you give me strength I may just need bail money too” after meeting another person asking dumb questions.
He loved Janus too, of cause! He loved his card tricks and his way of making known that he wouldn’t check up on you while doing exactly so. He loved listening to the stories he would tell the twins and the dinner parties he held in his family’s cottage, which ended with everyone gathered around the fire place as they listened to Logan talk about the stars and Janus diagnosing them semi-seriously. Patton was also always happy to mediate between the two of them when the rival part of their relationship had caused another fight they both felt guilty over but were to insecure and thick-headed to reach out with an olive branch. Patton was more than happy to answer a phone call in the middle of the night and open the door to examine the scar on his face and when the memories refreshed through haunting dreams wouldn’t let him believe they were all healed up by now.
Patton loved his coworkers at the hospital, too. The bubbly psychologist Emile with whom he would have long discussions about TV shows and cartoons nearly every lunch break and a certain expert on sleep analysis who never got any sleep himself were the closest to him. It was how Virgil had gotten to know Remy in the first place. The two had bonded over their coffee addiction and before Patton knew what was happening the two of them were the cutest “we hate cutesy-couple-stuff” couple that had ever existed. And taking a few notes out of Janus’ book Patton had developed a habit of making sure Emile didn’t stay up too long watching re-watching old episodes and Remy didn’t overdose too much on caffeine and got, well, a little sleep each night. His disappointed-dad-gaze seemed to help a great deal with that, according to the two of them.
And Patton loved animals. Every single one of them. He loved the dog they found in an ally one night and had taken in and named “Prince Duke” thanks to his two children. He loved every cat he brought to the shelter when it rained, despite his allergies. He loved the butterflies Roman would chase through the garden, and… well, maybe not the moths Remus always had a knack for finding. But he for sure loved all the dugs the three of them would feed hard, old bread rolls to in the park every Sunday! He also loved every single animal in the Zoo he would bring his boys to every other Saturday after not so much convincing.
So, yes, Patton Sanders’ life was full of love. He gave and received love in so many shapes and he had always a bit more to give for someone in dire need of it. And maybe that was the reason why, but he really didn’t care much about whether people understood. He had all the love and support he needed, after all.
Still, it was nice to hear Janus joke about shoving people down a few stairs when they said something rude. It was nice to know his kids would readily pick up their foam weapons and “fight” everyone who said their dad was heartless. It was nice to know that Remy would use his connections to make sure their coffee order would be as wrong as humanly possible for the next month should anyone make a comment on his watch. It was nice to see Logan shake his head angrily and it was nice to feel his hand on his shoulder in a silent question of “Are you alright?” whenever there was a comment in passing, and it was nice to hear him out-logic them and showcase how stupid the comment had been through sheer logic every other time. It was nice to hear Virgil, who didn’t even dare to order for himself most of the time, yell across the street, though the language he used usually wasn’t very nice.
Patton was full of love and so was his life. The only kind of love he didn’t have was a romantic one - and he surely didn’t need it. Patton wasn’t sad or lonely or heartless like many would have imagined. No, Patton was happy, surrounded by his chosen family and full of love. And Patton Sanders was a proud aromantic. He was proud because there was nothing wrong with it - and if you disagree, well, then you should prepare, because his army of loved ones will fight you.
Taglist: @gattonero17 @alias290
#sanders sides#sanders sides fic#aromantic fic#aromantic patton sanders#tw mentions of death#tw mentions of ptsd#tw panic attack mentions
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We Are Not Broken
The Session
Dr. Flemmings cleared his throat. “Now that all of you are here, let’s begin. The first thing I want you all to do is tell everyone what happened to you. It’s okay that you are here and you all have had similar experiences. This is a LGBTQ+ safe zone, so don’t be afraid. Who wants to start?”
Everyone looked at each other, none wanting to go first. After a few seconds of awkward silence, Logan took a deep breath, “I was kidnapped and tortured because of my gender and sexuality, along with Roman and Remus,” the twins both flinched at the statement, remembering all too well what had happened and what they had all been through together, “I have scars all over my body from the various weapons and beatings. It was hell, we were all malnourished and suffering, and I remember having to watch our kidnappers beat the everloving, pardon my language, f*ck out of Roman and Remus, I don’t remember the times I was beaten all too well, but it was all because some people thought not being cishet was a crime, found the twins and then found me.”
Dr. Flemmings nodded, “Use whatever language you need to, Logan”
“Does Spanish count?” Roman piped up, both twins were multilingual, both parents being native spanish speakers, their father from Spain and their mother from Mexico, in high school Roman took French and Remus took German and begrudgingly, at their parents request, taught each other and had become proficient in both languages. Sometimes the twins talked to each other in a strange mix of English, Spanish, French, and German, something they called Enspanchan.
“Preferably a language we all can understand, Roman”
Roman slumped a little, “Ay, lo siento” he said under his breath.
“Logan, do you have anything else to say?” Dr. Flemmings asked.
Logan shook his head and fidgeted with his hands, he had never been good at processing strong emotions, he usually distracted himself by researching and educating himself on random topics, incorporating them into his Sign Language lectures at the school he worked at.
“Uh well, I guess it’s my turn,” Patton said, interrupting Logan’s train of thought, “I was taking a walk, and some guy noticed the strap to my binder and commented on it. I didn’t think much of it, I ignored him and kept walking, but then he grabbed me and started calling me… horrible things and he dragged me into the nearby woods and…” Patton took in a deep breath, trying to calm himself down, “He took off all my clothes and destroyed my binder. He told me I’d be beautiful if I didn’t try so hard to be a man. He called me an ‘exotic beauty’ and kept asking me what kind of asian I am. And then he started touching me and…” Patton started full fledged crying, not wanting to say it. He got quieter and almost whispered, “He r*ped me… And now I’m pregnant.”
Everyone was silent for a few long seconds, Virgil finally broke the silence “That’s… horrible. What are you going to do with the baby? If you don’t mind me asking.”
Patton took another deep breath and said “I’m probably going to put them up for adoption. Someone out there probably really wants a baby and can’t have one themselves. I’m not saying everyone should do that, though, I mean everyone’s different.”
Dr. Flemmings took note of how much Patton was crying, “You feel broken, don’t you?”
“I feel broken, violated, I wish time would just stop for at least a little while. I wish I could turn back the clock to last month and tell myself to not go on a walk that day, but I know I can’t. I feel like I’m not trans enough, like maybe I’m not actually a man.”
Virgil looked at Patton, “Bullsh*t. You’re trans enough. You are just as manly as you need to be. You’re f*cking valid.” He clapped for emphasis. This was unusual behavior for him, as he didn’t like to have attention drawn to himself, but he hated it when other trans people didn’t feel valid, mainly because he knew how it felt.
“Well, kiddo, I don’t know about all that, just look at me”
“You. Are. A. Man. And. That’s. What. Matters.”
“Fine, you win”
During this exchange, Janus had been writing out their story and held up their hand in a sort of “Stop dooting your horns, you middle school band class” gesture. Everyone looked at them, they just seemed to have that presence, the type that made people shut up and pay attention without really trying. Janus passed around the notepad, which said: After a concert, a lady came up to me, nothing new there, and was haggling me about being nonbinary and how I’m just a “broken man” and then all of a sudden, I don’t really remember this well, I felt something swipe across my throat and there was a strange warm liquid coming from my neck and then it started to hurt. The next thing I knew, there was yelling and I was on the ground with my friend Ethan, he’s the drummer, Hel, pressing down on my neck. Lola, our bassit, Truth, was calling 911. I think I passed out, and when I woke up in the hospital, I was very confused. I was on so many painkillers that I was basically high out of my mind and the most important thing to me at that moment, for some reason, was chocolate chip cookies. I specifically remember being distraught that no one would bring me cookies because I couldn’t communicate that I wanted some. Anyways, that’s not important. This person probably ended my career, the one thing I actually wanted to do with my life, and I don’t know what to do about it. I might never be able to talk, let alone perform, ever again. Also some dumb*ss took a video of it and put it on YouTube and so the whole world knew before I had even arrived at the hospital.
Once everyone had read what was on the notepad, they all stared at Janus. They looked down at their legs. After a moment, Patton got up and walked over to Janus and touched their shoulder. “What else do you like to do?” he asked.
Janus shrugged.
Virgil suddenly blurted out, remembering the chaos after that concert a few weeks ago, “Wait someone put that on YouTube? How has that not been taken down?”
Janus shrugged, not knowing why either, and pulled out their phone. They found the video and played it, looking away. Patton and Virgil looked away from the video, while Logan and the twins watched, all three feeling bad that they couldn’t seem to pull away from the chaos happening on screen, like some sort of morbid scene in a TV show.
When the video finished, Logan, Roman, and Remus were in stunned silence while Janus fumbled to keep the next video from playing, the “What’s in your pants?” meme, which was when one time Janus and the rest of Duality were on a talk show, all in costume, and the host asked Janus the dreaded question, “What’s in your pants?” and Janus had immediately responded by pulling things out of their pockets and listing them, the items getting more obscure as they went “Phone, wallet, keys, worm-on-a-string, tiny rainbow plastic babies, a dead mouse, Quetzalcoatl? [Quetzalcoatl is Janus’s pet hognose snake], and a barbie head.” the clip had spread like wildfire and had become a large part of what Janus’s stage persona, Deceit, had been known for. Everyone in the band had their own costume, usually involving half of the face being different from the other, Janus’s Deceit costume had a Jack the Ripper vibe and they had makeup to look like scales on the left side of their face. Ethan’s Hel was an all black suit and the left half of his body was made to look like dead, rotting flesh. Lola’s Truth had a black and white lace dress and her makeup was meant to make her look inhuman and had several extra eyes on the right side of her face. The final member, Tori’s Valhalla looked like a norse warrior, the right side of their face looked scarred and they wore an eyepatch over their right eye, like Odin.
“That kind of reminds me of what happened to me,” Virgil said with a shudder once the video was over. “I was hanging out with my friend, May, after your,” Virgil pointed at Janus, “concert and ended up crashing at her place. I tend to sleep pretty heavily, so I was surprised when I woke up on the autopsy table for the mortuary science program at the college I used to go to. I had barely woken up before I felt something that felt like a punch in my abdomen. I saw May, she had a knife and looked angry, she stabbed me four more times, repeatedly calling me a dirty tr*nny. I don’t think she realized I was awake. Thing is, she was the one who supported me the most during my transition and always had my back when I had first come out. That’s what hurt the most. She had apparently secretly hated me all these years and just now was releasing all that. I didn’t dare move until she had left and I started to crawl towards the desk phone at the professor's desk. I was almost there when I passed out. I woke up again to the professor shaking me, he’d always liked me and was concerned about me. He told me he had called 911 and shortly after I was hauled into an ambulance and carted away to the hospital, swimming in and out of consciousness. I think May was planning on killing me and having me be found dead on the autopsy table as a morbid surprise for the mortuary science teacher and his first period class of that day.” He was trying to control his breathing and he felt his heart rate speeding up. Virgil hoped that no one would notice and call him out on it.
Janus started writing and then showed Virgil: Was May at the concert too?
“Yeah why?” Breath, dammit, breath. Virgil chided himself
Janus scrunched their eyebrows and started writing again: What does she look like?
“Do you think-” Virgil cut himself off, took in a deep breath, and found a picture of May on his phone. She had a black bob with straight bangs and wore dark makeup.
Janus looked at the picture, That’s her, they wrote. One thing I didn’t mention before was that she had gotten away.
Suddenly Remus started talking “I’d stim and they’d hurt me.” Roman looked at his brother, remembering how Remus would make weird sounds, start shaking his leg, or drumming his fingers on whatever surface he could get to, and after a while their kidnappers had realized that Remus’s fidgeting and sounds were him stimming, one of his ways to try and calm himself down, started beating him more when he did. “And it started happening more and more because I was more stressed and then I had to force myself to not and I had so much pent up, that everything was a million times louder, even the smallest touches were too much, and my head felt so light and it was like I was feeling everything and nothing all at once, like I was both on fire and numb and I don’t know how to describe it.” Even now, Remus was trying to keep himself from stimming, he had his hands firmly grasped together and his legs were crossed unnaturally tight and he was visibly getting upset.
This was the first time Roman had even heard Remus talk about it. He hadn’t realized how much Remus had suffered and how different it was from how Logan and Roman had suffered. No wonder he was so despondent. He was overloaded in every way. Roman noticed how tight Remus was wound up and pulled something out of his pocket, a long, green silicone fidget toy that had small bumps on it for texture. “Hey,” Roman addressed his brother and handed him the fidget toy, “breath.” Remus took it and fidgeted, reminding himself that it was safe to stim now. “You never said how bad it was for you.” Roman said quietly.
Remus nodded, “I didn’t know how to say it.” He had nothing else to say.
Roman looked around after a long moment of silence. “I felt powerless. I’m almost always able to help, but I couldn't do anything. It was so awful only being able to watch, almost worse than getting beat regularly.” Roman fell silent again, not knowing what else to say.
“You feel like you have to be the hero, don’t you? You feel obligated to do it?” Dr. Flemmings asked. Roman thought for a moment and then nodded. “Since we’re coming to a close, I want to tell you all that you all did a good job today. Here’s what I want you all to do: Patton, read Galileo by Pual Tran, I think you’d benefit from it. Janus, I want you to write, I don’t care what you write, whether it be a song, a poem, a backtrack, whatever, as long as you express yourself with it. Virgil, I want you to use methods to regulate your breathing like the 4, 7, 8 technique and I want you to try carrying around a stress ball, same goes for you, Remus. Logan, I want you to express yourself more and come up with a way for you to get your feelings out in a safe manner. Roman, I want you to think about why you feel obligated to be the hero. And lastly I think you all can benefit from each other, as you have all had similar experiences. Thank you all for attending.”
Everyone started saying their goodbyes and started leaving. Janus met up with an older guy in the lobby who nudged them and said “Happy birthday, kid.” The older guy looked a little sad, like he was remembering something tragic. Everyone heard him wish Janus a happy birthday and started wishing them a happy birthday as well.
Patton looked at the guy and said “Is this your dad, Janus?”
Janus shook their head no and at the same time the guy said “I’m their brother. John, by the way.”
“You guys are siblings? Wow! I never would have guessed!”
Janus looked slightly embarrassed, everyone always confused John for their dad, which wasn’t too far off as John and his wife had raised them. “Yeah the twenty-one year age gap doesn’t help,” John said, lowering his gaze somewhat, just wanting Patton to change the subject.
Janus broke off from John for a moment, wrote something down and handed it to Patton. It said: He’s a little sensitive about family history. Mom died while having me and we don’t know who my dad is, so he had to raise me. That’s why he looks a little sad today.
Patton’s mouth formed a silent “O” as he slipped the paper into his pocket and waved goodbye “Have a nice day!”
John looked at his sibling, “What did that say?”
I said you were having a bad day.
“Oh, okay” he believed the white lie.
Logan was on the phone “I know dad, you’ve told me the story every year for as long as I can remember. I’m about to get in the car, so I’ll call you back”
John looked at Logan and whispered to Janus “What are their pronouns?”
He/him Janus wrote
“He looks and sounds a lot like the doctor who delivered you.”
Janus shrugged and started walking towards their car, a black Jeep, and got in, deciding to go to the cafe that John worked at, knowing that John had to go to work, and besides, they were hungry.
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When You're Sad, Your Skin Is Sad
Correlation doesn't prove causation, but I can't help but notice that both times I’ve lived in my teenage bedroom I’ve felt especially sad. In high school, it was an angry sadness that sought attention. But when I came back to my parents house in March to ride out COVID, the sadness became deep and dull—about everything and nothing. I go to bed dreading the next day like it holds a big test I haven’t studied for. In the morning, I alternately jolt awake while it’s still dark, or tether myself to my comforter well into the workday. I’ve been very privileged in the ways I’ve experienced the past few months, but also very anxious. And actually, the CDC estimates that 40-percent of adults exhibit symptoms of anxiety or depressive disorders as of this past July. (In 2019, that number was 11-percent.) So, yes, I’m crying a lot more than usual; maybe you are too. I’m also breaking out more than usual—and you?
“Yes, stress causes you to break out,” says Dr. Amy Wechsler, who, as one of only a handful of doctors in the US board-certified in both dermatology and psychiatry, is uniquely qualified to answer questions about this kind of stuff—she even wrote the book on it. Dr. Wechsler cites a well-known study done on a college campus during exam week, where researchers found a strong correlation between stress and the severity of acne. “But exam period is like two weeks long, and when the exams go away the breakouts go away. Imagine if you had exam period for five months, you know? That’s like what we’re going through right now.”
According to Dr. Wechsler, the root of stress acne lies in a molecule called cortisol. Cortisol is a hormone that’s pumped out by the body to fight illness, control blood sugar levels, regulate metabolism, and influence memory formation. In general it’s anti-inflammatory, but when you’re stressed, your body responds by producing more cortisol than it would normally as part of the fight-or-flight response meant to keep you alert when you need to be. If that stress is prolonged, and you don’t have the proper coping mechanisms to deal with it, cortisol starts to act very inflammatory.
“Inflammation is the root cause of acne, and eczema, and psoriasis,” says Dr. Wechsler, who also adds that high levels of cortisol over a long period of time will break down collagen, the molecule in your skin that keeps it looking plump. “That’s why when people are really stressed out for a while, they look like they aged overnight.” For a good, obvious example of this phenomenon, take a look at a photo of President Obama in his first year as president compared to his last. Cortisol also weakens your skin’s natural barrier, so you’ll start to experience more transepidermal water loss. Several months of anxiety may leave you with a totally different skin type: even if your skin is normally oily, it will start to dry out and get more sensitive. Dr. Wechsler notes that when your barrier is compromised, your skin is more likely to react to something that normally wouldn’t cause a problem. “That’s when people say things like, ‘I’ve been using the same product forever, they haven’t changed their ingredients, but now I can’t tolerate it.’”
The tricky part about cortisol is that once levels are high, it can be difficult to bring them down on your own. At minimum, you need to make sure you’re getting an adequate amount of sleep each night, which can be difficult when you’re feeling anxious. “Cortisol is at its lowest for everybody during sleep, and healing molecules like beta-endorphins, growth hormones, and oxytocin,” a mood enhancer, “are always at their highest,” says Dr. Wechsler, who compares the molecules’ relationship to a see-saw. If you’re not getting much sleep, you’re not giving the anti-inflammatories a chance to catch up to the cortisol.
During the daytime, you can sort of hack your body chemicals by engaging in activities that directly trigger a release of those happy molecules. Completing your skincare routine floods your brain with dopamine, otherwise known as the “feel-good neurotransmitter.” So would cooking a complicated dinner, or organizing your bedroom, or finishing a book. A workout can help balance too-low endorphins, a fact I always felt was fallacy until I experienced my first runner’s high a few months ago. Not into exercise? Pop on a John Mulaney stand up special—any will do!—for a rush of endorphins you don’t have to sweat for. And to raise your oxytocin levels, turn down the lights and grab your vibrator. Sex drive can lower when you’re depressed, but each time you orgasm your body releases cortisol-lowering, calm-inducing oxytocin.
Of course, these things won’t stop you from feeling anxious, but they might help you feel a little bit better on the day-to-day, and you also may see a difference in your skin. “When people are very anxious, they feel this loss of control over what’s going on in their lives, and normal routines fall by the wayside because they feel unimportant,” Dr. Wechsler explains. “A skincare routine gives you back a little control,” she adds, conceding that, at the very least, 10 minutes of caring for yourself will feel better than reading the news, or scrolling through Instagram.
The absolute easiest, low-effort way to help balance cortisol? For a sad person at least, it’s crying. Scientists aren’t quite sure how or why, but studies show that a good crying session decreases cortisol levels. It was once widely believed that tears were a way to expel excess stress hormones, but now, most researchers think that the benefits of crying have to do with social signaling: just getting out the message that you’re in distress seems to help alleviate some of that distress. And, if you’re crying to somebody, they’re likely to give you a hug, rub your back, or stroke your hair—all triggers for oxytocin.
But while crying is good for the skin internally, it can leave your face feeling… not so great. Which is the reason I called Dr. Wechsler in the first place—I wear my recent crying obviously, and am left frantically icing my face before morning meetings and check-ins with family. Beyond how I look, my post-crying face hurts. My eyes get incredibly puffy, and I often find myself stuck between a rock and a hard place when I cry at night. It happens, without fail, after I do my skincare routine, and I wasn’t sure whether the salty tears left on my skin were further contributing to breakouts. To make my outsides match my insides after a solid catharsis, I wanted to figure out a post-crying best practice—a sad girl beauty routine, if you will.
What I’d learn is that your eyes work overtime to produce tears, which draws an abundance of blood to the surface of your eyelids. If you cry at night, that blood doesn’t have anywhere to go��it pools in your face when you’re lying flat. “If you’re crying during the day and you’re standing up and walking around, gravity will take the swelling from your eyelids, bring it down your face, and flush it out,” adds Dr. Wechsler. For those particularly concerned about morning puffiness, you can stay upright until the swelling subsides, or try Dr. Weschler’s favorite method. “Put a teaspoon in a glass of ice water, let it get really cold, and then take the back of the teaspoon and put it on your eyelid with a little bit of pressure. Both the cold and the pressure really help those blood vessels calm back down,” says Dr. Wechsler, who learned the tip from one of her model patients. Doing that right away will probably help prevent morning puffiness, but if you aren’t feeling up to it, just go to sleep and try to keep your head elevated with an extra pillow. You can always try the spoon trick (and some vertical action) in the morning.
As for the tears themselves, Dr. Wechsler recommends rinsing them off to abate dryness. If you’ve cried within a half hour of doing your skincare routine, you can rinse with a gentle cleanser (or water, if you think another wash will be too drying) and re-apply your skincare products. Otherwise, just rinse and moisturize again.
Remember how I mentioned cortisol is difficult to lower on your own? If you’re experiencing symptoms of anxiety and depression, you might also consider seeking out the help of a trained therapist. While it’s easy to ruminate on how we look on the outside, it’s important to emphasize that this skin issue is indicative of a larger, internal problem. Aside from the auxiliary benefit of helping balance your skin, talking to someone can help alleviate the feelings of loneliness, grief, and uncertainty you might be feeling right now. Therapy for Black Girls, the National Queer & Trans Therapists of Color Network, and Open Path Collective all offer remote therapy options at accessible price points. You might also check out Psychology Today’s list of therapists, which is quite comprehensive—you can filter results by things like specialty, sexuality, and race. If you’re a Black woman, you can also apply for a grant from The Loveland Foundation to subsidize your sessions.
Knowing that my skin is feeling as vulnerable as I am right now, I’ve been taking it easy with my skincare. And the benefit is twofold: nixing breakout treatments lets my skin actually heal, and using fewer products means I’m more likely to actually do my routine (even when I don’t feel like it). I’ve noticed new pimples subsiding after fortifying my compromised skin barrier with products rich in ceramides, natural moisturizing factors, and lipids. I’ve also been chasing opportunities to feel good as often as I can, masked and tiptoeing around the border of my own shrunken comfort zone. Still the breakouts, and the tears, come in waves. But then again, they always have.
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Shadowhunters 3x11 Post-Script
So... I liked the episode a lot, but I felt really mixed feelings about Alec and Jace's Parabatai moment. Sure, it's sweet to see Alec caring for him, but I also felt like maybe Alec's tactic here was a bit harsh. But then I tried to think about everything going on from Alec's perspective, and I wrote a little something to help me process my feelings over this scene. I want to be clear that I don't agree with what Alec said to Jace, and I hope I've made it clear that his anger is misplaced. It's a selfish reaction in the way I've imagined it, but I don't think it's fair to de-legitimize anyone's emotions in such a difficult situation. I hope that even when Clary comes back, the rest of the gang helps Jace, Simon, Magnus, and... well, really, everyone process their pain and deal with their challenges. (Fat chance we'll get to see it play out in the show to a satisfying degree, but I guess that's what fandom is for!)
"By the way, how did that talk with Jace go?" Magnus asked later that night.
Alec sighed, feeling a headache mount up behind his eyes. And he'd been so relaxed just a second ago. "I don't know. I mean, I think I accomplished my goal, anyway."
Magnus was silent for a moment. Alec knew that his boyfriend could recognize that tone in his voice, and he also knew that Magnus was annoyingly good at getting Alec to spill without having to say a word himself.
"I don't think we're in danger of Jace trying to kill himself," Alec said bluntly. That, after all, had to be the top priority. The rest could wait. Pulling Jace out of this dark hole of depression wasn't going to be easy, and the whole thing would be useless if Jace decided he was done living in utter despair and checked out before they could get him help. "But I think I really screwed up that conversation."
"How so?" Magnus prompted gently.
"I... well, I went for the guilt angle. I didn't mean to, I swear. I was going to be all gentle and kind, and then..."
"What?"
"He brushed me off! And then when I pressed him, he told me I should have killed him to save Clary." The words made Alec's blood boil with anger even now, hours later, and he took a couple of deep breaths to cool off before continuing. "So I tried to make him feel like shit about dishonoring Clary's memory, and about wasting the risk and sacrifice we all went through, and when he just kept on staring at me I... I made it about myself. I told him what losing him would do to me. And I could tell that's the one thing that was getting through to him, so maybe I did right, but I just feel... I feel like I'm failing him again."
Alec hadn't been looking at Magnus while speaking. It was always difficult to confront those understanding eyes when he was in the middle of feeling sorry for himself. But, as was generally the case, Magnus knew how to force the issue. He sat up in the bed and shifted around so he was sitting in front of Alec, straddling his legs but sitting far enough away that their faces were a foot apart. "Alec, listen to me. Are you listening?"
"Yeah."
"You're not failing him. Jace is going through unimaginable pain right now. He's not thinking clearly. And if he's not thinking clearly, then neither are you. You're scared for him, and that's alright. The important thing is to let him know you'll be there always - no matter what."
Alec let himself be comforted for a moment, staring into those eyes he loved so much. He lifted his hand and brushed it along the side of Magnus' face, feeling gratified when Magnus leaned in to the touch almost by instinct. "I appreciate the encouragement," he said finally, his words a little croaky. "But the truth is, as much as I'm worried about Jace, as much as he's scaring me right now, I'm also - I'm also angry with him, and I can't..." he looked down, feeling a lump in his throat. "I can't help it, I know it's not fair of me to make all of this about me, but how could he - how could he be thinking about - " he hadn't been aware that he'd started crying until Magnus rose himself up and wrapped his arms around Alec, pressing him close and making comforting shushing noises into his hair.
They sat like that for a while, Magnus wrapped around Alec, Alec's face pressed into Magnus' bare shoulder. Eventually, Alec took a deep breath, then another, letting his body relax into the embrace. He was surprised to find that he wasn't done talking about this, even after the somewhat cathartic crying. Saying it all out loud and being met with only love and understanding was actually helping him. "I try to put myself in his shoes," Alec said. "I can't even imagine it, Magnus, what it would feel like for me if I lost you. I don't even like thinking about it. And that's what Jace is going through. My Parabatai lost the love of his life, and there's nothing I can do to help him."
"And on top of that," Magnus pointed out, a hint of his reasoned tone firming up under the sympathy, "he's dealing with the consequences of hurting people while possessed. I know you've got some idea of what that's like as well."
Alec nodded, dully. "I know. And it sucked. And after what I did to Jocelyn, I felt like giving up. I was miserable, and self-destructive, all of that. And Jace tried to be there for me, and I didn't want to let him at first. I can see what this is like from the other side, and I know he's in pain. But..." Alec wasn't sure if voicing the next part out loud was going to hurt Magnus' feelings. He wasn't sure if saying it would make the situation better or worse. But he'd come this far, and he found that he wanted to voice it, damn the consequences. "Magnus, I would never, never be willing to die, I would never think about killing myself, as long as Jace was still alive."
There's an unspoken second half to that statement, that if Jace was dead, Alec's state of mind might have been quite different. Alec could almost hear Magnus realize this, tense himself to discuss it, and then let it drop away for another time.
Alec continued - "If I died, I know what it would do to Jace, because I felt it myself when Jace died at Lake Lyn. And even if I hadn't felt it personally, I... I know what losing me would do to him, and I love him too much to ever put him through that. The physical pain alone was unbearable, and the rest of it is just... it's too terrible to think about. But he was thinking about it. He was really - he was in such a bad place that he thought about taking his own life, and he wasn't thinking about me at all. Does it make me a monster if I'm angry with him for it?"
Magnus was quiet for so long this time that Alec wondered with a spark of fear if he'd crossed a line, if Magnus was disgusted with him for his selfishness. But finally, slowly, Alec felt Magnus raise his head to press a kiss against Alec's forehead, and his boyfriend's voice came to him, a balm of benediction.
"You love Jace. He knows you love him. And for now, Alexander, that's going to have to be enough to get on with. You'll talk to him again tomorrow. You'll make sure he knows you're here to support him. And when you feel yourself feeling angry at everything that's happened, you'll come home and you'll rant and rave to me, or to Izzy, or whoever you want, and then you'll go back to Jace and you'll do it all over again, until one day things don't seem so bleak."
"You make it sound easy," Alec said, trying to shake off the wobble in his voice.
"On the contrary, It'll be extremely difficult and painful. But I know you, and you're more than up for the task."
Alec wasn't sure if he could believe him, all things considered. He was still berating himself for the way that talk with Jace had gone. Jace had apologized to him for feeling suicidal, and Alec knew the part of him that felt relieved at the apology was in the wrong. He needed to be stronger for his grieving Parabatai, just like he needed to be stronger for Magnus, given what he was going through without his magic. And Magnus' words, whether Alec believed them to be true or not, were a boost to Alec's flagging morale. At this point, he'd take whatever help he could get.
With a sigh, Alec blinked back the last bit of moisture from his eyes and sat up, disengaging from Magnus slightly but keeping their faces close together. Slowly, deliberately, he leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss against Magnus' lips. He made himself focus only on that sensation, pushing all thoughts of guilt and grief and anger from his mind for a blissful few seconds.
"Enough about that," Alec said as he pulled back. He made himself smile, and was surprised to find it wasn't as difficult as he might have imagined. "You and I are going to hit the gym in the morning."
"Excuse me?" Magnus said, quirking an eyebrow at the abrupt change of subject.
"You heard me. I know you're still processing losing your magic, but it's high time you learn other ways of taking care of yourself."
"And you think you're going to be the one to teach me?"
"Sure. You have a problem with that?"
"I've watched you Shadowhunters train. I'm more a creature of comfort and leisure, you know - decadence is the name of the game when you're a centuries-old society icon. All that sweating and running around punching things is hardly dignified."
"Alright, fair enough," Alec said. "It's your choice - you can train with me, or..." he paused for effect, "I can always hand you off to Izzy."
Magnus' eyes widened in only partially exaggerated horror, and Alec barely rolled out of the way of Magnus' tackle in time. "I'll show you how capable I am of taking care of myself, Mr. Lightwood," Magnus growled, and Alec, letting his own laughter carry the last of the day's stresses away, began his first informal training session with his wonderful boyfriend. He had a feeling the Clave wouldn't approve of these particular tactics, and he didn't care a bit.
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Pride and Joy / PART SEVEN
I wrote more D: You can read the whole fic on AO3
---
Anastasia didn’t remember much about her days with Dr. Kudrin. She had been too young, after all, and whatever memories she had of that time were hazy and faded. But she remembered the needles. And she remembered the pain. The sort of pain that started soft like the touch of small flame and grew like a wild fire until every part of her skin was burning. It would go on for days on end. She would lay there, screaming and crying and thrashing while they poked her and took notes.
She knew that whatever they had done to her was supposed to make her faster, stronger, deadlier. And it did. She had never really noticed before all the little things that made her different from everyone else. She had way more stamina then the other little spiders, and could outrun all of them. She was quicker in battle as well, more focused than the others. And she could heal faster than the others. Bullets wounds took less than two days to heal. Stab wounds took mere hours to disappear completely, leaving no scars behind, no proof that anything had happen at all. Or at least, that’s what the files she had stolen said.
There were so many files. About who she was, who she had become. Detailed descriptions of her training sessions, containing her weaknesses and strengths. Too emotional, too headstrong, too impulsive. They talked about her relationship with Natalia: too attached to each other, might become an issue in the future. Her missions, the targets she assassinated, every piece of her life compressed in a bunch of files hidden away. Well, not hidden away anymore.
Anastasia had spent the last two years meticulously studying every single one of them. It hadn’t been easy. She was watched almost constantly, so she’d had to do it in the middle of the night, away from prying eyes. And as she studied, she planned. She planned what she would do to the people who had taken her from her family, the people who had tortured her for so many years. She dreamed every night about the day she would finally make them pay for everything they’d done, not only to her, but to Natalia as well. And the day had finally come.
The full moon shone bright in the dark sky that night as Anastasia walked towards the burning building, or what remained of it at least. She could see the many bodies fallen on the ground, the smell of burnt flesh filling her nose, but she paid them no attention. She kept on walking, her eyes glued to the old woman covered in blood, trying desperately to lift the huge block of cement from her legs. Anastasia stood beside her, looking down on her with a smirk.
“YOU! YOU LITTLE MONSTER, YOU’LL PAY FOR THIS”, the woman screamed, coughing between every other word, her voice hoarse and weak.
Anastasia put one of foot on the block of cement, pressing it down slightly, and the woman screamed in pain.
“Look around you, Eva. There’s no more Red Room. Your handlers are dead. Your building is in pieces. All your work burned to the ground”.
“You’ll regret this, Anastasia”.
“My only regret is that Dr. Kudrin died before I could kill her myself”, Anastasia replied, pointing the gun she carried to Eva’s face, “I hoped that you’d burn alive, but I’ll settle for putting a bullet in your head. It’s more mercy than you deserve. And my name is not Anastasia. My name is Abigail Stark”.
And, before Eva could open her mouth to retort, she shot the woman between the eyes without as much as a flinch. With one last look around the place she had grown up in, Abigail turned and walked away, leaving behind all the pain and suffering, and finally, finally, going home.
---
Washington, DC.
18 hours to Launch Sequence Initiation.
Nicholas Fury was fifty seven years old and he had witnessed a lot of crazy ass shit in his life, both during his time as a SHIELD agent and as director of said organization. And everything he had lived through had taught him two valuable lessons, the first being: trust no one. Some people thought that was a tough way to live. Nick preferred to think of it as a smart way to survive. He had friends, of course, people he trusted to a certain degree, who he could count on, in whom he could confide some of his, and SHIELD’s, secrets. There weren’t many, it’s true, but he had always favored quality over quantity.
The second lesson life had taught Nick was to always trust his gut. Sometimes, he would get this feeling in the pit of his stomach, like a tiny snake rattling around. It was like an alarm of sorts that screamed danger danger danger everytime something was amiss. It had gone off when he found the tesseract. It had gone off that morning, when he had tried, and failed, to decrypt the files from the flash drive Natasha had recovered from the ship. And it went off when he walked into his kitchen that night, right after opening the fridge.
He turned quickly, gun already in hand, pointed straight at the brunette who was quietly sitting at his table, watching him.
“Hi”, she said, unmoving.
“You can start with your name and why the hell you’re in my motherfucking kitchen, kid”.
“I’m Abigail Stark”.
That made Nick hesitate, the gun in his hand faltering. He quickly put himself together, tightening his hold on it, staring at the girl with suspicion.
“You look very alive for someone who died at birth”, he replied.
“I’m tough to kill. And from what I hear, I get that from my dad”.
“And am I supposed to just take your word for it?”
“Well, I don’t really know how I could prove it to you. I’d say let’s do a DNA test, but that’s not exactly a viable option at the moment, right?”
Nick continued to stare at her. She looked young, around twenty years old. Brunette, brown eyes. Her appearance did match the description Natasha had given him all those years ago, but then again, “brunette with brown eyes” wasn’t exactly a rare look. She did remind Nick of Stark, though. The defiance in her eyes, the sarcastic tone.
And that’s when he remembered. Something Natasha had told him, something only the real girl would know.
“When was the first time you ate chocolate?”
With a small smile, the girl promptly answered, “It was Christmas. Nat returned from a mission and she managed to steal a piece of chocolate. It was half eaten, but it was good. I was twelve”.
Slowly, Nick lowered the gun, still keeping his eyes on the girl. “Ok. Let’s jump to ‘why the hell you’re in my kitchen’, kid”.
“Because of this”, she said, sliding a black flash drive across the table.
“And what the hell is that?”
“Proof that Hydra infiltrated SHIELD and they’re planning on killing a lot of people real soon”.
Nick had known in his gut something was very wrong. He just really wasn’t expecting something like that.
“I’m hungry. Do you have anything to eat?”
He made her Mac and Cheese while she used his computer. It was from a box and it tasted like cardboard, but Nick guessed that for someone who had probably spent her entire life eating less than edible food, this was a banquet worth of a king. He added some bacon to it. Might as well put some flavor in this shit.
“So, you hacked their computer?”
“If by hacked you mean created a program from scratch that imitated the system to fool their A.I. long enough for me to get in and make a copy of all the files they had encrypted there, then, yeah, sure, I hacked their computer”, she replied, taking a huge bite of mac and cheese, “what’s this?”
“Macaroni and Cheese”.
She nodded, swallowing before taking another forkful of the dish, “I like this”.
“Hold on, you said they had an A.I.?”
“Not had, have. And I’m not one hundred percent sure it’s an actual A.I. What I know is it’s a program that kept rewriting itself every time I tried to break it down. But it was advanced, more advanced than anything I had ever worked with, or against. Also, I don’t know where the source of this program is, but it ran a pretty large portion of the missions in the Red Room”.
Nick sipped from his glass of whiskey, stealing a bacon from the girl’s plate before sitting down beside her.
“You have the names there?”
“There’s a list, yeah. Politicians, FBI agents, CIA agents, SHIELD agents, they’re everywhere”.
“Is there an Alexander Pierce on the list?”
Abigail stopped typing for a second and threw a look at Fury before finding the file and pressing play. She ate her Mac and Cheese as he listened.
“Good. And the girl? She better not come back, Pierce. I have enough trouble with one Stark, I don’t need another”.
(…)
“No, no. We need him. For now. But you’ll be the first to know when he outlives his usefulness”.
“Very well, then. Hail Hydra”.
“Motherfucker”.
“Yeah”, the girl replied.
“You said they have a plan. What’s the plan?”
“I don’t know”, she confessed with a grimace, “all I know is that they’re calling it Project Insight”.
“SHIT”, Nick shouted, getting up so fast the chair he was sitting on fell to the floor, “MOTHERFUCKERS”.
“I take it you know what Project Insight means?”
“It means we screwed up, kid. I screwed up”.
“How do we unscrew it?”
“Pierce doesn’t know I know. I’m going to try to delay Project Insight”.
Abigail shook her head. “That’s a bad plan. He might suspect something is going on. Especially after the boat thing”.
“And if he does, we’ll have a plan for that as well”.
---
16 hours to Launch Sequence Initiation.
Needless to say, Abigail hated Fury’s plan. It was sloppy, relied too much on sheer dumb luck and had a very high chance of going really wrong really fast. But still, he insisted on it, so Abigail agreed, even if against her will.
Fury had given her a special earpiece, so they could talk through the whole thing and keep each other informed. There wasn’t much she could do to help at the moment, so she stayed away, hacking the cameras at the Triskelion, watching the man’s every move as he entered the snake’s nest.
The exchange between Fury and Pierce had been rather boring and anticlimactic. The real action began a few moments later, when four police cars slammed into his SUV.
“I told you this was a bad plan”, she said, re-booting the SUV’s system from a distance.
“Just get out of here”, he complained, using the machine gun embedded on the car.
As soon as the system was back, Fury stepped on the accelerator, trying very hard to put some distance between himself and his attackers.
And then he came. Abigail saw him through the traffic cameras and almost shouted. The Winter Soldier. The car flipped over, sliding right past the man in black, who’s only action was to take a step to the side, never taking his eyes off his target.
“Fury, you need to get the hell out of there! RIGHT NOW!”
“I got it”, he replied with a grunt of pain. Abigail heard a weird noise she couldn’t quite identify and then the sound of heavy boots hitting the water as someone ran.
“I’m in the sewers. Headed to Rogers now”.
“You don’t get it. You’re a dead man walking, Fury. The Winter Soldier doesn’t stop until his target is dead”.
A few seconds of silence before Fury replied, “Then I guess I’m gonna have to die today. Call Hill, tell her to bring the drug. She’ll know what it means”.
---
10 hours to Launch Sequence Initiation.
“Well, as far as stupid ass plans go, this one certainly takes the fucking cake”.
“It worked, didn’t it?”
Abigail turned to look at Fury, shaking her head. “You’re unbelievable”.
To be fair, yes, the plan had worked. Everyone now thought Fury was dead and people don’t hunt dead men. This gave them at least a bit of freedom to work the issue in relative peace. But, as Abigail insisted on reminding the director, at a very high price.
“He’s going to send the Soldier after them. He sent him after you in broad daylight. They don’t care about being exposed anymore, they just care about getting the job done”.
“That makes them sloppy”, Fury replied from his bed, grunting in pain as he tried to sit up.
“That makes them dangerous”, Abigail countered, walking anxiously from one side of the room to the other, “You need to call him in”.
“You think Rogers hasn’t done that already? Stark is probably flying his ass to the country right now. Thor and Banner are probably already on route as well”.
“You need to bring them here. So we can come up with a better plan of attack”, she insisted, but Fury cut her off.
“So you can meet Stark, you mean”. Abigail didn’t answer, just crossed her arms and looked away. “You’ll get the chance, kid”.
“Director”, came the voice from the door. Hill was standing there, looking perfectly put together as usual, a cell phone on her hands, “We just received a message from Romanoff. They ran into some trouble, but they’re fine. They’re going after Jasper Sitwell”.
“They?”, Abigail inquired, looking hopeful.
“The Avengers”.
“Send them our location. Tell Romanoff to send Thor and Banner over here. If they manage to hack our devices and get our coordinates, we’re going to need the big guns here”.
“Yes, sir”, Hill replied, already typing on her phone.
“Take a small team, shadow them. Be ready for extraction, if needed”.
“I’m going with you”, Abigail immediately said, walking towards Hill, “Don’t. I’m going”, she added as soon as Fury opened his mouth to disagree.
With a sigh, he nodded at Hill, and they both walked out of the room.
It was time to lend a helping hand to Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.
#stony#pride and joy#stevetony#superhusbands#natasha romanoff#winter soldier#captain america#steve rogers#avengers#iron man#tony stark#hulk#thor#hawkeye#clint barton#bruce banner#shield#nick fury#maria hill#fic#fanfiction#alternate universe
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My Story: I don't want to be like this :( via /r/ADHD
My Story: I don't want to be like this :(
My life sucks but I am still happy about the person that resulted from all the stuff I went through. I am a very silent person but at the same time extremly turned up. It's like a never ending roller coaster ride with its ups which make me feel like I am god or downs which want to make me kill myself. I wish there was an in between but it just doesn't exist ;( My mood is uncontrollable and it is most of the time more depressiv than happy. The depressiv mood has arised over the last three years and the lockdown aggraveted it extremly. Currently I'm 18 years old and life feels like that it is getting worse and worse the older I get... Procrastination, mood swings, lack of concentration, being emotional, high sensetivity, impulsiveness, bad memory, sleeplessness,messiness, daydreaming and the fact that I just can't change it by myself are murdering me.
I'm in 12th grade right now and at the first two weeks I stoped going to school because of suicidal thoughts. I think it was in 8th grade when I started to research my first issues in the internet to learn more about me so I hopefully fix my problems. Back then I had friends that harmed me a lot and caused a huge amount of anxiety in me. The only common ground we had was playing video games together. At school I felt like an outcast since I started going to secondary school I had big issues to keep up with the learned and almost had 0 friends because I was so different and weird than anybody else. Everybody laughed at me when I started to talk in class because I stuttered a lot, had issues to creat and understand sentences and lost the red threat everytime I was talking. One of my teachers waged my folder all around the classroom because all of my papers weren't staple in so that every sheet of paper was distributed in my classroom and I need to collect them all by myself infront of the whole class while I couldn't hold back my tears... I always thought that it was my fault at school even though I was the most silent kid and never made any problems. My selfconfidence was almost nonexistent and I was soooo happy when the school bell rang and I could go home. I was addicted to play video games all day long because I was only with me when I played and because I was so good at it sometimes. I was very inconstant and I had phases where I played like the worst player ever but also moments where I played like a world champion where nobody could beat me. It was the only thing where I would have said that I am good at it. I also took part of sportsclubs but I almost changed the sport every year cause I got bored so fast. In those days the internet was the only place where I could search up my problems.
I lied everytime to my parents about the situation in school to prevent punishments. Since I was born my Dad consumed a lot of alcohol and that's why my mum was forced to manage my upbringing alone. Both of my parents were pretty much nonexistent to me because I was all the time alone in my room and refused to talk to them. Both of them came from turkey to germany that's why they can't speak the languague well. My turkish is very bad too that's why comunication is almost impossible with them. 11th grade was the time where the school classes were mixed up again and I thought that could be my turn in school. I wanted to change everything so I can focus only on school. But I couldn't manage to change my behavior at all. I still couldn't do my homework, I still postponed to learn for exams until the last second even though I wanted it so bad... When I did my homework I couldn't focus at all. It was a nightmare I couldn't awaken from. I wanted to progress in school so bad but nothing changed. Instead my situation got worse and I started to judge me more and more. Half of the 11th grade was over and covid was taking over the world. Our school was set to homeschooling and my grades got kinda better because nobody was around me so I could focus better and I had more time solving the tasks. It was enough to establish 11th grade.
I still wanted to know how to fix my problems and researched a lot of my problems until I found truth. --ADHD/ADD--. I read everything about it, all symptoms, experiences on reddit and I thought I finally found the thing that is bothering me all my life. The disorder that has formed me to the wise, empathic, genius but at the same time to the depressiv, disorganised, emotional, unmotivated and impulsiv human I am. It would explain everything and I sometimes cry when I read some of the experiences of other users of this wonderful forum because it reflects everything of me so precise. But it was still just the internet where I got the information from and I was really unsecure if it is true even though it matched so hard. I told my older brother all about it but he is really unsecure. Back then I told nobody about my problems and he said that everything comes abruptly. I asked him if he could find me a therapist and I managed to get a meeting with a child psychologist. He didn't really took serious what I said and diagnosed me depression and anxiety. He called me an "internet psychologist" when he asked me where I got this knowledge from about ADHD/ADD. He said that I can't have it because I am not fidgety enough... I went home totaly depressed and questioned everything. I wrote him a SMS that I don't feel great and that my suicidal thoughts are back and he asked me if I wanted to go to the psychatry next city. I said yes and my brother drove me there. He told my brother that the police would had drive me there if nobody was able to do that. Thank you for everything my brother. As I arrived there I told the psychologist my story but didn't really mention that I think I have ADHD/ADD and focused more on the suicidal thoughts. He asked me if the thoughts are extremly or not and I said I only think about it when I want to focus and I am just not able to do it no matter how hard I try and that I'm thinking about it but that I am to strong to end my life. I also told him that the pressure to perform in school is supporting the suicidal thoughts and he offered me that I could go home if I promise him I wouldn't harm myself. He gave me a paper that released me from school for some weeks and I felt so much better for a while. He made a meeting for a outpatient psychologist and at first i visited her every 2 weeks. The time inbetween was a nightmare because I couldn't do anything else than lying in bed because everytime I tried to to something productive I felt sooo god damn bad because I couldn't focus at all that it always threw me back to suicidal thoughts. Session after session I told her everything. I met her 2-3 months and everything I did in this time was just staying at home doing nothing while I had such a pressure to be productive but I just couldn't. She told me that it is possible that I have ADD but that she can't diagnose it to me because she doesn't meet me often enough to observe the symtomps... That's why she told me that I should make a meeting at a day clinic. After that I met her only once a month without doing anything helpful there. In the end my brother prepared the meetings for the day clinic and now I am on a waiting list.
6 months passed when I stopped going to school. Nobody was able to tell me professionally what my defecits are and couldn't diagnose me ADD. I still don't know how long it will take until I get into the day clinic. I am very convinced that I have ADD and I have huge problems living with that and I am not able to get the medication I deserve. It's driving me crazy and I don't know what to do.
This post is very long and I am very sorry about that. That's why I hope somebody will manage to read that :D
Submitted March 03, 2021 at 10:14PM by xserhatx12
via reddit https://ift.tt/309w5L8
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Taylor Swift, Entering a New Era, Sticks to a Safe Space: Tumblr
For a megastar approaching the release of her latest blockbuster, Taylor Swift, the human, has been eerily quiet.
Yes, she’s put out four songs and two music videos from “Reputation,” her sixth album, out Friday, and her visage currently adorns a racecar and a promotional fleet of UPS trucks. But Ms. Swift hasn’t given an interview in 18 months, and she has performed in public only once this year, at a pre-Super Bowl event for a corporate partner. (She will be the musical guest on “Saturday Night Live” this weekend.)
Judging by the relatively reserved rollout for “Reputation,” it’s easy to assume that Ms. Swift is pulling a Beyoncé — communicating only strategically, if at all, and mostly letting the work speak for itself. That is, unless you know where to look.
“The general public has not seen much of Taylor, really, in the last year and a half,” said Caitlin Buckvold, 28, who along with her twin sister, Megan, runs a fan blog dedicated to the singer on Tumblr. “But we’ve seen a lot of Taylor. We interact with her on a daily basis.”
At perhaps the most fraught moment in her storied career — after a tense sexual assault trial and amid ceaseless celebrity beefs and internet dramas that threaten to overwhelm the music — Ms. Swift, 27, has recommitted to engaging with her most faithful followers, known as Swifties, cocooning herself in the vibrant, supportive community they have built on the social-media platform Tumblr.
The artist is far from just an observer: Since taking personal control of her official Tumblr page in 2014, Ms. Swift has “liked” some 27,000 posts, stoking hype for her new songs, registering support for fan theories and lyric interpretations and signaling that she remains an ever-watchful eye to her devoted listeners.
Even in an age of unprecedented connection between stars and their public on social media, Ms. Swift goes beyond typical interaction on Tumblr, a niche blogging platform that, with its multimedia flexibility, including images, GIFs and text posts, is conducive to obsessive fandoms. She follows some 5,000 blogs, where users can upload original creations or “re-blog” the work of others with or without adding their own two cents.
While Twitter, Facebook and Instagram have become largely promotional megaphones for the singer (outside of a few sly surprises), she has posted more than 100 times on her Tumblr since October, often re-blogging content from Swifties and adding her own commentary (typically including their first name and a string of excited emojis).
Ms. Swift also participates in inside jokes (ask a teenager about “no its becky”), dotes on pet cats and monitors the life events of her devotees, sending flowers and making breakup playlists for those in need. There’s even a term for her omnipresence on the platform: #Taylurking.
“This is how she knows the pulse of her fan base,” said Nate Auerbach, the former head of music strategy and outreach at Tumblr, who helped Ms. Swift join the platform ahead of the release of “1989,” her previous, Grammy-winning album.
Tatiana Simonian, the current head of entertainment partnerships at Tumblr, said: “She’s just not using it like a celebrity uses it,” and called Ms. Swift “a star who behaves like a fan on the platform — she’s a fan of her fans.”
By tending to her base with such bespoke dedication — and with the looming possibility of firsthand contact — Ms. Swift can breed loyalty in listeners while focusing on positive vibes only. She plucked hundreds of fans from social media to hear “Reputation” early, at Secret Sessions held at her homes in Rhode Island, Los Angeles, London and Nashville.
“Tumblr allows her to focus on the people who matter to her,” said Megan Chesney, 17, who blogs as ohtaylorswiift. “She gets to talk directly to her fans and eliminates all of that drama and excess hate on Twitter or Instagram.”
Ms. Chesney said she joined Tumblr because Ms. Swift did, and the singer followed her page about two years ago. Like most Swifties, she remembers exactly when and how many times Ms. Swift has interacted with her blog.
“It’s, like, crazily overwhelming because it’s just hard to believe that some iconic superstar celebrity decided to take time out of her day to make someone else’s day, even with a single emoji,” Ms. Chesney said in an interview during her school lunch.
Though the Taylor Swift Tumblr was originally set up as yet another online marketing vehicle, to be run by staffers, it was Ms. Swift’s decision to take the reins herself that made it a valuable resource. “Taylor here. I’m locking myself in my room and not leaving until I figure out how to use my Tumblr,” she wrote in September 2014, following in the footsteps of artists like Lorde and Frank Ocean, who were Tumblr users before they were famous.
“The impact was immediate and didn’t taper off,” Mr. Auerbach said, noting that few stars with Ms. Swift’s reach have really dived in and sustained such a presence. “She was learning about herself in the eyes of the fans,” he added. “No one did it like her. She was incredible at it.”
The generous, loose and jocular version of Ms. Swift that fans get on Tumblr can be a far cry from a public persona that some see as meticulously calculated and overbearing. On Monday, Ms. Swift was criticized in some corners after the ACLU of Northern California pushed back against a letter from Ms. Swift’s attorney demanding the takedown of a small-time blog post that linked the singer’s music to the alt-right and white supremacy.
While the ACLU called out Ms. Swift’s “intimidation tactics,” the topic spurred civil discussion on Tumblr. Wrote one fan: “I don’t think it’s too much to ask that you (not your attorneys) publicly denounce alt-right neo-nazis who take it upon themselves to use you, your lyrics, and the imagery in your music videos to bolster their disgusting beliefs.”
But many Swifties ultimately defended the singer. “Have people out there seriously not caught on to how taylor has decided this era to NOT interact with the media?” another user wrote. “She doesn’t want to give in and tell them where she stands politically. She’s done with them. And if she were to say something, we all know she’d still get torn apart anyway.”
Like Beyoncé’s BeyHive, Swifties can be rabid in their allegiance, especially in the virtual presence of their hands-on queen. (“Taylor always says that she sees everything and knows everyone and exactly what’s going on with her fans,” Ms. Chesney said.) This week, ahead of the release of “Reputation,” fans on Tumblr urged one another to be vigilant about reporting leaked music to the singer’s label and management team.
“They’re doing a lot of work for her in many ways,” said Linda Ryan Bengtsson, an assistant professor of media and communication studies at Karlstad University in Sweden. Ms. Bengtsson is currently conducting research on fan behavior across social media, with a focus on Swifties, whom she called “really loyal” and generally “very friendly and positive.”
She added, “They really lift each other and share each other,” often with the goal of reaching Ms. Swift’s field of vision.
“Everyone’s just helping each other out to get noticed by Taylor,” said Ani, 15, a high school student in Hong Kong who blogs as rosegardensthorns and asked that her last name be withheld because of college admissions.
“She followed me back in February and I freaked out,” Ani said. Months later, when Ms. Swift finally reposted a photo from her page, “I definitely cried in the metro station,” she said. “And then I showed my friend and she cried, too.”
Such gestures, executed in a public but largely unseen ecosystem, allow Ms. Swift to do good-natured brand maintenance and outreach without oversaturating a more skeptical general audience.
“She was very ubiquitous for a while there,” said the man behind the analyzingtaylor Tumblr, who writes under the name Matt to protect his professional prospects. “I just think that she knew it was time to not be as omnipresent as she was with 10 magazine covers and five different interviews.”
After all, Ms. Swift, at her best, has always been both sweet and savvy. “I think in 2017, you’ve got to appeal to your most die-hard fans, because they’re going to to do the promotion for you,” Matt said. “It’s a smarter way to go about business.”
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Self-Medication
A Kimi no Na wa/Your Name oneshot
Word count: 13K.
Green Tea
“So, what brings you here today?”
They’d already covered the simple stuff. Name, pleasantries, basic info. This Ueda ishi didn’t look how Mitsuha had imagined that a therapist would; her black hair was loose and her clothes were somewhat casual. Perhaps a bit bright for her age, which looked to be forty, pushing fifty. But, apparently, with only a half-hour to meet, she liked to get to work quickly.
Mitsuha quit trying to analyze Ueda ishi’s look and instead focused on the familiar scent of the freshly brewed green tea warming her hands, knowing that it was there to give her comfort and provide a homey atmosphere while she tried to formulate the best answer that she could provide.
“My friends suggested that I try speaking to a therapist,” Mitsuha admitted. “Since this is a free service that the University provides, I figured what’s the harm?”
The woman was looking at her with an implacable expression. Mitsuha knew that she was comparatively easy to read. Her whole body was tense, the epicenter being where she was hunched over her tea and clutching it like someone was trying to steal it. It was like she was aiming to make herself small enough for Ueda ishi to look right past her. She tried sitting up a little straighter.
“Are your friends concerned for you?”
Mitsuha blew on her tea a bit. “I’m not sure I’d say that they’re concerned but…maybe a little worried that I’m not happy.”
A touch of amusement warmed Ueda ishi’s expression. “So, concerned for your happiness?”
Mitsuha blushed. “Yes, I suppose so.”
“What kinds of things have they said?”
A daring sip of tea made Mitsuha’s lips and tongue tingle. She hid her face in the white cup as she said, “They think that I might have depression or, um, PTSD.”
Ueda ishi’s eyebrows rose as she wrote something down in her notebook. “Oh, really? Why’s that?”
Really, it was because Sayaka had decided to go and become a school counselor. When they’d all moved to Tokyo, their respective high schools had all set them up with a session of crisis counseling in case of emotional trauma. Mitsuha had found it uncomfortable—even more so than she did now—as she’d never been in that kind of situation before. Tessie, at the time, had been on her side as well. But Sayaka had loved it; it was how she had learned that she had anxiety. Now she wanted to be able to do the same for others.
And Mitsuha was her next project.
Sayaka had already been working for a few years and had volunteered back when she’d been in university. So it had taken her a good six years before she started going about diagnosing her friends. Mitsuha figured it was because Tessie and Sayaka had started dating. Now that they were all happy, they were hell-bent on getting Mitsuha out of her fabled funk.
Honestly, she wanted to as well. Not because she felt she was actually depressed, but because she desired answers. “Once in a while, when I wake up, I find myself crying. I can never recall the dream I must have had. We call them my ‘lost days’.”
“Lost days?”
Sayaka had coined that term. Mitsuha thought that it was an exaggeration, but she went along with it nevertheless. “Yes. The sensation that I’ve lost something lingers for a long time after I wake up. It affects my whole day,” Mitsuha admitted. “I manage to go to work, complete all of my tasks, but something feels missing. It possesses me.”
“Well, Miyamizu, I will say that that description is consistent with symptoms of depression,” Ueda ishi said as she brushed some of her gray-streaked hair back. Though, that isn’t to say that you necessarily have depression. But let’s go back. You say that you wake up crying?”
Mitsuha nodded. “It’s different from when I usually cry. Tears simply spill from my eyes. And it only seems to happen in the mornings.”
“And you suspect that it comes from dreams?”
“What else could it be?”
“You said that your friends have mentioned PTSD in addition to depression. Perhaps it could be the feelings of a repressed memory?”
Mitsuha frowned. To some degree, she had understood when Tessie and Sayaka had said that she might have depression. Mitsuha thought of herself as a generally positive person, but those lost days…well, they were suspicious. Mitsuha knew that they weren’t normal. But over the years, she’d grown used to them.
PTSD, though…Mitsuha was fairly certain that no one would suggest them unless they knew what Tessie and Sayaka did.
“I’ve never experienced anything particularly awful in my life,” Mitsuha said. “I don’t know what I could possibly be repressing.”
“Nothing from your youth? Perhaps something a little more out of reach than recent history? It could be something hard to admit.”
Something hard to admit…
Ueda ishi was looking at Mitsuha like she could see the truth hidden right behind her face. And Mitsuha knew that the longer she didn’t say it, the more suspicious of it Ueda ishi would be.
“Well, I don’t think that this is the cause of my problems, but I’m sure of why the idea of PTSD occurred to my friends.”
A smile grew on Ueda ishi’s face, like she felt as though they’d accomplished a minor breakthrough. “What’s that?”
Mitsuha looked in her teacup of yellow liquid, watching it swirl around as she rocked the cup in a slight circle. She would catch bits of her reflection in the tiny whirlpool and then they’d roll right past her.
“Well, seven years ago…”
Chocolate Pie
“Mitsuha, over here!”
Mitsuha’s head whipped in the direction of Tessie’s familiar voice as he waved her over to the stools he and Sayaka were perched on. Back in the day, Sayaka would have been embarrassed by Tessie shouting over the heads of a dozen other patrons in a café, but now she was just shaking her head to hide the fond smile on her face.
Then again, back in the day they never would have been at a café in the first place.
“Hi, guys,” Mitsuha said warmly as she took her sweater off and placed it on her lap. Tokyo was fairly mild come late April, but it was still chilly enough at night to warrant layers. “Did you order yet?”
“No, we were waiting for you,” Sayaka said as she handed Mitsuha a menu. “We couldn’t deny you the great pleasure of ordering your own dessert.”
Going out and ordering the fattiest, most saccharine foods they could was an awfully bad habit the three of them had picked up as soon as they’d moved to Tokyo. For their first year or two they had and sampled the local cafés whenever they could afford it. The practice was bad for their wallets and their waistlines—especially Mitsuha’s. Sayaka had filled out a little bit, but in the good way. And Tessie didn’t seem to indulge as much as the girls did, not to mention all the exercise he did—but it was too divine to skip.
Fortunately, by that point they had decided on a few favorites that they frequented. This one wasn’t Mitsuha’s personal favorite—hers was a little out of everyone’s price ranges—but they had really good pie, which Mitsuha was going to order the second the waiter appeared.
She didn’t have to wait long. Mitsuha gleefully ordered her chocolate pie and a coffee. She saw Tessie shaking his head at how obviously excited she was, but she didn’t care. This was, without a doubt, her favorite pastime.
“So, Mitsuha,” Sayaka smiled conspiratorially, “how’s therapy going?”
“Oh, Saya—Mitsuha, you don’t have to answer that.”
“Of course she doesn’t have to, but I thought I’d ask my friend a question about her life—”
“Just because you enjoy talking about therapy doesn’t mean that everyone’s going to be comfortable with it.”
Mitsuha couldn’t help but smile as her friends devolved into a full-on argument. They seemed to fight more after being together over a year than when they’d just been friends. Luckily, it always seemed to be good-natured. In fact, Mitsuha really thought that it showed their love for each other. So, Mitsuha sat back and mindlessly blotted off her lipstick in preparation for the pie that certainly had priority over makeup. Sayaka was getting through with blowing a raspberry before Mitsuha finally bothered interrupting.
“Thanks, Tessie, but it’s okay, really.” Her two friends calmed down and Sayaka shot Tessie a gratified expression. “Therapy is fine. In the last couple of sessions we’ve just talked about Itomori and my parents.”
“Do you feel like you’ve made any progress?”
A slight bit of hope was shining off Sayaka’s face. Some people’s faces hardened with time, becoming cold and untrusting. But Sayaka never seemed to outgrow the glimmers of naïveté that had always shone in her eyes. And it made Mitsuha so want to bring a smile to her face with good news.
“Well, I mean, it’s nice to talk about these things with someone. Working through the family stuff was, uh, nice. Um, it’s possible that I am depressed, but if so, she says that I handle it well. Uh,” she looked at Sayaka’s expectant face, “and that’s it. So far.”
She finished with a deflated shrug, happy when the waiter returned with a pot of coffee so that she could focus on that instead of Sayaka’s assured disappointment. She reached for some sugar to stir in. Coffee was always too bitter for her, but it was even more pronounced when it was accompanied with something really sweet. Like pie.
“So are you gonna keep going?”
Again, Sayaka was looking oh so hopeful while Tessie sat back disinterestedly, trying to cool down his coffee. At least, he looked disinterested, but Mitsuha caught him arching an eyebrow in her direction for just a moment before his eyes flitted back to his drink.
“Of course I’m going to keep going. Why wouldn’t I?”
“Well, you just don’t sound like you’re getting that much out of it.”
Mitsuha shrugged, not sure what she was supposed to say. “I mean, I’m not sure that I should be going in looking for answers. I’m not sure that there’s any specific reason why I feel the way that I feel. But it’s nice to have someone to talk to and add some insight. Plus,” she raised her mug as if in a toast, “it’s free.”
Tessie came to life as he raised his mug too. “Here, here!”
“Oh, good!” Sayaka cheered, livening instantly. “You know, I think that everyone should go to therapy on occasion whether something’s wrong or not.”
“We know,” Tessie groaned, rolling his eyes and sharing a look with Mitsuha.
Mitsuha laughed, trying to hide it behind her hand so Sayaka wouldn’t pout. Sayaka had said repeatedly that if Tessie ever proposed—and Mitsuha thought that he was putting it off just because of this—they would have to go to pre-marriage counseling.
The waiter was their saving grace at that moment, arriving with everyone’s wishes for the day, topped off with whipped cream. Mitsuha felt her own eyes glittering as her heart swelled with the kind of love that humans should only have for other people and not chocolate pie. As she lifted that first sweet morsel to her mouth, and she felt her lips puckering as she salivated at the sweetness, she wondered if it was possible for her to be depressed when she could get such joy from such simple pleasures.
Retail Therapy
University was kicking Mitsuha’s butt. She’d been so jealous of Tessie and Sayaka because they’d been able to breeze through university, like most students. But medical school was harder. It was without a doubt the most masochistic thing you could choose to do with your time after high school. Somewhere along the way she’d grown to look forward to her half-hour sessions, because they were a break in which she was fully allowed to not focus on finishing up her—hopefully—last year of school.
They had grown more comfortable over time. She’d had about a half-dozen of them and she no longer hid behind her mug, but rather just enjoyed the familiar tea. And Ueda ishi was growing to feel more like a friend than someone paid to listen to her issues. Especially since Mitsuha wasn’t doing the paying.
Mitsuha walked into the office at sat down, the pleather chair not nearly as comfortable in late-June as it had been in early-April. She was dressed in a short pink skirt and her legs were warm from being outside, so they instantly sealed themselves to the chair, promising to hurt when she ripped them up.
“Hello, Miyamizu,” Ueda ishi greeted as she set some hot water to boil. “How are you doing today?”
“I’m good; how are you?”
“Just fine, thanks.” Ueda ishi sat down in her chair and crossed her legs at the ankles, brushing down her knee-length skirt automatically. “And how was the rest of your week?”
“Uneventful, I suppose. Just work and school, mostly.”
“Still no lost days?”
“No.”
The electric kettle began to bubble and Ueda ishi stood up to pour the water. “No strange dreams?”
“None that I can recall.”
“None that you can recall…” Ueda ishi handed Mitsuha her saucer, which was happily accepted, before returning to her seat. “I find that dreams vanish very quickly after waking. The only way to catch them is to write them down immediately. I suggest that you keep a notebook and pen by your bed so that you can record what you remember. Even the slightest detail like an image or an emotion.”
Mitsuha nodded. “I can do that.”
Mitsuha went out that afternoon, intent on following Ueda ishi’s instructions. The fact that the instructions were fun was just a perk. Notebooks and stationary were beautiful and always fun to look at. Plus, it was just a little bit of indulgence without being as expensive as, say, buying a new dress or some shoes.
After some time absently browsing, she settled on a navy blue diary with shiny golden stars and a honey-colored moon on the cover. A few more weeks passed before Mitsuha could make use of it.
She woke up that morning with her knees up close to her chest and her pillow damp, as though she’d been crying for a while. She lay there for a moment, letting the tears dribble down her nose before she remembered that she was supposed to write down what had happened. She picked up the shiny new notebook and pen and realized that nothing was in her head. It felt completely empty, save for that tugging feeling of longing that she’d grown so familiar with over the last seven years.
All she could place on the page were the date and the last of her tears.
“Wow. And here I thought you were faking.”
Mitsuha nearly spit out her tea. “What?”
Ueda ishi laughed as Mitsuha tried to collect herself and keep from coughing up a lung. “I’m just kidding. I’m just surprised that we had to wait three months for one of these infamous days of yours.”
“I’m sure I said that they were only once in a while,” Mitsuha rasped. She cleared her throat and wiped away the tears from the corners of her eyes. “Sometimes they’re more frequent, sometimes they’re not for months.”
“I suppose you did say that,” Ueda ishi agreed. “Did you manage to recall a dream from this particular bout?”
Mitsuha shook her head. She hadn’t even bothered bringing her dream journal, since she hadn’t managed to put anything of substance in it. “No, nothing. I just woke up crying. As though I had been crying for a while.”
“And the lingering feeling you described…”
“Yes. I felt lost all day. I mean, even now, it still remains. Just not as strongly.”
She knew that the feeling would continue to ebb until the next dream. But it never went away entirely. Sometimes she felt that she had gotten quite good at overlooking it, but today, days after the dream, she was certain that it was still wringing her heart.
Tart
It was getting hot.
August in the city was not fun. At least out in the country there was plenty of tree cover, and grass to absorb the heat instead of buildings and cement that simply radiated it. Not to mention the promise of a huge lake that Mitsuha and her friends had loved splashing about in as kids.
No, August in the city was something else. Mitsuha had been dreaming her whole walk to the café of all of the frozen or iced drinks she could freeze herself with.
She’d finally decided on a frappuccino and a small fruit tart á la mode.
Mitsuha was absently sipping on the drink, trying to enjoy how cold it was before the air conditioning in the café made her regret it. She’d tuned out Tessie and Sayaka’s bickering; she didn’t even know if she’d done so on purpose or not.
“Mitsuha,” Tessie said, obviously not for the first time.
“Huh?” Mitsuha said, all but spitting her straw out of her mouth as she did so. “Sorry, what?”
“You just seem awfully quiet today,” Tessie replied gently.
“Oh.” Mitsuha supposed he was right. She’d been quiet all day. Ever since her last therapy session, actually. “I’ve just had a lot on my mind.”
“Like what?” Sayaka asked.
“I just…” Mitsuha paused, trying to figure out how to explain it. Maybe a question would work better. “Do you remember much about the comet?”
“The one that hit Itomori?” Tessie asked.
“No, the other one,” Sayaka jibbed sarcastically.
Tessie hardly acknowledged the comment, answering, “Yes, of course. How could we forget?”
“Do you remember how it was that we all ended up safe?”
“Of course,” Sayaka started. “There was an emergency dri…” Sayaka trailed off, eyes narrowing as a strange expression flickered in Mitsuha’s face. “That’s not right, is it?”
“Tessie?”
“Well, that’s definitely what was on all the news sites,” Tessie affirmed. “But why would your dad schedule a drill during the spring festival? That was that day, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, it was.”
“Mitsuha,” Sayaka interrupted. “What brings this all about?”
Mitsuha stabbed at her fruit tart, the ice cream finally at the optimal level of meltiness to start eating. “We circled around to Itomori in my sessions again. You know we’ve usually just talked about what happened after, because that’s when any, you know, psychological unrest would occur. But this time we were talking about how things were right before and I hardly remember.”
“Well, that’s not crazy,” Tessie reasoned. “It was seven years ago. Of course there’ll be gaps.”
“But I remember what happened after really well!”
“Sure. Because that was a time where you were going through a lot of new experiences.”
He had a point there. “Well, I also remember things that happened, like, ten years ago really well!” Somehow her argument sounded less convincing when she was saying it around a mouthful of glazed fruit and flakey crust.
“Only important or interesting experiences, though,” Tessie insisted. “Things were really ordinary before the comet. But I’m sure you remember the stand-outs still. Like, do you remember doing the ritual that year? That was only a few weeks before the comet, right?”
Mitsuha cringed, the food in her mouth suddenly feeling uncomfortable as she remembered the sensation of having to spit it out in front of a few dozen people. She swallowed heavily.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
Sayaka—who had been stealing sips of Tessie’s drink while he was arguing with Mitsuha—piped up, saying, “Let’s go back for a second. If you’re wondering what happened before the comet, why not ask your dad? Certainly he’d remember if it was a drill or not.”
“That,” Mitsuha started slowly, “is not a bad idea.”
With a smug expression on her face, Sayaka shrugged happily. “What can I say? I’m full of good ideas. Now enjoy your ice cream before it melts too much. You know these places frown upon you licking the plate.”
Mitsuha blushed.
Then, only to add insult to injury: “Which we all know from experience,” Tessie added.
Mitsuha hid her face behind her bangs as she reached for her drink. “I’ll ask my dad later,” she mumbled.
“Of course it’s normal not to remember everything in one’s life,” Ueda ishi said. “The only way otherwise would be to have an eidetic memory, and that’s little more than a myth of pop culture.”
Mitsuha nodded attentively. The semester was just about over and she wouldn’t be able to go in for session anymore until school started up again in October. So she wanted to make sure that she got all the answers she could before they went on hiatus.
Ueda ishi had been taken aback that Mitsuha had been carrying their last session with her all week. Especially about something that was so ordinary.
“Yes, I get that, I…understand that,” Mitsuha agreed. “But I feel like something’s missing. Like I should remember what happened in that period better.”
“You said you spoke to your friends about this?”
“And my family. No one was able to remember much more than me. Even my dad didn’t remember what happened just before the comet hit.”
Ueda ishi nodded, pressing her fingers to her cheek, making the fine lines around her eyes more pronounced. “Then you’re friends may be very right and there was little significant about the time before the comet hit. As for the day of, it’s possible that those events were overshadowed by the comet, or a surge in stress hormones overwhelmed the short-term memory, which is proven to happen. But again, all of this is perfectly normal.”
“Even the feeling that something’s missing?”
A hum escaped Ueda ishi’s mouth as she picked up her notepad. “That is interesting. You know what it sounds like?”
Mitsuha shook her head.
“It sounds like how you describe your lost days.”
Ueda ishi took a sip of her own tea, which was probably lukewarm by that point, looking over the rim at Mitsuha’s face. She was slightly slack-jawed and, if you looked closely, it seemed like you could see her thoughts flickering behind her eyes.
After a few silent moments, perhaps unnecessarily, Ueda ishi added, “Maybe they’re related.”
Booze
Mitsuha felt a weak buzzing trailing from her purse up its strap and onto her shoulder. She had a lot of things in there to muffle the device and, consequently, make it quite hard for Mitsuha to find. She was moments away from crouching down on the sidewalk and dumping out the contents of her bag when she finally touched the rubberized edge of her case.
“Hello?” she answered quickly, not even sparing a moment to look at the caller ID. She didn’t know how many times it had already rung and she didn’t want it going to voicemail.
“Mitsuha!”
Mitsuha’s eyes widened as she brought the phone a few inches away from her face. “Sayaka, you’re screaming,” she said with a laugh.
“Of course I’m screaming! Tessie proposed!”
“Oh my gosh!” Mitsuha noticed people on the street eying her strangely as the exclamation squealed out off her. “Sayaka! I’m so happy for you! For both of you! I want to know everything!”
“Thank you! So, we’re absolutely going out tonight and you’re coming with, okay?”
“I’m there!”
“Great! I’ll text you the details.”
“Okay!”
Mitsuha hung up the phone and put it back in the danger zone of her purse, a dopey smile on her face the whole time. Honestly, she shouldn’t have been surprised that Tessie had proposed—it had been a long time coming. But she supposed that no one could be fully prepared for something like that until it happened.
Then the smile seemed to sink a little. Slowly, the happy feeling pulling at her cheeks moved down her body, slithering around her heart a few times before landing coldly in her abdomen. It was the same kind of feeling that occurred sometimes when she would watch an American rom-com. The guy would get the girl through some over-handed gesture and some insipid pop song would play. Sometimes she loved those movies. And sometimes they made her…
Well, sad. And lonely.
And that made her feel guilty, and right then and there Mitsuha knew that she was gonna slap on a nice dress when she got home—to feel good about herself—put her braided chord around her neck as a choker—Yotsuha said it looked trendy and sexy—and get rip-roaring drunk.
For her friends. Of course.
Yomogi Dango
“So, here we are.”
“Here we are.”
“How are you feeling?”
Mitsuha looked down into her tea, wishing that it were a mocha or even some boba instead. Perhaps a nice hot chocolate, even though October was still a little warm for such an indulgence. Maybe a frozen hot chocolate? No, it was too cold for that…
“Miyamizu?”
“Oh,” Mitsuha said, slowly looking up to meet Ueda ishi’s kind eyes. “Um…it’s hard to explain.”
“Take your time.”
“Okay.” Mitsuha looked back at her drink. At least it smelled nice. Nothing decadent, but pleasantly familiar. “I guess I feel kind of heavy.”
“Weighed down?”
“Yes. It’s like time is moving slowly, but yet its passing right by me.”
“So, out of your control?”
Mitsuha nodded. “Very out of my control,” she whispered.
“That’s perfectly normal for people about to graduate,” Ueda ishi said. “Do you feel sad?”
A shrug. “I’m not sure. I’m not sure it’s active enough to be sad. It’s closer to nothing than sad.”
“An emptiness, perhaps?”
“A hole,” Mitsuha clarified. “Like there’s a hole inside of my stomach and the wind is just rushing right through it.”
“That’s a little more evocative.” Ueda ishi set her pad aside and leaned forward on her knees. “I’m starting to understand why your friends thought that therapy was for you.”
“It only took six months,” Mitsuha commented with a wry smile.
A chuckle. “Yes. Impressive. It’s interesting to see; this is quite a departure from your usual composition.”
Her friends had said that to her before about her lost days. But they’d also said that she’d seemed different ever since moving to Tokyo. But, in all fairness, a lot was different. It was only natural for her personality to adjust. Both of theirs had too, after all.
But she didn’t need her friends to tell her that she was different on these days. It was obvious from the second she woke up. Tears aside, for the whole day her heart ached. Or longed. For something. On the outside, her speech was slow and expressionless. Her face was expressionless. The effort to fake otherwise felt useless. Still…
“I’m not sure. Sometimes I think that too, but I more think that this is always a part of me and it’s just the bigger part on these days.”
“Interesting observation.”
It quickly became evident that Mitsuha had nothing else to say. She seemed altogether unwilling to speak unless answering a question.
“Miyamizu,” Ueda ishi began again, “before, it was more or less speculation, but now it seems relatively evident that you suffer from some sort of depression.”
Ueda ishi looked for some change of expression on Mitsuha’s face, but there was none. She was looking straight across the room into her eyes—a gesture that not many of her patients shared—but all that was there was dull resignation. As though she’d already known. Or didn’t care.
“There are about eight different kinds of depression distinguished as of right now. There’s overlap between all of them; some sufferers switch from one to another, some even suffer from multiple at the same time, depending on the diagnosis. Judging from what I know of you…”
Mitsuha did her best to listen attentively. She did want to know. After all, that’s why she’d started therapy in the first place. To figure out what was wrong with her.
A combination of Persistent Depressive Disorder and Atypical Depression. Strangely, having a name put to something didn’t make her feel better.
It kind of made her feel worse.
Ueda ishi had encouraged Mitsuha to list simple things that brought her happiness. Since her bouts of severe depression were relatively infrequent, there was a good chance that regimen changes on those days could help.
All Mitsuha knew was that she wanted to eat something sweet. If anything could improve her mood, it would be something that tasted awesome.
Mitsuha’s first impulse was to go to a café and get something smothered in either syrup, whipped cream, or powdered sugar. Or some combination thereof. But she never went to cafés without Sayaka or Tessie unless it was just to grab a cup of coffee. It was awkward to sit and eat alone. Plus, as expensive a habit as it was for the three of them to frequent cafés, it would be even worse for her to augment that by going alone as well.
So she’d probably go home and snack on some of the reserves she had in her cabinet; though she couldn’t decide if that was more sad than eating alone in a café or not.
Her thoughts were interrupted by her nose catching wind of something that piqued her interest.
A food stand.
Mitsuha caught sight of a man in a loose white shirt boiling some yomagi and putting it on a stick with some red bean paste. Well, it wasn’t as syrupy as her insatiable sweet tooth would have liked, but it did taste good.
And even better: it was right there.
Pills
Another lost day a few days later was what really hit hard.
“This has never happened before?”
Mitsuha shook her head despondently.
Sayaka was looking at her with such pity. Mitsuha hated to bring her down when Sayaka was so happily in engagement, but she didn’t have a session that day and she needed to talk to someone.
Well, she could have stayed in bed until she had to go to class, but it hardly seemed like the wise decision.
“Have you thought about medication?”
“No.”
Sayaka absently twisted her engagement ring around. “It’s really helped me. I don’t even want to think about how I’d be today if I hadn’t started with medication.”
Mitsuha managed a small smile. “I know. We were so happy for you.”
“Tessie and I would both be happy if you could get the same kind of thing.”
Mitsuha brushed her bangs out of the way and pressed her cold hands against her eyes. “I guess it’s just hard to admit you need help from something else.”
“I know,” Sayaka said, putting a hand on Mitsuha’s shoulder. “But it’s just a hump you have to get over before you’re on the other side.”
There was silence for a few moments as Mitsuha curled her fingers so that her eyes were uncovered, but her cheeks still rested on the palms of her hands. Her eyes were pulled down a little bit, and Sayaka staggered a bit at just how sad she looked.
“I’ll think about it.”
“Anti-depressants can take a few weeks before you start to notice a difference. It’s also common to have to try a few different anti-depressants before you find one that works for you. Think of it like dating.”
Mitsuha giggled, being in a moderately better mood than she had been in a few days before. “I’m not sure that’s a good metaphor for me personally, but I’ll take it.”
“Good enough for me,” Ueda ishi said as she wrote down the names of a few medications. “These are the ones I recommend in descending order. I can’t prescribe them to you, though; you’ll have to go to your general practitioner for that. Feel free to call if you have any questions before your next session, though.”
“I will, thank you,” Mitsuha replied as she took a picture of the paper on her phone before folding it and putting it in her bag.
“Since you haven’t been making much use out of your dream journal as of yet,” Ueda ishi began, “I suggest that you use it to keep track of your mood once you start the medication to keep track of any changes.”
“That’s a good idea.”
Ueda ishi bowed her head a little. She then leaned back, crossing one leg over the other and putting her hands on the notepad in her lap. “You are a peculiar subject, Miyamizu.”
Mitsuha blushed a little. “Why do you say that?”
“Well, you say you have had two major depressive episodes in the last week and yet today you seem fine. Almost cheerful.”
“That’s been the mystery,” Mitsuha offered with a shrug.
Mitsuha had been searching for diagnosis. Well, not diagnosis precisely, but answers. And if that was in the form of diagnosis, so be it.
When she’d finally gotten that answer, she’d told Sayaka and Tessie. Tessie, for one, hadn’t known how to react, until Mitsuha had been able to bolster the mood enough to convince him it was a good thing. Sayaka was quicker to jump on board, and shortly the three of them were celebrating with some depression dessert.
The excitement and novelty of a name, however, quickly wore off. Suddenly, every time Mitsuha was feeling unproductive or a twinge sad, she wondered if it was normal or if it was depression. If it was depression, than did that give her a good excuse to feel it, or should she be trying to shake it off?
It felt like a cloud constantly around her. A coat that she’d put on and wasn’t able to take off. And she wondered if she was worse for it.
But she was still functioning. She hadn’t had any grand bouts of depression since the last lost day and Ueda ishi said that was victory enough for the moment.
It was December before Mitsuha was able to record anything of substance. Ueda ishi had suggested the possibility of trying a different drug, but Mitsuha had been hesitant. Perhaps it was the uncertainty in starting anti-depressants hitting her a second time, but she hadn’t had any bad days yet and no real negative side effects, so she was worried that a new drug might be worse than this one.
Then, of course, came a day where she woke up in tears. She had no idea what to expect, and was almost a little nervous to see if her medication would make the day any easier or if it was to be as heavy as all the ones before.
When the day was done, she picked up that lovely blue notebook with its honey-colored moon and honey-colored pages and wrote her thoughts.
I usually report ‘lost days’ as weighed down or out of control…mostly like something’s missing. But today I didn’t really feel any of that? Not even like something was missing. Everything was more of a daze. Really, I just didn’t feel much at all. Not emptiness but just…nothing.
I suppose that’s improvement. It felt more like other days.
Sometimes she would catch sight of a random boy and feel a strange sensation. It had always been weird, because she didn’t even have to see their face or anything. The most cursory glance could send an odd awareness pinging through her body. It had been happening since she was a teenager.
Obviously, she was lonely.
She certainly hadn’t dated anyone back in Itomori. About a year back, Sayaka had laughed at the memory of Tessie’s “very obvious crush on her” but that had left Mitsuha stuck feeling like someone had pinched her coronary arteries off just for fun.
She had never noticed. Never ever, ever. But Sayaka—apparently to this day—made fun of him for it. “It’s funny how things ended up, huh?” Sayaka had said.
“Yeah, haha,” Mitsuha had agreed with choked off laughter.
Mitsuha supposed she could only be happy that it wasn’t a source of strain on their relationship.
As for boys in Tokyo…Well, she’d been too busy just trying to survive senior year when she’d first moved. Then there was surviving medical school, which she was still trying to do. Not to mention taking care of her grandmother and sister, and fostering a new relationship with her dad. Plus, she was too busy falling in love with her dream city of Tokyo—and all the cafés—to fall in love with any boys.
So she’d chosen her own path. But as she sat in her sessions talking about it with Ueda ishi, she realized that it was quite a lonely one.
Realizing that fact only served to make her lonelier.
It had been months since she’d passed a boy that made her body begin speaking for itself. Perhaps even over a year. It was an infrequent occurrence, and Mitsuha wondered if her medication would stave of those reminders of loneliness. She hadn’t been longing for male company hardly at all since she’d started the medication. So perhaps it was working?
All Mitsuha knew was that she was happy Ueda ishi had ruled out Seasonal Affective Disorder. Because when she walked outside, it was snowing.
Her grandmother needed some medicine and it wasn’t too long of a walk to the pharmacist. Yotsuha was busy with homework and her dad had work-work, so Mitsuha had volunteered. She hadn’t even considered the possibility of snow.
So she darted back inside, switched into her rain boots and grabbed an umbrella and went on her merry way.
Snow was almost a novelty in Tokyo. Mitsuha had lost her enchantment with it back in Itomori where it snowed with some frequency. There were hardly any fields to play in there, so it only caused sidewalks to become muddy and dangerous because you couldn’t see where the rocks were. If the snow got really high, you couldn’t even see the steps.
Usually snow in Tokyo made Mitsuha feel an itch of longing for Itomori. If they were lucky, it would snow once or twice in January, maybe February. Never in December. When it came upon them, she would watch as the snow fell, but never ever stuck. It always melted on the windows, at her feet, on her skin. The only place it could survive for a moment was in her hair or on her clothes.
This year, she didn’t much bother with it. She was glad that her rain boots were more than enough and that she didn’t need any extra cling on the concrete overpass. No snow, ice, or even puddles to make it slippery. Besides that, it was nothing more than a little change in the scenery.
Then she felt something.
A feeling that she hardly noticed, and then a harsh ache crashed down on her. All at once she knew that it was more than she had felt in a month and she froze, confused. It was a phantom sensation like she’d done something wrong, like she was guilty of something, but she couldn’t remember what. But the guilt lingered on anyway.
She felt compelled to turn around, but she only saw a boy in a suit walking away.
For a moment, she considered how cold he must have been. The snow had probably taken him by surprise too.
And then she wondered why she was even thinking about him in the first place, and she turned back around.
The tears didn’t come until she was almost at the end of the bridge. She wouldn’t have noticed them had it not been for the cold nearly freezing them on her face. She brushed them away with her scarf, confused, but choosing not to linger on it.
Her grandmother was waiting for her.
Mitsuha didn’t know what it was about fireworks. She’d always scrambled to watch them on TV with her parents and her grandmother. Her mother would be urging her to go to bed even though it was obvious she knew it wasn’t going to happen. Grandmother would doubtlessly tell a story about how much younger of a holiday New Year’s was in comparison to the small town celebrations of Itomori. Her dad would be getting out the champagne.
Then Yotsuha had been born and her parents were busier and more tired. Even Grandmother was getting too old to stay up with her. Then her mother had died and her father had left and holidays were never the same.
But watching the fireworks with Tessie and Sayaka was always something that she looked forward to. And she knew that they did as well.
They continued that tradition in Tokyo, finding a fun festival to join and often partying the night away until the new year began to crack on the horizon. Then it was time to go home and entirely sleep through the year’s first day.
This year, though. This year, as Mitsuha watched the fireworks shooting up into the air and splitting in fiery pieces, she was reminded of a comet cracking into fragments in the night sky. She didn’t know if that caused her to lose enchantment in them or gain it tenfold. Because at the same time that she couldn’t stop staring, she had no idea what it was that she was feeling. She only knew one thing.
It was a beautiful view.
Mitsuha could think of very few things—most involving food—that sounded more fun than the prospect of wedding dress shopping. She and Sayaka had dreamed of going to a fancy salon in Tokyo and trying on designer wedding dresses. Nothing in Itomori could even compare to the things they saw on their phones from Tokyo or—God forbid—Europe or America.
And here they were finally doing it.
Well, the salon wasn’t that fancy. Apparently there was a monetary reason why the dresses in Itomori didn’t compare.
After a lot of flip-flopping, Tessie and Sayaka had decided on somewhat of a fusion between a western and Shinto wedding—but with a western dress!—that would take place in Itomori. It was to take place in June, which meant that there was a little less than six months to get the dress. In other words…
It was crunch time.
“What about this one?”
Sayaka stepped out in a large tulle ball gown and Mitsuha couldn’t help but think that Sayaka looked like a large, heavily frosted cake. Not that that was entirely bad…
“Too much?”
Mitsuha smiled gently, wrinkling her nose and nodding her head. “Maybe try an a-line?”
“Coming up,” Sayaka said.
She was having fun. She really was. But maybe she’d built it up too much in her head since they were little girls. Because as much fun as this was, it just…wasn’t as much fun as she’d thought it would be. Or maybe she’d enjoy it more when it was her own wedding. Right now it was just a vicarious sort of fun and that isn’t as fun as one’s own fun, right?
Mitsuha tried to blink herself out of her thought spiral as she looked around at the frothy, bedazzled creations around her. They were beautiful. And they were gonna find the perfect dress for Sayaka. She was swearing that she was gonna lose three pounds before the wedding, but she didn’t need to.
If anyone needed to, it was Mitsuha. Ueda ishi had informed her that emotional eating was a thing and…well…
Well, it was a good thing the pills were making her less emotional.
“How about this one?”
Sayaka ripped open the curtain to her dressing room dramatically, a goofy smile on her face.
Mitsuha couldn’t help but gasp when she took in the dress. And, more importantly, Sayaka in the dress.
“Sayaka, it’s beautiful.”
“It kind of is, isn’t it?”
The dress had cap sleeves made of lace, which trailed most of the way down the skirt, where it tapered off in little tendrils onto light chiffon, hanging loosely all the way to a short train. And with the perfect pair of heels to make Sayaka less of a midget next to Tessie, it was perfect.
Mitsuha took in the joy on Sayaka’s face and was happy. Happy for her friend.
But a little deeper down, she wondered when she was going to be happy like that.
The time had finally come. Her eight years of school had finally culminated to this moment.
While Tessie and Sayaka had been able to goof off the whole time they’d been in university, Mitsuha had studied rigorously, passed truly difficult classes, failed even harder ones, and suffered a few setbacks in the last eight years all to prepare her for this.
If she passed, she’d be able to be a trainee, well on her way to a medical career.
If she failed…well, she supposed she’d just have to take it again next February.
But right now she wasn’t thinking about that. She was fighting to keep her mind focused. It had been so hard to study the past few months, harder than it usually was. But that was just because the stakes were higher.
Mitsuha twisted the braided chord in her hair around a finger as she waited for the tests to be handed out. She’d pulled her hair back the same way she’d done in high school to keep it out of her way. In recent years, she’d tried to get more creative with how she wore it, but she always liked to have it with her. Her grandmother seemed to talk more and more about the importance of musubi as she aged, and Mitsuha thought that maybe touching the chord brought her closer to something…important.
Somehow, when Mitsuha hadn’t been paying attention, a test had landed on her desk, and everyone else’s. And before she knew it…
“Begin.”
“Well, Miyamizu, I suppose this will be our last meeting.”
Mitsuha looked fondly at Ueda ishi. She was sitting cross-legged, weight heavily against her right hip as her left leg absently kicked at the air.
A few months back, Mitsuha had finally gotten up the nerve to pull legs into her chest, putting her feet on the nice pleather chair. She’d looked nervously at Ueda ishi at the time, but she’d only laughed. Now she did it without thought, as long as she wasn’t wearing a skirt. And it wasn’t warm enough yet for skirts, so her jeans did a fine job of covering her up.
“It is,” Mitsuha agreed, a surprising hint of dolor coloring her tone.
“I’m sorry that I haven’t been able to be of more help to you.”
Mitsuha cocked her head to one side. “What do you mean?”
“Well,” Ueda ishi took her notebook and flipped back through dozens of pages, “do you really feel any better than you did when you first started coming here?”
That question surprised Mitsuha. Her first impulse was to say yes, of course, but she supposed that the question deserved more thought.
The truth was, she wasn’t sure. She’d come looking for answers and she supposed that she had found some. Maybe not the kinds she’d been hoping for, but perhaps those were things that couldn’t be answered. Her medication had somewhat flattened the dips her mood took during the lost days; they more resembled her other days.
“I guess I do in some ways and I don’t in others,” Mitsuha answered, fully aware of her ambiguity. “At the very least, it’s been nice to have someone to work through everything with.”
“I’m glad for that,” Ueda ishi said with a bow of her head. “I hope that these sessions have provided you with some coping techniques and ways to consider the feelings that you go through so that you’re better equipped to handle things on your own.”
“I think they have.”
Ueda ishi began flipping through the notebook again, this time to the end. “I still suggest therapy if you’re going through a particularly challenging time. Since you’ll no longer be seeing me, here are a few names and numbers of people that I can whole-heartedly recommend.”
She scribbled down some info on the last page of the notebook before ripping it out and handing it to Mitsuha, who took it gratefully, straightening a leg and slipping it in her pocket. A part of her hoped that she wouldn’t have to go to therapy again, but at least she felt that if she had to face it again, it would be with more confidence. It wasn’t something to be nervous about. It was something to be grateful for.
“Although, if you would prefer to see me, you can call me anytime. But since you’re not at the school any longer, you’d have to pay!”
Ueda ishi said it with a burst of good humor that made Mitsuha laugh. “Given that I’d have to pay either way, I might take you up on that!”
“Alright. Now, one last piece of advice,” Ueda ishi said, sobering up a little as she set the notebook behind her, on her desk. “Keep track of how your medication is making you feel. If there comes a time that you feel it isn’t doing anything for you, or it’s doing more harm than good, talk to your doctor about your options. Okay?”
“Yes,” Mitsuha answered with a nod.
“Okay. Now that that’s done,” Ueda ishi got up to grab their last teas together, “let’s shoot the shit.”
Mitsuha laughed, a touch surprised, but pleasantly so.
“Sounds excellent.”
It was one of those perfect spring days. The first light pink flowers of spring had bloomed and were already beginning to fall, but now everything else was lush and verdant. It was a pleasantly warm day in April, so Mitsuha felt free to don a pair of capris, not having to worry that a chill would give her a flash of goosebumps—and therefore stubbles on her freshly shaved legs.
It was too bad she couldn’t enjoy it more. She was in a daze. Again.
She’d woken up crying, but the medication did a good job of dulling everything enough for her to get on with her day and go on her interview.
The best part of med school—aside from it being over—was being courted basically from your last or second to last year on by places looking for your employment. The world always needed more doctors. Mitsuha had been spending the last month…well, first waiting for her results, but after that she’d been looking at different places to begin her trainee program.
She knew that small towns in the country were the places most in need of doctors; a place like Itomori could really use her. But…as much as time and loss had made her nostalgic for the scenic town, she knew she’d literally hate herself if she moved back to the country. She loved the city. It had been her dream since she’d first became aware of all she was missing. Which had probably been when she’d been old enough to hold her head up and look at a TV.
No, she would definitely stay in the city. Besides, all her friends and family were here. It was just a matter of which hospital.
Fortunately, the one she was headed to was only a short train ride away and hardly any walking. Capitalizing on that, Mitsuha dared to wear some sensible heels to this interview.
Usually, Mitsuha liked to make good use of her commutes studying, reading, or at least messing around on her phone. But on days like these, even with the medication, it was hard to concentrate, so she could only really stare out the window, eyes unfocused.
Then, suddenly, everything sharpened.
She felt a surge in her body, eyes widening first, then posture shooting upwards. That boy…That boy!
That was as far as her thoughts went as her eyes began to water, just a bit. Then the boy, perhaps feeling the eyes of another on them, glanced her way before abruptly gasping. The world seemed to freeze for a second.
And then it started again.
Her train entered a tunnel and it took a few moments for her brain to catch up with her. She needed to get off the train.
She needed to get off the train!
She was in the middle of her car currently—the stop for the hospital was still a ways away—but she began pushing her way through to the door. She knew the next stop was only shortly after the tunnel and she needed to get off if she had any chance of finding him.
And damn it if she wasn’t going to find him.
She’d grown to know the city very well in the past eight years. Probably from all the exploring she, Tessie, and Sayaka had done searching for cafés. She remembered very little of that first time going to Tokyo, but she did remember how scared she’d been of navigating the public transport system. The most motorized thing she’d done by herself in Itomori was ride a bike.
Nevertheless, she couldn’t be sure what train he’d been on, what stop it was headed to, or even in exactly what direction it’d been going.
But direction was her best guess, so as soon as she got out of the terminal, she dashed off in the opposite direction of her own train.
It was all she could do to keep track of where she was going. Even the most innate city-dweller would be hard-pressed to identify their whereabouts as they blurred past you. She turned her head at every cross street to make sure that she hadn’t somehow turned herself around. And to check to see if he was there.
He never was, though.
She reached a staircase and was fully prepared to fly down it when she saw him dart around a corner. Calmly, he began to walk up the other staircase.
And then everything caught up with her.
She was getting blisters on her feet. The heels had not been a smart choice; they were now covered in dirty water, left over from the recent rain. She’d managed to splash water up her legs and even onto the cuffs of her capris. Even though it was a mild day out, the unexpected sprint had caused her to sweat nearly through her cardigan.
And she was supposed to be on her way to an interview miles away.
Furthermore, she didn’t know who this boy was, he didn’t know who she was, and yet here she’d been, prepared to make a fool of herself.
Closing her mouth, as she tried to hide the fact that she was heaving for breath, she began to descend the staircase, hoping that he’d let her pass and she could put this strange incident behind her before her interview.
And yet…hoping that maybe he wouldn’t.
Without her permission, that hope built as she walked down the stairs, and as he walked up them the other way. He didn’t seem to be breathing hard; maybe this stairwell was just close to his stop and he was on his way to work. That would be embarrassing.
Her hope built to an apex as less than a foot separated them.
And then he walked right past. And so did she. And she completely deflated.
And felt awful.
She hadn’t felt that bad since before she’d started on her medication. Usually it seemed to buffer her bad days but right now she felt stupid and mad at herself, but mostly sad. Terribly, terribly sad.
Then:
“Hey!”
She froze. She’d been so far in her thoughts that she hadn’t even seen the stairs in front of her. She wasn’t even sure that her brain had been controlling her legs going down them. But with that one word, it was like he’d reached into her mind and pulled her out of that quagmire.
“Haven’t we met?”
The hope swelled again. She turned around and his voice, his face, the hope made her tears come in buckets.
But they were different. Usually the tears that rolled down her face on those mornings came with an emotion that she couldn’t place, that was fading away from her. But now it was a different one, and it was bursting. In fact, it was all she could do to keep from laughing at the absurd mood-swing that her stomach was flip-flopping to.
“I thought so too!”
When he started crying too, everything made sense. Well, no, it still made no sense, probably even less sense that it did before. No, she felt validated. Like she wasn’t crazy for feeling the way she’d felt before. Like she wasn’t crazy for feeling the way she felt now. And like maybe those unanswerable questions just hadn’t been answered yet.
“Your name is?”
“Taki.”
“Mitsuha.”
They spoke at the same time, but nevertheless heard each other. “Mitsuha,” Taki said reverently as he slowly walked back down the stairs. “Mitsuha.”
“Taki-kun,” Mitsuha whispered, the honorific rolling off her tongue accidentally. She blushed, embarrassed that perhaps it was inappropriate, but he just smiled at her.
“I like it,” he said, seeming to read her thoughts. “Would you, um…”
Up until that moment, he had seemed perfectly confident. He had dared to turn around while she was about to keep walking away. But now she saw a hint of a blush arise on his tan skin as he scratched at his cheek awkwardly. “Would you what?” she asked, letting just a microtone of teasing into her voice.
He moved his hand to straighten his tie as he now avoided eye contact with her. “I was going to ask if you would like to maybe go somewhere, but I now realize that you’re probably already on your way somewhere, right?”
She’d totally forgotten about her interview. Again. There was still a possibility that she could make it on time but…suddenly she didn’t care. She’d already interviewed at a number of places. She still had a few more interviews set up. What would it hurt her to skip out on one?”
“Actually, I’m not but, ah…” A wave of embarrassment swooped up Mitsuha’s spine as she remembered her current state of disarray. Her stained pants and shoes, her sweaty shirt; truly today had not been the day to wear pastels. It was a miracle her hair hadn’t fallen out of its do. “I’d hate to have to accompany you looking like this.”
“You look beautiful.” He said it without skipping a beat.
Mitsuha’s brows raised in surprise. She thought she could see Taki’s own eyes widen at the admission as well, as though he hadn’t meant for it to come out.
“Er, uh, where would you like to go?”
Mitsuha smiled, a twinkle returning to her eye. “I actually know a café near here…”
Mitsuha looked at the bottle. She looked at the piece of paper to the left of it and the one to the right of it. Then she looked at the trashcan.
The paper to the left had a message that Yotsuha had written from the pharmacist, saying that she was due to pick up a fresh prescription. The paper on the right had the names and numbers of the psychiatrists Ueda ishi had recommended to her at their last session. The bottle was empty.
And she was considering leaving it that way.
It had only been about a month, but Mitsuha was feeling different. She was feeling happier. But she was noticing other things too.
She was foggy. It had been harder for her to focus on school and studying and she knew that her emotions weren’t all there. Not even the good ones. She’d hardly been a good maid of honor to Sayaka over the last few months and she hadn’t been able to bring forth much enthusiasm towards her friends for what was certainly the most exciting time in their lives. And she was only just now realizing this.
Because with Taki, that cloud seemed to fade away, and she remembered what she used to be like.
Sure, the lows had been lessened, but so had her highs. And she wasn’t sure that that was any good for her.
She’d always been able to manage her lost days. She’d told Ueda ishi that at her first session. They weren’t fun, but they were manageable, because she knew that she’d come out the other side the next day. And she was in a different place now than she’d been a year ago. She was a university graduate—and it was a long time coming!—having started her trainee program. She had a boyfriend and her best friends were getting married in a month.
Mitsuha wanted to experience those things fully. The good and the bad.
The bottle went in the trashcan.
Cakes
Okay, watching Sayaka search for the perfect wedding dress had been fun. Observing the bickering between Sayaka and Tessie—and all over a bit of facial scruff—was continuing to be fun.
But cake tasting was definitely the most fun.
“Hi, Mitsuha! So glad you could make it!”
“Oh, believe me; I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
Mitsuha had already heard the discussions—to put it lightly—between Sayaka and Tessie about the cake. Tessie thought they could save some money by doing it themselves or having someone in the family do it, but Sayaka had dragged him to a cake tasting anyway.
And that had quieted him right away.
But not for long.
“Neither would Sayaka,” Tessie said cheekily. “The only reason we’re having a second tasting is because she wanted more cake, not because she couldn’t decide.
“Untrue!”
“Okay,” Tessie agreed, although not without throwing Mitsuha a meaningful glance.
“Hmph.” Sayaka sat back, pouting and glaring at Tessie before turning it to Mitsuha. And then the expression morphed into one of sharp curiosity. “You look good.”
“What?” Mitsuha asked, taken aback by the abrupt shift. She fingered her hair and blushed a little at Sayaka’s increasingly discriminating eyes. A cake tasting was hardly something to get dolled up for. She was wearing a flared out skirt with a blousy top tucked into it and her hair was haphazardly tucked into its standard half-up half-down.
“You look really good,” Sayaka stated again. “What’s different?”
Then Tessie started to get in on the action. “You know, she’s right. Your eyes look…clearer. Somehow.”
“Oh. Well, I did go off my meds…”
“What?”
“Good for you!”
“Tessie!”
Sayaka was, once again, giving Tessie a sidelong glare. He threw her an exasperated look as he said, “Hey! If this is the way that she reacts to being off of them, then good for her! Not because meds are bad, but because, well, look how much better she looks now!”
“No, yes, that’s great.” Sayaka was sputtering, obviously struggling to get all her thoughts out coherently. “But you’re not going to therapy anymore. Did you talk to your doctor?”
“Um…” Mitsuha couldn’t help but look somewhat guilty. Like she’d been caught with her hands on her breasts in public. “No…”
“Mitsuha,” Sayaka chided. “It can be kind of dangerous to go off anti-depressants like that.”
Mitsuha sighed, feeling like she was talking to her father. Or rather, being talked at by her father. “I know you’re right. I’ll call Ueda ishi later. As soon as we’re done here.”
“Good.” Sayaka looked satisfied before abruptly reverting to looking sharply at Mitsuha’s face. “Seriously, you look great. Can that really just be from going off your meds?”
“W-Well, I have been feeling clearer lately…”
“Yeah, but it’s more than that…” Sayaka went in closely with no regard for personal space. Tessie, meanwhile, palmed his forehead, totally missing Mitsuha’s anxious eyes begging for help.
“What?” Mitsuha finally blurted, drawing away from Sayaka’s prying eyes.
Sayaka sat back, satisfied. “You’ve met a boy, haven’t you?”
“What?” Mitsuha and Tessie said in surprise. However, Mitsuha’s surprise was instantly taken over by embarrassment, untucking some hair from behind her ear so she could subtly hide her face.
Sayaka threw Tessie a look of gratification. “She’s met a boy.”
Tessie looked at Mitsuha with wide eyes, though she couldn’t tell if it was due to intrigue or concern. “Is that true? Or is Sayaka being crazy again?”
“Cr—Again‽ Tessie!”
Tessie put a hand out and Sayaka relented, simply because she was waiting for Mitsuha’s answer too. She could let Tessie have it later.
“Yes.”
The admission was meek, and Mitsuha instantly covered her face with her hands, trying to deflect her friends’ prying eyes. Their words, however, pierced right through.
“Who?”
“When?”
“Where?”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Yeah, why didn’t you tell us‽”
“Oh my gosh, you should bring him to the wedding!”
“What?”
“Stop!”
Mitsuha put her hands out towards both of her friends, reaching for their mouths to hush them up indefinitely. But they pulled out of her reach, nevertheless silent, so Mitsuha saw it as mission accomplished.
“How about I tell you all while we eat some delicious cake?”
Tessie and Sayaka looked at each other, trying to figure out if it was just a clever diversion—as cake would be the one thing to unify all of them—or if she actually planned to tell them.
“She will be happier if we’re eating,” Tessie whispered behind his hand.
“I will be too. Okay!” Sayaka agreed, the last word being directed towards Mitsuha. “You guys can try all of those other ones, because I’ve already decided on the French vanilla!”
Tessie groaned, dragging his hand down the scruff on his face. “That’s what I said ten minutes ago!”
“I know,” Sayaka said cheekily, sticking a forkful of cake in her mouth. “But no more bellyaching about it. It’s storytime.”
Whipped Cream
When Mitsuha had shared her love of cafés with Taki, he had been more than happy to indulge her. In fact, it turned out that he had a favorite of his own. When he led her to it, she recognized right away.
Which meant that she knew precisely how expensive it was.
The place was very rustic with strange wicker chairs that could have passed for patio furniture. But the exposed beams shone with light bursting from the bay windows. The place had character. And it certainly didn’t look like a place worthy of a costly price tag, but its menu options were unbelievable.
“I know this place is suffering from a bit of schizophrenia on what it’s trying to be, but I promise, it has the—”
“The best food! I know! This is my favorite café, Taki-kun!”
Mitsuha couldn’t hold back her excitement, even after all these years.
“Mine as well,” Taki said, almost matching her excitement. “My friends and I used to go here all the time in high school.”
“You’re so lucky.”
They found a seat and ordered. Mitsuha wanted to show some restraint, but—oh, who was she kidding?—she just couldn’t. So she got caramel apple pancakes with whipped cream. And a latte…with whipped cream.
Not too long into the lunch, her phone began to ring, buzzing its way all over the wooden table. Embarrassed, Mitsuha flipped the phone over without looking at the screen, the rubberized case helping to absorb some of the vibrations.
“You can answer that, you know,” Taki said.
“No, I wouldn’t want to be rude,” Mitsuha said, already embarrassed that Taki had gotten a salad and she was sitting across from him with her mountains of whipped fat. And sugar.
The phone buzzed again and for a moment, Mitsuha thought that it was going to start ringing again, but she quickly realized that whoever had called had left a message.
“You should listen to it,” Taki insisted. “It could be important.”
Figuring that it would be better to get it over with so they could move on, Mitsuha flipped her phone back forward and unlocked the screen, bringing up her message box. It was a voicemail from Ueda ishi. She hadn’t picked up when Mitsuha had called a few days earlier, so she must have only just gotten around to returning the message.
Mitsuha held the phone up to her ear and listened to the whole message before locking the phone again and putting it in her lap.
“Is everything okay?”
Blinking out it, Mitsuha looked back at Taki. He was looking at her with interest and concern. “It’s nothing.”
She regretted the words as soon as they came out. It felt unnatural to lie to him.
But it wasn’t really a lie. The message was nothing of his concern. It was the same response she would have given had her dad asked. Probably even if Yotsuha had asked.
Eh, definitely if Yotsuha had asked.
He was still looking at her, but the earnest expression was fading as he turned his attention back to his food, forking some leaves and sticking them in his mouth. “Okay,” he said after a moment.
Guilt-free. He wasn’t asking her for more; he seemed to trust that it was none of his business.
And that was good enough for her.
Except it wasn’t.
They made it through the meal, still enjoying each others’ company. Mitsuha managed to eat all of her pancakes and finish her drink, feeling quite satisfied, if slightly embarrassed. Taki asked if she’d like to go on a walk, and her heavy stomach very heartily agreed.
During their last few dates, Mitsuha had marveled at how comfortable their silence was. She’d never appreciated silence much, always seeing it as a bad sign when she was hanging out with people at school. It meant that you didn’t have enough in common or you weren’t interesting or, worst of all, no one wanted to talk to you. That’s why it was always such a comfort that she, Tessie, and Sayaka had always been able to chat about anything. And with the two of them now as verbal as they were with each other, Mitsuha didn’t even have to participate for a conversation to keep going for hours. Even that was comforting.
But just walking through Tokyo with Taki in silence—even though the warmth of spring didn’t take too long to become quite sweaty after a few minutes walking—was pleasant.
Not today, though.
It was eating at her. She knew that the feeling was coming from her response to his inquiry about the message, but that just seemed so trivial to be causing her so much discomfort. Still, it was only a matter of time before it became too much.
“It was my therapist,” Mitsuha blurted out before she realized what she was doing.
They’d been walking side by side, but Mitsuha had stopped, and was only barely resisting covering her face in shame. Taki was a pace or two in front of her and turned around, obviously confused.
“Huh?”
“That call. It was from my old therapist.”
“Oh,” Taki said simply, though not trivially. Mitsuha expected more, maybe some questions or something, but he didn’t seem like he was about to press. Nevertheless, she felt the need to spill her guts.
“I was on antidepressants. I quit taking them just a couple of weeks ago,” she admitted, her voice more muted that it had been at first admission. It wasn’t exactly the kind of thing she needed all the passersby to hear. She leaned against a railing, the black paint too warm against her bare legs. Taki followed suit. “My friend told me that I shouldn’t do that without professional guidance, so I gave her a call a few days ago. She just got back to me.”
“What did she say?”
“She said to go back to therapy if things go back downhill, but if they don’t, then it’s probable I made the right decision. I just have to be careful, I guess.”
They were silent for a minute and Mitsuha just focused on the warmth of the black bar against her thighs. The day was at the threshold temperature for her to be able to do this; any warmer and the heat would have been blistering. Still, she imagined that it must have been far more comfortable against Taki’s pant leg than on skin.
“So…antidepressants?”
“Yeah.”
He’d probably figured that she would continue her explanation. Honestly, she hadn’t expected that he would want to know anymore. They’d only been going out a month; was that really enough time spent together for him to be interested in her emotional baggage?
He turned to her, eyebrows raised in curiosity, but a tender look in his light eyes. “How long?”
Well, apparently yes, it was.
“Um,” Mitsuha had to think back, “only a few months. No, actually about six.”
Wow, she hadn’t realized it had been that long. Everything had just kind of blurred by…
“Okay…” Mitsuha noticed Taki shifting awkwardly out of the corner of her eye. He looked vaguely uncomfortable. Though it might have just been the heat; a bead of sweat was forming at his sideburn. “Um, you don’t have to tell me anything about what you’ve gone through if it’s, uh, too personal, but.”
“You want to know?”
“Uh…” Taki looked at her shyly, brushing back his hair from his forehead, trying to take some sweat with him. “Really, I feel like I can’t know you too well. Like I can’t know you closely enough.”
Mitsuha blushed, shifting her body a little bit away from him so he wouldn’t see. “Well, how do I say no to that?” She gestured forward with her head as she stood up. “Let’s keep walking.”
It was hard to summarize something that still felt so ambiguous. How long had she been depressed? Well…who knew? Eight years? Just the past seven months or so? Something in between? Was she actually depressed when she started therapy? Possibly…
So, she decided to show him.
Yotsuha had choir rehearsal on weekends, she knew, and her grandmother had gotten involved in some gardening club in the city. Since there were so few gardens, apparently it was necessary to get involved in a club if it was something you wanted to do.
So, Mitsuha was free to bring him into her house and it was only when she had led him all the way to the door to her room that she realized that maybe that wasn’t quite what she wanted to do. She stopped so abruptly that Taki nearly ran into her before awkwardly taking a few steps back. She turned to face him with a blush on her face.
“Maybe you should stay here. I’ll be right back.”
Taki seemed to be holding back a laugh. “I’ll be waiting.”
Mitsuha returned only a few moments later, creeping out a crack in her door before closing it all the way behind her. She might be baring some of her soul to Taki, but that didn’t mean she was ready for him to see her room yet.
“This is my journal,” Mitsuha said, presenting her navy blue notebook to him. “Or, rather, more of a log of sorts.”
Taki took it, holding it lightly on his fingertips, as though he wasn’t sure if he should be holding it or not. “Do you want me to read it?”
Did she? She reached back, pulling at the fringe of her braided chord. “Um, maybe we should read it together.”
She showed him a few key entries.
“That’s the worst of it,” she explained when they were done. “I’m not really sure how to explain the rest of it. But the pills did make the worst of it better. It just…made the best of it worse too.”
“I understand why you went off of them then,” Taki said, gently handing the diary back to its owner.
Mitsuha ran her hand over the indentations of the cover. The texture of the moon, the foil of the stars, the almost rubbery, soft feel of the black-blue sky. “I’ve been feeling better since being off them,” she said finally. “Honestly, I’ve been feeling better ever since I met you.”
The silence that followed made Mitsuha wonder if her admission had maybe been too much on top of the psychological revelations that had just occurred. But then Taki said something that instantly cleared any doubts.
“The same for me.”
Mitsuha’s eyes shot to his face, looking at him for the first time in a while. He was still looking down, a hint of sadness in his eyes, but the smile on his lips still seemed genuine. “You?”
Taki nodded, then shifted his gaze to the ceiling letting out a ripple of carefree laughter. “I’ve had days like that too. Waking up crying for no reason. It’s been happening to me for the past five years or so. I’m not sure I’d call it depression, but it’s been really hard.” He finally looked at her. “It’s felt like I’ve lost something.”
“And that you’ve been searching for it,” she whispered.
Taki cocked his head a little. “Or them.”
For the first time in a while, Mitsuha felt tears stinging the backs of her eyes and tried anxiously to blink them away, to no avail.
Taki laughed, putting a thumb up to her waterline to wipe them away. “Maybe that’s why you and I cried when we first met.”
Mitsuha grabbed his hand, caressing the palm with her thumb. “Maybe.”
They were content to sit like that for a little while. Mitsuha knew that she couldn’t expect her family to stay out of the house forever, though, and that she needed to be ending this date before her traditional grandmother came home.
“One more thing,” she murmured. Taki looked at her with warm eyes. “Are you doing anything a week from Saturday?”
Wedding Cake
“You’re from Itomori?”
“Mhmm.”
“The town that disappeared?”
Mitsuha was walking around the remains of her hometown, observing the destruction and chaos as well as the peace that had since taken over. New plants were growing at the edge of the crater and the larger lake glittered in the morning sunlight. Not a soul was around for miles.
Save for the two of them.
“That was my old school,” Mitsuha gestured towards probably the largest remaining building. It was sagging and decrepit, so ‘remaining’ was an iffy word, but it certainly was one of the largest pieces of evidence that man had ever been there. “Over there is where my house was and we used to have festivals down there.”
She continued to point out invisible memories with ease, but Taki lagged behind. When he’d asked Mitsuha where the wedding was taking place, she’d just said that it was their old town, out of the way from Tokyo. Obviously, she’d figured he wouldn’t know it by name, so why bother attaching one to it?
Apparently, she hadn’t noticed that everyone had heard of Itomori.
He’d staggered when he and Mitsuha had come to ‘town’ that morning in order to set up all of Sayaka’s requirements for the ceremony. They’d finished setting up, and Mitsuha had offered to show him around her hometown.
“It used to be quite beautiful,” Mitsuha said reverently, leaning against a tree, carefully, so as not to ruin her furisode. She’d already had to tie back the sleeves in order to be of any use in setting things up.
“It still is,” Taki said, finally joining her. “In a way that Tokyo never will be.”
Mitsuha scoffed. “Tokyo is still so much better.”
Taki drew back in surprise. “What?”
Throwing him a sassy smile, Mitsuha said, “I always hated it here. I couldn’t wait to move to Tokyo. The comet just made it come a little faster.”
“You don’t care that your whole town was destroyed?”
That brought a somberness to Mitsuha’s eyes. “Of course I care. But it feels dishonest to claim to miss something that you didn’t like back when it was around.”
“I suppose that’s fair.” Taki began kicking at some of the rocks, digging down to the dirt and uprooting small shoots. Having so much nature around was almost a kind of culture shock after living in Tokyo your whole life.
“Still,” Mitsuha sighed, looking out at the lake, “it’s nice to be back.”
Silence in Itomori was different than silence in Tokyo. In Tokyo, it consisted of the sounds of traffic and trains passing by. Maybe an alarm going off somewhere in the distance or a dog barking, and lots of muffled conversations from people at every angle.
But here…well, it still wasn’t silent, but it was quieter. All around were the sounds of bugs or leaves brushing up against each other when the wind hit. Taki bet that down by the lake there was the peaceful sound of water lapping as well. He could probably record all that and sell it as a sleep track online.
“You know, I’ve been here once.”
It was Mitsuha’s turn to look shocked. “What‽”
Taki chuckled, knowing that would be her reaction. For some reason, whenever a new thought occurred to him, he felt the need to share it with her. Like withholding any information from her was as unnatural as missing a whole night of sleep or having an arm spontaneously grow out of your back.
When Mitsuha had worked through all of her typical reactionary phases: surprise, skepticism, disbelief, and annoyance, Taki spoke again. “About five years ago.”
“Really?” Back to skepticism.
“Yes. Me and two of my friends.”
“Why?”
Mitsuha’s interest had pulled her off of her tree and she was looking at Taki with so much confusion that he couldn’t help but smile at how cute she looked. He shrugged. “I don’t remember. They left without me and I woke up on some mountain.” He looked around, trying to figure out which direction the mountain was, but the whole area was so hilly that he couldn’t even tell where they’d entered the town from.
Mitsuha laughed a bit. “That’s a strange story, Taki-kun.”
He scratched his head, “Heh, yeah, I guess it’s not much of a story after all.”
“It’s nice, though.”
Taki looked at her doubtfully. “Is it?”
Mitsuha smiled that wide smile off hers. She had such thin, pert lips, but they seemed to split across her face when she smiled fully. “It’s nice that our histories braid back that far.” She touched her chord, still in her hair, but now just an accessory to a fancy updo. “Musubi.”
“I’ve never thought about it much,” Taki mused, “but it seems that I should remember more from my trip here. I mean, we couldn’t have come here without a reason. It’s so out of the way. And try though I might, I can’t fathom what I could have been doing on that mountain.”
Mitsuha reached over and brushed his bangs out of his eyes. “I guess we both have some lost memories of our time here.”
“I guess so.” He smiled. “We have a lot in common.”
“And here I’d thought I’d never have anything in common with a handsome Tokyo boy,” Mitsuha said through that smile of hers.
“Handsome?” Taki asked, all kinds of teasing floating around in his voice.
Mitsuha shoved him away, continuing their walk through the nature and the debris. “Oh, please. With those eyes, you know you’re handsome.”
Taki pulled out his phone and looked at it. There might not have been any service or wifi for miles, but the clock still worked.
“Everyone else should be arriving soon,” he said, grabbing Mitsuha’s hand. “We should head back.”
He began walking back the way they���d come when he felt a tug on his arm. Mitsuha was looking at him with an eyebrow raised.
“What?”
“Do you know where you’re going?”
At that, Taki blushed and looked down. “No.”
“That’s what I thought,” Mitsuha said smugly, pulling ahead of him, keeping a tight grasp on his hand all the while.
The ceremony was, honestly, harshly bipolar in Mitsuha’s opinion.
Sayaka was in her beautiful, western lace and chiffon wedding dress and the boys were in tuxes while Mitsuha was in a furisode and her grandmother was in a kimono. Sayaka and Tessie were exchanging sake—thankfully, not the same kind that Mitsuha had experienced in her youth—but the ceremony was more like a western chapel wedding than a Shinto-style.
But it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she was right beside her best friend as she was marrying her other best friend. And that she was privy to a rare moment of them looking adoringly at each other, not a word of bickering on their lips.
After the ceremony was over, it was time for festivities. It was strange up on the flat in front of the school instead of down where the square had been, but it was the only large area of land around that hadn’t become overridden with plants and felled rocks.
But Mitsuha didn’t muse on that for too long. Because it was time for cake.
At their second cake testing, Sayaka had been true to her word and not let anyone else get so much of a nibble out of the French vanilla cake. And the other flavors had been to die for, so Mitsuha was practically drooling as she waited for it to come to her.
And then the moment of truth came.
Sayaka, having already gotten her piece, sidled up next to Mitsuha saying, “Oh my God, it’s even better then I remember it. This is what the dieting was for; not the dress, but so I can eat as much of this cake as I want and not be fat for my honeymoon.”
Mitsuha laughed. “You’re really building this cake up, Sayaka. I hope it delivers!”
An eyebrow arched, Sayaka said, “Oh, please; knowing you, you’ll like it even more than me!”
Anxiously, Mitsuha forked a sliver of the large wedge of cake that she’d gotten and lifted it to her mouth. And then she moaned. “Ugh, so good.”
Sayaka smiled, smug and satisfied.
Mitsuha liked things sweeter, more decadent than any of the rest of her friends. So, usually she had a different taste in desserts, even from Sayaka, but this cake. Yes, the taste was a soft, subtle vanilla, but the texture was so light it made you feel like you could eat it for days. But then the frosting was thick and sweet, so a little bit of it went a long way. When the wedge of cake somehow disappeared before it’s time, Mitsuha used her finger to wipe every bit of that white frosting off of the plate so none of it went to waste.
And then it was time for a second piece. A benefit to a small wedding: you’re able to go up for seconds. And thirds.
Meanwhile: behind them…
“I think they’ve forgotten all about us,” Taki said, having quickly made friends with Tessie, seeing as how they were the only boys there of even remotely the same age.
Tessie was stroking his chin. “And here I thought that she would be most excited over the fact that I finally shaved.”
“No contest for a bit of cake, I guess…”
Suddenly, Tessie stiffened. “You know, there’s a good possibility that this is the only reason she married me.”
“To have wedding cake?” Taki laughed. “That’s not true, man.”
Tessie looked at Taki darkly. “We only just met. You don’t know.”
“Well, I guess we’ll just have to see what happens when Mitsuha and I get married.”
That earned Taki a strong look from Tessie. Taki didn’t know him well enough to discern what the expression meant, though. “What are you talking about?”
Taki pulled a small box out of his pocket. He didn’t even need to open it for Tessie to know precisely what he was talking about.
“I’m doing it tonight.” Taki put the box back before the girls noticed—not that they were bound to while there was still some cake left.
“That’s kind of crazy,” Tessie said. “It’s only been a couple months.”
“I know,” Taki agreed. He looked around, admiring the increasingly familiar scenery. “But seems this is the right place for our story to really start.”
FIN
DISCLAIMER: I want to address some things that I couldn't make explicit within the story, because the characters didn't explicitly know. This is not a cautionary tale against medication. Medication is absolutely the right choice for some people, as we see in Sayaka. But it wasn't great for Mitsuha, because her condition wasn't actually depression; she didn't have the chemical imbalance in her brain that the pills were trying to correct, so the pills didn't help they way they should. They made things foggy for her—a common side-effect of anti-depressants—and lowered her sex drive. But, to complicate things, Mitsuha did develop a kind of depression or depression-like state, especially once taking the pills. We see this in a loss of satisfaction primarily, and inhibited emotional state. Even before the pills, being diagnosed with depression was confusing for Mitsuha, because she took it on as a label and then began to perceive everything she did and felt as relating to depression. This is not a caution against being diagnosed—diagnosis is good. False diagnosis is not good. And Mitsuha does suffer from somewhat of a misdiagnosis, to no fault of the fictional character of Dr. Ueda. (Therapy is also a good thing! It helps and hurts Mitsuha in this story, but really, therapy is good!) It is the fault of science fiction, which she was not trained to deal with, haha. Lastly, having a boyfriend is nice, but being in a relationship does not solve all problems and it certainly doesn't solve mental illness. To reiterate, the fact that Mitsuha's 'depression' vanished when Taki entered her life is the science fiction. Also, please don't self-medicate.
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Life at the moment
So, in my last post I set up some goals for myself. Now, the truth is that I quite rarely accomplish my goals, partially because I apparently tend to set them a bit high at times and partially because I have the patience of a gnat and am not good with long projects that require a lot of planning and time. (As attested to by my atrocious, still-not-finished thesis. It’s not the amount of work as it is really not much harder than my day job, it’s having the patience to keep at it, especially when it’s boring af.) This time I did surprisingly well, even though it didn’t go exactly as I had planned it out.
Firstly, I said I would find myself a therapist. The situation on that front took an unexpected but somewhat interesting turn that I find myself increasingly cool with. But let me start by saying that HOLY SHIT trying to find a therapist in Finland is a garbage process and someone really needs to get on that. First of all, you get no help, zip, nada, zero. You have to scour the internet yourself and try to weed out some candidates in a sea of lacking descriptions, lacking contact information, lacking everything. But I am adept at the internet, so I did.
I wrote ten therapists who seemed to somewhat fit my criteria (which were pretty much woman, CBT-leaning, experienced and available to take on new patients). Half of them never replied, three weren’t able to take on new patients even though their sites said they were, one was in the middle of some iffy moving arrangement that I didn’t feel like dealing with and the only one I actually met started the session by telling me how lackluster my prognosis was and then when I talked about my family she explained how she knows that although we’re so big on equality nowadays she always sees these mental health problems in families where the mother is more in control than the father, and I was like yeah. No.
So at this point I was like fuck me, this is hopeless. But then I had a chat with the psychologist that’s covered by my healthcare benefits at work, and she was like “you know, we just made a deal about what kind of healthcare will be covered by your employer this year, and they’re going to cover group therapy. I think that could work pretty well for your situation, would you be interested in it?” Now in the past I was socially awkward to a painful degree so I had always ruled out group therapy from the get-go, so my first instinct was to decline, but then I though about it some and changed my mind. Over the last few years I have found that I’m actually rather sociable, my social skills have improved considerably and opening up about my mental health issues to perfect strangers has never been an issue for me as I don’t keep that stuff secret anyway so I though hey, why not give it a shot.
So that’s what I’m doing. It’s still in it’s infancy, as I have only done the two initial interviews so far and not met the group yet, but I am feeling really good about it. The psychologist who will be running the group is very experienced and also quite nice as a person, I feel like she gets me and perhaps best of all, she has no problem with using hard science and medical terminology, which is immensely helpful to me. I don’t believe it’s healthy to be excessively focused on diagnosis since mental health is so complex and variable, but I find that having a label for some of the soup that is my mind helps me de-clutter and honestly makes me feel less like a crazy person. For example, I had realized that my constantly low mood probably isn’t normal and my intense health worries are rather obsessive, but hearing a professional actually say “PDD” and “OCD” sort of validates that the problem isn’t just that I’m a weird-ass dingbat and overreacting, I have some legit disorders and that isn’t my fault. (Which obviously doesn’t mean that I don’t need to do anything about them or that I can use them as an excuse for behaving like a shit, don’t worry, I’m not going down that route.) Her using the proper terms and not being vague and roundabout also makes me feel like I’m being treated like an adult and not babied, which is important to me since I really really hate being treated like I lack the ability to comprehend shit. So that’s where that’s at, and I’m feeling optimistic.
Secondly, I said I would resolve my existing vet bills, set aside some money for unexpected vet expenses, get older cat’s stomach under control and make sure the new cats have insurance. This I have mostly done. The bills are paid, and although I have not technically set aside a specific sum of money I now have a credit card that is reserved for unexpected vet bills only. I have not used it at all yet. Older cat’s stomach is still acting up some, it appears he has a bit of IBD, but the diet and medication has been re-vamped again and the situation has improved. And pet insurance has been added to my insurance package, although obviously it does not cover older cat due to the large amount of pre-existing conditions. But it covers the babies.
Third, the babies. That has been an interesting ride. I did adopt from a shelter as I said I would, but the cats ended up being a girl and a boy instead of two girls like I had planned, not that that matters much. The thing that went funny is the age. They were estimated to be around 6 months of age, and they were about the typical size for that age so I thought nothing of it. But when they had been with me for about a week I took the boy to the vet because he was peeing like 7 or 8 times a day which is quite often and I wanted to make sure he didn’t have a UTI. (Which he didn’t. Apparently he just has a small bladder.) Anyway, during the examination the vet checked his teeth and was like “yeah, this one is definitely like 1-2 years old rather than 6 months, his teeth are quite developed and really need a cleaning”. So he’s technically not a baby, and I need to have his teeth cleaned, but honestly that’s no biggie, shit happens. I was slightly peeved that the shelter hadn’t checked the teeth, that’s pretty routine, but they were very cooperative when I reported it to them and are even paying a part of the cost of the cleaning, so it’s all good. I don’t blame them for being mistaken about the age, because he is very small for an adult cat and the vet told me it’s actually rather difficult to determine a cat’s age. So we’re heading in for a teeth cleaning in about a week, and I’m taking the girl with me too so the vet can check whether her age estimate was more accurate (they are not from the same litter, they just lived together at one of the shelter volunteers’ place while looking for a home). She is growing a bunch though, which he doesn’t seem to be, so her estimate might be closer to the truth. And if it isn’t, whatever. They’re sweet, sterile, chipped, vaccinated and checked for FIV and FeLV, and that’s way more important than the age being bang on the mark.
The first weeks with the newbies have gone nicely. I will refer to them as girl kitty and boy kitty for now, since I guess at least for the boy, kitten wouldn’t be accurate and the girl is honestly already too big in size to be called a kitten because she really grows like a weed. Both have adjusted really well to their new environment despite being very shy at first. Older cat has taken well to them too and there has been almost zero conflict between them and him, I think he hissed at girl kitty like once when she was being too forward and that was it. Now they all sleep in the same bed and particularly girl kitty and older cat are becoming very close.
Girl kitty is still a little reserved towards people and you can’t really pick her up yet, but if you let her come to you on her own accord she is quite friendly and cuddly. She seems like she might become quite a big cat and has quite strong legs, so she jumps and climbs a lot. She’s quite playful, but a bit shy about playing with people. She’s constantly getting braver though, so I think she might be more people-loving in the future. (And if she isn’t, that’s fine too. Not every cat has to love sitting on your lap or being picked up, as long as it’s possible to handle them if they need to be given medicine or boxed up for travel it’s all dandy.)
Boy kitty on the other hand is quite a people-lover. He often rolls around on his back on the floor looking for cuddles and is fine with being picked up as well. He is not yet quite sure about sitting on your lap for more than a little while, but I have a feeling he might be the type to do that in the future. One thing he hasn’t quite comprehended yet is that people aren’t toys and don’t really like being nibbled on, even if the nibbles are obviously playful and definitely not bites. So I’m trying to teach him that, hopefully he’ll pick up on it. Boy kitty is extremely active and playful and will play with people, other cats, by himself, whatever works. He’s not as good a jumper as girl kitty but quite adept at climbing. He’s also a bit of a rascal and has already chewed a pair of my headphones and sometimes annoys girl kitty with his roughhousing. But in general they like each other quite well, they often sleep on top of each other and lick each other’s coats.
So that’s life at the moment. I still miss younger cat heaps, dream about her and cry about her regularly, but I think I’ll live. And older cat isn’t lonely anymore, which has done him good, so that’s a big relief.
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So uh Vaude died in last night’s dnd session and I wrote a thing bout it
"So we just got through fighting all the specters of battles past, including our greatest fears, and here we were. The final fight." Vaude wrote, then he stood up and loomed over the kids as if he were Strahd himself.
"I'm impressed you've made it this far," Vaude boomed, using Strahd's voice "I didn't think you'd make it, but this is as far as you go, but I'll offer you a choice. Leave. Leave Ravenloft and never come back, and I won't bother you anymore. You're free to live your lives. That...or this will be your grave!"
Vaude slumped back into his seat looking tired and worn, switching back to his normal way of communication, "Almost everyone said no. I, however...needed to think about it. Before I came to Barovia, I was just a weird half drow kid who couldn't talk and had to take care of his mom. After I went there, as miserable as it was, and as many times as I nearly died...I had found family, and who I was, and just maybe there was a chance to get back home, but I couldn't do that to myself. Not to my family, torn apart by a mad ruler; not to the other countless families that Strahd also ripped apart and tortured and killed, and turned to vampire spawn. And so, the fight began."
"Before any of us had the chance to act, for me...the fight was already over," He quickly stood up, and hoisted one of the kids by the armpits and took the facade of Strahd again; twirled the kid around and set them back down, “He grabbed me, and I was too weak to struggle out of his grasp, and like a scrap of paper, I was tossed off the balcony to fall 1000 feet to my death in the falls.”
Vaude decided to be a little superfluous and conjured an illusion to show just how high up they were, with a small Vaude falling in slow motion while Strahd confronted the party. The illusion switches, a smiling Strahd sneering down, two outstretched arms; the last thing Vaude saw before he was consumed by the mist.
Vaude swept his hands through the illusion dissolving it into mist before continuing, “And so I fell, and I fell, and I fell,” Vaude dropped back into his chair as he wrote the final fell, “I thought, ‘This is how it ends dying before even landing one hit.’ I had near given up hope, but something flew past me. Then again, it was trusty Dusty! We had once tried to kill each other, but here Dusty was, rescuing me from falling to death. But unfortunately that is not where our story ends.”
Vaude conjured the image of Kairos fighting Strahd, and how he imagined the fight must have gone. Kairos landing a powerful blow, but Strahd catches it, and while grinning, wrenches it out of Kairos’ grasp before tossing it over the edge as well. The illusion follows the sword as it falls, and as it does he shouts in Strahd’s voice, “Cover your eyes little ones.”
Vaude makes sure the younger children cover their eyes before continuing the scene. The Illusion shows Vaude, happy to have not fallen to his death, but his celebration cut short by a stroke of terrible luck, as an icy cold blade impales his chest.
“I still wasn’t dead. I don’t know how I wasn’t, I’m pretty sure that Kingslayer was buried to its hilt in my chest, but I wasn’t dead. I wish I had the thought of running away, normally I would’ve at this point. But my party; my friends were up there fighting that monster, and I had to help them. Also how would Kairos fight without his sword?” Vaude chuckled.
“We flew up, and up and up, and I came back in time to give Strahd a good shock, but shortly after Strahd grabbed Kairos, and sent him flying as well Elisabet jumped off after Kairos, a mad dive to save him I suppose. Strahd was going to throw Isil next, and I had to stop him! The others were busy fighting an amber golem, and couldn’t get past it to fight Strahd. Dusty and I flew up next to Strahd and I unleashed the strongest thunderwave I could, but Strahd is a monster and shrugged it off. Please avert your eyes for this next part, though if you must see I don’t blame you.” Vaude warned, the next scene wasn’t for the faint of heart.
The scene starts from Vaude’s point of view, electricity sparking from his fingers and Strahd who strides up next to Vaude and stops. Strahd smiles, a haunting smile as he grasps the hilt of the sword, and wrenches it up, and before Vaude hits the ground, the world fades to black.
“And so, I died.” Vaude ended
Some of the children had started crying about Vaude being dead, and Vaude jumped up to comfort them, “Come on come on, that wasn’t the end of the story; not yet.”
“All was black,” Vaude continued, “I had died, but then I heard a voice calling to me. Dear Elisabet!” Vaude gestures to the lady in question, scowling in the back, a wild grin on his face because he knew she hated this part.
Vaude sits up, his hands resting in his lap, “I didn’t know what happened after I died, but Elisabet was calling to me, so I answered, or to be accurate, I asked. I asked if we won, if Strahd was defeated, and he was! Elisabet told me that they dealt the final blow and Strahd dissolved into mist, but she had some bad news. She explained, that she could bring me back, cast revivify and be alive again, but it would come at a cost. The way I was killed, I was cut in half. I’d be all right.”
Vaude laughed at his bad joke and conjured a cartoony image of a small Vaude awkwardly leaning against Dusty trying to fight off vampire spawn.
“Elisabet left the choice to me. Now, I wasn’t fond of being dead. It sucks and frankly I’m terrified of it; but I also didn’t want to be a detriment to the party. To hold them back when the timing was crucial. With a heavy heart, I told Elisabet to tell the party I was proud of them, and that I’m glad to have met them, and that I love my dad and…” Vaude took a deep breath, “And that I’ll see them in ten days. Now, it looks like some of you have questions, like ‘Why 10 days?’ or ‘What would’ve happened to you?’ That’ll be a story for another day, but let’s say that after 10 days I would’ve found my way back, maybe in a different from what you know me as now.”
“But anyways, continuing on...turns out we had a rod of resurrection that everyone completely forgot about till after this super touching moment, which means we cried over nothing” Vaude laughs, “I didn’t have to be a quarter elf or a lich after all, I could be brought back in one piece.”
A quiet “wait a lich??” was murmured from one of the kids, Vaude put his finger to his mouth and winked, and he finished his story, “After they brought me back we made sure Strahd was really dead, and we had a close call with Grandpa Kassamir. Turns out dying and being dead runs in the family. So that was the story of how I died...the second time. “
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Us Two Taylors
In 5th grade, when I was 10 years old, my friends and I would run around on the playground, singing “Mary’s Song” and braiding each other’s hair. Back then, in 2007, I didn’t know who Taylor Swift was. I didn’t know that that was the start of my entire life being defined and expressed through her lyrics. All I knew was the story she told and the way she sang “oh my, my, my”.
In 6th grade, when I was 11 years old, my best friend Megan and I discovered “You Belong With Me”. It was the best thing I had ever heard. Nothing else compared. So naturally, we spent hours screaming it at the top of our lungs while jumping on her trampoline. We sat in her kitchen, watching Taylor’s music videos and discovering song after song that seemed to come straight from our own hearts.
The summer before 8th grade, when I was 12 years old, I went to a surprise party for my childhood friend, Caroline. I still remember all us treading water in her freezing cold pool - singing “Mine” with purple lips and laughter. I met a ton of girls that night who also loved Taylor Swift. I still follow them on instagram, and remember that night whenever their captions read “darling I’m a nightmare dressed like a daydream” or “I was riding shotgun with my hair undone in the front seat of his car”.
When I was 13 years old, I had my first semi-formal dance. The 8th grade snowball. At the end of the night my friends and I all danced in a circle, holding hands, and spinning around while “Enchanted” played. Thinking about middle school - our entire lives at the time - and the boys that stood in corners of the room, the ones who left us wonderstruck, dancing all the way home.
The summer before my sophomore year of high school, when I was 14 years old, my best friend Desiree and I made my mom get in the car, turn the radio on, and drive us around at the top of every hour, because our local radio station was playing “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”. I felt on top of the world. And I felt older and wiser.
When I was 15, and RED came out, that very same night I first heard it - I painted the lyrics to “Everything Has Changed” on my bedroom wall. To this day it’s still one of my favorite songs of all time.
The summer before my senior year of high school, when I was 16, I sat in the airport with my cousins. I was waiting for my flight home, sad to be leaving my best friends and starting school again too soon. It was almost time to head to my gate, tears were already pooling in our eyes. When we stopped dead in the middle of Dulles International and watched the song and music video release of “Shake It Off”. We were all shrieking over each other, screaming that Taylor had said “hella” and that her future music would be entirely pop.
That Halloween, when I was 17, my best friends Megan and Desiree and I, drove around blasting “1989” in the rain. I will never forget that night, and how I felt. Young. Infinite. Free. 1989 was the soundtrack to that feeling. The CD I listened to in the mornings on the way to school. The songs I requested at my last homecoming dance, when I heard “Shake It Off” playing and jumped out of my chair with so much momentum that I catapulted myself onto the cafeteria floor, dragging my friend Megan down with me. Megan and I still talk about that moment, how much we simply did not care that we were sprawled on the floor in dresses. We just knew we had to make it back up in time for the chorus.
The summer before I started college, when I was still 17, I finally got to see Taylor live in DC. My cousins and I spent a hot afternoon choreographing dances to 1989 in their pool. We made aprons that said “Bakers Gonna Bake”, it was July 13th, the tickets were for my cousin’s 13th birthday, we got off exit 13 to get to the arena, we left our waitress a $13 tip. Everything about it was magical.
At 18 years old, it was my first week of college. I heard someone on my dorm floor playing Taylor’s music, and I felt like I was right at home. Amongst all that newness, and feeling so out of place - all it took was another girl down the hall and the lyrics that had carried me that far in life already.
A couple months ago, at 19 years old, I woke up in my motel room on vacation in Cape Cod. I drove to see the sunrise at 5:00am, and blasted “Look What You Made Me Do”. I screamed and cried and FELT the differences in me since I had last FIRST heard a Taylor Swift song - at 17 years old.
“Ready For It” was released on my 20th birthday. The first thing I did that morning was listen to it on repeat while I showered and got ready for the start of my roaring twenties. And I’ve spent the last month and a half letting it define my Junior year of college.
Each of Taylor’s albums has shaped different eras of my life. From elementary school to college, she has grown with me, defined me, captioned my photos, been the background to crying sessions on my bedroom floor, been the playlist at my graduation party, the songs I would sing about boys I liked and about my very best friends. The CDs I got for Christmas, spending the day dancing around in my PJs with my sister, learning all the words to Speak Now. The songs I would sing in the car with my best friends, with boys, with my cousins. The words that I wrote across my heart a million times over.
I can look back at the complete catalog of Taylor’s music and see my own growth reflected back at me. Us two Taylors have gone from wide-eyed little girls, setting “Our Song” as my ringtone on my first cell phone, to women who don’t take shit from anyone. Who express themselves, and proclaim that the old Taylor is dead, who still have every other version of ourselves inside, from TS to 1989 and everything in between.
So @taylorswift,
Thank you. Thank you for being such a huge, undefinable piece of my life. You are irreplaceable.
With love,
Taylor
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A Typical Monday || Lucy
For awhile now Monday’s meant therapy for Lucy, and a lot of it. She started her morning with a narcotics anonymous meeting followed by an appointment with her psychiatrist, another NA meeting, a group therapy session, a relapse prevention class, another NA meeting and then finally an appointment with her therapist. This one had the potential to last multiple hours.
“There’s something bothering you today,” Joanna pointed out once Lucy had been sitting in the therapists office for a few minutes. Lucy shrugged. “Talk to me,” Joanna urged.
“I feel like a bad a person I guess.” She admitted.
“How come?”
Lucy played with her fingers, “I spent my entire relationship with Jared pining over Ian. I made Jared feel like he wasn’t enough for me and now that I’m with Ian I’m making him feel like I regret leaving Jared.”
“Do you regret leaving Jared?”
Lucy hesitated before she answered. With a shrug she said, “Some days.”
“Could you elaborate on how you feel on those days? What goes through your mind?”
This was her safe space and she knew she could talk to Joanna about anything without judgement but that didn’t mean there weren’t things she wasn’t ready or willing to say out loud. “Years ago I thought that Ian and I were going to be together forever and then he left me without a warning. It’s something that I’ve struggled with because if he loves me as much as he claims why would he leave? He wanted me and he had me and I was his, Joanna. Back then I was one million percent his. There wasn’t a thing in the world that would have broken us up. I never thought he would leave and he did and I had to figure out a new path. I admit that I resisted for awhile. I hated that Ian made me feel so bad about myself and I did what I had to do to feel better. It’s weird because half of my brain kept telling me to move on while the other half was telling me to hold out hope that Ian and I would figure it out.”
Lucy paused so Joanna said, “You two did figure it out.”
“We did, but at what cost? I destroyed the sweetest man in the world. He was the first person who took my mind off Ian for the first time since I met Ian. Well, unless things were bad between us. I would watch the way he would talk to his fans and his friends and his family and the way he genuinely cared. He would try to help anyone. He started Always Keep Fighting. I never thought he’d stop fighting when it came to me, to us. He knew I was sick when we started dating, he knew I had my problems. He promised to stand by me and in the end he turned to hate me. Now once again I’m sitting here thinking if he loved me as much as he claimed he wouldn’t have given up. He vowed for better or worse and when things turned to the worst he was done with me. It makes me feel even worse about myself than when Ian left. Ian and I are married now but he constantly worries I’m going to leave him and to be honest, sometimes I think that if Jared wanted to I’d go back to him. As much as I do love Ian there’s something missing. I’m fully prepared to stay with him, but I think I’m always going to miss Jared. I wish I would have gotten my shit together sooner so we could have worked things out. I really never wanted that marriage to end.”
Joanna wrote some things down as Lucy talked, “The marriage did end though. You’ve told me before that Jared had stated whether you filed for the divorce the marriage was over and if he felt that way before you filed then there really isn’t anything more you could have done. Marriage is supposed to be until death, but sometimes it’s hard for some people to keep themselves in a situation that’s hard for them. It sounds like you became a trigger for Jared, sucking him back down into a depression that he has to work through. Maybe he had to let the love he had for you go to save himself.”
Lucy looked out the window at a nearby bird, “I know. I filed for the divorce because I knew I was killing him. I knew that my attempt was harder on him than anyone, but the way he’s reacted ever since makes me angry. If the tables were turned and he was the one who attempted I would have been there by his side giving him more of my love, not pushing him away.”
“Not everyone handles a situation the same way.”
“I know.”
They stayed silent for a minute or two while Joanna wrote something else down. “Lucy, I want you to close your eyes and picture yourself living your life. You work, you come home, you take care of your daughters, you spend quality time with your husband, you go to sleep and wake up the next day to do it all again. Now I want you to fast forward through the years and picture your children graduating high school, getting married, you retiring from you job, becoming a grandparent and enjoying the later years of your life. Now you’re coming to the end of your life, maybe you’re sick and in the hospital and your husband, who has been with you on this journey of life is sitting next to you holding your hand, who is the husband you picture with you?”
Lucy began to cry when she was presented with the question. She didn’t want to open her eyes because she knew if she looked Joanna in the eye she might cry more. She took a moment to try to calm herself before saying, “Jared.”
“Why did you marry Ian then?”
She finally opened her eyes but she could feel herself getting upset again. “Because...” she started to sob. “...I changed paths...and I liked..I came to really...really...want it,” she was trying so hard to talk through her tears. “It...stopped being...an option. I had to...to...move on. Jared...told me to marry..Ian. If I can’t...be with Jared...I can’t picture myself...with anyone but Ian. I..do love him...he does...make me happy.”
Joanna handed her a tissue, “But he’s not your first choice.”
Lucy shook her head and wiped her face, “Not...anymore. I wanted to be with...him again. The whole time...I was with Jared...I kept thinking about it...I thought I’d be happier...but I spend a good...part of every day...crying over Jared...and if Ian knew...he’d probably leave...and I don’t wanna be alone.”
“Do you really think Ian would leave?”
She shrugged, trying to get her crying under control, “He said he wouldn’t. He said he was trying to deal with me grieving my relationship but I think one day he’s gonna do what Jared did. He’s gonna say that we’ve been together for too long for me to still be pining over my ex and he’s gonna get fed up and he’s going to leave too. Everyone leaves. I ruin every single relationship and everyone leaves.”
“If you keep expecting people to leave then they will.”
“Yeah, well, I expected them both to stay and they both left me. Ian didn’t even want to come back to me. I pushed and pushed until he left Sophie and if things don’t work out between us then all I did was hurt Ian again. He’ll probably go back to Sophie or find someone new and Jared has Katie and I’ll be alone.”
“There’s always the possibility you haven’t met the guy you’re meant to end up with.”
“No,” she shook her head, “I think I already have. It was always going to be Ian or Jared. “
“Being with someone because you can’t be with someone else isn’t fair to the person you’re with.”
“But I love him too.”
“I think you know by now that sometimes love isn’t everything.”
She signed, “I know.”
#self para#self#para#depression tw#[my grandmother isnt doing well and i have a lot of emotions today and needed something to do with them]#[sorry if this upsets anyone]
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mornin folks, got a new chapter of wild child for y’all
special thanks to stripe, who has actually worked as a tutor whereas i have not and fielded one question for me (also honorary shoutout to my sister who has also worked as a tutor, i did not ask her for any specific advice but i definitely thought of her as i was writing this)
(none of this means i actually wrote a realistic depiction of a tutor)
(1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 ao3)
"Bye Jessie!" John yelled to the bus driver as he leaped down the steps and flew towards home. The end of the school year was getting closer and closer, and just thinking about summer vacation made him leap for joy.
He checked the mailbox on his way up the driveway, but it was empty. No mail today, I guess. He burst through the front door, excited to have a whole afternoon of nothing he needed to do.
He stopped short at the sight of his dad and a black man he'd never met before sitting on the couch. He sheepishly shrugged off his backpack and closed the door a lot quieter than he'd opened it. "Oh, hi dad. Sorry about the uh, the door. Didn't think anyone would be home."
His dad chuckled and came over to give him a one-armed hug. "Welcome home, John. I'm glad to see you so excited." With his free arm, he gestured toward the stranger. "I'd like you to meet William Vileño. If the schedules work out, he'll be tutoring Jade this summer."
"Hello, John." Mr. Vileño stood and offered his hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you." He had a very calm, tenor voice.
"Uh, hi! Hi." John reached out to take his hand, pulled back to wipe his hand on his pants, and reached out again. He tried to give a firm handshake like his dad taught him. Mr. Vileño smiled, and John smiled back, feeling like he'd passed. "So uh, what'll you be teaching Jade? She's already way far ahead on science stuff."
Mr. Vileño chuckled. "Yes, your father mentioned she's an avid scientist. I'm more versed in history and social studies, so I would be helping her catch up in those regards. High school is an important time for developing those skills, after all."
Dad nodded. "Yes, her teachers should be able to teach her well once she has a proper foundation. After all, she's very quick to learn when she has some guidance."
"I look forward to working with her, then." Mr. Vileño said with a hearty laugh. "It'll be much better than when I was trying to motivate my classmates in college. Willing minds are always more encouraging."
Dad chuckled and sat back on the couch again. "I know exactly what you mean. My coworkers are very capable, but whenever we try to change our system to better optimize our workday, I feel some of them refuse just out of sheer stubbornness, and no amount of discussion will change their minds."
The two men kept talking like that back and forth so long that John went up to his room without either of them really noticing. If they got along that well, though, he'd probably make a really great tutor for Jade. Anybody his dad liked had to be a good person, after all.
It was weird sitting at one of these tables, Jade decided. She'd seen plenty of people sitting at them on her previous trips to the library, but most of the time she was either wandering around the bookshelves or sitting in some corner, not out in the middle of everything like this. It was okay, but still weird. At least she had Bec at her side. That helped.
Sharing her table was Mr. Vileño, her tutor for the summer in the things she needed to learn before she went to school with John. "Mr. Vileño still sounds a little weird to me, but you should probably get in the habit of calling your teachers by their last names," he explained. "They're much more used to it, after all."
Jade tilted her head a little. "You're not used to it?"
"No," he chuckled, "I'm only a few years out of college myself, so while I've been tutoring for a while, it's still something I'm adjusting to. It takes time to get used to new circumstances, after all, whether that be as simple as a name change or as chaotic as a change in government. For example," here he sat up a little straighter, "the United States of America didn't start out so united. We were originally a set of colonies from another country, England..."
Jade listened to Mr. Vileño outline the early history of the country she now lived in. He wove things together like a story, with complex people making decisions for complicated reasons. It was much easier to follow than her haphazard attempts at studying history on the internet, as he focused less on dates and more on the motivations behind every decision he described. Jade found the corners of her mouth had drifted upwards without her even realizing it. She felt calm and happy, listening to him. She could almost imagine she was listening to Grandpa telling her a story before bedtime.
When she thought about her grandpa, Jade felt her chest squeeze in pain and the space behind her eyes started to tickle with a sudden promise of tears. She focused on breathing and holding the tears back. Bec sat up and placed his head in her lap, thankfully keeping quiet. If she could just pretend nothing was wrong, she could get herself under control.
"Jade?" Mr. Vileño had stopped talking. Jade focused on him, willing her eyes to stay dry. "Are you okay? If you need to stop, we can -"
"No," Jade choked out. Her throat felt like it was trying to close up. She took a deep breath and spoke again, with a steadier voice this time. "No, I want to keep learning."
He looked at her for a long moment, and Jade was afraid he was going to stop his lesson anyway because she was too weak to do this, too caught up in things that shouldn't matter anymore. At last, though, he nodded and picked up where he'd left off. Jade curled her hand in Bec's neck and focused on Mr. Vileño's words, determined not to lose control again.
After history they moved on to a little essay writing, where Mr. Vileño explained the basic outline of an essay, and a little basic grammar so she could understand what her teachers were talking about if they mentioned things like gerunds. Seemed like a kind of useless word to her, but it did help her to keep her mind off what she couldn't think about. At the end of their session, Mr. Vileño smiled at Jade and told her "I look forward to our next lesson" with the same kind of feeling she got from John's dad whenever he told her something important. She thanked him and said she was too, and then she walked home from the library with Bec at her side.
"He really is nice, huh Bec?" Jade said quietly. Bec snuffed and softly headbutted her hand in agreement. "Really smart, too! He knew so much about the Revolutionary War and I barely aw him look at his notes." He'd promised to go over note-taking with her at some point - she'd collected notes on various scientific techniques and theories, but his looked a lot more organized than hers.
She kept talking to Bec as they walked home, telling him what Mr. Vileño had talked about so she could remember it better herself. She ignored the tickle behind her eyes that stubbornly wouldn't go away. It was useless to cry, after all.
She entered the Egbert house and went straight to her room. Mr. Egbert was moving some pots and pans around in the kitchen, but she couldn't see John. Still at school, maybe? She hadn't checked the clock in the library when she left.
In her room, she sat on her bed and gestured for Bec to join her. He jumped up and lay half on top of her, leaning into her hand as she ran it through his fur again and again. She focus on that movement for a few minutes, trying not to think about dangerous things. It almost worked.
Someone knocked on her door. "Who is it?" she asked.
"It's me," Mr. Egbert said. "Is it okay if I come in?"
Jade bit her lip lightly and looked at Bec for his advice. He looked up and rolled backwards onto the bed, which wasn't very clear. She gave it another few seconds' thought before she said, "Okay."
Mr. Egbert opened the door and took a couple steps in. "How did you first lesson go? Did you learn a lot?"
"Yes!" Jade sat up a little straighter. "He started to teach me how essays work, and we went over the labels for different kinds of words, and he told me about - " Jade swallowed hard, the memory of Mr. Vileño's voice bringing back what she was determined to ignore. "- about, um, the Revolutionary War," she trailed off.
Mr. Egbert nodded a little, but he didn't move back to the kitchen. Instead he stepped forward once and said, "That sounds like an excellent first lesson indeed." He paused, then continued. "Is there something else you'd like to say, though?"
Jade held back, not wanting to acknowledge the pain still squeezing in her chest. Mr. Egbert just stood there, though, quiet and still, and she couldn't take it anymore. "I miss Grandpa," she whispered as quietly as she could.
Mr. Egbert's arms lifted towards her a little, and Jade pushed off her bed and rammed into him, holding him tight like the last time she'd hugged Grandpa years ago. "Oh Jade," she heard him say quietly, and his arms settled lightly onto her shoulders as she squeezed his back, those traitorous tears finally escaping down her cheeks. She thought back to the nights of dancing and stories, the days of hunting and learning, and with every memory she pulled herself closer to Mr. Egbert.
Eventually her memories started to repeat, and her tears stopped running, and she slowly loosened her grip. Mr. Egbert didn't move until she took a small step back. When she did, he pulled his arms away, leaving one hand on her shoulder. "Jade," he said quietly, "I am here for you always, whatever you need. All you have to do is ask, okay?" Jade nodded. "Do you want to talk about it now?" She shook her head. "Okay. I'm going to go work on dinner, then, but if you need anything I'll be right back." He left her room, closing the door behind him.
Jade fell back on the bed and curled up with Bec, who licked the tears off her face. It still hurt a little to think about Grandpa, but less like poking an open wound than it had. Lying there with Bec, Jade almost felt normal again.
#wild child jade#also my horrendous handwriting actually almost did me in this time#took me the longest time to figure out i had written 'dancing'#didn't help i'd apparently written it as 'danicng'#handwritten typos are a lot more offputting than typed typos
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A spotlight on the demon
Here’s a poem from 2015:
Whether I am thrown a bone
expired years ago, or pressed
against a glass with little
room to move, I am
forever doomed to misfortune.
It’s nights like this
that I ponder on luck
and twiddle my thumbs
like I’ll get to lead. I
longed so hard I seemed
to mutter prayers -
now I curse my self-
destruction. Death’s release
is all I wanted and life
just ushers me out the
door but I’ve acquainted
myself with love and now
I’ve cultivated fear; I
no longer long for death but
the reasons to leave are
closing in.
I’ve always been one
to understand the
impersonal blows abstraction
swiftly throws, and glee
is oh too foreign to me.
My pet: the whimpers
I exhale when things
fall apart, the only
comfort: my self-pity.
Pathetic, I spew not
magnifying light and
the picking, picking,
picking, aching, itching
scabs, I don’t know
how to stop. I’ve been
one to cry alone and laugh
at my misfortune, but
misfortune has learned
to mimic laughter.
This is just one of my many old reflection poems where I attempt to describe the sickness within my head. I started documenting my work electronically around 2013, when I started drinking heavily and nursing the demon. When I think about how easy it was to throw away my dignity for a chance at attention during my teens, I can’t help but wonder why no one attempted to reach me. I fought myself every day, lied to everyone around me, fell face first into shit and laughed while others either pitied me or became disgusted with me. I cried hysterically until my face was swollen, cut my skin with dirty blades and gave myself infections. I threw “I love you” around carelessly, and when I heard it I lost myself and became grossly submissive. I severed the already distant relationship with my dad to the bone, and lived my life certain that I was temporary and that everyone was going to throw me away. Much of what I wrote after high school reflected the residue of guilt and disgust that was finally revealed to me.
Now I’m trying to gather the courage to share these thoughts at an open mic session, but I worry mental illness is a subject people are willing to sit through yet. I’ve struggled so much with my mental health, all my life I’ve known that I’m not okay. I wrote this poem 2 years ago, when I felt like I was getting a bit of a handle on my illness. It feels so surreal, to call it an illness. I can barely believe it myself that I am sick. There’s job applications asking if you’d wish to identify as having a disability. I didn’t know that having ADHD or bipolar disorder is a disability. I’m sure most people would disagree. It can’t be seen, unless it’s exploding. Mental illness is silent. It sits in the back of your head until you need to release the pressure building up inside your skull. Then it’s visible. For me, the demon showed in all the beers I chugged, the complete mess I became when asked to speak in class, the cuts I sliced on my skin, the rage in my eyes, the mania in my sobs, the scabs on my skin. It appeared on my twisted expression and reception of love. It showed in my fluctuating work ethic, in the abrupt way I quit jobs. Now that I have been diagnosed, I am more aware of when the storm is coming. Now I worry because I don’t know if the demon will wear a new mask.
I’ve worked so hard to stuff my thoughts within the pages of my notebook, deeply hidden where I don’t have to see them again, unless I’m feeling particularly masochistic. In a way, I am glad that I stuck to my journals and kept everything tangible. This helped me find the patterns in my behavior, and how, despite having reigned in some of the destructive behavior I had fully unleashed in my teens, these patterns were still affecting my life. Even in college, after losing contact with most of the people with whom I had unleashed, I still managed to eat away at my dignity.
I finally found the courage to seek professional help, mainly because quitting jobs or being anti-social will greatly affect my life as an adult. It took about a year and a half until someone could help me. Before that I saw a few quacks in El Paso, one in Juarez. My stepmom helped me get Prozac, but it didn’t help me at all. When I finally got health insurance, a NP prescribed an antidepressant that really helped me with my depression. The counselors I saw weren’t effective. I don’t think I needed to talk to anyone. None of the talks I did have were helpful. The last counselor I saw before moving here kept trying to diagnose me with all kinds of illnesses. She pulled out her handy dandy DSM book as I talked, and that wasn’t very reassuring. I stopped going to each of them. I moved here to Austin, found a PCP, and asked for psychiatric help. I was furious and exhausted when she gave me a number to a substance abuse clinic. Later she scheduled an appointment for me to see a psychiatrist.
I jumped through loophole after loophole for someone to listen. I believe the stigma surrounding mental illness is partly to blame. Within 2 months of having seen the psychiatrist, I was finally able to exhale. I can’t even begin to describe the difference residing within me. I stopped taking my antidepressant, so I do cry more often, but after I cry, I don’t feel like hurting myself. The most astounding change I’ve seen is the loss of my need to drink. This is something that complimented the monster. Now I can drink a beer without needing another one. I haven’t been drunk in so long. I won’t say I’m free. Mental illness doesn’t just disappear. But for the first time in my life, the demon isn’t driving.
#writing#poem#poetry#journey#mental illness#healing#bipolar disorder#ADHD#help#self love#heal#ramblings
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