Somewhere Near Here

ｇｒａｖｅｎｓｔｅｉｎ

chapter 3

g r a v e n s t e i n

Clara

It'd been three months since we first encountered the other. In the end, Connor found out the cause of my distress, and after some bickering, a few loudly beating hearts, and a reluctant promise of friendship, his number was keyed into my cell under the name 'Connie-boo'. (And, surprise surprise, mine was 'Clara-bear' on his. He'd said it sounded endearing but I told him we sounded like a lovesick couple. Which we clearly weren't.) We'd become closer since; he'd helped me unpack some of my things when I'd just moved (although really, all we did was mess about), and we'd gone out on more occasions than one.

My mother had loosened up a little with the rules she'd set, such as calling her everyday, but I was sure that I was never going to stick to them in the first place. (Because really, not going out could hardly be the slightest bit practical.) So that type of talk made up most of our call-time. The rest of our time spent talking was usually complete with endless chatter of new recipes, friendship trouble (because yes, at aged 46, my mother was quite the party animal), and various other one-sentence life lessons that she'd probably taken from an ancient philosopher.

"Yeah, it's all pretty good... yeah, I won't forget... got it... okay, okay... send my love, yeah? Yeah, love you too... No, I'm not coming back... we've already had this conversation!"

More muffled speech. I caught something like 'don't forget your glasses' followed by a 'if only you weren't so blind!'.

"Yes, yes. I won't forget. Promise. And I'll pretend you didn't call me blind. Again."

Pause.

"No. No... Ok, bye, mum."

I rested the phone next to the bathroom sink with a sigh, the animated tone in mum's voice still buzzing through my thoughts.

14:04.

I stared around and took it all in; the peeling paint in the corners of the cramped space; the emptiness of the place; the way stacks upon stacks of unpacked items gathered dust without a care in the world; the way I looked in the mirror, which was cracked in places; and how the ghost of a smile was beginning to fade.

So this was it. This was what it meant to be independent; free from the restrictions set by a guardian. Yet the excitement my body awaited did not come. Instead, a growing sense of dread sat comfortably in my stomach, and I felt the same old feeling of doom rise up in my throat. Fuck.

But then it began; it came in all its bone-crushing galore; shaking, shaking, shaking so damn hard.

My heart beat a little faster, but the ache of panic had not yet come around; instead, my vision misted as the not-so-tangible hands of terror placed its hands around the nape of my neck and threatened in a mantric rasp to take my breath away.

It quickened some more as the bile chased its way up my internal walls, and the impending instinct to vomit thrummed ceaselessly in the corners of my mind until my sight was null and all that flashed in the nihility before my eyes was fear, fear, fear.

And then the apex of the terror was over, but the pounding in the centre of my heart lingered as a sort of morbid reminder of myself; the presence of myself; the disgusting thing that was myself.

And, at last, breathing was no longer laboured; the gasps had evaporated with the slowing of my pulse, and the previous moment was but a trick of the mind, except in my head there was pounding; there was only pounding, accompanied by piteous cries, and fresh as a daisy at the back, the front, every goddamn iota of space in my mind, was the memory of it all.

I sat down, the dizzying shock of the moment ever-present in my train-wreck of thought. Breathe. Count 4, count 7, count 8. Study the lines on your palm. You're ok; you made it out alive. I followed the steps given by my therapist, wiping away the qualms that took on the embodiment of sweat in beads on my forehead, coalesced in the curves of my neck and the coves in my ears. Shakily, I inhaled, repeating the words over and over and over again in my head.

You are ok. You will be ok.

I picked up the bottle of water at my bedside and drained it until only an eighth remained. There. Safe and sound; doom's ten years away.

So I was fine; panicky, but fine all the same. I stood up and crossed the room, wincing at the clinical cleanliness of the place whilst hating how completely impersonal the things in the flat were to me, and grabbed the box of anti-depressants at the side of my bed. Then, having downed a pill-and-a-half with a mouthful of stale water, I curled up on the bed, but I did not sleep. I wasn't sure why, really.

Maybe it was because sleeping meant that tomorrow would come most definitely and that was what I wanted least. Tomorrow shouldn't have come. Tomorrow was always the root of everything. (God, how I hated tomorrow. I still do.)

Instead, I listened; I listened for the sound of loneliness and being alone and feeling so goddamn lonely.

It's like this: loneliness is not a single sound, but rather, any collection of sounds that surround you without noticing you. It doesn't know you're there, but you're so completely aware of it. That is the sound of loneliness - the sound of planes rumbling overhead; the sound of cars against the concrete; the sound of birds cooing from treetop homes; the sound of life around you that does not touch you. And, despite loathing this very sound with all my heart, I listened, because the music life around had to offer was better than the silence of plugged ears or the horror that was being left alone with my own mind and its sprawling complexity.