Exit Wounds

20 | sad girl summer

T W E N T Y

LOS ANGELES, CA

          It takes everything in me to avoid resuming my sobbing session on the plane.

          Like I did last week—which honestly feels like forever ago, with everything I've put myself and others through during the past few days—I'm all covered up just in case, hoodie and baseball cap over my head to help conceal my identity on the off chance I'm recognized while flying economically.

          Realistically, I don't think I'm well known enough to the point of being recognized in this context and I don't think anyone cares, either, but it's better than risking a public meltdown. I've already endangered my reputation enough, and I'm nothing without it and the safety blanket it provides me.

          Sadie leaves me alone during most of the flight, giving me as much room to wallow in my misery as she's physically capable of, but there's only so much sniffling and shaking she can ignore until it becomes unbearable. The reality of what I've done and the consequences of my decision are beginning to dawn on me, now that it's been a few hours and I have nothing to distract myself with, not even the vast selection of entertainment on the back of the chair in front of me. All the coping strategies I've developed throughout the years have mysteriously vanished and all it took was a week in Los Angeles. Lovely.

          I went to Los Angeles and all I got was a revival of my trauma. It's not the type of t-shirt you can buy as a souvenir, but, then again, neither is what Adam did to me and the ways he continues to affect me to this day.

          "Do you need water?" Sadie asks, curling her fingers around my wrist to try and steady me while I feel like there's such a thing as an airborne earthquake. It's just the plane soaring through the sky, moving through the clouds, and these slight oscillations are to be expected, but I feel so on edge that the terrifying sensation that the plane will inevitably crash is overwhelming me. "Something sugary?"

          "Would you be sad if I died?"

          Her eyes briefly narrow. "Should I be concerned about this?"

          "It's a hypothetical question. I'd be devastated if you died, because that's what friends do. I can get another publicist, but I can't get another Sadie Choi."

          She scoffs. "Good to know you haven't fully lost your spark."

          I don't know if she realizes how truly appreciative I am of that comment or of the way she instinctively reaches out towards me to physically ground me in reality, but, if I wasn't feeling utterly miserable, I'd be hugging her. Sadie Choi hates physical displays of affection (I legitimately have no idea, to this day, how she survives being engaged to someone), so I don't do it, but she's the common ground between the two versions of myself I've been forcing myself to acknowledge.

          All that ruin I was convinced I'd unleash upon Adam, upon my mother, hell, even upon Michelle, has only ended up backfiring. It's not a rational thought and I'm stuck in my anxious mindset, my thoughts being tainted by the fear of what will happen to me if something catastrophic comes to fruition, but it also feels impossible to challenge these feelings because they're mine. They feel safe in a way—a sick, twisted way—and that's how anxiety usually works, convincing you it just wants to keep you safe and far, far away from danger, but Adam is dangerous.

          I don't want to be consumed by obsessive thoughts about what can happen the moment he finds out I've been running my mouth to Michelle and to my father, not to mention the criminal charges. He's bound to be notified and, if the case moves forward and he fights me for the right to decide which version of reality is valid and acceptable, I'm bound to see him again. Nothing could ever prepare me for seeing him this week, even though I was deeply aware of it being almost a certainty considering how close to my family he's always been, but it would be even worse to face him in a legal setting considering our history with it.