Tread

August 17

I give up the pretense of successfully dealing with any and all of my shit on my birthday. I've gone from forced happiness to irritated to furious to apathetic and finally settled on sad. I'm really sad. It's why I sit in a chair at my university's Help Center with an inquisitive physiatrist across from me.

Dr. Stella looks exactly the same even after three years. Same overly large muscles that he squeezes into wrinkled button-down shirts, which he pairs with an ornate vest, dark jeans, and black cowboy boots the same color and shine as his hair. I never know what look he's hoping for but he somehow manages a cross between football quarterback, hipster, and biker.

Three years since I've seen Stella and nothing's changed.

"Didn't expect to see you back here, Rai," Stella murmurs as he snatches the whistling electric kettle off the hot plate and pours the water over loose tea leaves in the strainer of a teapot.

"Me either."

The tea steeps in the ensuing silence, and Stella raises a brow at the cup he placed in front of me when I entered his office. "It's Chamomile."

"Thanks."

The smell warms me as he pours a cup for me and then himself, pushing stirrers and sugar packets closer toward me as he lifts the black and red Michigan mug to his nose and inhales. A memory of Leo asking if I want tea reflects on the light brown surface of the drink, mocking me, only to be replaced with an image of my grandmother slapping me clear across the face for serving her with my left hand. Instinctively, I stroke my thumb over the spot where the tea burned me, remembering the years it took before the mark wasn't noticeable.

"Should I wish you a happy birthday?" Stella asks around a sip.

"If you want."

"And what do you want, Rai?" He sets the cup down and gives me his undivided attention. "Why are you here today?"

"I feel like I'm just treading water, trying not to drown. Just barely," I say without preamble, word vomit that's been bouncing around my head for weeks, "Like I've made some of the worst mistakes of my life this summer." And the best.

He nods for me to continue when I stop. "I—I fell in love. I let my friends down. I walked away from a relationship with my father." I swallow, pushing the words out of my throat, "It's like everything inside me opened wide and hasn't been able to close. Love and pain and all the messy stuff in-between. I've cried more times this summer than I have in my entire life. I've laughed more than I have in years. I've felt the full weight of all the decisions I made and didn't make gnaw at me. And I'm here to figure out how to reign myself back in."

"Why?"

"Because school is starting soon and I can't be an emotionally hot mess. Too many people need me."

"You can't be everything to everyone." Stella leans forward, putting his elbows on his knees, glasses fogging up from the tea's steam. He removes them, wiping the lenses with the edge of his wrinkled shirt. "But what do you need?"

"I need help." I feel like shit for saying it out loud. My father would bite his tongue off and choke before saying the words and my mother would cheer me on for admitting them. Duality constantly rages inside me except when I'm with Leo. With him there is just me. Of course my neurosis comes with that, but it doesn't overwhelm the relationship, doesn't pick at everything that is good until there are only bones left. It isn't that I feel the safest with Leo, it's that I feel myself with him. Perfectly flawed. Whatever piece of myself I give to him he never takes for granted, never shuns or dismisses. Somewhere over the course of a few weeks Leo has gone from stranger to lover to confidant, and I lost all of that and more—everything we could have been.

"What are you thinking about?" Stella asks.

"Leo." I tilt my head and look straight into his eyes. "And my friend. Kate's dad had two strokes close together and I missed it. I blamed it on Leo, but the first was earlier than the start of our relationship, and even during our time together I knew something was going on with Kate. I blamed our relationship for blindsiding me. A part of me even blames my relationship for finally forcing me to stand up to my father and lose an entire part of myself because I knew he'd never accept me. I blamed Leo when the stuff that was happening around us had always been there and wasn't a catalyst because I decided to sleep with a guy. But hindsight is always twenty-twenty, right?"

I laugh harshly and wipe away tears. "At the time, I thought I was just pushing him away because I was leaving, but there was so much underneath that. Like a giant fucking zit coming to a head and exploding all over my life. I love him. I miss him. But I was such a see-you-next-Tuesday that I have no clue how to reach out to him. All I want to do is pick up the phone and hear his voice, have his arms around me, get back to a space that lets me be exactly who I want to be."

"And who is that?"

"A 22 year-old college student with a lot of issues she manages, but none that consume her."

"Not the worst place to be."

"So help me get back there," I plead, not sure what I'm asking for, but knowing Stella is the only one who can give me what I need.

"Rai," he starts slowly, "Why did you come here today?"

"Didn't I just answer that?" I snap angrily. "I need help."

"You don't need help," he says matter-of-factly, a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips. "All you've done is lay out the pieces of a puzzle and asked me to finish it for you. But you have to do that yourself, Rai. I think you already know what you want to do, now the question is: What are you going to do?"

And there it was, the thing I needed to hear but really wanted to ignore. Stella never gave me answers; he helped me find the ones laying right in front of me, the ones I was too stubborn or sad or angry to confront. I was good with limbo, fine going in circles and feeling shitty and dealing with none of it. Then why are you at Stella's? For the first time in a long time, I contemplate getting an icepick and shoving it in my brain just to shut up my snarky little voice. Bitch is right. Always right.

What am I going to do?

I left Leo; did what I thought I needed to do over what I wanted; pitted the two against each other without even considering that want and need could be mutually exclusive as long as I did something to make it possible.

But all that was thinking. Forcing my subconscious to run laps around an activity I wasn't yet ready to do. With Leo I tried so hard not to think, tried to do and feel and be. Be different. Be myself without the heavy burden of pleasing anyone because there was no one around who I cared about, only one man that I was growing to care for.

Stella's touch is light on my arm, drawing me out of myself. "Rai?"

"I—" I start before realizing there's nothing to say, no path stretching out in front of me that I'm going to follow. It's terrifying and thrilling, but I try not to over analyze about it. Not overthinking worked wonders for me and Leo, maybe I should test it out on in this part of my life.

My shoulders begin to shake as a laugh bubbles up from my diaphragm, escaping in a fit. I snort loudly before it dissolves into a tired sigh. "Que sera, sera, Stella." What will be, will be.