Broken Until Him

Chapter 34 ~ Signs

A month later...

'We often assume that shy people are extremely observant, somehow making up for the questions they want to ask but don't have the courage to express. I am not observant, at least, not as much as I'd like to. I did not see the signs for Hashley.

Maybe my brain saw them but did not have the tools to interpret them. Maybe Hashley wanted to protect me and tried her best to hide the signs.

We all feel the need to protect the persons we love. It's human. We want to see them suffer as little as possible because their suffering hurts us as well. We want to envelop them in the bubble wrap that is our reassuring words, creating this thick barrier between them and the ugliness of the world.

By doing this, we not only push the people further away from the truth, but we also put ourselves in even more complicated positions. We find ourselves alone with no one to rely on.

Lately, I've been seeing the signs when it comes to Nathan. I already knew something was wrong, but I can tell it has gotten worse over the past couple of weeks: the dark circles around his eyes, the weight loss, his absenteeism... The last time we went out, he left in the middle of our date with no explanation but the fact that it was an emergency. And then for the next three days, I have not heard from him. Whenever I try to talk to him about what is wrong, he brushes it off, changing the subject.

I can't help him, he decided to envelop me with a thick layer of bubble wrap with no way to escape. The signs that he needs support and help are here, flickering over his head. Yet, he won't let me find the switch to turn them off.'

"Well, this is the end of our third session Jade," Dr. Drian says as he closes his notebook and pushes up his glasses up his long nose. "I know you may not see it, but you are making progress here. I will see you next week."

"Thank you, Dr. Drian. Goodbye," I smile politely as I retrieve my bag from the floor and exit his office.

Each time I leave a therapy session, I feel heavy, like I'm drowning yet I still fight to get some air. It's tiring. And after each session, I want to quit and lock myself up in my bedroom. But I can't, I promised my parent I would do this for myself, for my own mental health. And as the doctor told me, it will get easier only if I talk about my problems.I started therapy three weeks ago.

I had another anxiety attack after Hannah's voicemail and my parents freak out so much my mother started crying. I don't remember much of it, it felt like my brain had disconnected from my body. I slept for fifteen hours after that. I remember when I woke up, Nathan was there. He was sitting on my bed next to me, his hand caressing my hair gently. My father had to leave for an emergency at work and my mother was at the grocery store. She didn't want to leave me alone, so when Nathan stopped by the house for the tenth time in order to talk to me, she let him in. He even ate dinner with us.

I did not come back on my words though. We need a break. Although I know this is clearly against the "let's take a break" rules, we went out a couple of times on dates. Nathan didn't have to insist much to convince me to go out with him. But it's more like two close friends hanging out together, we don't touch, don't kiss and don't show our love with gestures. We don't spend as much time together as we used to, we hang out together at school, with Nathan's friend but that's it. No more sleepovers. And although Nathan was completely against the idea at first, he seems to have gotten used to it, almost too much in my opinion. But I know it's not fair of me to think that way, I can't expect him to still have these small attentions toward me when I clearly asked him not to. It's was hard at first, to not kiss him, take his hand, touch his face. But we are having this break in order to preserve the possibility of an "us" in the future.