Heath was me. And I was Heath. It was the way it had always been.
“I need to text him,” I said. “I left in a bad way.”
The cop brought me home.
Good. I was hoping you’d go with him.
That was all he wrote. I watched the screen but nothing happened. Nothing changed. I texted again.
The ring is beautiful.
There was no answer.
Then, because once the crazy starts, you can’t seem to stop it, I typed again. What I wrote wasn’t fair. But I did it anyway.
I thought you were going to fight for me.
After a second, he responded. I left the war in Afghanistan. I think I’m done fighting battles I can’t win.
That was enough to destroy me all over again. I started crying, and Aubrey reached out and hugged me.
We both cried.
Who do you become when you’ve lost sight of who you are, but the false you isn’t one you can pretend to be anymore?
I didn’t know.
But I did know that I couldn’t do it, any of it.
I had already scaled back on going to meetings and art club and social events when I’d started dating Heath. Then I stopped entirely.
Now I stopped going to class, too. None of it seemed important. I couldn’t find the energy, couldn’t find the interest in my goals, the future. I lay in bed for two days, not showering, staring at the ceiling and despising my life. Eating leftover candy I’d bought discounted the day after Halloween, I shoved chocolate bar after chocolate bar in my mouth until I felt nauseous and like I might climb the walls of my self-imposed cage. I needed to escape. I needed to be outside.
Outside was the only place I didn’t feel stifled, desperate.
Forcing myself to get dressed, I wished there was enough snow to go cross country skiing, but there was only a smattering. Too much to jog, not enough to be useful. But once I hit the sidewalk, I didn’t care that it was dangerous to run in the slippery snow. I just ran, pumping my arms, wishing I hadn’t given up track in college.
The beautiful thing about Maine was that it was quiet in winter, like the sound of people got lost among the trees and the falling snow. Nature absorbed humans, was stronger than our personal impact. I felt completely isolated, yet less lonely than I had inside. My stride wasn’t familiar, it had been so long since I’d run for more than a short burst, but I found it after a few minutes, pushing myself steadily, wanting to run from the house, from the pain, from my mistakes, from my fear.
When I was a kid, the future had seemed to be a vast and promising question mark, where I could be anything, from a princess to president, as long as I believed in myself. Then as a teenager the future had meant nothing more than life outside of Vinalhaven, of achieving social acceptance and financial success. I had worked towards that doggedly after Heath left, but I no longer wanted it. The future now was the same yawning emptiness, but without hope, without happiness. It just… was.
Where would I go when the break came around? Where would I spend next summer? Where would I live if I gave up my room in the sorority house?
How would I survive knowing I’d had Heath and lost him, yet again? And this time, I had pushed him away? He owned my house and I had no idea what he would do with it.
Everything was crowding my head, and it felt like I’d taken a pen and viciously scribbled out my future. Start over. I wasn’t sure I was strong enough to do that.
I ran without knowing where I was going, then or in life. I ran, the only company the steady thump of my shoes, and the wheeze of my breath. I ran until I found myself at Heath’s apartment building.
Running up the stairs before I could change my mind, I knocked on his door.
There was no answer but I could hear the TV from inside, so I knew he was home. I knocked harder. “It’s me, Cat.”
Still nothing. I debated texting him, but what difference would that make? He was ignoring me and he could just ignore a text as well.
Wanting that cold hard door to swing open, wanting him to forgive me, wanting him to tell me I wasn’t crazy, that our love was something amazing and true, I smacked the door again with my fist, an urgent and childish attempt to get a response. “Heath! Please, it’s me. Let me in.”
I was crying and I felt so tired, so defeated.
When he still didn’t answer, and I swore I could actually hear him breathing on the other side of the door, I banged again and let out a cry of pure frustration. “Let me in!”
Sobbing, I slid down the door, ending up on the floor, my back against the metal, legs out in front of me. I was sitting in the damp my wet shoes had created on the carpet and I didn’t care.
He didn’t open the door.
And after a few minutes, I dragged myself off the ground, wiped my eyes and walked home.
But every day I I forced myself to stumble through my classes in total distraction and every night I ran.
I ran because I couldn’t stand still. I ran because I couldn’t be in my own space, in my own skin. I ran because I wasn’t ten anymore and nothing was simple. I ran because if I didn’t I would drive to Vinalhaven and throw myself off the edge, down onto the rocks. I ran because maybe if I ran I would figure out where I was going.
And every night I ran past Heath’s, though most nights I didn’t stop, I didn’t even look. Though twice I knocked on his door, and twice I hated myself for being so weak. He didn’t want to see me. He didn’t answer, and I needed to accept that.
But after six nights in a row, he texted me.
Please stop running alone at eleven at night. It’s dangerous.
I can’t stop.
It was true. If I stopped running, I would collapse. I needed the air, the space, to be where it was okay to be alone.
But I was glad he cared. Glad he had noticed what I was doing.
I ran myself to Thanksgiving. I put foot in front of foot until I found myself alone in the sorority house on Thanksgiving, everyone having gone home or out to dinner. Janice had invited me to her parents but I had declined, knowing I wasn’t good company. The snow had disappeared, being replaced by rain, and it was a gray, dismal day that matched my mood.
Lying on the couch in the lounge, I watched TV and ignored my grumbling stomach, ignoring the memories of the Thanksgiving before when I had been at Ethan’s parents’ house, in a warm house with delicious food and traditions that dated back three generations. I ignored the memory of the Thanksgiving my junior year in high school, when my mom had insisted on cooking a turkey, only she forgot to turn on the oven. When my father pointed it out, she had thrown a can of peas at him, catching him on the shoulder.