Adam's List(46)
“Jesus! No! I told you I broke up with Levi. Seriously. Give me some credit!”
Mom crosses her arms, pressing her lips together. “What about that Adam boy?”
“Mom, he’s a friend.”
My dad sits taller, his shoulders terse. “Should we be concerned?”
“No!” I say, holding my hands out. “God, you guys always assume the worst!”
“So this doesn’t have anything to do with a boy?” Mom asks, raising her eyebrows.
They’re both watching me closely, waiting for a nervous tick or guilty expression to give me away. And just like that, I know there’s no way they’ll agree to this trip with someone my dad hasn’t even met. Not after my breakdown. Not after my mom found me the other day at my worst, and discovered that I hadn’t been taking my pills. I’m just lucky they’re letting me continue living on the other side of town and not locking me away like I’m too fragile to share with the world.
A heavy stone drops into my stomach.
My parents have been overprotective for as long as I can remember, walking me down the block to meet the bus up until I was twelve, calling the parents of kids who bullied me in middle school, refusing to buy me a car because I didn’t get a perfect score on my driver’s test, making me wear a helmet in my early teens whenever I rode my mountain bike. I was surprised when they dropped their guard to let me date Jason for so long. The chance of them agreeing to let me go on a trip with a total stranger is non-existent.
I slump into the empty chair next to my dad, feeling like I’m ten years old. “I just want to talk to you guys about this summer. Mom, I know you already have a job waiting for me, but Kelly offered me a job working at her family’s camp up north. My advisor said it would be an excellent addition to my resume if I decide to go into childhood education.”
The lie summons a million pins and needles of guilt, but it’s the only way.
NINE
As I first battled my depression, I had the emotional equivalency of a melted M&M. I was hard on the outside, and a gooey mess underneath. I crawled into bed with no intention of getting back out. My mom worked the first couple of days, thinking I had the flu and calling to check on me every couple of hours. When I stopped answering her calls and refused to get out of bed, or eat, or do virtually anything, she took off from work and put all her energy into making me function again. But it didn’t work. By the fourth day, she called Dr. Klein and he recommended an emergency commitment.
Things happened during my stay in the hospital that I wasn’t prepared for. I don’t know that anyone could prepare for their sanity to quite suddenly fall under constant scrutiny. I had to strip down in front of a female nurse and let her search me for hidden weapons. I was placed in a locked ward with people who ranged from psychotic to completely withdrawn. An old man who looked perfectly sane snapped during lunch and lunged at me with a plastic butter knife. A young woman with shifty eyes ran around during group time screaming, “Give me back my baby! Who took my goddamned baby?” My assigned roommate, a middle aged woman who tried to overdose on aspirin, constantly stared at me in my sleep. I nearly had a heart attack the first morning when I flipped my eyes open to find her two feet away, crouched beside my bed.
The reality that I was being treated as one of those crazy people I was surrounded by was enough for me to snap out of my funk and prove to the hospital’s psychiatrist that I was functioning enough to be back on my own. By the end of the third day, I was released back to my parents.
My mom insisted that I commute to school from home for two solid months after I returned. Word must’ve gotten out that I was committed as people I knew at school seemed to go out of their way to avoid interacting with me. Kelly and my roommate Sarah were the only two who treated me the same, as if nothing had happened. Kelly’s the only one who never asked how I was feeling, or if I was okay. She knew I wasn’t, and she knew I had to deal with it on my own terms.
Preparing to go somewhere without my bestie at my side really begins to sink in as I organize for the trip. Our dorm room resembles the aftermath of a tornado since we’ve started packing. It takes hours of swearing and tossing things aside to pick my things out from the remains. It’s a relief to box my textbooks up, knowing finals are behind me and that I did fairly well after studying with Adam. I assured my parents that I did well enough to warrant a nice-sized bonus check for what they called my “summer adventures.” If they only knew.
Minutes before Adam is scheduled to arrive, Kelly helps me drag my stuff down to the curb. The smell of freshly cut grass mixed with the warm sun outside makes me giddy with promises of what’s to come. Campus has become a flurry of students ready to get the hell out of town and start summer. If I weren’t going on this trip, I’d most likely be avoiding all the madness with Kelly somewhere far off campus. We weave our way through disgruntled parents obviously helping their freshmen move back home for the first time.