I didn't ever have a bedtime. I ate whatever the hell I wanted, even if that meant an entire box of sugar cereal for dinner. I didn't even know what a dentist was until I was ten and my uncle had brief care of me and did those normal things with me- doctor, dentist, eye exam, the works. I never learned anything about basic human civility when I was at her side.
And, well, the fact that she would breeze into Navesink Bank, drop me off and then leave without me only to show up weeks or months or years later said a hell of a lot about her.
"She was a piece of work," Ryan agreed when I finished telling him all of that. "You were lucky you had your uncle."
Truer words had never been spoken.
I didn't want to think about what I might have turned out like had he never been a part of my life.
A huge part of me thought that maybe I would have turned out just like my mother. And that, well, was the worst possible thing that could have happened. I'd happily take my agoraphobia over that any day.
"Can I ask you something," he started, but went on before I could say anything. "And it's alright if you're not ready to talk about it."
I felt my belly tense, my heart fluttering in a way that was hinting at panic, but not taking the leap yet. "Sure."
"How did your agoraphobia become so bad?"
Right.
See, the strange thing was, after a while of living life a certain way, it can be easy to forget how not normal it is. I didn't spend every moment of my day in my apartment thinking about what a freak I was, how crippled I was by my condition. I just adapted. I lived the best way I could. I cooked, I cleaned, I read, I wrote, I paid bills. It was a very small life, but it was a life.
So when it was brought up, when it was thrown in my face, my immediate instinct was to shut down. That was my coping mechanism. After so many years of upsetting and disappointing people, it was hard to even bring it up.
But there was Ryan- good, patient, understanding Ryan and he wanted to know. Not because he wanted to accuse me of anything like being a bad friend or not supporting him, but because he wanted to understand me better.
I couldn't refuse him something that was such a big part of me.
I took a deep breath, turning my gaze to my own hands and rubbing my thumbnail with my other thumb- a strange habit I found comforting. I might have been able to tell him, but I didn't think I could do it with eye-contact.
"When my mom dropped me off for the last time when I was a teenager, I thrived with my uncle. It felt good to have roots and to know they wouldn't be yanked out again at any time. So I settled in. I made friends. I socialized. Eventually, I dated. I was normal. Went off to college. Came back and got a job at the elementary school. I got an apartment and had a lot of friends and social engagements.
And then one day, completely out of the blue, I was shopping at a store I had been to a million times before and I just... lost it. I didn't understand it at the time- the dizziness, the rapid heartbeat, the cold sweat, the tingling and hot and cold sensations, the pressure on my chest that made it hard to breathe. All I knew was I needed to run. So I ran and I never went back to that store. All was fine for a while. And then it happened in a different store. So I stopped going there. It happened at restaurants, bars, clubs, coffee houses. So I stopped going there too. Then, work. I had to quit.
I didn't understand at the time that the avoidance was what made it progress so much. I didn't learn that until I finally started seeing a therapist. You know," I said, smile a little at my own expense, "until I couldn't go to her office anymore either. The only real way to deal with it is to face up to it."
"Exposure therapy," he cut in, making my head jerk up, surprised he even knew the term.
"Exactly. You have to plant your feet and deal with the panic attack, not let it drive you from the place. Because, chances are, once you leave... you'll never go back again. And that will eventually have it so that you can't leave your apartment anymore. You can't do anything anymore. It happened maybe... over a year and a half. From first panic attack to not being able to leave my apartment. Just a year and a half. And in that time, all those friends I had decided that I was too 'wrapped up in myself' or 'unsupportive' of them because I couldn't make it to their band gigs or 'overreacting' by saying I wanted to go, but I couldn't make myself do it."
I closed my eyes then, taking a few deep breaths, feeling a familiar sting of tears. It wasn't often I let myself think of those people I lost along the way, the hurtful way it generally happened. Bry had been the only one who had went with the flow. When I was able to go out, he would go with me. When I had a panic attack and needed to leave, he let me go, paid whatever tab we had, got our food boxed up, then drove to my apartment and hung out with me there. When I eventually couldn't even try to go out anymore, he had shrugged and just accepted it.
Eventually, his new 'business venture' took him away from me more and more, made me all the more reclusive and starved for human contact, but I knew that I couldn't expect people to let their lives revolve around my issues. He still came sometimes, but usually only on pick-up or drop-off days. Though he always made a stop on my birthday or to bring over a movie that got onto DVD that I had wanted to see in the theater but couldn't. So he never saw them either and waited to do it with me.
He had been good to me.
At times, I felt I didn't deserve it.
That's the anxiety talking, my therapist would say.
"Can I ask one more thing?" Ryan asked when I finally opened my eyes again, having won the battle with the tears.
What left was there to ask that could bother me?
"Sure."
My eyes even went up to his and I found him watching me intently, like he was looking for even the smallest reaction to the question he was going to ask. "Have you and Bry ever dated?"
"What? No!" I shrieked, the idea so absurd that I actually laugh/snorted at it. It was a real delicate and charming sound let me tell you. "Of course not. He's the closest thing to a brother I have. Why would you ask that?"
His head tilted slightly, his mouth opening and closing a couple of times like he was trying to decide to tell me or not. Eventually, he did. "Because he's in love with you, Dusty."
I was pretty sure an entire cannonball dropped and settled into my belly at that phrase.
In love with me?
Bry?
No, that wasn't...
Except, maybe it was.
If I were being honest with myself, I would admit that there had been times over the years when there were tense moments, heavy silences when he was fighting saying something to me, touching that could maybe have been friendly from a touchy-feely person (which Bry was not), but weren't normal for just a pair of childhood friends. He catalogued even the smallest details about me and somehow brought it up again months or years later. His gifts were always exactly what I liked.
Friendships like that between two women, I could say that was the norm.
But maybe it didn't exactly work that way with men and women.
Maybe his awareness of me had less to do with just friendship and more to do with... something more.
"You had no idea," he observed accurately, giving me a half-smile.
"I should have," I said, shaking my head. "Wow. I really, really should have seen it. I mean, maybe I was just not admitting it because he was all I had left and denying him that way might have ruined it..."
"I think you underestimate him," he surprised me by saying. "He might be in love with you, honey, but he also just plain loves you. I think a part of him knows that you've never returned the feelings and that's why he hasn't acted on them. Maybe he never would have. Maybe he would have always just been there for you in whatever capacity you needed. And I am probably a shit for even telling you about it, but I think it's something you needed to know. And, well, I needed to know about your relationship with him."
"Why?"
His smile was a little teasing at that. "Because this thing here, with you and me, if this goes the way I want it to go... it's happening."
"It's... happening?" I repeated, my belly doing another of those delicious little flutters, but I wanted more clarity. I needed it so I didn't drive myself half or fully crazy over what he meant.
"Yeah. Happening. You're in my place. I like you here. I'd like you to keep being here. I get that it's early and we don't know everything about each other yet, but I figure we will do that eventually. I needed to know you weren't having mixed feelings about him before we move forward."
Forward.
As in a future.
With me?
I didn't think he truly understood what he was saying.
"Ryan, I don't think you..."
"I get it," he cut me off, shaking his head. "I, ah, well I did some research before I made my decision, Dusty. I know what I am getting into here. And I know there is no magic cure and I know it's going to be progress and regression, but I think you are overestimating how much it matters to me. I'm not a social person. I work, I come home. Occasionally, I see my family. I would eventually like you to be able to come to those occasions too, but I'm not saying it needs to be next week or next month. All I am asking for is..."
"Progress," I cut him off.