Living on Borrowed Time, page 13
“Okay Lara, thank you.” The guy seemed to realise that I was struggling, and thankfully he intervened before it got really torturous.
As the attention turned away from me, and centred in on someone else, I let out a breath that I hadn’t even realised I was holding.
That was painful!
My breaths were coming out laboured as the others took their turn to speak. I felt like panic was emanating out of every single pore, and that was making it all so much worse.
I hated this. This was going to be a horrible fucking six sessions. It might have only been a short time—too little to make a real difference to me—but in that moment, it felt like it was going to be an eternity.
***
I didn’t speak out again. Not for the first three sessions anyway. I simply sat there in silence, taking everything in. I couldn’t stop from becoming inquisitive though as the days passed, and I found myself listening in to what others had to say, despite my best intentions. And the more I learned about everyone else, the more convinced I became that I really didn’t belong in the group.
These people were serious addicts, people who had been battling against booze and even drugs for years—not months, like me. They’d gotten past the worst of it in proper rehab facilities, but still needed the discussion group to help them when things got hard. On top of that, a lot of them had been through some real problems in their lives—loss, abuse, neglect…the sort of thing I couldn’t even begin to imagine.
My issues were nothing compared to all of this. I didn’t belong, but I couldn’t leave either. I’d already been through half of it, I was so close to being back to real life, and I didn’t want to give it up now. Mum would never forgive me if I walked away, and I didn’t want to shame her anymore than I already had. Things were strained enough at home, without bringing this into the equation too.
But even if I had to stay, I couldn’t speak out. I was too embarrassed. I was pathetic compared to this lot, and I didn’t want them to realise just how silly my issues were.
“So thanks everyone.” Mr. Banks—or whatever the instructors name was—spoke out. “This is session four now, and it’s time to try something new.”
New?
I couldn’t do new. This routine was fine by me; I was getting away with silence with the way things were. I didn’t like the idea of changing anything, in case it worked against me.
“We’re going to work in pairs, shake things up a bit.” He smiled around the room, seemingly ignoring my horrified expression. “Now, this is normally met with distain, but trust me people always come around.”
I highly doubted that.
“You’ll soon see just how beneficial this can be.”
I scanned my eyes around the room, trying to work out who was the chattiest. I wanted them as my partner so I could get away with speaking the bare minimum yet again. But it seemed like nothing intended to go my way today, because the most talkative people in the room acknowledged who they wanted to be partnered with using their eyes. They picked people that they already had a bond with, leaving just me and one of the older guys—who also didn’t say much—to be together.
As we sat facing each other, I could feel my heart pounding so loudly it felt like it could burst out of my chest at any moment. Devon—my partner—was looking at me a little strangely, almost as if he could hear it, which was making me feel all the more uncomfortable.
“…and now I want you to discuss your stories with one another, giving feedback where appropriate. Then we are going to start of figuring out goals for the future—something to help you move on.”
Oh God.
Stories…feedback…goals…
As the buzz of chatter started to flow up around the room, Devon and I continued to look at one another awkwardly. I felt my face heat up, and just to detract attention away from that, I felt forced to talk.
“So, erm…” I stammered. “Do you want to go first?”
Please say yes!
“Okay.” He shrugged his shoulders, filling me with relief. “Sure. Well, I…I lost my wife a few years back, but honestly my problems started way before that. I love drink just a little bit too much.” He said this dismissively, as if it was unimportant, but I could sense the loaded meaning there. It seemed like he felt things a little too much, like me, and he used alcohol as a crutch to hide that. “I mean, I’m done with that now, I don’t drink at all anymore. I just…I guess I can’t recover from the shitty decisions that I made.”
“How did you get over it?” I found myself asking without really thinking about it. I leant my body closer to him, needing him to open up to me.
“I couldn’t, until I was ready to. I had a moment of clarity, and that simply spurned me to make the changes. I had some medical help, but to be honest once the decision had been made I didn’t really need it.”
“Wow.” I felt his words flow through me, and an encouragement sparked. If Devon could do this after going through so much more than me, then I could do. Maybe this could be my moment of clarity. Maybe his words would inspire me to do what needed to be done.
Maybe some good could come out of this after all.
“Do you mind if I ask what inspired you?” I knew I was digging deep here, that I was overstepping an invisible boundary, but I couldn’t help it. I needed this information to help me. “If you don’t mind me asking?” I wanted to give him the option; if he didn’t want to tell me then I certainly wasn’t going to force him—I knew how awful it was when people did that.
He slumped back into his chair, eyeing me, trying to see what this meant to me. I kept my eyes fixed on his; wanting him to understand that my intentions were honourable. He must have decided that I deserved this information because thankfully he continued.
“When I lost Hayley—my wife—I was a fucking mess.” I flinched a little at his cursing, because it seemed so alien coming out of his mouth. Whatever he’d been through in the past, he was smartly dressed and well-presented now. It just sounded so strange coming from him. “I lost myself, and I wanted to feel something, anything.” A sentiment that I understood well. “And I started picking up random chicks in bars, just wanting something to make me feel better.” I almost gasped loudly at this statement. It was all too familiar to me. In a weird way, it was as if he was telling me my story. “Then one day, I just looked down at the woman lying in my bed and I realised that not only did I not know her name or anything about her, but that she was also young enough to be my daughter.” He sighed deeply—but not as if the memory was painful, or that he was ashamed of it. Just that it was an accepted part of his past, one that he had no control over anymore. This attitude was amazing to me, I felt utterly horrendous about everything I’d done, every single time I thought about it. “Hayley would have been ashamed of me, and that’s what made me know that it was time to grab my life back.”
I felt my eyes well up uncontrollably. I didn’t want to get emotional—especially not in here—but I just couldn’t help it.
“How about you?” Devon asked kindly, sending me a smile.
After all he’d told me, I couldn’t hold back now. That didn’t seem fair. “Erm…” I wiped a tear off my face quickly, cursing myself for allowing myself to break down. “Well, I…I…”
I just had no idea how to start, and Devon could clearly sense that. “Did you…lose someone?” He asked, which was a reasonable question since most people in the group had.
“No, not exactly.” I blew out a terrified breath of air. “It was me that was supposed to die.”
For some reason, getting that piece of information out in the context of this group was lifting. I felt a little better for doing so.
“But I got better.” I nodded, as I continued. For a second, it seemed like Devon was going to jump in to ask me something, but then he thought better of it and pursed his lips shut. “I just…I don’t know how to be alive.” I laughed uncomfortably, but the tears weren’t disguised by that.
Devon nodded, as if he really understood what I meant, and I felt in that moment that he did.
“I guess since then, my story has been similar to yours.” I shot him a shaky smile. “I started to drink, to…to try to feel…” I was too embarrassed to say it out loud, but I hoped that he got my meaning anyway. “I don’t know to get out of this funk. Every time I attempt to move forward, I keep messing up.”
“Okay guys.” Mr. Banks clapped loudly, grabbing all of our attention. I tried to discreetly sort myself out as he talked, but it was a fruitless task. “We need to move on to goals now, to how we’re going to move forwards.”
Me and Devon looked at each other a little awkwardly, wondering how we were going to get from all of that to something new.
“So, what now?” I grinned through my shiny eyes, trying to lighten the mood.
“I don’t know.” Devon sighed. “I’m past the biggest hump now, I’m done with booze, but I’m still a little stuck…”
“Yeah.” I nodded distractedly, already thinking about my own goals. I was sure that I could overcome the drink now. In fact, I was positive of it. I wasn’t exactly addicted or anything, I just liked the way it helped to block out all of my problems. But I wouldn’t do that anymore. I would tackle them head on. It was everything else that I needed to work on.
A list started to form in my mind:
Make up with my parents.
Sort things out with Daphne.
Apologise to Kimberly.
Try to speak to Charlie.
Organise my apartment.
Think about what I want to do with my life, and get some kind of job…
But the list started to pile up and up, already feeling impossible—and that was just the easy parts of getting organised. I hadn’t even gotten to the real challenges yet.
I sighed sadly, tuning out Devon’s talk as I tried to work out what the hell I was going to do next.
TWENTY-THREE
The group sessions came to an end much too quickly—which was a surprising thought considering how much I didn’t want to go in the first place. Now that they’d finished, I felt even more lost than before. I’d found a weird comfort within it, and now that was gone. Ever since I’d allowed myself to truly open up with Devon, it had become a real source of relief for me, so it was odd to know that I’d no longer have that.
I wanted to go home, I really did, but I was afraid. Once I was back there, I had to face up to real life, and I wasn’t quite ready for the responsibility that held. Mum wasn’t exactly encouraging me to leave either—it was almost as if she wanted to keep an eye on me, to check that I was behaving in the way that she felt was appropriate.
Our relationship was tense now, and it didn’t feel like it would ever go back to the way it was, which was a shame. Carter, Phil and Jack didn’t speak to me much either—it was almost as if I’d become the sick girl once more, the one that no one knew how to act around. I hoped that I would be able to repair that one day, but I could tell that it would take some time. It certainly wasn’t going to be an instant, easy solution at any rate.
There were so many things I knew I should be doing, but it all felt like bricks piling heavily on my shoulders. I couldn’t even see out of the rubble, never mind work my way through it. I hated being so useless, so pathetic, but I just couldn’t get started. It was painful. After all I’d learned in group therapy, I should be in a position to get going, yet somehow I didn’t feel quite there.
I wasn’t drinking though—that was one thing. Devon’s words had worked in that respect. He was right, now that I’d decided that I didn’t want to anymore, actually doing it wasn’t too difficult. Of course, I wasn’t an addict which helped—I knew it must be much more difficult for those who needed medical intervention—yet I felt proud of myself all the same. It still felt like something I should be happy about.
I found myself spending way too much time simply lying on my mum’s sofa, just wishing that I could get the motivation to get myself started. I felt so exhausted with all that needed to happen that I could hardly move.
It was that which eventually sparked a long overdue conversation with my mother.
“Lara.” She said one evening after everyone else had gone to bed. “We need to talk.” I nodded distractedly, half-watching whatever was on the television, paying little mind to her words. “It’s about your father.”
As soon as she said that, I swung my legs to the ground and switched the screen off. We never spoke about my father, he was a taboo subject. I barely knew him. In fact, I couldn’t remember him at all; I didn’t even know what he looked like. He’d left us when I was about two-years-old, and that had sent my mum into a spiral of sadness for a while.
She’d picked herself up quick enough for my sake, and even more so when Carter had come into the picture, but on the odd occasion that I’d mentioned it since then, it had brought about such a melancholy mood, that I felt it best never to say anything about him again.
“Mum?” I asked. Why now? What had changed?
“It’s just…the way that you’re behaving at the moment, it reminds me of him.” I could tell that there was a thick ball of emotion in her throat, threatening to choke her as she spoke, and that made me well up too. “He was depressed. Seriously depressed, which is why he left us.”
I gasped loudly. I hadn’t known that. He was depressed…what did that mean for me?
“He sunk low like you, all the time, and he refused medical assistance.” The same as me too. “And he ended up running out, losing his mind.”
She hung her head, an aura of sadness consuming her. “What mum?” I asked, my heart starting to race with fear. This was going somewhere, I could tell, and I was pretty sure that I wasn’t going to like it.
“His sister rang me a few years back—you were in the midst of everything then, it was such a difficult time.” I remembered all of it, how sick I’d been, how horrible I’d felt all the time, and for the first time in a very long time I actually felt lucky. I was fine now, which was a miracle by anyone’s standards. Sure, I didn’t always feel a hundred percent, but it was nothing compared to what life was like for me back then. “I didn’t tell you at the time, it didn’t feel right too.” She sucked in air, looking like she desperately needed to calm herself down.
“What is it?” There was a warning edge to my tone. This was going to be bad, and I needed the plaster to be ripped off quickly.
“He…he killed himself.”
“Oh fuck.” I blurted out, slapping my hand across my mouth. I’d half expected her to end with something like that, but having it confirmed was almost too much to bear.
“I just…I worry that you…you might…” She started to sob hysterically, crying really hard and guilt washed over me once more.
She thought she was going to lose me that way too. I’d made her believe that. I’d made the burden already resting on top of her heavier, and I felt horrible for that.
Daphne was right, I really was a selfish person.
I raced to her side and wrapped my arms around her. “Mum, I’m sorry I didn’t…” My cheeks were wet now too. “I’m not…” I couldn’t find the words to say it aloud. “I won’t, I promise.”
She clutched onto me, and we both wept for the man that had torn our family to shreds, without even meaning to.
At least mum had moved on from that, at least she had her new family now. I didn’t even know my dad, and somehow he’d affected me the most. I couldn’t believe what an impact a ghost could have on me.
“Did he…did he know about me?” I couldn’t help but ask. I wondered if my sickness had affected him, or if it would have changed his mind.
“I’m sorry Lara, he didn’t. Until Joyce contacted me, I hadn’t known where he was for years.” She looked at me for a few seconds. “Let me go and get you the photograph I have of him.”
As she left the room I started to think that maybe mum was right to worry. Maybe depression was in my genes, my blood. Maybe that was why I was such a fucking mess.
***
That thought worried me more than anything else over the next few days, until I decided that the only way I would become like the man I shared my DNA with, would be if I let it happen. If I ploughed on forwards, if I worked through it all, I would be fine. I’d been doing okay so far, sure things had been difficult, but I knew that things couldn’t possibly get to that point unless I allowed that to occur.
I couldn’t let that happen. And I would carry my dad’s picture with me at all times to remind me of that. I couldn’t stop staring at him. I looked so much like him, it was unbelievable. Looking at him now, it was obvious that I must have taken after him because I didn’t really look anything like my mum. The same dark hair, sad eyes, cheekbone structure…But that would be all I shared with him. I felt bad that he’d been so depressed that he’d taken his own life, it saddened me greatly, but I knew that would never be me. I was stronger than that.
And I also finally felt ready to tackle my real life.
But as I broached the subject of me leaving with my mum, she completely shut me down.
“No.” She immediately shook her head. “Not yet, you can’t. You aren’t ready. You need us.”
I tried not to fume at that—she was the one who had sparked the desire to leave with all of her worry, and now she didn’t want me to go? But I forced myself to keep it inside. I could see now how scared she was to lose me, and she hadn’t seen any progress within me to suggest that I would be okay. She didn’t understand the shift in my head, and I hadn’t given her long enough to view the evidence of that.
What I needed to make her understand was that I needed to get back to my life to make any progress. Sitting here was nothing more than a time-out from reality, one that I really didn’t need any more. It had been a good break for me, one that had changed everything, but now I needed to go and work on what I’d learned. There were a lot of people that I needed to make things up to, and I felt ready to get started on that.
