Taylor and I haven't discussed the Dark Day or the events that followed. We haven't even really seen one another due to the fact that he's finally practicing with the team again. When he's not in class he's at the training facility and all of our sessions this week have been canceled because of it too. I wanted to argue that it wasn't smart for him to start this now, giving up on the other aspects of his life now that football is almost within reach again. He almost has what he wants, but trying to argue the importance of anything above football is like arguing with a brick wall, completely pointless.

We have however texted, meaningless messages in the forms of funny pictures or videos that we find online. It's nothing special, nothing of value to be found within the messages, but it leaves me even more confused with his motives. He isn't the type to text consistently, or frequently, with someone he isn't trying to have sex with. Not that his communication to me has been anything groundbreaking, but it has to mean something, right? Regardless, he is my brick wall in this situation. I feel like I've been searching for a hidden message etched into the stones, one that probably isn't even there.

Not all relationships in my life are as stagnant, however. Alyssa and I broke new ground when I learned that she is practically dating Taylor's roommate, Anderson. I now have an insight into the innermost workings of Taylor's life, his routine, and how I somehow might fit into it. In return, Alyssa demanded I fill her in. Her argument was that she needed to find her angle on the assignment. She's a journalist in training and I'm desperate enough to need a new perspective on the situation.

I spared her the more gruesome details about my past life, and stuck to the few instances that Taylor and I have found ourselves alone. I made sure to focus on the new level of vulnerability that had been reached each time, at least on my behalf. But even then, her opinion was inconclusive, noting that if Taylor wasn't making a move on me he probably just sees me as a friend. A conclusion I had already found on my own. Alyssa was good for one tip however, to keep doing what we've been doing. She insisted there is obviously something about our interactions that keeps both of us invested and coming back for more. I tried to argue that we are in fact contracted to see one another, but was persistent in the fact I needed to trust her. I reluctantly agreed, and here I am impatient waiting for Taylor to say something.

He agreed to meet for our last session of the week, but only after I saw a coach follow him to our biology class, probably to make sure that he was in fact going, before then following both of us into the tutor center.We lasted a whole fifteen minutes in that room before making sure the coast was clear, then we made our way to Harry's. Only because Taylor insisted he needed a burger to be able to retain any information.

We found our usual booth and fell back into our routine. With each academic question he answers, he gets to ask me a question of his choosing, and vice versa. A few academic and unrelated questions later I think Taylor is ready to move on to biology and now knows that if I could follow one band around from tour stop to tour stop it would be The Struts. When he demands to know why though, I cut him off. Demanding he abide by the game rules. In reality it's because I don't want to have to admit that the guy I lost my virginity to played them nonstop and it was the only enjoyable part about being with him. Instead I ask him to tell me something true.

Taylor takes a deep breath in, blowing it out through his mouth, forcing his cheeks to puff out too. "You okay Reed?" I ask him before quickly reminding him he suggested the game this time. "Don't get too emotional on me now."

Taylor drums his fingers on the table. "Yeah, fine." His words are clipped, but he exhales and answers again. "I'm just really missing my family recently. It's hard, being away from them right now. Especially with me actually starting to play, I just hate that they can't be here."

I want to agree with him, to empathize with his situation. I just don't know what that's like—to miss your family, to know that you have them as pillars beneath you, holding you up no matter what, that when they aren't there you feel disappointed. "I wish I could understand what it's like to have that kind of love and support. I can see it in you, though, how much they mean to you. What if I take some pictures this weekend, so you have something you can share with them?" I offer. I just hope my willingness to share my work with him can communicate to him what I can't seem to form into words.

"How did it get so bad between you and your family?" Taylor asks. "I mean is it just from your mom? I just—" he stumbles over the words, "I just feel like that should have brought you closer is all."

It's a question I have asked myself for years. It wasn't until I started working with Dr. Hartwell that I allowed myself to even begin to envision grief as a spectrum or that it might look different for everyone. It was in therapy that I discovered that sometimes grief does bring families together because they bond over their mutual loss, they bond over keeping the memory of their loved one alive. It was also with Dr. Hartwell that I discovered that grief can also manifest in nasty ways, like projecting feelings onto others. She used the example of relatives fighting over assets and wills after a death. People let everyday worries and materialistic things get in the way. They use it as a shield to hide from their true feelings. They make themselves believe they care about those things, when really they just care about healing. They just don't stop to think their actions affect everyone around them.

I never understood it, how my dad just moved on as if he didn't love her. Like she was a distant relative that died, and that moving on wasn't a big deal. It made me feel wrong, for years. That what I was feeling wasn't normal, I was the weird one, the outcast for actually missing her and grieving her out in the open. It got to the point that I just stopped letting it out, I kept it all bottled up instead.

Taylor is still watching me, waiting intently for an answer. "Do you want to know about 'The Incident'?" I ask. Apparently something in the air today has both of our lips and minds loose.

"Keep going," He says, eyebrows raised.

Deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth, Ryn.

I know I brought it up, but I have to talk myself up to actually be able to share it. I remind myself that who I am is not where I've been, but just one step in my journey to be sitting at this table in front of Taylor. That this too, is a step in our friendship. I want him to see me for me, but I don't think he can do that without truly knowing everything.

With a shaky voice I begin, "'The Incident' is what my family calls it because they've never been able to face what it actually was," I pause and give myself a chance to take a few more breaths before continuing. "I nearly killed myself... I only say nearly because still to this day I didn't really want to die.  I just– I wanted relief." It was this relief that I had convinced myself could only come if I couldn't feel anything at all.

"I had just reached a point where I wanted it to stop. That ache in my chest that never went away and I would have done anything to make it happen. When my mom first died, my grandparents stayed with us for a couple of months. My grandma took us to a group for kids who had lost a parent and they gave us ideas of ways to cope. I tried some of those things at first.  Healthier things like running, or drawing. I even tried meditating, but the effects didn't last long enough, or they made it worse. It gave me too much time to think, to let the feelings fester and weigh me down. So that's when...that's when I started to self harm." Another term it took me a while to accept because I didn't see it as harmful. In my mind it was comparable to taking medicine when you're sick, something you use as a way to make an ailment go away. That's what I thought was wrong with me for the longest time. That I must just be sick, a flu running course in my body for an extended stay.

I make the mistake of looking up at him. Taylor's eyes have doubled in size, but he quickly returns a neutral face when he sees me staring. This is the spot when I would normally stop talking. When the pressure building in me and the fear of judgment threaten me to wave the white flag. Maybe if it were anyone else I would retreat, but not with him.  Instead I clarify, "Not the typical self harm. I mean I was fourteen when my mom died and grew up in the era of phones and technology. I knew that there were lots of ways to cause harm to yourself, to do it without causing permanent scars." Or at least I thought—but when you do anything to your body even without the intent to harm you do permanent damage, even if it isn't physical. "I didn't cut myself, or burn myself, nothing like that. Instead I drank, did drugs, any type of partying that would allow me to escape myself for even the smallest amount of time."

I now know partying was just an emotional response. You don't actually fix anything through consumption of mind altering substances. You just make the metaphorical cut a little deeper. I was putting a liquid bandaid on a bullet hole and expecting it to heal.

"The first time I drank was at a friend's house. We did a little on a dare. But it was enough to get us really buzzed. That night when I got home, I actually came downstairs to eat dinner with my family for the first time in a few weeks. I thought I had magically cured myself. I no longer felt like a burden to my family. I felt like they wanted me there, and I wanted to be there with them."

The first time I drank, I was surprised with how easy it was. While my friends made sour faces when it touched their tongues I kept a neutral one. Some even gagged or vomited it right back up. For me though, the first time I tasted vodka I liked the burn it left in my throat. I liked that I immediately felt the effects of it. It was like I could feel it healing me on the inside. All I cared about was that when I drank, it gave me something else to focus on besides the anguish that lived in me. That night, I only drank maybe three shots, but it was enough to feel as if I had found the antidote I had been searching for. It was an epiphany, a glimpse of relief.

I put my thumb to my mouth and pull at the skin around the nail to give me a second to think, to remind myself that I'm in the present and the past version I'm talking about isn't who is sitting here talking to Taylor— at least not on the surface. "The second time I drank was almost like the dark day. It was a rough day. It was my mom's birthday, our first without her. My dad was supposed to come home from work early. We were supposed to make a chocolate cake together, to eat her favorite meal and spend time together. He called and said he had to stay at work, instead."

I remember it vividly, the physical drop I felt in my body when I learned that my father couldn't face the day, not even with us. My stomach instantly churned at the fact that he couldn't see that we all needed him, that we needed to be together. So I called a few friends and raided my dads liquor cabinet. I met my friends in the park and we each took turns passing the bottle and pulling from it. None of them knew why I wanted to get drunk, and I didn't want to kill the mood. I was already known as the girl who's mom died. I didn't want to start crying in front of them. Instead I drank double or more than I had the first time. I could feel its effects all over that time, not just in my chest and gut. My whole body felt euphoric, a little numb, but also weightless.

I passed out in my bed before my dad got home. I had made the mistake of not covering my tracks though. I put the bottle back, not thinking my dad would notice a little missing, but he did. He assumed it was Carter, my oldest brother, though. He grounded him and then put a lock on the cabinet to avoid any future issues. It didn't stop me. I just realized I would have to get better at hiding it. Not that I needed to, my dad never noticed again. Not until I was already too far gone.

    "It wasn't until I went to my first party and was surrounded by other kids all wanting to get drunk that I truly felt what I was doing was okay. Especially because people liked me more when I drank. I was able to create this front, this version of myself that was outgoing and funny, and up for anything. I was finally someone I didn't hate to be around and neither did other people. I had more friends than ever and was getting invited everywhere."

It was the first time in a long time that I felt normal. I wasn't trying to fit in, when I drank, I did fit in. I had more friends, got invited to do more things, and more importantly the loss of my mom was no longer consuming my life. I was only a sophomore in high school when it started, but that entire year I was still drinking with my friends, living for the weekends. For almost an entire year, I wouldn't hesitate to be that Camryn. It was a spell cast over my body that allowed me to be carefree.

"I made sure to go through the motions during the week. I still tutored kids, I still ate dinner with my family every night, but on the weekends I transformed. It always worked too, because each Friday night my dad would either be in a different city for football or at the hotel by the stadium. He would leave me money for whatever I needed, but wouldn't check in again until after the game on Saturday." I take a sip on my water and continue. I can't stop now that I've started, I don't want to.

    "Everything was great until it wasn't. The same switch that had fixed me was flipped again and suddenly drinking and partying weren't an escape anymore. Instead when I drank, I felt worse. The weightlessness was rescinded and replaced with an anvil. I was trapped inside my head. Every single thing I had felt before came back, but stronger. I couldn't ignore what I thought was the truth. I truly thought no one liked me.I felt like my dad chose to ignore me because I was a burden on him. I felt so unloved, but also unworthy of love. I was beyond help, or at least I thought I was. But I was sixteen then, I had no idea what it looked like to ask for help, or where to get it.

I stop for a second to catch my breath and to steal a glance at Taylor. His green eyes are intently watching me. He doesn't say anything, doesn't even flinch. "It was early August, school hadn't started yet, but football camp had. My dad was gone from sunup to sundown everyday that week and so was I." I now know that Taylor would have been at that camp with my dad, a freshman straight off the plane.

"I didn't want to, but I let my best friend talk me into going to a party," I pause to remember sitting on the floor in Kyle Kranston's bedroom. I remember watching him do a few lines of cocaine before turning around to offer me one again. I remember kicking him with my converse and telling him to stop asking. I did however, take the bottle as Gabi passed to me. I remember her telling me to lighten up, that if I just drank more I would start to have fun. So I did, because I thought that's what people wanted from me, that they only wanted to be around me when I was drunk.

"My friend Gabi left the party with her boyfriend. I told her I would just stay put because I was pretty drunk at this point and I knew if I went home I would be alone. It wouldn't be the first time I slept it off on Kyle's couch. But I started to not feel good and this guy Trevor wouldn't leave me alone. He kept offering me Molly and to take me to a party on campus his friend told him about. I told him probably fifty times in sixty different ways I wasn't interested." Taylor calls him a jackass under his breath, but I just continue over him. I need to get this over with, knowing the worst part hasn't even happened yet.

"Something in me shifted. I needed to get out of there, to get away from it all. So I ordered an Uber and waited outside. It wasn't until I got home and was in my room that the noise grew even louder. It reminded me of what I had lost, that the hurt would always be there. I knew I could drink as much as I wanted, but it would still be a problem, I would still be a problem. The only solution in my head was to stop the pain for good. I was so drunk and in so much pain that I decided to try. I crawled to my bathroom and opened the cabinet. I swallowed an entire bottle of ibuprofen and passed out against the vanity."

"The next thing I remember were bright lights. I woke up in the hospital with my dad sitting in a chair across the room." I shiver now, remembering the chill in the room. I woke up and asked for another blanket, but my dad ignored me. His face was fixed forward, his jaw set tightly. He wasn't looking directly at me, but through me. Even when faced with death, he still couldn't face me.

I remember looking at Cal sitting next to the bed playing on his phone. My twin, the one who should have understood my pain. Out of everyone, I felt like he should have sensed something was wrong, and when he didn't I felt even more like an outcast. I couldn't even make the strongest connection I had to see me. At the hospital he looked at me once, but looked away just as quickly as if I were Medusa, and one look at me would show him as weak as he turned to stone. He didn't want my dad to see him give me any sympathy. Didn't want my father to know that he in fact could have feelings and thoughts of his own, separate from my father's.

"Apparently after I swallowed the pills, my dad heard the sound of me passing out as I fell from a seated position onto the floor. He came in and found me, but couldn't wake me up. What's crazier though, is that he didn't even tell me this, he couldn't. The doctor told me later."

I shudder remembering the look in my dad's eyes. Not a glimpse of sadness or reprieve at his daughter's safety. It was something else entirely. The sound of my dad's dry voice floods back into my head as I just laid there, my own voice suddenly void. I had no way to speak up, I didn't want to. His voice was cold and distant, almost foreign, as he gave his plan—a room at Hope House and a 12 week inpatient program. He made it clear that I was not to leave their facility until I was no longer suicidal and understand this was never to happen again. Those were the last words my father said to me before he walked out of my room.

He still didn't get it, even then. I never thought of my self as suicidal. The thoughts weren't something consistently present in my life. That's why I don't think I wanted to die, because I didn't have a plan. I didn't wake up that day and say, today is the day I'm going to kill myself. In treatment I met and heard stories from other survivors where that was the case. These other survivors felt their lives were so out of control, that everyone would truly be better without them.

I hate the phrase a cry for attention, but ultimately that's what it was for me. I didn't just want the attention, I craved it. I just needed someone to acknowledge that they knew I wasn't okay, that even when I pretended to have fun, to be outgoing, that it wasn't really who I was on the inside. I wanted it to be confirmed that there was a running checklist of my symptoms, that someone was keeping track of my insides that were melting into a puddle of sadness, hopelessness, anguish. I had wanted so badly, to let it run from me like a faucet, but then the overwhelming sense that no one would care would strike again.

"But we focused on that a lot at Hope House. When you choose to use, you also choose any consequence that comes. Not in a negative way, but as a way to reinvent how you see yourself and your worth. I learned that I had depression, stemming from losing my mom. I wasn't surprised, but it was like I was finally able to exhale, like I had been holding my breath and a simple label helped me find just a sliver of hope. I spent three months there doing daily groups, different types of therapies, and was put onto medication. I learned how to talk about my mom in a way that was therapeutic and not just a way to dwell on the loss of her. I actually used her a lot in recovery. I would think about what she would tell me to do. It helped me figure out what I wanted for myself. It's been two years, I've finished therapy, I've gotten off of my meds and I've never felt more empowered in my mental health. I still have bad days when I have to fight a little harder, but I truly want to live my life and try to make choices that would make her proud." When I finally finish I inhale deeply, and let it release through my mouth.

I return my gaze to Taylor and give a small nod to indicate the end of the story. I can feel the tears running down my cheeks, but I have no idea when they started or how long they have been falling for. I don't move to wipe them. I don't feel the need to hide them.

Taylor never breaks our eye contact. It's as if he's memorizing me, memorizing my words, and my motions. He slowly reaches his hand across the table to swipe at a tear dangling from my chin. He doesn't pull back, instead his palm moves to my cheek and finds a resting place. His hand threatens to catch any tears that dare to flow down the same path. I lean in further, letting the weight of my head fall into his hand as if it were second nature, as if I always let the warmth of his palm light me up. It recharges me, bringing me back to life and back into the present. When he still doesn't say anything I sit up straighter and break the silence.

"I have no idea why I just told you that, it's not exactly light conversation." As soon as the words leave my mouth I change my mind. "That's not true. There's something about you Taylor. It makes me want to tell you things, to let you know me better than anyone. I don't know how you do it, but that southern boy charm is working." My joke is meant to lighten the mood, but has an opposite effect as the tears begin to fall again.

"Thank you, seriously Camryn. You didn't have to, but you know, I feel like I understand you better now," He says.

"What exactly do you understand?" I say as I eye him. I try to predict his answer from solely reading his expression, but as always he remains a puzzle to me.

"I used to think you were a fighter by choice, that you love to push boundaries and buttons because of your need to be in control, but now...Now I know you're a fighter by nature. It's not in your nature to step down or give up," He says it matter of factly. No embellishment, no over-selling, but it still doesn't stop the anger from boiling low in my chest.

"I don't want to sit here and have you feel sorry for me. I know I have lived a pretty privileged life so far. I don't want you pity." 

"Camryn, I don't pity you. We are all dealt a shitty hand sometimes, some peoples definition of shitty is just a little worse than others. How you dealt with that, that's your story. Without it, you wouldn't be you. You wouldn't be the beautifully brave girl sitting in front of me."

I blink back more tears as he finishes. My shield has been down for too long, I quickly throw it back up. I need to create distance from this moment. Taylor thinks I'm a fighter, and maybe I am, but I feel like I should be winning more of the battles. I've spent so long working to arm myself, but to my dad, I'm still just a casualty waiting to happen.

     "Sometimes," I pause and inhale deeply, "I wonder if I will ever stop being a lost cause to him." It's another truth Taylor didn't ask for, but within the confines of our situationship I know it's safe with him. The same way I know I don't have to elaborate on who I'm referring to. As the words leave my lips so does the anger that I was beginning to feel again. The stoic look on Taylor's face has erased it, easing me in the process.

Taylor slides out from his side of the booth briefly before sliding into mine. He slides until his body is right next to me. He raises his arm and wraps it around my shoulder. He uses it to pull me closer to him, until my face is buried in his chest. It has a crippling effect over me as the tears rush back stronger than before, soaking through his white t-shirt. "You aren't a lost cause. You were just lost, you could still be lost....and that's okay, it's going to be okay." His words fill my ears and wrap themselves around my body like a cocoon. It's okay to be lost. It's okay to not be found yet, either. Simple phrases I didn't know I needed to hear, but now that I have it's like I finally have the words to describe a motto I've been trying to live by. He continues to hold me, to  soothe me, with a hand cradling the back of my head and the other rubbing softly up and down the length of my spine. It's a comforting action I haven't felt in a long time.

"What is it about Harry's and this booth?" He jokes.

"It's the chocolate milkshakes, I think they spike them with something." I sniffle and wipe my tears with a napkin, leaning closer into Taylor as I do. I melt into his side like the spot just there underneath his arm was created with a mold of my body, made just for me.

I wipe the remaining tears from my eyes and sniff again, "You've gotta stop comforting me like this in public, Cowboy. These girls around here will fall even more in love with you when they see this soft side of you." Taylor shushes me and tells me his soft side is for his friends only. I melt even further and wrap an arm around his waist and hug him.