The Guilty Truth

There is a sting to this chapter. It agonizes me now, looking back, seeing how my own words became prophecies, became the present truth. I cannot help but wonder if things would be different if I had said nothing. If I had done nothing. If I had not heeded my own wisdom. It’s ironic, how everything turned out. How we turned out. And in a way it is dually lacking mercy as well as justice. How unfair it is that honesty is so painful! How tragic it is to find the true meaning of what was… just a song. Still, that’s what it’s about, isn’t it. It’s not about demands this time. It’s about declarations. It’s about me learning to tell the truth and not living the lie, as I so easily taught myself to. Someone needs to hear this story and understand. They need to hear and know the truth, and I hope comprehension does not fail.

 

Later that evening, after dinner, and there was a brief lull in activity, the boys came back and set the inexplicably Canadian chair in the doorway. I made them put it there. I didn’t want to be carried any more than necessary. I grimaced, and half walked-half hopped to the chair, and fell into it with a gasp. Those two yards of movement had nearly exhausted me—partially because of the embarrassment appearing on my cheeks. Steadying themselves, the four boys positioned around the chair and each grabbed a side. As I was hoisted up, I squeezed my eyes shut. It was reminiscent of the snow retreat in February, when I had flown through the air, reaching for Phil and not finding him, hoping I would not fall. I did fall, then, and I saw colors.

 

However, as I was carried down the ramp and over the roped rocky beach, I felt guilty for not trusting those eight arms holding me up. It’s not that I thought they were weak. But I don’t exactly trust others with my body. I don’t like being taken care of, as much as I wish I could. And so, as I was carried, with closed eyes, I reached down for the sides of the chair. I fought with their hands, searching desperately for a hold of some sort to stabilize myself. I did eventually get a handhold. Then they set me down next to the fire.

 

During the group discussion, I was abandoned. Not by any fault of my own. It was the smoke from the campfire, being blown at us. I don’t blame them for leaving, really. But of the twenty people there, and of the five sitting near me, you’d think one of them would have the compassion to sit with me in the smoke. I couldn’t exactly stand up and go somewhere else. I was trapped in the chair. Alone. And quickly absorbing the ashes.

 

It is this solitude that is essential to the story. This evening, those moments of aloneness, are necessary for what next unfolds. It is here that the darkness began settling in, first through my ears, as I had stopped listening to Dennis. It was a voice. Small and black. It didn’t have words to its voice yet, but it was there, whispery and almost rough, like the fuzzy side of Velcro. I could sense the discussion ending, and with it the darkness came closer. It wrapped itself around my ankles and wrists, and I turned in my chair towards the vast lake. Then, my eyes. I was not blinded by the darkness, as it may be assumed. Rather it opened my eyes to how isolated I was. It was all I saw, suddenly. And the words came.

 

I am alone. I am unwanted. I am worthless. I don’t know why I came. No one believes me. I don’t know why I came. I am alone. No one believes me. No one believes me.

 

The belief, that seemed to evade everyone’s consciences, was that I was broken. I am not whole. I suppose it takes a special kind of sight to understand it, so when I told everyone about it and no one took me seriously, it should not have been a surprise. It wasn’t a surprise, actually. But that didn’t make it less painful. So the voice continued, broadening itself and tightening in my fingertips now.

 

As the discussion ended, I saw Ray’s denim legs approach me. I was still staring out at the lake. One elbow was holding me to the chair, my hand pressing to my temple, as I tilted downwards on the beach. My right hand gripped my camera. I gripped it with such a force it could have broken. I wanted to break it. I wanted to feel something snap, to feel shards of plastic slice into my skin. I wanted to see my blood pour onto that damnable beach so that there would be proof of my pain.

 

He said something about whether or not I was ready to go back inside. Nick followed him soon after, but I ignored them for the most part. They asked again. I couldn’t look at them. Couldn’t make eye contact, or the feeling would end and I would just give them that nervous smile. Eventually I managed to shake my head at them. A slow, jerky movement. They muttered something to each other, and from the movement in their knees they might have shrugged their shoulders or scratched their heads. They left, but a part of me wanted them to stay, wanted them to look me in the eye and make me snap out of it.

 

Alone again, the panic attack hit me full force. First it was just the anxiety. It wasn’t really physical yet but I could feel it tightening in the space between my stomach in my ribcage. I tensed all over, my feet shifting the rocks, my arms making a desperate move to pull together but were separated by the back of the chair. I clenched the camera tighter. I sat there forever, feeling the panic stretch and curl up in my chest, getting comfortable. My hatred towards it rose in my throat. I sat there forever. How can I explain it? It was forever. Watching others talk to each other and laugh and move about. The hand on my head pushed into my hair. I started to shake. I pulled my glasses from my nose and put them atop my head, gazing blindly into the gray waters.

 

An eternity later, Amy and Tessa approached me. I could feel them near me, their voice asking me what was wrong, hand stroking my spine and my hair. I made the same static head movement at them, my lips muttering ‘no’.

 

After a while of talking to me, after they realized I wasn’t going to respond, they started praying. Still, I have to admit, they were less like prayers and more like encouragements. They knew I wanted to hear the words spoken to me, not to Him. He already knew what they thought. He already knew me as they did.

 

I began to hyperventilate. For some people this may be just erratic breathing but I have discovered that an anxiety disorder mixed with slight obsessive compulsion leads to perpetual exhalations. I just breathe out until I don’t have an ounce of oxygen left in my body. Then there’s a long moment where I suddenly remember where I am and inhale, sucking in just a small amount of air, and then the process starts again.

 

Tessa asked if there was someone I wanted to see, someone I wanted to talk to. I knew there was someone, but I didn’t know if I could say it. Didn’t know if I had the strength. I just kept breathing, then the shaking increased (I gripped the camera tighter) and I said, “Lucas.” They didn’t hear me. She came closer. I said it again, my voice sharp and cold, breaking the summer air with it’s bruised edges. “He’s talking to Hannah,” she told me.

 

I put my glasses back on and shook my head, fervently. “Don’t care.” Swallowed. Feet moved in the cool rocks, jumbling around my ankles.

 

Tessa walked down the rocks to where I could make out the shadows of Hannah and Lucas. Amy stayed with me; her hands steady on my shoulder and arm. When Tessa returned, she put a hand on my back and said he would come in a minute.

 

I tried with an abundance of futility to steel myself for the moment. What was I going to say? I knew one thing for sure, he would be on the ground before he could say anything. I wasn’t going to let him stand over me like everyone else. If someone was going to see this darkness with me face to face it was going to be Lucas.

 

“Cold,” I said softly to no one. Again Tessa left, and came back with a blanket. It was some kind of canvas, slick and noisy. I let it slide around my shoulders in an irritating fashion, trying to get it balanced on my body along with the force of my hand on the camera, the tension of the muscles holding me to the chair.

 

Ages later it seemed, although it was probably but a few minutes, Lucas walked over, long legs and unfastened sandals, swinging arms and those concerned eyes. The greenest I’d ever seen. As he stood in front of me, I handed my camera to Amy, almost calmly. I took Lucas’ hand, and he knelt down. And then, as though my body was acting of its own accord, I practically attacked him. My left arm released the chair and my hand grasped at his collarbone, clenching in his t-shirt. My right hand struck somewhere by his jaw on the other side, holding his head closer, my head on his shoulder, mouth close to his ear.

 

I don’t remember a lot of what I said that night, in the next few minutes. But my first sentence is unforgettable. It was the truth that had escaped everyone, that came from my lips without my permission, scarring the air with such ferocity I could have offended the nearby clouds. “It’s not my fault,” I said, hearing molecules shatter. “I don’t want to feel this way.” The tremors in my throat caused earthquakes in the wind, and I took a great gulp of air. Lucas didn’t know what I was talking about. I reminded him. I don’t know how, something about feeling unwanted, something reminding him about what we’d previously spoken of.

 

His arms came around me. I wish I could have cried. I wanted to, more than anything, to show I wasn’t faking it, to show I was as real and as broken as the next person. Instead, I just kept hyperventilating. The lack of correct breathing began to take its toll, making my head spin and ache. I clung to him, my face hidden in the crook of his neck, heating up his skin and the collar of his shirt with my excessive exhalations. My entire body trembled and shivered. I could feel the fever settling in my eyes, and the chills taking over. The slippery blanket still hung dangerously from my shoulders.

 

I know that Lucas was talking to me. I don’t remember any of it. Except that ‘we all feel this way.’ If I could have, I would have stood up. I would have punched him, or pushed him down the beach. Because we certainly do not all feel this way. If we all felt this way, the world would have half the population it does now. If we all felt this way, no one would feel alone for feeling this way.

 

I lifted my head to breath new air. I stared out at the lake, the endlessness of the night, the frail Canadian sky. “Do you know how long I was sitting here?” I choked.

 

Lucas stood up next to me, our hands meeting, fingers lacing together on the wooden back of the Canadian chair. The three of them were paying attention now. Not to my shaking, but to my mouth. “Half an hour,” I said, estimating. It felt like so much longer, but I had watched the sun setting. It wasn’t so long. “No one came to talk to me,” I said. “I sat here for half an hour, shaking, and no one said anything.” I let out a wavering breath, that for a normal person would have morphed into a sob. “Does anyone even see?”

 

Again, my lungs ceased functioning. Lucas knelt again, holding me, my hands trapped at his shoulders. I kept my eyes open, open on the water, breathing out and out and out. And in. He turned his mouth towards my ear. His voice, soft like hands warmed in gloves, fitting over my ears gently. “Do you want me to tell them?” he said.

 

“Tell them?” I half-sniffed.

 

“Do you want me to get them to come pray for you?” he asked. The compassion in that voice could have given me reason to live. I think that in that moment, I could have asked him to build me a plane and fly me home, and he would have made it happen.

 

I nodded into his shoulder.

 

He stood up, a slight smile marring his concerned features. “I’ll be back.”

 

“Is there anyone specific you want us to get?” Tessa asked.

 

“No,” I said with a shake. More than one shake. A multitude of shakes. “I don’t care. Anyone. Everyone.”

 

“Alright, well, I’ll be back.” She stroked my hair again before walking off.

 

I looked down to my right, at Amy, her hands gently squeezing my forearm. She smiled at me. “I’ll stay here with you.” It was quiet then, just me and her, in the hush of people talking softly. I tried to steady my breathing, the rise and fall of my chest too fast for my heart to keep up.

 

A crowd gathered around me, Dennis being the last one. I was covered in hands, their fingers reaching for me, for that connection that speaks without words. It should have been comforting. It wasn’t. I just felt guilty. Guilty for wanting it. Guilty that I’d stopped all the activity for a stupid panic attack.

 

There were short prayers, from my friends. Nate said something that a year ago would have been sweet. But it felt like a lie. It felt like a slap to my face. Again, I had the urge to stand up and call him out, tell him what I thought about his prayer. I didn’t. I couldn’t. They kept praying.

 

When they were through, and there was a small breach in sound, Dennis began his prayer. Something broke free inside me and the panic came at in waves, full force, tearing at my skin, rushing out of my body in breath and fever, in earthquaking nerves and synapses of terror. I searched the circle of people’s for Lucas’ unfastened sandals. To my right, I saw him, kneeling down.

 

My right arm snapped out, finger spread wide. I opened and closed it, twice, before both his hands both grasped my one. Warm. Soft. Holding fast. Still I trembled, uncontrollably.

 

Then I paid attention to Dennis’ words. “And you feel guilty,” he had said, “We strive for attention, but we feel guilty for wanting it.” Again, walls were broken. I doubled over in my chair, no longer just breathing out, but heaving both ways, the air filling and emptying me like waves from the lake moving back and forth, endless and drowning. A few weary tears made their way to the corners of my eyes. In my head I was singing a song Nick had written, “…put your arms around me, tell me that you love me, never let me go.” I tried making them worshipful, but it wasn’t helping.

 

I thought my lungs were going to burst. I thought I was going to break into a million pieces, become shards of hopelessness and deceit on the rocky beach, soon to be eroded and look like one of the other smooth gray stones. Made invisible by the hands of time. I choked. I made a noise as I breathed. It could have been a sob, I don’t know, but it shook me to my core, from the tips of my fingers to the valves in my heart.

 

Lucas’ hands tightened around mine.

 

Reviews

[Elise O'Haire]

Oh, this one made me want to cry. I am guessing that this is not the end. I look forward to reading more. (Please get another chapter out here SOON!)

Elise