Stay With Me (Come Back to Me #2)

Chapter 5

Justin

Her name is Adelaide Levesque and she's beautiful - dirty blonde hair, blue eyes that remind me of cornflowers, tall, shy, beautiful.

And she's all I can think about for the rest of the day.

Laying on my bed during the later hours of the night, I stare at the now-crumpled piece of paper she slipped into my binder without my knowledge.

Hey, Justin - Since we're going to be sitting together during English, I thought I'd give you my number in case one of us misses a class and we need to catch up. The teachers at WKSS are sometimes jerks about that. Text me if you want to: 2508671827 - Addie L.

I replay today's events, analyzing them to the best of my abilities. I can't understand why Addie would do something like this after I so rudely cut her off. I don't like being rude to nice people, but it's something I have to do in order to cut away the possibility of any type of relationship. It just makes things easier in the long run, meaning I don't have to tell my depressing, complicated life story over and over again; I don't have to re-feel all those depleting emotions that came with my past events, and are still affecting me to this day. I also don't have to explain my current situation and watch them pretend to understand.

Being an introvert makes things a helluva lot easier.

Closing my eyes, I exhale deeply, running a hand through my hair and allowing myself to cringe when my fingers brush against the indent in my skull. I desperately shove away the meaning the scar holds, but I fail to do so. Memories of bright lights above me while stuck under a haze of anaesthetics, blood running down my forearm when the doctors failed to insert the IV, and waking up with my head feeling like it was stuffed with rocks cloud my fucked-up brain.

And, just like that, my streak of being seizure-free for three whole days - a lame-ass excuse for paradise - ends.

The aura comes quickly, prodding and poking the depths of my stomach. Infecting every cell in my body with an extreme level of terror that momentarily leads me to believe I'm going to have a panic attack. Until I remember what's really going on and what it could possibly lead to.

Before I know it, I'm hugging my mom, no recollection of how I got downstairs so quickly. I can understand everything she's doing and saying to me - I'm aware that we're now sitting on the couch and that she's hugging me tight enough to cause a lung to collapse - but I can't form words on my own tongue to tell her that I am okay, that I know this partial seizure isn't going to evolve into a tonic-clonic one.

"It's okay, honey," Mom whispers, running a comforting hand down my back. "You're okay, Justin."

I want to tell her I know that.

I just can't because of the placement. The left temporal lobe is responsible for speech, which is where the tumour was before the doctors had it removed. It's also the area that's affected by the seizures I endure, making me unable to speak. Apparently garbled noises exit my mouth, but I've never actually heard them. Nor do I wish to.

As usual, I give in and hug my mom back until the neurons in my brain stop over-firing and chill the fuck out.

When it's over, I flop back onto the couch and shut my eyes, feeling mentally exhausted. Mom gets up to grab me a glass of juice to replenish my energy.

"Thanks," I mutter when she gets back, taking the glass. I take a long swig of apple juice, and then set the glass down on the coffee table, my hand shaking ever so slightly.

For the next few minutes, we sit in silence. I know Mom wants to say something to me, but I also know she's respecting how I currently feel. After any partial seizure, it takes me a couple minutes to regain the sharpness of a sober mind. That's what it feels like after having a seizure - being slightly drunk and having a thin coating of fog over your head. It's a drunkenness that fades quickly, yet still shows itself.

"How many is that today?" Mom finally asks.

I clench one fist at my side. She's being a mom - caring, concerned, and loving. It just annoys me that we have to talk about this when all I want to do is avoid the brutality of how pathetic I am.

"One," I reply, focusing on a crack in the glass. "Looks like three days is my new record." I glance at her.

Mom gives me a pained look. I look away. She gives me that look when she wishes she could do something, even though she knows there's nothing she can do to fix my problem. It's my own body that's betrayed me.

I sigh and get to my feet. "You know what, Mom? I'm tired. I think I'm going to go to bed."

"Are you sure?" Mom asks.

Without looking over my shoulder, I nod. "I need to make sure I get enough hours of sleep."

"Okay." I can picture her head of blonde hair moving up and down in a nodding motion. "Well, goodnight, honey. I love you."

"Love you, too, Mom."

When I'm upstairs, behind the confinement of my bedroom door, the tears start to fall.

I hate this shitty situation I'm in. I hate feeling vulnerable and useless, like an unsolvable problem.

That's all I am: a problem.

Epilepsy makes me useless. I can't drive. I can't shower when I'm home alone. I can't swim without a supervisor. The list goes on and on. But the one thing that destroys me, rips up my insides with its alarmingly sharp claws, is the fact that I can't change any of it.

I wish I could.

There are many things I wish, actually.

I wish people could see how much I blame myself for being a failure to them and how much I cry because I want to be doing something.

I wish people could see that I'm not drunk when I stumble or miss a step, and that I just increased my dose of medication or am currently having a partial seizure.

I wish people could see the anxiety that haunts me about not knowing when I'm going to fall victim to my own brain.

I wish people could see the smile hides the hurt.

I wish people could see that I don't want to be the centre of attention and that I hate being forced to lose control so often, that I have to unwillingly give away secrets of my life.

I wish I could find another body to host.

There are so many things I wish, but I know will never change. No matter what you tell people, you can't change the way they think when it comes to the taboo around this abysmal illness.

And you can't really change the way you yourself think about it, either. The fact of the matter is that having epilepsy makes me hate myself more than ever. I can't control my own body. I can't take care of it.

I sit down on the foot of my bed and drop my face into my hands, hating the tears and hating the way I make myself feel.

How long is it going to take for something to give?

How am I supposed to get through this when all I want to do is give up, let go, and break down into a million pieces?