The Way I Am Now (The Way I Used to Be Book 2)

My hands are steady now as they reach for the door handle. Steady as I flip down the visor in Mara’s car and swipe mascara over my lashes. Steady as Steve climbs into the seat next to me and interlaces his fingers with mine, smiling sweetly as he says, “Hey, I missed you.”

My heart has slowed now that the medicine found its way into my bloodstream. Even though I know it’s not a real calm, I guess it’s enough for me to do this for my friends. To be out and acting normal for one last night before I drop another bomb on them. And so I lie and say, “Me too.”

Mara’s boyfriend, Cameron, slams the passenger-side door as he gets in. He kisses Mara and then glances back at me and says, “We’re probably gonna miss the opening act now.”

“We will not,” Steve responds in my place, then leans toward me and kisses my bare shoulder. “I’m glad you decided to come.”

“Yeah, me too,” I repeat, feeling like I should mean it.

“It’s about time you got out again,” he says.

“That’s what I told her, Steve,” Mara chimes in, all smiles.

“Think of tonight as a new beginning,” he continues. “You’ll be back in school on Monday, and then we have the last couple of months of our senior year to enjoy. Finally. We’ve earned it!”

“Hell yeah, we have,” Cameron agrees.

They act like I’m recovering from a bad flu or something. Like now that I’m not keeping secrets, things can magically go back to normal, whatever normal used to be. As if finishing senior year is not the last thing on my mind right now. Or maybe they’re right, and I should just try to ignore all the rest of the shit and be a regular teenager for the next two months while I still can.

“Cameron,” I hear myself call above the music, and they all turn to look at me. “We bought the tickets for the headliner, anyway, right? So if we’re late, it’s still gonna be okay.”

Not that I care much about either, but I owed them a little enthusiasm.

He rolls his eyes and turns back around, muttering, “You mean I bought the tickets.” Cameron is the only one not pretending, not suddenly being nice to me just because of everything that happened, and I feel strangely grateful for that. “You can pay me back anytime, by the way.”

Our bickering somehow makes Mara smile, and Steve holds my hand too tightly, both taking this all as a good sign that I still have some fight in me. I clear my throat, preparing to give them the disclaimer my therapist helped me work out during my session this week.

“So, guys, um,” I begin. “I just wanted to say… You know it’s been a while since I’ve been around a lot of people, and I might, like, get anxious or—”

“It’s okay,” Steve interrupts, pulling me closer. “Don’t worry, we’ll be there.”

“Okay, it’s just that I might need to take a break and get some air for a few minutes, or something. And if I do, it’s not a big deal and I’m okay, so I don’t want anyone to worry or feel like we have to leave or anything like that.” It didn’t come out as smoothly as I’d practiced, but I said what I needed to say. Boundaries.

Now his nervous puppy eyes are back on me. And Mara squints at me in the rearview mirror.

“I mean, I might not. It’s hard to say,” I add so they’ll stop looking at me like that. “Or I could just get really drunk and we’ll all have a great fucking time.”

“Edy,” Mara scolds at the same time Steve is shouting, “No!”

“Joking,” I say with a smile. It’s also been four months since I’ve done anything bad. Though my therapist would tell me to replace bad with “unhealthy.” I haven’t done any drinking or guys or smoking of any substances at all. I’m still not sure how taking these pills when I get overwhelmed is any different from the other unhealthy stuff. Not sure who decides what’s good and what’s bad. But I’m doing it anyway, following these rules, because I want to get better, be better. I really do.

Walking up from the parking lot, we pass a group of college kids with drinks in their hands, hanging out around this old wooden picnic table that looks like it’s being partially held up by the concrete walls of the building. Their cigarette smoke calls to me as we walk by, and I watch them laughing and spilling their drinks. If Steve weren’t holding on to my hand so tightly, if things weren’t different now, I’d imagine myself drifting toward them, finding an easy space to fit for the night.

But things are different now; that kind of easy doesn’t seem to exist for me anymore.

At the door we’re each issued a neon-pink UNDER 21 wristband that the guy puts on me, grazing the inside of my wrist as he does so. I know it’s nothing, but I already feel somehow violated by that small touch, yet also strangely numb to it.

It’s too tight, the wristband. I tug on it to see if there’s any give, but they’re the paper kind that you can’t tear off or squeeze over your wrist.

Mara doesn’t seem bothered by hers at all, so I try to forget it.

Music’s thumping from the speakers. Everywhere I look people are drinking, laughing, shouting. Someone bumps into me, and I know, I know my body should be feeling something about all this. That old shock of adrenaline, heart racing, breath quickening. But there’s nothing. Except for that disappearing feeling again, except this time it doesn’t kick off a panic attack. It just makes me feel like part of me isn’t really here. And I’m suddenly unsure if I can trust myself to even know whether I’m safe or not with that part of me dormant.

This time I hold on to Steve’s hand tighter as he leads us closer to the stage. Mara takes my other hand, and when I look back at Cameron holding hers, I’m reminded of kindergarten recess, little kids forming a human chain to walk across the street to get to the playground. I hate that I need this now.

“You good?” Mara says, close to my ear, as bodies start to pack in around us.

I nod.

And I am. Sort of. Through the first set of the opening band, I’m good. I even let myself sway a little. Not dance or jump or move my hips or close my eyes and touch my boyfriend the way Mara is doing that makes it look so easy. It’s different, chemically, the absence of alcohol, the presence of this medication clouding my head instead.

By the time the band—Steve’s favorite band, the one we came to see—takes the stage, I feel myself emerging again. Softly at first. There’s that familiar jagged heartbeat in my chest and my breathing comes undone and messy, the bass reverberating in my skull. “It’s okay,” I whisper, unable to hear my own voice in my head over the music. I let go of Steve’s hand. My palms are getting sweaty. And I’m suddenly very aware of every part of my body that’s touching other people’s bodies as they bump up against me.

I look around now, too quickly, taking in everything I missed when we arrived, all at once. I spot our school colors; a varsity jacket catches the lights from the stage. I immediately get a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach—I don’t know why I hadn’t counted on seeing people from school tonight. We’re here, after all. But then I see him in clips, flashes, his head back, laughing. Jock Guy. One of Josh’s old friends.

No. I’m imagining things. I close my eyes for a second. Reset.

But when I open them, he’s still there. It’s definitely Jock Guy. The one who found me at my locker that day after school. The one who chased me down the hall. The one who wanted to scare me, wanted me to pay for my brother beating Josh up. I face the front, look at the stage. It’s now. Not then. But I can’t help myself; I look over again. Close my eyes again. Hear his voice again in my ear. I hear you’re real dirty.

My head is pounding now.

I clear my throat, or try to. “Steve!” I yell, but he can’t hear me. I place my hand on his shoulder, and he looks down at me. I cup my hands around my mouth, and he leans in. I’m practically shouting in his ear. “I’m gonna step out.”

“What?” he yells.

I point toward the exit.

“You all right?” he shouts.

I nod. “Yeah, I just feel weird.”

“What?” he yells again.

“Headache,” I shout back.

“Want me to come?”

I shake my head. “Stay, really.”

He looks back and forth between me and the band. “You sure?”

“Yes, it’s just a headache.” But I’m not sure he hears.

Mara notices me leaving and grabs my arm. She’s saying something I can’t make out.

“It’s just a headache,” I tell her. “I’ll be back.”

She opens her mouth to argue and grabs hold of my other arm now, so we’re face-to-face, but unexpectedly, thankfully, Cameron is the one to gently touch her wrist, making her let go of me. He nods at me and keeps Mara there.

I squeeze through openings in the crush of bodies, holding my breath as I struggle against the current. My head is pounding harder now, in time with the music but out of sync with my footsteps, setting me off-balance, the music rattling my chest. I finally make my way through the worst of it, bouncing like a pinball as I fight my way past the line of people still waiting to get in.

I hear my name, I think, over all the voices and music spilling through the doors.

Outside, I go straight for the parking lot, and now I know for sure he’s calling my name. Steve always wants to be some kind of Prince Charming, but if he’s the prince, I’m just another fucking Cinderella, my magic pills having worn away, the spell broken. I’m in rags, the ball raging on without me. And I don’t belong here anymore; I never did. I know already, as I try to catch my breath, the cool air hitting the sweat on my face and neck, there’s no way I’m going to be able to go back in there.

I tilt my head skyward and breathe in deeply, close my eyes as I exhale slowly. In and out. In and out, just like my therapist showed me. There’s a soft tap at the back of my arm. “I said I’m fine, Steve, really.” I spin around. “It’s just a head… ache.”