Retrovertigo

“I brought wine,” Lauren smiled weakly, sliding a full glass across the glass patio table.
Sinking into the fear, I collapsed into the cushion of a patio chair and snatched up the glass.
“I’m sorry for being a crazy person earlier,” Lauren sighed. “I was out of line.”
I shook my head, “You weren’t…You rarely are.”
“The reason you think that is why I love you so much,” she smirked, taking a sip of red.
I took a deep breath, setting my glass onto the table and folding my hands into my lap, “Before you say anything…I just want to be sure you really want to open this can of fucking worms.”
“Matt says I should just let it go,” she sighed. “But…”
“You can’t,” I finished knowingly, a reflection of my own bad habits staring back at me.
“There’s just been so much tragedy in our friend group that…I don’t want to keep secrets,” she confessed solemnly. “I don’t want to keep my feelings from you. Remember the last time I did that? Our friendship nearly died.”
I laughed, “I wouldn’t say died. But…you threw a heavy fuckin’ gauntlet down back then, Lo. You were convinced I was in love with your boyfriend.”
She nodded, “That’s an argument for another day.”
Deep down, I was sure Lauren had never truly gotten over the Jimmy hurdle. She’d moved on with her life, setting Jimmy carefully down in her past and leaving him there with fondness. But when it came to my relationship with Jimmy, I was sure she still held qualms and suspicions. As understanding as she’d been in his life, she’d been equally as insecure in his death.
“But I’ve been holding onto this one for a long time,” she continued. “And I know that you’re kind of in the dark about it still…And sometimes I think it’s not fair that I’m upset with you for not talking about it…I know it isn’t really your fault.”
I shrugged, “It isn’t like I ever asked.”
“And why would you?” she concurred. “It isn’t like I didn’t go through something similar…”
The memory ate at me every single time it surfaced. The sheer strength the slim woman had had as I’d tried to pry the bottle from her grip. The panic that had washed over me as I thought of what might happen to the growing baby in her belly…what might have happened to me if I’d been two minutes later.
There are some things in life that you simply can’t take back.
“I remember,” I choked out.
She hesitated, drowning her thoughts in more wine, “I’m afraid to tell you how I feel sometimes, Blair.”
My face contorted itself as unnaturally as possible, “What? Why?”
“Because you’re you!” she half-laughed. “You’re intimidating!”
“I don’t know why people fucking say that shit to me,” I groaned, rolling my eyes into the back of my head.
She shrugged, “Because you are. You’re the queen of no emotions. You have two feelings: apathy and despair. There is no in between with you. So…Sometimes I guess I’m afraid that I’ll either set you off into another whirlwind of sadness or I’ll be met with such apathy that I’ll feel silly for even bringing it up in the first place.”
“I don’t mean to make you feel that way…” I mumbled quietly, feeling only slightly attacked.
Lauren frowned, “Have you ever talked to Brian about that night? Did he tell you what happened?”
I shook my head, “We spoke briefly a few minutes ago about it…But…”
“He asked me not to tell you,” she confessed. “He was afraid that it might spark some downward spiral…You really freaked him out, B.”
“I extrapolated that,” I muttered, thinking back to Brian’s unadulterated rage that had followed my suicide attempt.
She considered this quietly for a moment before continuing on, “But it’s been eating me alive every single day for the last four years.”
“I know a little something about that,” I replied lowly, my heart on my sleeve. “How can I help, Lo?”
She tilted her head at me, eyes glancing down to the pack of cigarettes on the table. Without a word, she requested a cigarette. I wasn’t one to argue with her, tossing the pack her way in an equal silence. Once she’d lit the end and had pulled a lungful of nicotine into her chest, I followed suit.
“What happened, Blair?” she asked, her voice entirely void of confidence and life.
I pulled at my cigarette, averting my gaze to land anywhere but on Lauren’s burdened curiosity, “I…was sad.”
“I got that,” she half-smiled. “But…were things really that bad? You could have talked to me! I would have listened!”
“I know,” I nodded, flicking the ash from the end of my smoke. “But I honestly didn’t even fucking think about that. All I could think about was how very fucking alone I felt, even though I wasn’t really alone.”
She frowned, “Because of Jimmy?”
I flinched a little at the use of his name.
It was a common occurrence, people assuming I’d fallen off the deep end after my best friend’s death. It was true, in part. But I refused to believe Jimmy—and Jimmy alone—was enough to send me on my downward departure. Jimmy’s presence came at a perfect time in my life. He was truly my saving grace after Tyler had passed away. He was everything I’d ever wanted in a friend, or in a family.
I’d never felt more connected to this world than I did when I was by Jimmy’s side. He had a way of coaxing life from beneath my bones; he inspired me creatively, mentally, and existentially. I made the fatal error of allowing myself to get comfortable in his security. I let myself forget that nothing lasts forever, and nothing is permanent.
The recoil following his death wasn’t borne of grief alone. It was manifested from a great disappointment that the life I’d known—the life I’d loved—was gone.
“Because of everything,” I corrected feebly. “I…I spent so much time in my life alone…I lost my parents really young, and I know that I always say it didn’t affect me…but of course it did. It does. The older I get, the more I find myself missing them. And it just kind of seemed, at the time, like that was all I ever did—missed people. Everyone I’d loved was gone. I had no mother, no father, I’d lost my best friend and then a few years later, I’d lost another. It’s…a lot.”
“It is a lot,” she nodded. “I can’t even imagine…”
I sighed, dancing that dangerous line of sympathy that I loathed so much, “I don’t know what happened that particular night…Something just kind of fuckin’ snapped. I remember trying to go to bed and just…I couldn’t handle being alone. Brian was gone and…I don’t know. It just triggered something really fucking dark in me.”
Lauren took a deep breath, “It was the scariest night of my entire life.”
“Brian says you’re the one that found me.”
“I wouldn’t say I found you,” she considered. “Brian called me…Do you want to hear this? I’ll understand if you don’t.”
“Lauren,” I tried to smile, relying heavily on the reassurance of nicotine in my veins. “If you want to get this out of your system, I’m all ears.”
She took her time, taking a big swig of wine to calm her nerves, “It was late. Really late. And my phone must have rang a thousand times…I kind of figured it was Matt all drunk just being homesick and silly.”
I smirked a little, having received one or two of those phone calls in my lifetime.
“But when the calls didn’t stop, I finally picked up…” she trailed off into thought, doing her best to stay afloat amidst the stormy past. “Brian was panicking. He said I had to go next door. I had to go right then and there.”
My heart ached as I imagined Brian’s worried soul, miles away from me and undeniably helpless.
“I reminded him of the late hour…He said he didn’t care. He said, and I quote, Lauren, if you do not get the fuck up and check on my fucking wife right this second, I swear to god I will kill you.”
“My man,” I smirked.
She laughed lightly, “Yeah…Your man wouldn’t tell me what was going on. He just kept insisting I go over and check on you. I tried to hang up, I said I’d call him back. That wasn’t happening.”
My heart swelled and ached for Brian all over again.
She continued, “So I muttered some choice words but I shuffled my ass over here anyway. I won’t lie to you, Blair…I sort of assumed I’d find you drunk out of your mind or all hopped up on coke or something. I did not, for one second, think I’d find you…how I found you.”
I swallowed hard, the pain in her eyes reflective of the choices I’d made.
“I told Brian I’d have to call him back,” she told me sternly, as if she was reasserting her dominance. “When I found you…God, it was like something out of The Exorcist. You were this horrible colour…Your breathing…My god…The sounds you were making just trying to breathe…”
My hands began to shake as she painted a very real and a very vivid picture of my failure. Of course it had to be the one light in my life that would stumble onto my moment of depletion.
“I called the ambulance and I sat with you, trying my best to coax some sort of consciousness into you…They told me to splash you with water, so I did…They told me to roll you onto your side, so I did…You were just…”
I nodded, hoping she wouldn’t finish her sentence.
“So I’m waiting for this ambulance,” she continued sadly. “And I finally take in what’s going on…and who do I see on the television? Jimmy. You and Jimmy to be specific. What the hell were you doing, some ritual or something?”
I couldn’t help the weak laugh that escaped me, “No. I was watching home videos.”
“Before or after you tried to kill yourself?” she asked like it mattered.
Maybe it did.
“During,” I whispered.
“God, that’s disturbing,” she grumbled, shaking away the horrible revelation. “And as you and Jimmy are clinging onto each other on the TV, this song…this song is literally counting down the hours until you find someone dead. And then all at once it just…cuts out. With this horrible beep.”
I nodded, “That’s the end of the song.”
“I got that,” she informed me. “It was all just so…premeditated. I know you’ve had problems with drugs in the past and I kind of thought, you know, when I first walked in…that maybe that’s what was happening…but…”
“It wasn’t,” I finished for her, tossing my burnt-out cigarette into the ash tray.
She looked at me, her eyes pooled with tears, “The doctor said if I’d called for an ambulance even ten minutes later, you’d be gone.”
I wasn’t sure what to say…so I said absolutely nothing.
“I’ve never seen anyone look the way you looked that night,” she told me gravely. “And it just…it really messed me up, Blair. I couldn’t help but compare what I’d seen to what I can only assume Jimmy—”
“Don’t,” I warned her sternly. “We can talk about me but don’t you dare bring him up. Not like this.”
She softened, “Blair, we’re on the same side. I just…There were some similarities to your…situations. Tell me they were coincidental.”
I bit at my lip with a hunger, reluctant to admit my horrible truth.
But Lauren knew me all too well, “Jesus, Blair.”
“I was in a horrible place,” I tried to defend although it felt a bit pointless. “And I was just…Grasping at straws. I wanted to feel connected, I guess…I know that’s fucked up.”
“Everything about what happened is fucked up,” Lauren tried to smile. “But…you survived. And I’m so, so, so thankful for that.”
I smiled at her, “I guess I have you to thank.”
“You have Brian to thank,” she insisted sternly. “That man is crazy bossy when he needs to be.”
I laughed dryly, “That he is.”
“He really loves you,” she informed me like I didn’t already know. “And I think he called me more times that night than he’s called me in the nine years I’ve known him.”
“I don’t deserve him,” I muttered quietly, embarrassed of my own mind.
Lauren scowled, “Blair, you know that isn’t true. You went through a dark patch…We all understand now.”
“You shouldn’t have to understand,” I objected. “It’s…I don’t know. I’m fucking ashamed of myself.”
“Blair,” she scolded.
I shrugged my shoulders, “I’m a fucking hypocrite. I hated Tyler for years because of what he did…and then I had the god damn audacity to turn around do the same fucking thing. I’m nothing more than a hypocrite.”
“You’re not a hypocrite, Blair,” Lauren eased, sliding over and pulling one of my trembling hands into hers. “You’re brilliant and beautiful and kind and intelligent…and a little bit cursed. You’ve suffered a lot in your life…and you insisted on going about it all alone. I was afraid of what had happened…but I never, not for a single second, judged you.”
I tried my best to smile, nodding to let her know I’d been listening.
“You seem to be doing better,” she noted. “I think Patricia helped.”
I scoffed, “I didn’t need to pay that bitch thousands of dollars to tell me that I don’t know how to cope. So…I’m not sure how much credit I’m willing to give her.”
Lauren laughed, “Like it or not, that bitch helped you unearth some things about yourself. You seem…dare I say it, happy now.”
“I’m not necessarily happy,” I clarified cautiously. “But I’m not sad. I’m somewhere in between. Content maybe.”
“I’ll take content,” she smiled.
I grinned, “Good, ‘cause that’s all I’m going to give you.”
“I was thinking,” she moved along, “to celebrate your new album starting tomorrow and to celebrate how far you’ve come from those dark days…We should go for dinner tomorrow night. No kids, no husbands. Just me and you—like the good old days. What do you say?”
I smiled over at my best friend, in endless awe of her virtue, “I’d be an asshole to turn you down.”
“You would,” she giggled.
“Are we okay, Lo?” I asked carefully.
She nodded her golden head, “If you’re okay, we’re okay.”
“I’m okay,” I confirmed.
She squeezed my hand tightly before letting it go, replacing my fingers with her glass of wine.
“Good,” she declared. “Let’s move onto wine-friendly topics. Like that upbeat, happy pop song you’re going to put out.”
I rolled my eyes, “If you think it’s going to be fucking happy, you’ll be thoroughly disappointed, Lauren.”
“Come on,” she whined. “You just said you were okay! Stop making depressing songs! Make something happy!”
I laughed loudly, shaking my head, “No can do. I’m perpetually grim and you’re just going to have to get the fuck over it, my friend. Blair Haner is not about the sunshine.”
“No she is not,” Lauren giggled, her laughter fading into an affectionate smile. “But I love her just the same.”

Notes

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