Still Here

It was like when the kid with Down Syndrome tried choking his best friend on the way back from the field trip.

Or like when the kid with Autism ran out from behind the curtain during the Christmas program and started singing Who Let the Dogs Out extremely loudly into the microphone.

Or maybe, it was like when the other kid with Down Syndrome stripped in the bathroom and ran around school naked for ten minutes before the aids caught him.

At least, that’s what you think it is like, but it isn’t. You are nothing like them. You are normal, whether you believe it or not. Nobody judges you for it, not a single person in the whole damned town. You can’t accept it, though, you continue to distance yourself from everyone.

But we care, we are not leaving. It’s you that keeps us here, your fear of your disease, the way you sometimes start shaking just thinking about an attack coming on, while you’re in the middle of a crowded place.

I remember the first time you had one at school.

You were cold, couldn’t stop shaking. Teeth chattering, knees shaking, and your hands were wrapped around your thin arms. You let me hug you, for the first time. I pulled your small body into mine and held you.

It was two seconds into the hug when I felt your heart pounding. I’ve felt people’s hearts beating before through a hug, but yours was pounding, as if trying to escape your chest cavity. I started to pull back when your hands started trembling around my back and you seemed to depend on me more to support you, as if you couldn‘t stand on your own any longer. It was then, in those milliseconds of me pulling back, that you seemed to rip out of my arms and then you fell against the metal of the lockers behind us.

You held your head and you started shaking, as if chilled to the bone.

“I’m dying! Oh, God, I’m dying,” you mumbled over and over, your voice a low whisper and I saw the tears streaking down your face.

People flocked to us like wildfire, all of a sudden, but they stood far back, as if whatever was happening to you was contagious and they were afraid.
I took a step or two toward you and tried to soothe you, but it was a lost cause.

“Caroline, Caroline,” I said, cautiously and reached a hand out.

You jerked away and continued to shiver and mumble, holding your head in your hands. You were sobbing too, sobbing so hard that the people surrounding couldn’t understand you, but I knew what you were saying: “I’m dying.”

It stopped, finally, after seven agonizing minutes and you stood there, rocking, still and looking up at me with large blue eyes that were filled to the brim with tears.

Your hands were still shaking and you were still shivering. I held my hand out again and you began crying harder.

We walked together to the nurse’s office and she called your dad.

We didn’t say anything.
I didn’t know what to say and I don’t think you could.

It’s panic disorder, they told you, and they explained it.
I was there, of course, right there with you.
I was there for almost all of the next attacks too, where you could do nothing but mumble and cry and shake until it was over.

I remember another time, too, an attack you’d probably rather like to forget, though it’s the most clear in my usually foggy memory.

It was three weeks after your diagnoses, before you became so detached from reality.
We were home alone, in your house, I remember. Talking on the couch, talking about you and your “disease” and why it was you. You were close to crying before I pulled you onto my lap and held you close.

Finally, after forever in silence, you lifted your head and placed your lips on my jawline.
You’d never done it before, never placed your lips anywhere near mine, never anything remotely sexual, before right then.

Your face was wet and tear streaked, but you continued on, your lips tracing the entirety of my jaw before coming to rest on my lips.
I didn’t know whether or not to kiss you; I was shellshocked. You didn’t do this kind of thing to boys of any sort, especially boys of my sort. You were so innocent.

Cautiously, I opened my mouth and felt your tongue slide across mine.

Your hand slowly slid up my shirt, your fingertips just brushing the hard muscle there.
Our lips were still attached and your eyes were closed but I felt your hand tremble and felt the goosebumps start to raise on your pale and beautiful skin.

“I don’t want to be merely a distraction, Caroline,” I remember saying, my eyes closed in what was probably frustration.

“You’re anything but distraction, Mattie,” you mumbled and your voice trembled.

You felt it coming, your eyes squeezed closed but you leaned back to pull your shirt off anyway and motioned for me to do the same.

It felt wrong, like I shouldn’t be doing this with you, to you, but I took it off anyway.
Your hands again caressed my skin, and you leaned back into kissing me.
We got as far as pants off and hands wandering everywhere before it happened, like we both knew it would.
The mumbling, crying, shaking, the horror of me not knowing what to do.

It was terrible, it is terrible, I never know what to do. They never last long, but for the few minutes that they do last, I feel like I’m dying there as you imagine that your death is oncoming and soon. I feel so helpless.

You won’t let me help you; I don’t know how to help you.

You don’t make any sense to me, Caroline.
You are so scared, so scared of your disease, that you don’t like going out in public, or out with your friends, or out with me. I think you’re afraid that your disease makes you ugly, or unlovable, or something. Something completely and utterly untrue, because you’ll always be beautiful and always be loved.

Stop over-thinking. Stop being so scared.

I’m still here, Caroline.
And so is everyone else.

Please, stop doing this to yourself, stop exiling yourself for fear of what others think.
It only makes your condition worse.

I love you.
Come back to me.