Say Anything

It had been a silent night, much like every other. Alex would mumble and stumble his way through a one-sided conversation while we walked around, and I wouldn’t say anything. I had not uttered a single word in hours, keeping my syllables safe in my head.

He was busy unlocking the door, fumbling around for the keys in his pocket, not seeming to be able to find the right one. Something made him pause though, and turn back to look at me while I just stood there behind him. The early morning sun was barely hitting his face, even though it was still rather dark outside.

All Alex did was look at me. His eyes peered down into mine, scoping out all of the secrets and lies beneath the so called ‘windows to my soul.’ I wondered if he could read all of the secrets that were looming just beneath my surface.

It was quiet between us. I knew what I had to do. For once, I was going to take advantage of a situation and hopefully use it to my benefit, or as much benefit I could get from spilling long-kept secrets.

My mouth opened and closed a few times before anything came out. When it did, my voice was hoarse and the words felt sticky, trapped in my throat for not having spoken in hours.

“I’ve been hiding a lot from you,” I said, the words sticking to my tongue as I shoved them out forcefully from their hiding spot in my head. How long they had been trapped there, now finally free and in the open air. It was up to Alex now to decide how this confession was going to go. Could I really go through with this? Admit my secrets because I felt like he should finally know? I was on the brink of destruction at this point, literally breaking and splintering apart before my very own eyes. I needed help, and for once, I was going to reach out, because every other time I had ignored my problems was catching up with me. Please Alex, be there for me.

“How much is a lot?” he quipped, gulping and wearing that look on his face that said he’d been waiting for this for a while now - maybe even longer than I’ve been planning on spilling my guts to him.

“Everything.” I whispered it to him, not being able to find my voice as I felt overtaken by silence again, wanting to go away and hide for a long, long time.

Dear Christina, welcome to rock-bottom.

I watched as he took a seat on the loveseat swing on the porch. He sat there, his head in his hands, and I moved over to sit next to him. This was going to take a while. At least the sunrise could keep me company. I could feel myself nearly breaking out into a sweat while I questioned how I was going to admit the crimes of falling for your best friend, tales of self destruction, and the violent disorder within me.

“Chrissy,” he started out, my name falling from his mouth slowly. “You can’t do that to me and not explain.”

Those were the only words he had to say for me to regret what I had just spoken minutes before. My eyes stared into his when he finally looked up at me, trying to plead with him that he shouldn’t make me speak. Maybe if I spoke loud enough with my eyes he would see that I regretted telling him I had been hiding things. Well, I reasoned that it wasn’t a secret, because he had always known I was keeping things from him. Tonight was just the night he found out how much.

“Christina, I have gone years without asking for explanations from you. I never ask questions. I fucking watch you like this more often than not when we’re together, and I never say a word. The least you can do now is say something. Say anything[/b[, Chrissy. You know you can say anything to me.”

His eyes were dropping as he looked at me. He was tired. He was exhausted - mainly with me, I’m sure. And Alex was past the point of exasperated. I had been dragging him through my problems and back for so long now, and he clung to me, being there for me when no one else would. And he never asked a single question.

Did I really owe it to him now?

Of course I did.

When he said I could say anything to him, did that mean he really wanted to hear what I had to say - what I had to confess? Would he still be wanting to hear me say anything when I told him what I was about to spill?

I felt like the goddamn girl from Speak with the way I had been acting now for months. Was it really time for me to open my mouth and spill my secrets? It was now or never. There was no going back. Alex deserved to know. He deserved to have his questions answered, and then decide I was too far in, and not worth helping. I was mentally preparing myself for two things at the moment. One, being the actual act of telling Alex, the second being preparing myself for when he would leave me.

“Promise you’ll listen until I’m done saying everything,” I said, my voice shaking and the words stuttering about in my mouth. The muscles in my back were tensing up and my hands were clinging together, tremors about to rocket through my body.

Alex only stared at me, his face unreadable and I couldn’t judge his emotions. Maybe he was nervous for what I was about to say. Maybe he knew some of my secrets already, or had a hunch, and just didn’t want to hear them confirmed. I’m sure at least two of those secrets was more than obvious to any person with vision. One secret was only visible to someone who had seen me in a t-shirt, while another was visible in nearly every outfit. The final secret wasn’t visible at all, and I sure as hell hoped Alex hadn’t been able to figure that one out yet.

I started off with the first one, which I thought would be the easiest one. For the first part of admitting this one, I wouldn’t have to say anything. All I had to do was show him, and then tack on a few words. I wanted to do this with as little communication as I could. This way, I can say I still confessed, without having to go through the numerous tears that were sure to come if I started talking about all these problems for longer than I was comfortable with.

As I rolled up the sleeves of my jacket, I was envisioning all of the ways I was going to be left alone. Alex would see how much of a nut job I already was, even though he already knew - only now it was just confirmed - and then he would run. He would get freaked out from all of my problems, and run. But I prayed he wouldn’t. I prayed and prayed in my head as I rolled up my sleeves, hoping Alex would be here at the end of my confession to tell me he still wanted to be my friend despite how severely messed up I was.

Tiny white scars decorated the inside of my right arm, and I felt Alex staring down at all of them. He’d seen these before. Everyone had seen these when it became too warm for long sleeves. No one ever asked about them though. Alex only looked, and looked, and never asked. This was secret number one.

“You’ve seen these before,” I muttered, hating how I had to go about with this. Everyone knew about this one, they just never dared to ask if I actually did this to myself. “I did all of these to myself. I was diagnosed with depression a year ago, Alex.”

My words were lifeless and bleak. I had never told a soul that I cut myself (save my therapist), nor that I was clinically depressed. No one needed to know. It was my way of dealing with things (namely my depression), and I fucking hated how dependent I had become on that stupid little rush of ‘feeling good’ that came with a razorblade.

I rolled my sleeves back down. Check off number one. I felt like throwing up, and knew I had two more things to share before I was off the hook. If I didn’t spill it now, it was sure to come out at another time, and come out much worse than it would now. I had to tell Alex. I had to tell him everything I had been hiding from him in these years of friendship.

Now I had to buck up and admit to the other way I had dealt with always knowing the feeling of never being able to be enough for anyone. I wasn’t enough for myself, why should anyone else think I was something special? I wasn’t. Here was just another cry for help, intentionally wasting myself away, depriving myself from nutrients and sufficient amounts of food.

I looked down at my stomach, the rolls I knew were there, pudging out. But they weren’t there when I looked this time. They were gone. My stomach was concave and this was the first time I truly saw what a bag of bones I had become. Maybe now if I wasn’t lying to Alex, I wouldn’t be lying to myself.

I looked at Alex, not being able to bear to admit that I was suffering from bulimia. I couldn’t even say it out loud when I was alone, how could I say it aloud to Alex? The only thing I could do was look down at my sticks for legs, my thin arms and hands rubbing across the denim of my jeans. I hoped to God he was able to figure this one out on his own, because everyone who knew me, or had seen me, had some inkling of suspicion. I was sure of it. I was the only person able to ignore this problem.

His eyes came alive though, after being silent through the first parts of my confessions. Alex sat up straighter and was looking into my eyes with what looked like disgust and hate. I knew this was coming. This was the part where he said I was worthless, and psycho, and that he shouldn’t be associating with someone like me.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he said through gritted teeth, trying hard to control what felt like anger.

“No one needed to know,” I whispered back, not finding my voice to be of any help at the moment. I was scared that this was when he would realize I wasn’t worth trying to help, or save, or whatever his little mission was. I was stubborn and never admitted to myself I had a problem. Did he really think I would go to him first?

“You needed help. I could have helped you,” he said again, his teeth still clamped together. I really didn’t want him to scream at me. I wasn’t up for being reminded of how worthless I was. That came nightly when I stood in front of my mirror.

“Chrissy, you never tell anyone anything!” he started again, his voice raising and he tossed his hands into the air in some sort of defeat. “You know you can always say anything to me! I wanted you to say something - that you needed me, that you needed help! But you never did, Christina. You can talk to me, and scream and yell until you can’t anymore!”

His voice was full-on escalading with each word, and I was cowering into the loveseat as it rocked back and forth slightly from Alex’s over-exaggerated movements. I could never have talked to him about this. I can hardly even mumble my secrets to myself when I’m in absolute solitude. I will never scream, or yell, or do any loud speaking until I can’t anymore. Alex doesn’t need to hear what all of this does to me, and I’m sure it will sound like Hell itself pouring from my mouth should I decide to unleash it all and scream and yell.

“Can you just say something?” he asked, this time softly. His voice was barely above a whisper, and he had his head back in his hands as he stared at the wooden porch below us.

I obliged, giving into this one request, and my heart was beating faster than ever now. “I just have one more thing to say. Just please listen.”

That’s all I said. But I was dying to say, scream, yell, shout, “Please don’t leave when you hear what I’m about to confess next. Please, please don’t leave.”

It was wrong for me to feel the way I did about Alex. I knew it. He wasn’t right for me, and I certainly wasn’t right for him. But somewhere along the way, I decided I was in love with him, and haven’t turned back since. I had fallen for every joke, every smile, every laugh, every time he would look at me and not have to say anything, because he could tell I was dying to say something. I was in love with him. That was my deepest, darkest secret. It was a reason behind the scars on my arm, behind the alarmingly low weight on my scale. He was dismantling me, too. This wasn’t all my fault.

But it was all my fault for falling in love with him.

“I promise I’ll listen. I told you, you can say anything.”

I wondered if he would take that back the second those five words left my mouth.

“I’m in love with you.”

I pushed them out, the words seeing the daylight and feeling air for the first time ever. I had never, ever dared to speak that aloud. Now, those words were out in the opened to be heard and accepted, or rejected and judged. Alex didn’t say a word. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t look at me, and I didn’t look at him.

And then he left me.