Page 97 of The Truth About Love

It hasn’t been easy. It’s been debilitating, actually. There have been more moments than I can count when I’ve contemplated giving up, but then I would remember the promise Auden made and the future I’m working towards and I’d get back up, dust myself off and get back to work.

Of course, I’m not magically cured of my condition. My depression is still as real as the air I breathe, but I’ve spent hours and hours with psychiatrists and in group therapy sessions learning how to manage it.

I’m also on a shit tonne of medication, which is something I never thought I’d say. But I’ve come to learn that there’s no shame in it.

Mental illness isn’t a choice. No one wakes up one morning and chooses to be depressed. I certainly never wrote ‘depression’ on my Christmas wish list, but I was gifted it nonetheless. So why should I be ashamed to take a few prescribed pills if they help to keep the demons at bay? Especially if they help me live the life that I’m desperate for, if they help me love Auden the way I have always wanted to, but couldn’t.

“One of these days you’re going to say yes to me, Summer,” Max says with a wink.

But I won’t.

Even if agreeing to dinner with him wouldn’t technically be doing anything wrong. Auden promised to wait for me, but he never promised abstinence. It’s a detail I hadn’t thought to cover at the time, but I don’t think it was needed.

In two years, I haven’t felt even a twinge of attraction towards another man. My heart, my longing, my desire all belongs solely to him.

I laugh and swat Max playfully on the arm. “Keep dreaming.”

Smiling, I say my goodbyes and start the walk back to the building where I both live and work.

The week after I was discharged from rehab, I used the entirety of my trust-fund to set up a non-profit organisation for people with mental health difficulties who can’t access medical help or just don’t want to. It’s a place where people can come and be safe, unjudged and in the presence of those who understand.

I’ve set The Rainey Days Foundation in a restored building that had been a bank once upon a time. The entirety of the downstairs is dedicated to the organisation, with a large communal space, kitchen, dining area and a number of small side rooms leading off the main area for the different services we offer.

We host group activities and lunches and regular group therapy sessions. Every day, there is at least one psych on sight for drop-in appointments as well as volunteers who help me keep the centre running. But my favourite part of the whole building has to be the small rooms that I had set up with daybeds and book shelves and comfy chairs, for those who want to be on their own while also being surrounded by people.

And the best thing about the foundation? It’s one-hundred-percent free for everyone who uses it. We rely solely on the money I feed into it, donations and fundraising.

I don’t even take a salary.

During my stay in rehab, the councillors encouraged us to write about our experiences. I don’t know what made me do it, but I started uploading my daily journal entries onto an online blog. I wasn’t expecting anyone to read it, but after only a few months I had such a large following that I was able to monetise it, which is how I’m able to run the foundation without taking any money out for my living expenses.

It’s a magical kind of irony. How the demons in my head are the reason that I’m helping other people learn how to live with theirs. For so long, I’ve hated my monsters. I’ve blamed them for the pain I’ve felt, the mistakes I’ve made, the times I’ve hurt the people I love. I’ve always thought that it was because of them that I couldn’t be with Auden.

But that’s not true.

It’s not my condition that was the problem, but how I dealt with it. Having depression didn’t make me any less deserving of Auden’s love, but the way I treated him did.

I know that now.

It’s why I’ve waited so long to go to him.

Because it wasn’t my monsters that were hurting him before, it was me, and I need to be sure that I’ll never put him through it again.

And if I’m being totally honest, maybe I’m a bit scared.

Auden and I have been seven years in the making. It’s overwhelming, knowing that our past really can be left behind us now. Maybe there’s a part of me that still clings to the darkness because it’s safe and familiar. I’m a recovering addict after all. Pain will always call to me like a siren in the night, but I’m strong enough to resist it now.

I’m ready.

Finally, my heart is strong enough to withstand the weight of mine and Auden’s love. Because together, we burn like wildfire. We love with the light of a million stars. We’re fierce and chaotic and powerful and until now, I never had a hope in hell of surviving it. But I do now.

I don’t know what our new reality will look like, but I know that the flames of our love will burn forever and light our way through the dark.

It’s time, I realise.

No more waiting.

We’ve waited for each other long enough and I have no excuses left to hold out another day or two.

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