Page 72 of Flying

Play this

River:

Delia – You’re off tonight. Please make sure she’s ok. I’ll handle the bar deliveries

Delia:

You’re damn right

forty-eight

Lily

Sunday Morning

“You want to go,don’t you?” Nessa whispers in the early morning hours.

“So fucking badly,” I admit.

“Too many lights, noises, people?” she pokes.

“It’s fun,” I try to deflect and the stare could be used by the CIA interrogation team.

I audibly harumph so she softens, gets a bit serious. “Permission to put my professional hat on?”

“Fine,” I groan, nervous about what she’s going to say.

“Okay, first of all, you’ve been running from your problems for as long as I can remember. You always take off when it’s scary, Lil. Do you remember the big argument between Landan and Delia in eighth grade?”

“No?” I’m confused.

“Of course not, because you didn’t like confrontation then either, so you magically needed to help River study for a test in the library instead of coming to lunch. We all knew they were about to get into it, but you skipped standing behind her.”

“Can we not, please?” Delia moans from her side of the room where she’s already packing things up.

“Moving on. Second, you were always trying to come across as perfectly put together. I’m guessing the external pressure kept you on task? Belinda isn’t exactly the warm and fuzzy type, so angling to please her added a level of stress you needed to stay motivated. Focusing your school work on tutoring River externalized it… these are all classic ways that women I talk to in adulthood mention their ADHD was missed.” Nessa then shrugs.

Changing her tune from her house a month ago, Delia adds, “Dude, you know we don’t care about the label right? We just care about you.”

“What?” I’m shaken. “Really? You told me I was making excuses not too long ago…”

“Yeah, I mean I’ve been thinking about it all and you can’t sit still for long, you overthink, over-share, orat least it seemed like you did. It was a version of sharing everything with everyone.” Delia shrugs.

“I kind of was the one who pushed River to not let it go when you were getting along so well in September. It seemed like if you’d let anyone catch you while you ran, he had the best chance.”

Nessa adds, “I’ve been worried for a while that you were hiding something, and now it all adds up. Now that you are learning how your brain is wired, does it feel easier to be around everyone?”

“Sometimes yes, sometimes no,” I admit.

“Keys,” she holds open her palm to me “and you,” she glares at Delia, “you gotta rest too. I’ll drive us, I’ve been taking it slow all weekend. I had a feeling someone was going to need to be able to handle whatever came out of this all.”

Delia glares back. “You might be the oldest with your siblings, but we’re your friends. You get a night off too sometimes.”

“I promise to relax the wedding weekend, okay?”

Leaningmy head against the passenger side window of my car, the car that I’ve held onto since I ran from Peacock Springs, Belinda, Grant, Landan, and everything that told me I wasn’t good enough,I’m flooded with that familiar urge. The urge to curl into a little ball and sleep under a weighted blanket or seven. The urge to disappear into the darkness by turning off all of my socials, my cell phone, or even just throw it in the fucking river.

---