Page 145 of Releasing 10
MARCH 17, 1999
IKNEWLIZ WAS STRUGGLING.
I just didn’t know how to help her.
For weeks she had been withdrawing from life, barely speaking to her friends, and losing track of time.
I hadn’t seen her this sad in a long time, and it scared the shit out of me. Because I could see the pain in her eyes and had no way of taking it away for her. I couldn’t fix this problem for her.
Even as kids, when Liz was sad, she wasn’t just sad. She wasdevastated. She always seemed to feel things deeper than the rest of us and then soaked up all the pain around her like a sponge. Excellent at masking, she had learned how to hide her turmoil from her friends.
Not me, though.
I saw right through her armor, which was how I knew she was struggling lately.
She still came over to my house as often as always, but a lot of the time it felt like she was only here physically. It was as if her mind was somewhere else entirely, and I wasn’t the only one to notice. I knew my mam saw it, too, because she often took Liz to one side for chats the rest of us weren’t privy to.
I wanted to help her, but whenever I asked her what was happening, Liz just shrugged and told me that it didn’t matter.
Of course it mattered.
Anything that made her feelthissad mattered.
I knew she had mental health issues. My mother had explained that much to me, but I still felt like I was being kept in the dark. I wasn’t stupid, and I wasn’t naive like Claire and Gibs. I could handle whatever was happening to my best friend, if the grown-ups in our lives gave me the chance to.
I understood why the grown-ups used kid gloves when handling delicate issues, but I was the wrong target to wrap up in cotton wool. Because whether Mam wanted to admit it or not, I wasn’t unaccustomed to depression—or whatever the hell my best friend was suffering from.
After all, I’d been exposed to my father’s mental decline for years.
When almost a month had passed by with no improvement in Lizzie’s mood, I found myself growing increasingly protective of her. If there were a way for me to travel into her mind and bring her back, I would have, but there wasn’t, so I had to settle with shielding her from what Icouldcontrol.
From the monsters I could see.
My opportunity to do just that arrived on St. Patrick’s Day, during a friendly game of rugby, of all things. We were at the local park with our friends after the parade in town. Claire, Gibs, and Liz were sprawled out on the grass at the edge of the field, while myself and Feely were pushing at the back of a maul, along with twenty or so lads from town, when it all kicked off.
“Head’s up, Fatty,” Pierce O’Neill called out about two seconds before the ball went whizzing past all of us and smacked Gibsie directly in his face.
The moment it happened, the lads on the pitch erupted with laughter, while Gibs climbed to his feet, holding his face with his hand. When he pulled his hand back and saw the blood on his fingers, he was out like a light and faceplanting into the ground.
“Gerard!” Claire cried out, dropping to her knees to comfort our friend. It wasn’t the first time either one of us had witnessedGibs faint from the sight of his own blood. It was a common occurrence but never usually happened in such a public setting. I was horrified for my friend, and the sound of laughter around us was doing nothing to lower my spiking blood pressure.
“Did he just faint?”
“Lads, Fatty just fainted.”
“Is he all right?”
“This is priceless, lads. Billy Elliot’s afraid of blood!”
“Shut the fuck up, Danny,” Feely snarled, targeting the loudmouthed prick laughing, while I stalked over to the main culprit.
“You did that on purpose, didn’t ya?” The smirk on Pierce’s face assured me that I was right. “Why don’t ya throw something at me instead?” I demanded, shoving his chest hard enough to topple the little prick onto his ass. “Yeah, that’s what I thought,” I sneered, as I stood over him and glared. “Not so fucking tough now, are ya?”
“I was only messing, Biggsie,” Pierce choked out, holding his hands up in retreat like the coward he was. “Relax, will ya?” Shrugging, he added, “It was just for shits and giggles.”
“You consider that humorous?” I narrowed my eyes in disgust. “If wit was shit, you’d be constipated.”
“Hey! Someone stop that little bitch!” one of the other lads roared, dragging my attention back over to the side of the field once more, just in time to see Lizzie kick the ball we were playing with over the wall that separated the park from the river.
