Page 389 of Releasing 10
All I could do was sit on my bed and work through the guilt, shame, and self-loathing.
I wasn’t ready to go home yet, not even close, but the urge to race back home, fall to my knees in front of Hugh, and beg for his forgiveness was potent.
He was suffering the consequences of loving a person like me.
I knew I would break him back when we were children. It was the reason I tried so hard to push him away when I was manic. Problem was, I never thought it through until it was too late. I was under some false assumption that I could somehow live without the boy that breathed air into my lungs when nothing had ever been more impossible.
He was brave and honorable, and I had taken that away from him. I had taken his shiny halo and tarnished him beyond repair.
I remembered the boy he used to be before everything went dark, but I had a real hard time remembering the girl I used to be.
She was so faintly imprinted in my memory that I doubted she ever existed to begin with.
The doctors explained the episodes to me and assured me that I wasn’t a sex addict, but that I experienced bouts of severe hypersexuality when I was in the throes of mania.
When the depression kicked in, I didn’t want to be touched. I didn’t want anything to do with it. I didn’t want anyone’s hands on me.
The doctors told me that was okay.
That these feelings would come in waves.
They wouldn’t always be present.
At the hospital, I was screened for a wide range of sexually transmitted diseases, and thankfully, all the results came back clear.
Afterward, I was offered a birth control implant in my arm to prevent pregnancy for three years.
I took it.
Because I was a mess.
The equivalent of a human wrecking ball.
Everyone and everything I came into contact with ended up ruined, and I didn’t need to bring any babies into the world and ruin them, too.
COMFORTABLE COMPANIONS
Hugh
APRIL 5, 2004
TODAY MARKEDLIZ’S NINETY-NINTH DAY IN TREATMENT, AND LIFE, FOR THE MOSTpart, had been chugging along steadily. School was a breeze, and work was enjoyable. Our school rugby team was going from strength to strength, while I was consistently breaking my personal best in the pool.
Gibsie and Claire were as happy as clams, dreaming up notions of running their own animal sanctuary, while Johnny continued to bulk up in the gym. The only one slightly off-kilter was Feely, but his issues weren’t Liz related.
Meanwhile,allmy issues were.
I still felt her absence everywhere, and nothing I tried could fill the hollowness under my rib cage.
Liz didn’t have a phone in there, which was both a blessing and a curse, because while I desperately wanted to talk to her, I knew it wouldn’t be good for either of us.
Mike used to call me every week to fill me in on her progress, but Mam politely put a stop to the calls last month, saying it wasn’thealthy.
Yeah, Mam knew about Liz being in hospital, but it wasn’t because I told her. Mam had overhead one of my phone calls with Liz’s dad and put two and two together. She was as supportive as always and had vowed to keep it a secret if I continued to live my life andnotlock myself away from the world.
Iwastrying.
I hung with Gibs and Claire in the evenings, and the rest of the lads on the weekends when I wasn’t working. Oh, and I spent a lot of time with Katie, who turned out to be excellent company.
