Page 1 of Lovesick
1
KNEE-DEEP IN ENEMY TERRITORY
MERIT
If I have to listen to another brainless zombie waste their breath talking about hockey, I’m going to rip my hair out.
I’m not an avid bar-goer. In fact, recreational socializing isn’t even on my endless to-do list. But my best friend since childhood, Irelyn St. Clair—self-proclaimed risk-taker and Miss Minnesota three years in the running—wasn’t going to let me spiral alone the night before my first day of junior year at my new college. I was perfectly content with having an existential crisis while eating a whole sleeve of raw cookie dough, but if there’s anything I’ve learned about being friends with Irelyn, it’s that she rarely takes no for an answer, and she’s suspiciously adept at getting whatever she wants. Plus, sharing an apartment with her means that I get roped into pretty much anything she does.
I stare at the amber liquid in my condensation-frosted glass, gauging the likelihood of a regretful hangover the next morning. School already has me stressed enough. If Irelyn expects me to last until ten p.m. tonight—which is at least two hours past my bedtime—then I’m going to need my fair share of liquid courage. And having to listen to one of those I-could’ve-gone-pro-if-it-wasn’t-for-my-ACL-injury guys trying to mansplain hockey to me is already a death sentence of the cruelest variety.
Irelyn sips daintily on her cosmopolitan, the alcohol flush on her cheeks shimmering in the low light of the bar’s blood-orange sconces. “I’m surprised your parents didn’t chaperone us,” she quips.
Talking about my parents is a surefire way to kill the mood. I take a much-needed swig of my brandy, cringing when it burns an unforgiving path down my throat and mixes with the ever-present and semi-permanent anxiety churning in my stomach.
“They’ve gotten a lot better about it,” I counter, though my half-bitten conviction is laughable.
Irelyn’s always been able to see right through me. But unlike Supergirl, she uses her powers for evil.
She arches a perfectly plucked eyebrow, and the unspoken truth tears through me like an eighteen-wheeler splitting asphalt.
“Are you kidding me? They forced you to move back here.”
“Well, it’s more complicated than that.”
Irelyn’s right, of course, but her ego doesn’t need any more inflating. My parents are, um, very involved in my life…even when I don’t want them to be. It’s like they don’t think I’m capable of looking after myself. And I know there are worse things in the world than having parents who care too much, but living under constant surveillance wasn’t on my post-high school vision board.
My best friend devolves into a flurry of inebriated giggles, and then she lowers her voice in a not-at-all-realistic imitation of me. “No, I think your exact words were, ‘Yes, Mom. Yes, Dad. I’ll be home tomorrow.’”
“You make me sound like a pushover.”
That’s because you are a pushover, Merit. In every sense of theword. You fold like a house of cards just to appease those around you. What is it going to take for you to realize that you’re responsible for your own self-sabotage?
God, internal monologue me is unbearable. I forgot that drinking makes me existential.
“Name the last thing you did for yourself,” Irelyn says, swirling the miniature umbrella around in her drink with flawless, manicured nails.
Whenwasthe last time I did something for myself? Does flicking my bean to an audiobook narrator with a heavy Irish accent count? Ooh, or maybe that time I splurged and got a family-sized bag of Doritos instead of regular-sized? That was a big decision for me.
I guess the last time Iactuallydid something for myself was when I went against my parents’ wishes and accepted a scholarship to the performing arts program at the school of my dreams, Rutgers University.
I’ve wanted to be a dancer ever since I was little. Dancing has always helped me escape from the overcomplexity of my life. There’s something freeing in being able to separate yourself from your obligations, your anxiety, your hardships, your fears—something transformative about processing your pain through movement and storytelling. The only time I don’t feel like my life is a total shitshow is when I’m dancing.
I was on track to make my dreams of becoming a professional dancer come true, but as with everything that happens to me on this godforsaken planet, whenever things are going too well, something bad is bound to happen.
And it did.
The CliffsNotes version consists of a chronic illness, a make-it-or-break-it performance, and a ten-thousand-dollar trip to the ER after my reputation was pulverized into little pieces. I’m grateful that I can still pursue a degree in dance, but the rest of my four-year plan is nothing but a fantasy. Now I’m forced to live a life of safety and mundanenesswhere my emotions cost me two hundred a week in therapy bills.
Ever since the incident of January eighteenth when I collapsed in front of the entire dance community, my parents have been barnacled to my side with their hovering helicopter hellishness. They dictate what I can and cannot do, and I constantly want to Hulk-rip out of the metaphorical bubble wrap they’ve swaddled me in. I get that they’re worried about me, but I feel like I’m a back seat driver in my own life. If I hadn’t faced such a life-threatening scare, I would’ve put my foot down. Though, honestly, I was just as scared as my parents.
Resentment is a silent killer, my therapist says.Don’t feed it.
So, assuming Doctor Marjorie has my best interests in mind, I heed her warning. Sort of.
“Being a people pleaser isn’t a bad thing.”
Irelyn nods in faux understanding, those fiery curls of hers bouncing against her small-framed shoulders. “In other words, you’d rather leave your dreams behind than face conflict,” she summarizes in her hoity-toity, know-it-all tone, feline eyes narrowed at me from behind thick lashes.
