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I get home at seven o’clock on Wednesday, which isn’t bad. I was at the office for less than twelve hours, and I won’t do any work tonight. I’ll eat the meal Elena has prepared for me, text Courtney, watch some TV, and read a little before bed. I might even get to bed by ten, and that’ll give me a solid seven hours of sleep.
How about that.
I eat dinner, and I’m just about to turn on the TV when there’s a loud banging at the door.
I open it up. It’s Vince. He staggers into my condo and sways as he walks to my couch.
“Too much tequila,” he says. “Couldn’t seem to stop. Was doing shots off a girl’s stomach.”
I don’t know if that’s true, but he’s definitely drunk.
He tries to sit down on the couch but ends up falling to the floor. He makes it on his second attempt.
I go to the kitchen and pour him a glass of water, but he waves it away with a hiccup. “Can’t keep anything down.”
Dear God.
I grab a garbage can and put it next to him. “If you’re going to puke, try to do it in there.”
He nods, then rests his head on the armrest. “I hate my life,” he says, in the most sorrowful voice. “I hate it. You were right. I’m not okay.”
“Do you regret selling your company?”
“No.” He hiccups or burps—I’m not sure which. “I didn’t want it anymore. Wanted more time for hookers and blow.”
“Vince, be serious.” Yes, he’s drunk, but perhaps this is my best chance of getting him to talk honestly.
“It’s true. Sort of. Wanted to have a life. Less stress. More time for doing nothing and dicking around, more time for girls. Don’t worry, I always use protection.”
“Thank God,” I mutter.
“Hey, the room is spinning. I didn’t know your fancy condo revolved.”
“Nothing is spinning. You’ve just had too much to drink.”
Vince throws an arm over his eyes. “I feel so unfulfilled.” He laughs a truly miserable laugh. “Listen to the words I’m using. Such bullshit.”
“What do you want to do with your life?”
“Don’t know. Didn’t want the company anymore, but didn’t think I’d be so bored. I...” He looks like he’s going to hurl. I thrust the garbage can in front of him just in time.
I do not have much experience with drunks—and that includes myself. It’s been years since I had more than three drinks in a night. I don’t like feeling out of control, and I definitely don’t like feeling sick the next day.
He puts the garbage can down. “There. I think I’m done. I feel a little better now.”
“You have vomit on your chin.” I return to the kitchen to get some paper towels. I hand them to him so he can clean himself up, then sit down on the chair beside him. “Why did you come to my place?”
“Dunno. I like pissing you off.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“You’re my best friend.” He holds out his arms as though he wants a hug, but I don’t go to him.
“That’s sad,” I say.
“I know. Pathetic. I’m pathetic.”
“You just need to try a few things until you figure out what you like.”
“Dunno why I’m asking you for help. You always knew what you wanted, and then you did it, and that’s that.”
This is true.
“Alone in a crowd,” he says. “That’s how I feel. I keep thinking if I surround myself with more people, I won’t feel lonely. But it doesn’t work. I’m lonely and bored and you’re my best friend and now I want more tequila, though I’d settle for scotch.”
“No. Drink the water instead.”
He gives me the middle finger before drinking half the glass.
“Do you get drunk often?” I ask, rather afraid of the answer.
“Not this drunk.”
Well, that’s something.
“I’m jealous,” he says. “You got a job. You got a girl.”
“You have lots of girls, too, from the sounds of it.”
He considers this for a moment. “Courtney is your girlfriend. It’s different.”
“Is that what you want? A girlfriend?”
“I don’t know. No matter what I do, I’m bored.”
“Much as I hate to say it, you’re a very intelligent person who ran a successful tech company. It’s hardly surprising you’re bored now that you have nothing to challenge you. And it seems like you’re also missing meaningful personal connections.”
He looks at me as though I’m speaking Latin. “Too complicated for my simple brain.”
I roll my eyes. “Okay. We’ll talk when you’re sober.”
“Can I stay the night? I don’t want to go home. We can paint our nails and listen to Katy Perry!”
I sigh. “You can stay the night, but this is not a sleepover party.”
Settling back on the couch, he burps and closes his eyes.
Well, I’ll leave him alone for a bit. I go to the kitchen and grab my phone off the table.
Three missed calls, all from Courtney. A text message that says, Call me, sent fifteen minutes ago. I know she wouldn’t call me three times in twenty minutes unless it was urgent.
Shit.
I remember when she tripped on the stairs and lay in a heap on the floor. Her tears and blotchy face. Her flat voice.
I know exactly what happened to Courtney, and she needs me.
I call her, but there’s no answer.
Shit. She shouldn’t be alone. I need to go to her.
I hurry to the living room and glance at Vince. He’s snoring like a freight train. I don’t want him to wake up alone, since he’s not doing well, so I call Cedric and ask him to check on Vince. Then I hurry to Courtney’s.
* * *
When Courtney opens the door to her apartment, she’s wrapped in a fuzzy blanket—even though it’s summer—and her face is shuttered.
“Hey,” she says quietly, her voice dull.
I step inside and wrap her in my arms. It hurts so much to see her like this, without her usual spark and joy.
“I had a meltdown,” she explains. “That’s why I tried to call you. I thought you could hold me.”
“I’m here now.” I lead her to the couch. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t hear the phone. Vince came over, and he’s drunk and not in a good place. My phone was in the other room and... I’m sorry. About lunch, too. I wish I could have eaten with you.”
“It’s okay. I understand. I would have done the same for Naomi. Not to worry.”
But her next words, spoken after we cuddle for a few minutes, make my heart drop.
“I think we should break up,” she says, pulling away from me.
“What?” I couldn’t have heard that correctly.
“I think we should break up. We have to break up.”
I’m shaking my head before she can finish speaking. Apparently I did hear her properly the first time. “You’re just saying that because you had a bad evening. You don’t really mean it.”
“Oh, so now you think I’m crazy and you won’t listen to me?”
What?
“I never said you were crazy, but you’re not yourself now. You shouldn’t make rash decisions.” She won’t seriously think this is a good idea tomorrow, will she?
“I have news for you, Julian. This is me. This is who I am.”
“No, it’s just your depression talking.”
Her eyes flash.
I’ve read a lot about depression in the past week. I know it can twist your thinking, and I know some people find it helpful to think of their depression as a separate entity from them.
But it appears I’ve said the wrong thing.
“How dare you,” she says, jumping up. “When you’re depressed, that’s all anyone says to you. ‘It’s just your depression talking.’ Nobody believes anything you say. They just assume you’re always full of shit.”
I hold up my hands and get to my feet. “I’m not saying that, but right now—”
“Tomorrow, I’ll still think the same thing. We shouldn’t be together. When you asked to keep seeing me after our two weeks were up, I knew it was a bad idea. I just couldn’t stop myself from saying yes because I like you a lot. But it was foolish of me. You think you can handle me now, but you’re going to break up with me like Dane did because you won’t be able to handle it when I’m sick for months at a time.”
“No.” I shake my head vehemently. “I won’t break up with you. I love you.”
I didn’t want the first time I said those words to be in anger, but there it is.
Now she’s the one shaking her head. “You don’t truly love me.”
Her words pierce my heart. She doesn’t understand how wrong she is.
I know who I am. A man who loves her more than anything.
Goddammit. “You’re mad at me for not believing what you say, but you won’t believe what I say, either. Courtney, I mean it. I do love you.”
“You love the woman who enjoys gingerbread lattes and wandering around the city.”
“Yes. That’s you.”
“Sometimes it’s me.”
“Your depression is not you.”
“I can’t separate myself from my mental illness. It’s a part of me.”
“We’ll fix it,” I say. “We’ll get you healthy again. I have resources that you don’t. We can figure it out. Depression is a treatable illness.”
“You don’t understand. You think you can throw money at any problem and fix it, but it’s not like that. I told you, I tried. I tried so goddamn hard, believe me. I tried every drug they suggested, even though none of them worked and some of them had awful side effects.” There are tears in her lashes. “You know how exhausting it is to keep trying new treatments and having them fail? To have your hopes crushed over and over? I refuse to try any more drugs.”
“Therapy. It’s not generally covered under provincial healthcare and it can get expensive, but—”
“I’ve tried. I saw literally every counselor at the universities I attended.”
“Counselor. They probably weren’t psychologists with PhDs.”
“A couple of them were. And you know what? Talking about my problems isn’t helpful for me—it just makes me more depressed. Therapy was essentially a regularly-scheduled ugly cry session. I’m not kidding. It’s awful. I’ve even been told I’m too sick for therapy at times.”
“You just haven’t found the right therapist, and I—”
“You don’t get it.” She’s shaking. Her voice is shaking, too, but it’s still clear. “You really don’t get it. I’m the one who’s had to live through endless treatments that always fail. Not you.”
She’s right, of course. This is her life, her experience, but I refuse to accept that her problem cannot be fixed. It’s too painful for me to contemplate. She has to keep trying.
I take her hands in mine. She jerks away.
“You know when I finally got better the last two times?” she asks. “When I gave up on treatment. I told you that, didn’t I? When I gave up, it felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders—one less thing to worry about. Trying to get better was just too stressful.” She exhales unsteadily. “This time, I’m not going to try. I don’t need you to throw money at me and pay for more therapy. What I need is support. Compassion. But I know it’s ridiculous to expect any man to put up with my untreatable mental illness. It’s a one-sided relationship.”
“Once every five years.”
“Maybe this time it won’t go away.”
“Don’t say that. We’ll get through it together. I will be there for you. You don’t have to try any more anti-depressants, but there are other things—”
“I won’t let anyone give me an electric shock twice a week or drill a hole in my head to implant a pacemaker. There are limits to what I will try, and I’ve reached them.”
“You can’t give up on everything.” I want to shake her and scream that it’s just her depression talking, but I don’t. “You can’t give up on us.”
“It’s self-preservation.”
“No!”
“I think you should leave, Julian.”
“I guess I should. I should listen to you even though you’re talking nonsense right now.”
“That’s right. Brush off everything I say as nonsense because I’m mentally ill.”
I’m so angry. At Courtney, at all the people who couldn’t help her, at the ex who made her believe she couldn’t have a relationship. But I see no way out of this.
So I leave.