“So,” she said, looking at the phone and then at me. “You’re dating.”

“I’m not dating.”

She simply raised her eyebrows. “Is he cute?”

“How did you?”

“Oh, please. You almost melted when you said his name. Ethan, is it?”

I nodded.

“You know what they say about first loves, right?”

“What’s that?”

“They never die.”

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen

This (seeming) Endlessness

School went by in slow motion. I was pretty much absent in all my classes, having the hardest time focusing on the simplest of tasks. Ethan had training all day, which meant I wouldn’t get to see him until we met after my session, and no one I knew shared any of my classes—which was actually not the worst thing. So much was going on, it seemed as though all I’d been doing the past few weeks was running to catch up. In a way, I’d always felt like that though—that I was missing it. As if things happened so swiftly, I couldn’t hope to easily keep up. It was the kind of thing most people felt, at one point or another, but it bothered me to no end. I’ve always longed for a steadier pace. Not too still, just slow enough so I could appreciate it—both the good and the bad.

This time, it was somewhat different. There were areas of my life I wished would slow down considerably to properly understand it all. Other areas, alas, I wouldn’t mind going by faster. Like the conversation with Marcy. It might mean that I am an awful human, but I wasn’t ready for it. And yes, I wished it could’ve been quicker, but only in a way that its contents could’ve been preserved. It was necessary, both for me and her, but…it took too much.

That was the thing about living with what felt like an anvil attached to your chest at all times. Interactions became chores, duties of sorts that I had absolutely no control over. I might have genuinely wished for them to occur, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t take from me more than I could spare. And I was also rarely ready for it, the ripping of inches of self that couldn’t be prevented—not unless some form of isolation was put into effect. And that was something I no longer needed—or wanted, for that matter. I didn’t care for the idea of isolating myself, at least not by myself. I would gladly run away, be alone, and shut most things out…with him. Still, it felt sad, sometimes, knowing I had no timetable, no end date to rely on or look forward to. That was usually when and why some people lost hope. And it was due to one of the most wicked characteristics of depression: its (seeming) endlessness.