“You are nothing like those people in there.” I point toward the building.
She cocks her head to the side, studying me. “And how is that?”
“They—they’re…shit. They were—”
“Crazy.” She fills in the blank.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to. I know that’s exactly what you’re thinking. It’s okay if you are. That’s what most people would say. I’m used to it. It’s normal to hear what others perceive as crazy. But you have to understand that in my head, that’s normal. I think everyone else around me are the crazy ones.”
This can’t be happening. It doesn’t make any sense. “Jenna, you are not crazy. I spent two entire months with you—”
She cuts me off. “And within those two months, you didn’t notice that I’m a bit off?”
I try to catch my breath as I look everywhere in the car frantically. This is bullshit. “You’re shy.”
“I’m paranoid.”
I shake my head. “You sometimes make me repeat myself, but I always thought you had a lot going on.”
“Yeah. In my head. Voices. I hear voices sometimes and it’s distracting. It distracts me from my own thoughts.”
What the fuck? What is happening right now? This is a lot to take in at once. I rub a hand over my head, my brain reeling with images of every moment we spent together. Everything I ever questioned about the way she acted toward certain things is now answered, and I still feel lost. I still don’t fucking understand any of it. I’ve never heard of schizoaffective disorder. I’ve never met anyone with any mental illness other than depression—and it seems to me that everyone, at some point in their lives, has been depressed; it’s normal. “So what does this mean for us? I don’t understand.”
Jenna lightly shrugs, her eyes filled with tears, her lips quivering. “I don’t know,” she chokes over her words. “I can’t ask you to take this on. You say you want me, Logan, but my disorder is a part of me. I wish I could split myself in two, toss my damaged side away, and hand you over my perfect side. But I can’t. It’s either all of me or nothing.”
“Jenna.” I breathe out, lowering my head. I can’t even fucking think straight right now. “I need to think. I mean, my feelings toward you haven’t changed. I just need a day or two to process all of this. You know?” I look up. It kills me seeing her like this.
With tears running down her cheeks, she nods. “Yeah, I know. I understand.”
I adjust in my seat, start the truck, and back out of the parking spot.
The silence in the car is suffocating, like a dark fog seeping through the windows, wrapping its deadly cloud around me. I want to throw up. I knew it. I knew he’d react this way. I shouldn’t have said anything at all. At least then we wouldn’t be here right now, stuck in silence, in nothing but the sound of our breathing and the stupid broken love song playing in the background, which only shoves the knife in my chest deeper.
Instead I should’ve just told him about my feelings for him and never mentioned my disorder. I hate this disease, this chemical imbalance, as the medical field calls it. I hate myself even more for it because if I was normal, maybe, just maybe I could’ve been wrapped in Logan’s arms right now. Maybe his lips would be covering mine. Or maybe we’d be laughing, joking over a bad impersonation. We could’ve been happy.
If only I were normal.
What is he thinking right now? My mind is self-destructing with the rejection. He’s giving up on us after declaring that nothing could ever come between what we have. Yet it was me, my cancer of the mind, that finally destroyed what little hope there was for us.
“Are you okay?” he asks in a tender tone. I’m rocking in the seat. I stop and press my head firmly against the headrest, willing my mind to tell my body to stop it. I tell my mind to stop the tears. I tell my mind to look away. I tell my mind to close my eyes and just drift away.
And I do for the rest of the ride. No more words are spoken between the two of us. When he finally reaches my house, I spare us the awkwardness and just exit as quickly as possible.
I run as fast as I can up the pathway, through the door, up the grand spiral staircase and into my room. I lock it, staring at the doorknob as if it’ll turn on its own at any second. When I realize it won’t, that Logan isn’t running after me, I let go. My body shudders as I allow the tears to shriek out.
“Jenna.”
I spin around. Charlie. “What are you doing here?” I ask her.
She’s sitting on top of my bed in the same clothes she was in when I left her here this morning. Her gaze takes me in, and her features distort into sympathy as her eyes water. They’re tears of sadness for me. “I stuck around, just in case.”
Just in case of this. She stuck around because she knew. Sobbing, I walk over to her, climb into the bed and lean into her open arms. “I’m so stupid.” My words muffle against her pink blouse.
Charlie pulls me in closer and runs a hand over my hair. “You are not stupid, do you hear me? You’re intelligent and beautiful and funny. You’re many things, Jenna, but you are not stupid. He’s the dumb fuck. Not you. You hear me?”
Sniffing back the tears, I lift my head to look at her. Charlie frames my face with her soft hands and thumbs over my moist cheeks.
“I’m the stupid one,” I say, my voice drags. “For once, I thought maybe, just maybe I was worth someone’s love. His love. And that it was possible he could love me back, Charlie,” I choke over my words, straining to release my next confession. “I think I’m in love with him. I am so stupid. I’m falling in love with him, Charlie, and he doesn’t love me. And it hurts.” I press my hand to my chest. “I didn’t think it could, but it hurts to even…” I crack, forcing myself to speak. “It hurts to even breathe.”
“Oh, Jenna.” She leans in, wrapping her arms around me again. I collapse in her arms and just cry. Hard, heavy sobs.
I don’t ever want to see Logan Reed again.
“Jenna, you have to eat something. It’s been two days.”
I tug the comforter back over my head. I don’t bother to respond to Charlie. I don’t bother to look at what she brought in for me to eat. I don’t bother to open my eyes. I don’t bother to do anything.
I’m just surprised that I’m still breathing.