E. Montes - Perfectly Damaged

She brings her head back, her gaze lingering on the ceiling of my truck. “Yes. Just bear with me, okay?” Her lips trembling, she tries to breathe smoothly. “This is hard for me to say.”

I adjust in the driver seat so I’m fully facing her profile. I sit and I wait. I don’t rush or push her. It’s the longest six minutes of my life until she finally says, “Four years ago, I was diagnosed with a mental illness.”

On the words diagnosed and mental illness my stomach drops. “What were you diagnosed with?”

“Schizoaffective disorder,” she says, deadpan.

I rack my brain, trying to figure it out. “What is that? I’ve never heard of it. What is it?” I rush out.

Jersey Girl’s eyes are still glued to the rooftop. “There are two types of schizoaffective disorder. The schizo side is when a person experiences schizophrenia-like symptoms like delusions or hallucinations, sometimes both. The affective side is where there are two types: there is a manic type, like bipolar symptoms, or the depressive type where a person struggles with depression.” She says all of this like it’s rehearsed. Then shaking her head, she goes on, “I’ve been diagnosed with schizoaffective depressive type by many psychiatrists.”

“No,” I shake my head.

She crooks her neck and finally lands her eyes on mine. “Yes, Logan.”

I ignore her response. “No.”

“Yeeesss.” She nods, stressing the word as if it will make me fully understand it.

“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.

* * *

Jenna

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

“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.

* * *

It’s the first time in the last few days that Charlie has left my side. She’s been trying so hard to get me out of bed and I’ve been fighting her tooth and nail. She didn’t say a word when she stormed out, slamming the door behind her. It made me feel like crap. I know she’s frustrated with me and it isn’t fair to her.

The guilt of disappointing my best friend seeps through me, so I carefully sit up. The slight movement causes a bout of dizziness. Breathing through it, I stand and slowly walk to the bathroom. I squint, covering my eyes as the natural light beaming down from the skylight blinds me. After a few seconds my eyes adjust and I turn on the showerhead. I brush my teeth and rinse my face at the sink as the mirror fogs, caused by the hot steam billowing out from the shower.

I breathe in the soothing mist, allowing my lungs to inhale and exhale easily for the first time in three days. Stripping off my clothes, I step into the shower. The searing raindrops splash along my skin, turning my flesh from its pale, golden complexion to a reddish tone. It burns, but I want it to. I let it strip away the pain on the surface, knowing nothing can ever rid the pain deep within.

If only I could peel away the top layer of my skin and continue to peel back each layer until there was nothing left beneath the scorching shower but my heart, still beating despite being ripped apart. Because that’s where it hurts the most. The muscle that somehow keeps me living makes me feel nothing more than dead—dead without him, dead without his touch, and dead with the knowledge that I will never love again.

* * *

Logan

My life over the past two days has been on a repeating cycle. I wake up. I get ready. I go to work. I stare at Jenna’s bedroom window, hoping she’ll see me. But she never does. I finish my work shift. I stare at the window some more. I go home. I have a few beers while I search on the Internet until my eyes are heavy and I can’t keep them open any longer. Then after the two-hour sleep I manage to get in, I wake up and do it all over again.

I’m a complete zombie on day three of this vicious cycle. Bryson mumbles something along the lines of how shitty I look as I walk past him. I ignore his remark and go straight into the kitchen area, where I work for the first half of my day by installing oak cabinets.

As I finish adjusting the last cabinet for the top row, I hear an uproar in the living area. Santino yells, “You can’t be in here!”

A female voice shouts over the loud sounds of hammers and saws going off throughout the house. “Fuck if I can’t. Where is he?”

Santino shouts back, “Where is who?”

She replies, “Logan! Where is he?”

Santino screams, “The kitchen.”

Before I have the chance to step forward and show myself, Charlie storms into the kitchen. My brows draw in as she struts up to me, her hand nudging my shoulder. “You’re an asshole!”

“Excuse me?”

“You know, I really had hope for you. I thought you were different, that your feelings for Jenna were true. But you’re just like the rest of them.” She inspects me; her eyes narrow as she shakes her head disapprovingly. “God, did you prove me wrong. Were you just trying to get in her pants this entire time?”

“What?” Who the hell does she think she is? This time, I’m the one to narrow my eyes. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. It was never that way with Jenna. I care for her.”

Charlie crosses her arms, cocking a brow. “Oh? I couldn’t tell because over the past three days I’ve been taking care of a brokenhearted girl. She’s devastated, Logan. How could you do that to her?”

“You think I don’t know that? My head has been fucked-up the past few days. I’m trying to understand it all!” I snap.

She takes two steps back, breathing out her anger and calming down a bit. “Understand what?” she asks mildly.

“Her illness.” I calm too, defeated. I’m fucking tired and my head is pounding. “I’ve been up all night researching. I want to help her; I just don’t understand it. I keep reading articles and medical websites.” I huff out a laugh. “I’ve watched a dozen documentaries and even a fucking video blog with some guy who has the same disorder. I just don’t know how to help her.”

Charlie’s expression softens. “Being there for her is helping her. Jenna doesn’t have much support in her life. The most important piece of her recovery is for her to know she has a solid team backing her up. It’s not easy all of the time, but she’s worth it. She used to have Brooke and me; now she only has me. Jenna isn’t close with her mother. Her father is barely around. So just being there for her, letting her know that you’re not walking away, that you’re not giving up, that’s a step toward help. And that’s what she needs.”