CHAPTER 25

After, while I'm still spinning from the best missionary-style I've had . . . ever, Hayden dresses back into his clothes.

"This looks good inside you," he says, holding up the butt plug.

"It does?" I ask, unable to move, even when I know I should make some kind of attempt to clean myself up.

"Next time I'll take more time to admire it."

"Next time?" I won't lie – my heart bursts and shatters into countless pieces.

"It's just sex. Why not?"

One of those shattered pieces nicks at some delicate flesh inside me. That doesn't make any sense, so I shrug. "Sure. Why not?"

I reach into my brain to compartmentalize. It is just sex. I'm good at this no-strings-attached shit. I can handle it. I've been doing it my whole life.

But it's too late.

My brain shuts down. It's immediate. Like someone turned the light switch off. I rise from the couch and gather my clothes.

Sometimes it's gradual – the crash, and I can prepare for it. I can spot the signs. Someone will say hey, Levi, slow down, and I'll know I'm climbing into mania. Or someone will say, hey, Levi, you look a little downtoday, and I'll know I'm falling.

Other times, it's like this. The drop from stable to low is instant. Without warning. Maybe it was that little nick to my heart when Hayden said it was just sex. Maybe I bled a little even if I'm fully on board with casual sex.

Hayden says nothing when I ask if I can use the bathroom. And still nothing when I say I need to go. I wanted to hug him and tell him thank you for not crowding me. For letting me go with a gentle kiss to my forehead and, "Take care of yourself, Levi."

I call Laura on the way back home to tell her that I didn't just fall. I plummeted. Crashed like a plane out of the sky.

"I didn't see it coming," I tell her quietly from the back seat of the Uber.

"Dr. Emily and I are considering a few options, Levi," Laura says. "We just want to give these meds a chance." She says many more other things that I don't bother processing and wouldn't have been able to recall immediately after she said them. "Get home safely. I'm on call when you need me. Dr. Emily too, okay?"

"Okay," I say and by then, I'm already home and getting into bed.

***

Three weeks.

It's been three weeks since my conversation with Laura. Much of it is a blur. I remember texting Laura and Dr. Emily to let them know that I'm so low I can hardly breathe, but I'm taking my meds. No one can understand why, despite being on medication, I'm climbing and falling so frequently. In the past, I've been able to stay stable with only two, maybe four at the most, episodes a year. What's changed? Laura says we shouldn't discount Hayden's appearance in my life as a factor. "It's a big change in many ways," she said.

I texted my mother four times the first week. Three times the second week. And twice this week. Just enough to keep her away from my apartment.

I missed nine days of work. Two of them, I hadn't been awake long enough to text Daniel. He came banging on my door each time, once the first week and once the second week. He doesn't give me shit about my low days. He just wants to know I'm okay.

Terri is visiting family in North Carolina, but she texted every day. I can't remember if I texted back. I'll have to check as soon as I charge my phone. I remember seeing a string of texts from Hayden too. I know I didn't respond to those.

The fog inside my head and all around me is still thick. My legs are nothing but lead, too heavy to drag around. Not strong enough to carry the rest of me. It must have taken thirty minutes to get from the bed to the kitchen this morning.

When was the last time I took my meds? It must have been the early hours of this morning because I'd forgotten to take them the night before. I'm still in a daze. I hate the way they make me feel, but I have to stay on them.

I don't know what day it is. I can't find my charger. Someone is banging on my door. It must be Daniel. Today is one of those days I hadn't texted to say I won't be at work.

I pull the door open with superhuman effort. Hayden glares at me from across the threshold. "You don't know how to answer your phone?" he asks.

I can't imagine, beyond the sex we had nearly a month ago, why he would be so mad.

"My phone died?" I say.

His eyes scan my face. I must look like real shit. "You're low." A statement. Uttered softly, regretfully.

I find some chapped skin on my lip and bite down on a sharp piece.

"How did you know where I live?" is the best response I can muster.

"I asked Daniel." He's studying me. Evaluating me.

"You asked Daniel?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I hadn't heard from you in three fucking weeks."

Oh. Hayden is hot when he's not so prim and proper. I grin weakly. "You thought I died? Would you be sad if I died?" It's my meds talking. I don't even have the energy to try and stop myself.

"Can I come inside?"

Oh. "Sorry, yeah. Come in."

Only once this uber-rich, I-have-a-full-time-housekeeper, man is standing inside my house do I notice the exact state of my apartment.

I haven't cleaned for three weeks. It's a disaster. I can't even remember when I last opened the windows. I wonder what it smells like in here. Not good, I'm guessing.

Hayden doesn't put his hands on his hips and survey the place with disdain, like my mother would have. Instead, he turns to me and gives me a look that makes me want to cry. God knows, I'm already shivering with despair inside.

"You're making it through," he says softly.

I look at him, confused by his words, by the softness in his voice and this thing in his eyes that makes me want to cry. "Making it through?" I ask.

"Yes. You're making it through your low."

This time, I do cry. Not an all-out bawling situation. Just a small sniff and many silent tears. "Yes," I tell him through soft hiccups. "Yes, I"m making it through." How can he know?

He watches me, and I wish he would hold me. He doesn't, but his eyes never leave my face, and the caress of his gaze makes me feel like I could drop through the floor right now, and he would catch me, and maybe that's better than a hug.

"Do you have a mental disorder?" I ask once some of my tears have dried up.

He shakes his head.

"So, you know someone who does?"

"Yes."

"Who?"

"It's not important."

Oh, but it is. I have never met someone who acted like this with people like me.

"What do they have? Is it Bipolar?" He doesn't answer. I push. "Something else?"

Something in his eyes changes. His lips thin out. I retreat. I'm so desperate to be understood, and here is a man who understands but his eyes have gone from soft and filled with empathy to dark and scary, and I have no choice but to retreat even though I can see a light in that darkness. A light that gives me so much hope, but he shuts me off and I hate it.

"When did you last eat?" he asks.

"I don't know," I mumble. He knows exactly what to do. He knows exactly what to say. He knows exactly the right questions to ask. "Who has the mental disorder?" I press. "Is it one of your parents? A grandparent? For me, it was my grandmother. She was left undiagnosed until a year before she died. Her family, including my mother, said she was the meanest person they'd ever met. My mother hated her because she was so cruel and unpredictable. But my grandma was just sick. She was sick and no one knew."

I'm babbling. But maybe if I tell him where I got my mental disorder from, he might tell me who's sick in his family. Maybe he'll tell me that he cared for them and that's how he knows how to be kind even when it's hard.

"Are you up for a shower?" he asks.

Right. Boundaries. Gentle but firm. Carefully steering me toward some order and normalcy.

And possibly protecting himself, too.

The thought hits me like a ton of bricks. I'm the last person Hayden should be sharing his secrets with. Who knows what I'll do with them one day when I'm in a manic rage. I almost ruined my friendship with Terri because I can't be trusted with secrets. Immediately, I decide to never ask Hayden about it ever again. I shouldn't know such intimate things about him. I don't want to know. He's right not to give me any answers. I'll just ruin everything.

"Shower? Yes." I say.

"Do you have someone to help you clean?"

"No."

"Are you okay to go outside?"

"No."

"Will you try? So I can get Evaline over here to help you? It'll help if we're not in her way."

I need to cry again. He's doing everything right. Whoever has this disorder in his family is very lucky to have him.

"Will you try, Levi?" he says.

I nod. Right now, I would do anything for him.