They’re making fun of me, my mind promises me, when a man snickers and covers his smile with his hand.
“Fern, you’re fine,” I breathe, stepping off of the sidewalk into a patch of asphalt wet from last night’s rain. “You’re fine; your brain is just being a dick. You’re used to this.” At least out here, alone in the parking lot, there’s no one around to notice my one-sided conversation.
Nevertheless, every inch of me seems hyperaware. My skin prickles, the hairs on my neck standing up, and it’s so hard not to constantly turn to look behind me, with only the threat of looking like I’m seizing and giving myself whiplash stopping me from doing so.
“No one is looking at you,” I tell myself, repeating the words my therapist had told me so many times. “You’re not that important. They’re living their lives, just like you’re living yours, Fern.”
The words feel like ash on my tongue, losing their efficacy almost immediately. Thankfully, when I slip a few steps later,I’m at my car and can easily catch myself on my door even as a soft, embarrassing yelp leaves me at my stumble.
As fast as humanly possible, I slide into the driver’s seat and close the door. My finger hits the ignition button just as my boot jams the brake pedal, and my car whirrs to life with all the surprisingly subtle noise of a hybrid. Admittedly, the electric side of it isn’t a sound I hear very often, given the frequency of me forgetting to plug it into the charger when I get to my house. But today, I’m happy about the softness of the battery and the soft whirring that lets me know it’s on while I settle back against my seat and just focus on breathing.
That’s all.
In and out. Over and over, until I feel just a little bit more human. All I have to do is get myself home. The quiet of my little home in the woods is beckoning me like a lullaby, and I know that once I get there and can decompress by myself, maybe scream into a pillow or cry in the shower, I’ll be fine. Or at least closer to fine than I am right now. I just need to get there first, while my brain screamsdangerat me like the wail of an ambulance siren.
“You can so do this.” I sigh, shifting to sit up properly. Next comes my seatbelt, and I’m careful while I reverse out of the parking lot to make sure I don’t accidentally hit someone else’s car. Which would be more than a little traumatizing, given my current proximity to a full-blown panic attack caused by overstimulation and poor life choices.
I really don’t need a vehicular incident added to my tally today, truth be told.
The twenty-one minute drive feels more like triple that, but somehow I finally pull onto my narrow, winding street. In the distance, through a veritable sea of trees, I can see some bits of the Cascade Mountains. Not for the first time, I applaud myselffor buying a home so far out in the middle of nowhere so I don’t have to see another person for days if I don’t want to.
Though I guess if I were to have a slip and fall, it would take a long time for the paramedics to come get me. And my road is creepy enough as it winds through spindly trees that smarter people might turn back after claiming to see a ghost in the woods.
The thought makes me sigh when I see my neighbor’s driveway and the flapping sheets he puts up in his trees to drive home that point, to scare anyone who might come back here to bother them, or so he claims. Even though I told the eighty-year-old one-eyed lumberjack there’s very little reason for anyone to come this far back in rural Washington to fuck with him.
But what do I know?
The road narrows, becoming barely two lanes wide as my cabin-style house finally comes into view. The trees part to show my gravel driveway and the solitude I’ve been seeking ever since this panic set in.
Or whatshouldbe the start of my solitude and peace today.
But my hands grow cold when I see a shiny red car parked in my driveway. I can’t help the urge to just drive on past instead of park beside it, already a little frustrated at seeing my mom’s car.
Please,I beg the universe.Please don’t let her husband be here.I can barely handle my mom on the best of days. I absolutely can’t handle her husband today, too.
But as soon as I park, all four doors of the sedan launch open. As the two adults in the front seats get out and stretch, my step-dad’s kids, Noel and Noah, jump out like mini nukes set on destroying my entire life.
“Finally!” Noel complains, rolling her eyes at me. “We asked if Mom could just let us in, since she has a key. But she said we had towait.” God forbid someone tell either of them to wait, Isuppose, though I manage to give something like an apologetic smile. Or at least an approximation of one.
“Hey, Mom. Hi…Nathaniel,” I greet with a wan, clearly distressed smile. “What, umm… What are you doing here?”Please say leaving.
“We thought we’d come pay you a visit. We were in the area, Nathaniel took us to lunch over in Mazama,” she explains, and I realize he must be in the middle of a big contract if he’s taking her to some fancy tourist restaurant over there.
But clearly the point was to come see me, since there are plenty of closer, better restaurants back in Spokane.
“I’m really happy to see you—” She hugs me without pausing outside of my personal bubble, and I set my jaw hard so I don’t lose my grin. “But umm, I wish you would’ve called? I’m sort of?—”
“Oh, we won’t be here long. And we won’t be any trouble. The kids have been asking about you lately, and I’ve missed you,” my mom says, flapping a hand at me. Nathaniel gives me a bored grin, leaning on the car with his phone in his hand.
None of them had asked about me. My mother’s just a nosy busybody, is what I want to say. But I know better than to make this an issue when it doesn’t have to be one. All I need to do is?—
One of the twins runs into me, hard enough to send me stumbling to the gravel in my driveway. There’s a giggled, distracted apology, but they don’t stop to help as I pick myself up and sigh at my now skinned up palms.
I can’t do this.
“Gosh, Fern,” my mom sighs with her tone that makes it seem like I did this to myself.
“It’s fine.” I stare down at my stinging hands, palms welling with blood. “It’s, umm…it’s fine.” Fuck, it’s really not fine. I’m at the end of my rope, and the twins are cutting through it until I’m stuck with fraying threads of nervous frustration. “I-I’m goingto go get cleaned up. But Mom, I really don’t have time for this today. I just came home to pick some stuff up.” It’s a lie, but I can’t help it.
