She nods against me. “Tea is good. It’s on my list.”
I’m not sure what she means, but I’m glad to have something to do. “What kind of tea?”
“Whatever you have.”
I head to the kitchen and tap my fingers against the counter impatiently as I wait for the electric kettle to boil. Then I make a pot of Earl Grey and bring it to the bedroom on the breakfast tray, along with two teacups. When the tea is ready, I pour us each a cup, and she holds hers just below her nose and breathes in deeply.
“I can’t smell it right now,” she says glumly, “but I’m sure it’s high-quality stuff.”
I shrug. “I don’t drink a lot of tea. My mom got it for me.”
“What do you drink?”
“When I’m working, I have about ten espressos a day.”
“Of course you do.” She rocks back and forth. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry for all the coffee beans that go toward feeding my espresso habit?”
She laughs, but it sounds hollow.
“Are you a little better now?” I ask.
“I’m in control. Sort of. I started to feel depressed when we were eating, and then I completely lost it when I tripped on the stairs, but now...” She looks down. “I’m sorry. None of this is your fault, and I’m sorry you have to deal with me like this.” She hesitates. “It’s like I have these attacks of depression that come upon me suddenly—I think of them as being similar to panic attacks. It probably sounds weird, but it happens sometimes, and now that it’s approaching five years, they’re more frequent. Soon, I’ll be living in a constant cloud of gray. Every five years, I sink into a deep depression, and I can feel it coming on. I don’t know why it recurs on such a predictable schedule, but it does.”
I absorb her words, then put down our teacups—it’s too hot to drink anyway—and wrap her in my arms again.
“Is this what happened on the weekend, too?”
“Yes, but it wasn’t as bad. I think it was worse this time in part because I was trying to keep up a happy front since you went to so much effort to prepare a nice dinner. I appreciate that, I really do. I’m sorry I ruined it.”
“You don’t need to keep saying ‘sorry.’ For the next hour, don’t apologize to me at all.”
She nods. “These thoughts...they keep running through my head, and they’re awful. The food you made was delicious, but I stopped being able to taste it properly. Depression isn’t like being really sad. Actually, I consider sadness a positive emotion because it’s manageable. I don’t feel as helpless when I’m sad. It’s so much better, you have no idea. Or maybe you do. I shouldn’t jump to conclusions.”
I shake my head.
I don’t know what to do. I’m out of my depth. I just know I want to be here for her.
“I’m sorry,” she says again. “This isn’t what you signed up for. You wanted someone who knows how to have fun!” She says it with faux cheer. “That’s what you’re paying me for, and I’m failing miserably at it.”
“No more ‘sorry,’” I remind her. “And you are not failing. You’ve done a great job.” I pause as something occurs to me. “Ten years ago, when you were in university...”
“That was my worst episode of depression. I had to go on leave during my last year of undergrad, and then my boyfriend dumped me, which didn’t help.”
I see terror in her eyes as she thinks back to that time.
“There’s no trigger,” she says. “Everything can be going great and then it just happens. Even in between my bad episodes, I’m not quite normal. I have to be careful. Though usually I’m pretty good at caring for myself.”
“Have you tried getting help? There are—”
“Don’t,” she whispers. “Please don’t. That’s what everyone asks when they first hear about my depression—not that I tell many people about it. But from what you know of me, do you really think I would have suffered so much without trying to get help?”
“No, but maybe—”
“I’ve tried everything. I’ve lost track of how many drugs I’ve failed to respond to. I’ve tried therapy, and for whatever reason, that hasn’t worked for me, either. I refuse to do ECT—electroconvulsive therapy—because it sounds so damn invasive and because of the cognitive side effects. I know I wouldn’t be able to deal with the memory problems. I tried rTMS, and it felt like I was being hit over the head with a hammer for half an hour. Even then, I went back for a second session, but it was no better. They even talked about a study that would involve drilling a hole in my head to implant a pacemaker, but I draw the line at someone drilling a fucking hole in my head.”
I don’t understand all the things Courtney is talking about, and I make a mental note to look them up tomorrow. I’m not going to ask her to explain more than she already has.
