PSYCHOTICALLY HANDICAPPED
ISAAC
"You think I should go to New York?" Nikki asked her husband as tears filled her eyes.
Isaac sighed. "I don't really know. I really don't. It all happened so fast and--not to be mean, but my main focus is Tay right now. He's in pretty bad shape."
"But what about her? Does anyone in this family not care what happens to her? He's the one who ended it, not her."
Exasperated, Ike collapsed on their sofa and massaged the bridge of his nose. "I know. I know. I just--I don't understand it. One day everything's great, the next day he's putting his hand through a mirror. It's not my business to get in the middle of anyone else's relationship, but--"
"They're tragic," she said quietly. "Neither one of them should be alone."
"Tay's a basket case."
"Nobody's heard from Mel in almost a week."
Ike looked up at his wife, observing the sadness on her face. She wore her heart on her sleeve. She wept at laundry detergent commercials. She had grown close to Mel and he knew she hurt for her. But he had no idea what to tell her to do. He felt torn.
"I think I should go. I think this whole thing is insane. I think nobody making the attempt to contact her is crazy when she isn't the one in the wrong. I think having family meetings behind Tay's back is a little despicable--"
"We were discussing his well-being--"
"And I think both of them need some kind of sympathetic support system instead of being shunned and acting like they're--they're--psychotically handicapped or something!"
Ike looked up at her. "Psychotically handicapped?"
She blinked her eyes and shook her head. "Whatever, I made it up, it sounded good."
"Oddly enough, it's probably accurate," he muttered. Then he looked back up at Nikki. "Look. If you feel like you need to go visit her, then go visit her. I have no problem with it. She's my family, too, but Taylor's my brother. My brother and my band mate and I need to make sure that he's gonna survive this. You see where I am in this?"
Nikki nodded. "I know. I know. I'm just so upset that this is happening to them. Why would he--? I just don't understand, I thought they were happy?"
"Sometimes I think they're only happy with each other when they're miserable."
-------------------
That evening, Isaac and Zac stood on Taylor's doorstep at the house he shared with Mel. As they waited for Tay to answer the door, Ike looked over at Zac. "You think it was right, talking to Mom and Dad about Tay behind his back?"
"Nikki get on you about it?"
"Yeah."
"Kate got on me, too."
"But seriously, do you know what would have happened if he was there? It'd been the Hanson Family Massacre. No way would have been able to handle any part of that conversation."
"I know."
"Why hasn't he come to the door yet?"
Zac switched from ringing the bell to pounding on the door. "Maybe he's in the shower or something."
Suddenly they heard a loud pop come from the backyard. Startled, the two men sprinted around the house and were stopped by the wooden privacy gate that separated the backyard from the front. Ike and Zac glanced at each other for a second before Zac was already hopping the fence and climbing over. After hearing the "Oof!" that came from Zac as he hit the ground, the lock was lifted and he let Ike in. Sprinting around the side of the yard, they spied Taylor on the other end, slightly startled--and a little confused--at what they saw.
They approached him as he stood in front of an unfinished table, an axe in his good hand. Beer bottles littered the ground around him and as they got a closer look, they spied the table in half, caving in toward the ground below.
He stood there, his back turned to them. The axe was in his hand by his side and he merely stood there and looked at the table. Ike and Zac both knew the other one was too nervous to approach him, so Ike said quietly, "Tay?"
At the sound of Ike's voice, the axe fell from Taylor's hand but he didn't move. Ike approached him, finally, picking up the axe and tossing it away from them as Zac kicked beer bottles out of the way. His brothers flanked him and the three of them stared down at the now-destroyed, unfinished table. "This was a wedding gift," he said quietly. "It was mine to her and then she caught me. So she wanted to work on it together. So we did. It was ours. Alone. Never has one item represented so much in so little time."
"It looked like it was coming along," Ike observed quietly. "Shame you felt the need to destroy it."
Tay ignored the double entendre as he stepped forward and worked and twisted a piece of the thick wood before it broke off in his hand. He turned it over, revealing the initials Mel had carved into it weeks earlier. "This is the only part of it I'm interested in anyway. The rest of it can be scrapped or burned, I don't give a shit."
"Tay," Zac said softly. "You reek of beer. And sweat. And sawdust. Let's get you inside and make you human again."
Tay listlessly turned his head toward his brother. "Do you think I CARE what I look like? Or smell like? I mean, really. In the grand scheme of things, does it really matter?"
Zac looked at Ike around Tay. "Yes," he responded, matter-of-factly. "It does matter."
And then Taylor collapsed to his knees and began to weep, helplessly. "What the fuck is my problem?" he asked his brothers through his tears. "What's wrong with me? Why won't she stay?"
Ike shot a concerned glance Zac's way again before he responded gently. "Tay--bud, you're the one who told her you couldn't marry her. What did you expect to happen?"
"I told her I needed time!"
"It pretty much translates all the same."
"I'm sure you thought this through beforehand," Zac chimed in, matching Ike's tone. "But you gotta put yourself in her shoes. Think about it. Think about what's going on in her mind, what she's gone through. And then ask yourself again if you would stay if you were her."
"She thinks--she thinks I don't love her!"
"She knows you love her," Ike said.
"I'm such a mess," Tay said. "I'm such a worthless, fucked up mess. How do I get myself into these things?"
Looking at each other once more, Ike and Zac each took one of Tay's arms and lifted him off the ground. That night they cleaned him up, packed his bags, and made arrangements in Ike's guest room for him. They were bound and determined that, this time, their brother would get well. And this time, it would stick.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
MEL
Cartoons. Cartoons, kids' movies, adult variety shows, stand-up comedy--anything that couldn't possibly be based on reality is what Mel drank in on the television. She had even smiled at the screen a couple of times. He appetite had come back, little by little, but her housekeeping skills had gone to shit. Didn't matter anyway. She didn't have anyone to impress.
It had been two weeks since Mel had spoken to Taylor. In fact, her phone never rang at all. Her mother had called her several times to check up on her, but that was it. Only her mother. She was already growing used to being alone. It was an old, familiar feeling. However, she couldn't remember the last time she'd watched this much television and she wondered where cable had been all her life.
Mel was just scraping out a pudding cup and dropping it inside the empty container of the previous one she'd eaten on the end table next to her when there was a knock on her door. Mel was startled by the sound. It wasn't so much as the state of her apartment that worried her, but who might be behind the door. There was only one person it could have been. Only one. And she had no idea if she was ready for it or not.
Looking out the peep hole, her eyes widened in surprise. This was unexpected. She opened the door and Nikki Hanson stood before her, a solemn look on her face. "I'm sorry to just pop up like this," Nikki said. "I was afraid if I told you I was coming, you'd tell me not to come. And I wanted to see you."
"Um--" Mel stood by to let Nikki in the door. "Um, come in. Don't, uh, don't mind the apartment. It's a mess..."
"It's okay. I'm not here to judge."
As Mel cleared a space for Nikki to sit in one of the arm chairs, they took their seats near each other and Nikki looked back at her. "I've missed you. You're one of my best friends, you know? You're like my sister. You ARE my sister."
Mel's eyes brimmed with tears. She was touched. Touched by Nikki's presence, by the sentiment, everything. And she returned Nikki's feelings. She'd missed her, too. She knew she couldn't disappear off the face of the earth like she did last time. She could only hope that the Hansons would still accept her, no matter what the outcome of this might turn out to be.
"Thank you for being here," Mel finally said.
Nikki smiled sadly. "So, um, you wanna talk about it?"
Suddenly, Mel burst into tears. She hadn't expected to. She hadn't cried in over a week. Shaking her head and wiping her eyes, Mel said, "No. I'm sorry. I really don't."
Nikki moved over onto the sofa next to her and pulled Mel close to her. "It's okay," she said, stroking her hair. "It's okay. We don't have to talk about it."
For several more minutes Mel sobbed before she pulled away and began to dry herself up. Nikki looked around the apartment. "Honey, we gotta get this together. When's the last time you went out?"
Mel smiled sheepishly. "I don't even open the windows..."
"Melody Banks!" Nikki scolded. "You go get showered. I'll do your hair. And then I'm taking you to dinner. This is ridiculous, you need to get out. Persevere, it's what you do. Even I know that. And this is New York, you love this place. Let it embrace you."
Mel couldn't help throwing her arms around Nikki's neck once again. She would never be able to tell her how much her coming to New York meant to her. Not in a million years.
-----------------
Two days later, once Nikki had left New York, Mel sat in her usual location, on the sofa, watching cartoons and scraping out a pudding cup. She loved pudding. Chocolate, mostly, but she would take whatever she could get her hands on. Everything but tapioca, anyway. She had to draw the line somewhere.
Nikki's visit had helped. It hadn't been life-changing, but it had helped a little. Mel at least got out of the apartment. She had run a few errands and even stopped and picked up her own pudding. At least that way she could get as much as she wanted without having to worry about whether the kid who delivered her groceries would think she was a freak or something.
She went to her doctor the previous day for an exam. Might as well, right? In the back of her mind she had hoped that maybe she would qualify for anti-depressants or something, but they assured her that they weren't those types of doctors--which she knew, but thought she'd take a shot anyway--and that she surely did not need anti-depressants. Right. Sure, she didn't.
So now she sat in her little sofa hole, eating pudding and watching a teeny-bopper television show, laughing like an idiot at things that thirty-somethings shouldn't find funny. Sometimes you just had to let the immature laughter out. Sometimes that was the only way to cope.
Her cell phone rang and she let it ring for a couple of rings before she decided to answer it. There was Taylor. So much for this day. "Hello?" she answered.
"Hey," he said hesitantly. "Um, how are you?"
"Next question."
"Okay...I deserve that...um, look, I'm really glad you answered."
"Yeah, I'm really not sure why I did."
"Um, look, Mel. I have some news. It's, uh, it's not really anything to be proud of. At all. But it's a step in the right direction and I think it could be a good thing..."
"Well this just keeps getting better and better."
"Um, last week I had an episode. I did, I hit rock bottom. At least I think I did. Ike and Zac showed up and the next thing I know, I'm sitting in a doctor's office the next morning. A psychiatrist. To be honest, I don't even think I'm the one who scheduled the appointment."
Mel narrowed her eyes into the phone. "You don't THINK you scheduled your own doctor's appointment?"
"Uh, I've been--there are a lot of beer bottles in the garbage..."
"Uh-huh."
"So, listen. I saw the doctor. It was a long, long appointment. He, uh, they diagnosed me with rapid cycling bipolar disorder. I'm on mood stabilizers. Um, I probably always will be, I don't know yet. It's weird. The whole thing is weird..."
Mel's jaw dropped at the news. She was stunned, but more stunned at herself for not predicting it on her own. Bipolar made perfect sense. In her mind, she quickly went back to their last couple of months together--and even beyond that. All the way back to their teenage years, all the signs had always been there. All of them. Why hadn't she suggested this to him sooner? She could have saved him! They could have--
And then she stopped her thought process. Being diagnosed with a personality disorder was no excuse. None, whatsoever. So she pressed for more information. "Rapid cycling? What does that mean?"
He laughed sheepishly over the phone. "It's kind of embarrassing to talk about..."
"Do it anyway."
"Um, it's a form of bipolar--you know what bipolar is--that means a person has four or more episodes of mania per year."
"Mania..."
"It's period of abnormally elevated mood swings accompanied with erratic behavior that can last days at a time..."
"Explains a lot..."
"Yeah. Yeah, admittedly, it kinda does. But I'm getting help, Mel. I am. They have me on mood stabilizers and I'm about to start seeing a therapist. I'm gonna get this under control."
"Good," she said, quietly.
"This just--it makes sense to me. I wish I would have known about this before I sprung the whole not getting married thing on you, but--it would have been the same either way."
"I know."
"I just want you to know, it's not because I don't WANT to marry you. Please don't get it mixed up. Marrying you is the only thing I've ever wanted, but--I have to be able to take care of myself before I can take care of you. You understand where I'm coming from? I have to get well. I have to do this."
Mel found herself nodding into the phone. "I know."
"I want to know that you support me. I NEED to know...that you support me..."
"Of course I do."
"I do love you, Mel. There isn't a mood stabilizer on this planet that's gonna change that."
Mel had to smile. She couldn't help it. In a way, she felt relieved that there was an answer out there for him. She felt better knowing there was some kind of relief out there for him.
His next words punched her in the gut: "I cancelled the venue today."
She was speechless. She knew at some point it might come to this, but to hear it out loud just--just-- "Um, you--you--um..."
"I know," he said, his voice remaining calm. "I know. I almost couldn't do it. But there's no way we're going to be ready to get married by October. There just isn't. Not with me being the way I am and--and not knowing if you even still want to be with me or not."
She felt like the wind had been knocked out of her. She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out. Finally, she managed to creak out in a whisper, "I have to go."
"Mel, please. Please, let's talk about this."
"I can't."
"Don't hang up the phone."
"I have to go."
"Call Jason."
This sudden command caught her off guard. "Excuse me?"
"Call him," Tay said. "I know what you're doing, Mel. I know you. I know you're sitting there, holed up in the condo by yourself, flipping channels, and probably living on the couch. I know the only person you've spoken to besides me is Nikki. I know. You need him. I can't believe I'm saying this, but he's your best friend and you need him. And--and he can do for you what I can't do right now and I need to know that you're going to be okay."
"What--what do you--"
"I know he can be there for you. I know he will. I'm dealing with my crazy shit right now and--and you need someone."
Suddenly, Mel was livid. It was the first time she'd chewed him out since he'd broken off the engagement. "How dare you? How in the FUCK can you sit there and beg ME to support YOU and then turn around and tell me to call someone else because YOU can't be there for ME? Do you realize how that sounds? Fuck you!"
And then she terminated the call.
She shook her head in the air. 'Rapid cycling bipolar disorder.' 'I still love you.' 'Cancelled the venue.' 'Support me.' 'Call Jason because he can be there for you and I can't.' Fucking seriously?
Mel held her phone in her hand and looked at it, finger poised. She should. She should call Jason merely out of spite. She should just do it.
And then she sighed and put her phone down. Who was she kidding? There was no way she could call him now. Not after all the bullshit she'd already put him through. No. No. She would just deal with this on her own. One day at a time.
ISAAC
"You think I should go to New York?" Nikki asked her husband as tears filled her eyes.
Isaac sighed. "I don't really know. I really don't. It all happened so fast and--not to be mean, but my main focus is Tay right now. He's in pretty bad shape."
"But what about her? Does anyone in this family not care what happens to her? He's the one who ended it, not her."
Exasperated, Ike collapsed on their sofa and massaged the bridge of his nose. "I know. I know. I just--I don't understand it. One day everything's great, the next day he's putting his hand through a mirror. It's not my business to get in the middle of anyone else's relationship, but--"
"They're tragic," she said quietly. "Neither one of them should be alone."
"Tay's a basket case."
"Nobody's heard from Mel in almost a week."
Ike looked up at his wife, observing the sadness on her face. She wore her heart on her sleeve. She wept at laundry detergent commercials. She had grown close to Mel and he knew she hurt for her. But he had no idea what to tell her to do. He felt torn.
"I think I should go. I think this whole thing is insane. I think nobody making the attempt to contact her is crazy when she isn't the one in the wrong. I think having family meetings behind Tay's back is a little despicable--"
"We were discussing his well-being--"
"And I think both of them need some kind of sympathetic support system instead of being shunned and acting like they're--they're--psychotically handicapped or something!"
Ike looked up at her. "Psychotically handicapped?"
She blinked her eyes and shook her head. "Whatever, I made it up, it sounded good."
"Oddly enough, it's probably accurate," he muttered. Then he looked back up at Nikki. "Look. If you feel like you need to go visit her, then go visit her. I have no problem with it. She's my family, too, but Taylor's my brother. My brother and my band mate and I need to make sure that he's gonna survive this. You see where I am in this?"
Nikki nodded. "I know. I know. I'm just so upset that this is happening to them. Why would he--? I just don't understand, I thought they were happy?"
"Sometimes I think they're only happy with each other when they're miserable."
-------------------
That evening, Isaac and Zac stood on Taylor's doorstep at the house he shared with Mel. As they waited for Tay to answer the door, Ike looked over at Zac. "You think it was right, talking to Mom and Dad about Tay behind his back?"
"Nikki get on you about it?"
"Yeah."
"Kate got on me, too."
"But seriously, do you know what would have happened if he was there? It'd been the Hanson Family Massacre. No way would have been able to handle any part of that conversation."
"I know."
"Why hasn't he come to the door yet?"
Zac switched from ringing the bell to pounding on the door. "Maybe he's in the shower or something."
Suddenly they heard a loud pop come from the backyard. Startled, the two men sprinted around the house and were stopped by the wooden privacy gate that separated the backyard from the front. Ike and Zac glanced at each other for a second before Zac was already hopping the fence and climbing over. After hearing the "Oof!" that came from Zac as he hit the ground, the lock was lifted and he let Ike in. Sprinting around the side of the yard, they spied Taylor on the other end, slightly startled--and a little confused--at what they saw.
They approached him as he stood in front of an unfinished table, an axe in his good hand. Beer bottles littered the ground around him and as they got a closer look, they spied the table in half, caving in toward the ground below.
He stood there, his back turned to them. The axe was in his hand by his side and he merely stood there and looked at the table. Ike and Zac both knew the other one was too nervous to approach him, so Ike said quietly, "Tay?"
At the sound of Ike's voice, the axe fell from Taylor's hand but he didn't move. Ike approached him, finally, picking up the axe and tossing it away from them as Zac kicked beer bottles out of the way. His brothers flanked him and the three of them stared down at the now-destroyed, unfinished table. "This was a wedding gift," he said quietly. "It was mine to her and then she caught me. So she wanted to work on it together. So we did. It was ours. Alone. Never has one item represented so much in so little time."
"It looked like it was coming along," Ike observed quietly. "Shame you felt the need to destroy it."
Tay ignored the double entendre as he stepped forward and worked and twisted a piece of the thick wood before it broke off in his hand. He turned it over, revealing the initials Mel had carved into it weeks earlier. "This is the only part of it I'm interested in anyway. The rest of it can be scrapped or burned, I don't give a shit."
"Tay," Zac said softly. "You reek of beer. And sweat. And sawdust. Let's get you inside and make you human again."
Tay listlessly turned his head toward his brother. "Do you think I CARE what I look like? Or smell like? I mean, really. In the grand scheme of things, does it really matter?"
Zac looked at Ike around Tay. "Yes," he responded, matter-of-factly. "It does matter."
And then Taylor collapsed to his knees and began to weep, helplessly. "What the fuck is my problem?" he asked his brothers through his tears. "What's wrong with me? Why won't she stay?"
Ike shot a concerned glance Zac's way again before he responded gently. "Tay--bud, you're the one who told her you couldn't marry her. What did you expect to happen?"
"I told her I needed time!"
"It pretty much translates all the same."
"I'm sure you thought this through beforehand," Zac chimed in, matching Ike's tone. "But you gotta put yourself in her shoes. Think about it. Think about what's going on in her mind, what she's gone through. And then ask yourself again if you would stay if you were her."
"She thinks--she thinks I don't love her!"
"She knows you love her," Ike said.
"I'm such a mess," Tay said. "I'm such a worthless, fucked up mess. How do I get myself into these things?"
Looking at each other once more, Ike and Zac each took one of Tay's arms and lifted him off the ground. That night they cleaned him up, packed his bags, and made arrangements in Ike's guest room for him. They were bound and determined that, this time, their brother would get well. And this time, it would stick.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
MEL
Cartoons. Cartoons, kids' movies, adult variety shows, stand-up comedy--anything that couldn't possibly be based on reality is what Mel drank in on the television. She had even smiled at the screen a couple of times. He appetite had come back, little by little, but her housekeeping skills had gone to shit. Didn't matter anyway. She didn't have anyone to impress.
It had been two weeks since Mel had spoken to Taylor. In fact, her phone never rang at all. Her mother had called her several times to check up on her, but that was it. Only her mother. She was already growing used to being alone. It was an old, familiar feeling. However, she couldn't remember the last time she'd watched this much television and she wondered where cable had been all her life.
Mel was just scraping out a pudding cup and dropping it inside the empty container of the previous one she'd eaten on the end table next to her when there was a knock on her door. Mel was startled by the sound. It wasn't so much as the state of her apartment that worried her, but who might be behind the door. There was only one person it could have been. Only one. And she had no idea if she was ready for it or not.
Looking out the peep hole, her eyes widened in surprise. This was unexpected. She opened the door and Nikki Hanson stood before her, a solemn look on her face. "I'm sorry to just pop up like this," Nikki said. "I was afraid if I told you I was coming, you'd tell me not to come. And I wanted to see you."
"Um--" Mel stood by to let Nikki in the door. "Um, come in. Don't, uh, don't mind the apartment. It's a mess..."
"It's okay. I'm not here to judge."
As Mel cleared a space for Nikki to sit in one of the arm chairs, they took their seats near each other and Nikki looked back at her. "I've missed you. You're one of my best friends, you know? You're like my sister. You ARE my sister."
Mel's eyes brimmed with tears. She was touched. Touched by Nikki's presence, by the sentiment, everything. And she returned Nikki's feelings. She'd missed her, too. She knew she couldn't disappear off the face of the earth like she did last time. She could only hope that the Hansons would still accept her, no matter what the outcome of this might turn out to be.
"Thank you for being here," Mel finally said.
Nikki smiled sadly. "So, um, you wanna talk about it?"
Suddenly, Mel burst into tears. She hadn't expected to. She hadn't cried in over a week. Shaking her head and wiping her eyes, Mel said, "No. I'm sorry. I really don't."
Nikki moved over onto the sofa next to her and pulled Mel close to her. "It's okay," she said, stroking her hair. "It's okay. We don't have to talk about it."
For several more minutes Mel sobbed before she pulled away and began to dry herself up. Nikki looked around the apartment. "Honey, we gotta get this together. When's the last time you went out?"
Mel smiled sheepishly. "I don't even open the windows..."
"Melody Banks!" Nikki scolded. "You go get showered. I'll do your hair. And then I'm taking you to dinner. This is ridiculous, you need to get out. Persevere, it's what you do. Even I know that. And this is New York, you love this place. Let it embrace you."
Mel couldn't help throwing her arms around Nikki's neck once again. She would never be able to tell her how much her coming to New York meant to her. Not in a million years.
-----------------
Two days later, once Nikki had left New York, Mel sat in her usual location, on the sofa, watching cartoons and scraping out a pudding cup. She loved pudding. Chocolate, mostly, but she would take whatever she could get her hands on. Everything but tapioca, anyway. She had to draw the line somewhere.
Nikki's visit had helped. It hadn't been life-changing, but it had helped a little. Mel at least got out of the apartment. She had run a few errands and even stopped and picked up her own pudding. At least that way she could get as much as she wanted without having to worry about whether the kid who delivered her groceries would think she was a freak or something.
She went to her doctor the previous day for an exam. Might as well, right? In the back of her mind she had hoped that maybe she would qualify for anti-depressants or something, but they assured her that they weren't those types of doctors--which she knew, but thought she'd take a shot anyway--and that she surely did not need anti-depressants. Right. Sure, she didn't.
So now she sat in her little sofa hole, eating pudding and watching a teeny-bopper television show, laughing like an idiot at things that thirty-somethings shouldn't find funny. Sometimes you just had to let the immature laughter out. Sometimes that was the only way to cope.
Her cell phone rang and she let it ring for a couple of rings before she decided to answer it. There was Taylor. So much for this day. "Hello?" she answered.
"Hey," he said hesitantly. "Um, how are you?"
"Next question."
"Okay...I deserve that...um, look, I'm really glad you answered."
"Yeah, I'm really not sure why I did."
"Um, look, Mel. I have some news. It's, uh, it's not really anything to be proud of. At all. But it's a step in the right direction and I think it could be a good thing..."
"Well this just keeps getting better and better."
"Um, last week I had an episode. I did, I hit rock bottom. At least I think I did. Ike and Zac showed up and the next thing I know, I'm sitting in a doctor's office the next morning. A psychiatrist. To be honest, I don't even think I'm the one who scheduled the appointment."
Mel narrowed her eyes into the phone. "You don't THINK you scheduled your own doctor's appointment?"
"Uh, I've been--there are a lot of beer bottles in the garbage..."
"Uh-huh."
"So, listen. I saw the doctor. It was a long, long appointment. He, uh, they diagnosed me with rapid cycling bipolar disorder. I'm on mood stabilizers. Um, I probably always will be, I don't know yet. It's weird. The whole thing is weird..."
Mel's jaw dropped at the news. She was stunned, but more stunned at herself for not predicting it on her own. Bipolar made perfect sense. In her mind, she quickly went back to their last couple of months together--and even beyond that. All the way back to their teenage years, all the signs had always been there. All of them. Why hadn't she suggested this to him sooner? She could have saved him! They could have--
And then she stopped her thought process. Being diagnosed with a personality disorder was no excuse. None, whatsoever. So she pressed for more information. "Rapid cycling? What does that mean?"
He laughed sheepishly over the phone. "It's kind of embarrassing to talk about..."
"Do it anyway."
"Um, it's a form of bipolar--you know what bipolar is--that means a person has four or more episodes of mania per year."
"Mania..."
"It's period of abnormally elevated mood swings accompanied with erratic behavior that can last days at a time..."
"Explains a lot..."
"Yeah. Yeah, admittedly, it kinda does. But I'm getting help, Mel. I am. They have me on mood stabilizers and I'm about to start seeing a therapist. I'm gonna get this under control."
"Good," she said, quietly.
"This just--it makes sense to me. I wish I would have known about this before I sprung the whole not getting married thing on you, but--it would have been the same either way."
"I know."
"I just want you to know, it's not because I don't WANT to marry you. Please don't get it mixed up. Marrying you is the only thing I've ever wanted, but--I have to be able to take care of myself before I can take care of you. You understand where I'm coming from? I have to get well. I have to do this."
Mel found herself nodding into the phone. "I know."
"I want to know that you support me. I NEED to know...that you support me..."
"Of course I do."
"I do love you, Mel. There isn't a mood stabilizer on this planet that's gonna change that."
Mel had to smile. She couldn't help it. In a way, she felt relieved that there was an answer out there for him. She felt better knowing there was some kind of relief out there for him.
His next words punched her in the gut: "I cancelled the venue today."
She was speechless. She knew at some point it might come to this, but to hear it out loud just--just-- "Um, you--you--um..."
"I know," he said, his voice remaining calm. "I know. I almost couldn't do it. But there's no way we're going to be ready to get married by October. There just isn't. Not with me being the way I am and--and not knowing if you even still want to be with me or not."
She felt like the wind had been knocked out of her. She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out. Finally, she managed to creak out in a whisper, "I have to go."
"Mel, please. Please, let's talk about this."
"I can't."
"Don't hang up the phone."
"I have to go."
"Call Jason."
This sudden command caught her off guard. "Excuse me?"
"Call him," Tay said. "I know what you're doing, Mel. I know you. I know you're sitting there, holed up in the condo by yourself, flipping channels, and probably living on the couch. I know the only person you've spoken to besides me is Nikki. I know. You need him. I can't believe I'm saying this, but he's your best friend and you need him. And--and he can do for you what I can't do right now and I need to know that you're going to be okay."
"What--what do you--"
"I know he can be there for you. I know he will. I'm dealing with my crazy shit right now and--and you need someone."
Suddenly, Mel was livid. It was the first time she'd chewed him out since he'd broken off the engagement. "How dare you? How in the FUCK can you sit there and beg ME to support YOU and then turn around and tell me to call someone else because YOU can't be there for ME? Do you realize how that sounds? Fuck you!"
And then she terminated the call.
She shook her head in the air. 'Rapid cycling bipolar disorder.' 'I still love you.' 'Cancelled the venue.' 'Support me.' 'Call Jason because he can be there for you and I can't.' Fucking seriously?
Mel held her phone in her hand and looked at it, finger poised. She should. She should call Jason merely out of spite. She should just do it.
And then she sighed and put her phone down. Who was she kidding? There was no way she could call him now. Not after all the bullshit she'd already put him through. No. No. She would just deal with this on her own. One day at a time.