worked.
But as soon as I stepped back into my dorm to see my roommate,
I felt happy to be back in my second home. And I had even called
it home when I talked to my friends the next day, saying “yeah, the
weekend back was nice, but it’s also nice to be home.” I’m not even sure if
at this point I was conscious of having two different homes yet.
Really peculiar how the mind works sometimes. Too many ups
and downs to count.
One day, when I was trying to nap, all of these memories came
back to me at once, connected by some unperceivable thread. Then,
I thought about something that happened a week before moving into
college, before any of these other things had happened. I was lying down
on my bed when the memory rushed to me like I was watching a film in
my mind.
Right before I left for college, I drove with John to Barnes and
Noble so we both could have something to do together before I actually
made the big move. I vividly remember being stopped at a red light.
The red seemed so bright, so ephemeral, so fleeting. My brother, after
a pure, contemplative silence, quickly spurted out, “I think I might be
depressed.”
I stopped. My jaw dropped, and my hands clutched harder to
the worn steering wheel until I felt that removing my hands would also
remove that fake leather layer from the wheel as it stuck to my hands
with sweat. I took a second to slowly hinge my jaw back to where it was
supposed to be. “For how long?”
“Maybe the past two years. A while.” He looked at me almost
apologetically, but I couldn’t think of a reason for him to be sorry.
My heart stopped, but the tears didn’t until they completely
swallowed my pupils. Another pause. Do not let them slide down your
cheeks, I thought. Do not let him see you cry. I know there is always some
kind of school assembly that tries to instruct about what to do in these
situations, but here’s a fair warning: your mouth will feel like sandpaper,
and your eyes will feel like they’re swimming in a hazy ocean as you try
to think about what you could’ve done to prevent the pain your poor
brother has had to deal with for approximately 24 months, and you have
to push through the feeling of failure as an older sister, because it’s not
about you. Then you will involuntarily think back to when you
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