[ Sincerely, Yours by Ameer Vann]

EIGHTEEN: when you re-ackowledge the problem.

I woke up with resolution sitting on my chest. If my life was a best-seller, this would be the part where I -as the main character- would go through some sort of internal monologue. Maybe instead of the list being a suicide pact with myself, it would instead be a list of all the people that actually mattered in my life.

In that story, I'd have fixed my relationship with everyone around me, went to some therapists office and unloaded all my past conflict as I sprawled out on an other-worldly comfortable couch. This would somehow eradicate any future depression and I'd be cured to move on and maybe fall back in love with my soulmate or whatever the fuck.

But this wasn't a best-seller, my novels rarely reflected my own life and there was no all-knowing psychs or a magical pill that would... fix me. I was stuck in this limbo for the rest of my life, tethering between some artificial contentment and feeling everything all at once.

I wasn't the protagonist in some 13-year old girls' favorite young-adult novel and I would be like this for the rest of my life. It was just up to me what this was and what being like this would mean.

After my talk with Wren, I had a little air left to breathe. It made me feel... better, even if it wasn't much and not having to pretend to be okay actually allowed some of the tension to disperse. My head felt a bit clearer even if my chest was just as heavy and for the first time in a long while, a different perspective actually had some sort of effect.

Him caring enough to make sure I was okay sparked some hope in a place I thought it had already died and I had finally taken it upon myself to start writing again.

I'd forgotten just how much it helped, journaling out my feelings, hadn't done it in so long, I forgot it helped me cope. Maybe I needed to cope, maybe these thoughts that were swarming around would be easier to decipher when put on paper.

So I did.

I wrote poems, excerpt, some autobiographical stanzas. I wrote about everything wrong in my life, what I'd done, what others had done. I wrote about all the shit I never had the courage to face but would creep up at night once I thought they'd disappeared. All the pain, all the pain I'd inflicted all written down on paper and once I started I couldn't stop.

The first time I'd been able to string together events on paper, I found myself writing about college... how everything was so fucking hard all the time, how having a job and balancing school and my mental health all on my own felt like an impossible task. How it got so far and so deep that living somehow felt harder. I wrote about how living up to others' standards will never be easy and I shouldn't want it to be, I shouldn't have wanted to be perfect because I knew it would drive me insane.

I wrote about how insane it felt to live in my own body, how freaky it was that I was always trapped in there. I wrote about how isolated it was when the only friend you had was your depression and they didn't want you to succeed. I missed myself.

But I shouldn't have wanted to be who I was before the medication and the therapy because he didn't exist anymore.

I wrote about how he didn't exist anymore, about how sometimes realizing that put this feeling that who I was now was so tremendously worse... how one mistake turns into many mistakes and then you're sitting alone in a dorm, broke, and lonely with only your mistakes to keep you comfort.

And when those mistakes tired, I turned to meaningless sex with guys that I'd treat like shit, I wrote about how I treated everyone else like shit and I tried my best not to equate that to my mother. I tried my best not to blame my trust issues and insecurity and every fucking issue with love that I harbored, on her because it felt easy.

It felt so easy to blame the rejection for the reasoning to why I couldn't get up in the mornings and why when I did, I was in such a shitty mood that I'd hurt people who didn't deserve it. It was like I'd purposely wake up with the intent to ruin something, to break something because I didn't deserve to have it.

I wrote about Calum, I'd never written about him, never thought I needed to as I had closure with him. But what was closure when you were digging up all your past mistakes? I had put him on my say goodbye list and I wasn't sure why exactly. I wasn't sure why I felt an obligation to leave a good impression on him. Love often hides itself, buries itself until it has no choice but to grow upward, and roots dig in to soil uncharted.

I didn't know what that meant, didn't know what anything I wrote anymore really did. How could I write about love when every experience I had had blown up in my face? One thing I did know was that I absolutely hated how weak I'd been, I hated being low.

I hated the feeling of falling and never having anything to grab onto until Wren had stuck his hand out for me, pulled me back up. I wasn't quite sure if I was okay with it yet but I would be.

I would have to be.

So I wrote and I never took time to reflect, always progress never regress, I thought of the pills in my drawer again the night before and I wrote about that. I thought about love again, maybe one day I'd have enough for myself and maybe I'd deserve it too.

Sullivan texted.

I tried texting back.

: : :

"Julian?" His voice was still the same, still light but deep with a laugh embedded on the end of each word and I realized that if I had killed myself, I wouldn't have heard it ever again. I realized that the surprise and excitement that laced itself in just my name alone was one the the most beautiful sounds I'd ever heard in my life and I held onto it.

Maybe the poetry was lingering.

He was smiling, I could hear it and I could feel myself smiling as well, genuinely.

"Hey." My voice was confident, more confident than I was and I wasn't sure why. It was always easy to talk to him, at least before but it kind of felt like a stranger or at least a distant relative and this was someone I'd once thought of like a brother. "Are you busy?"

"Not at all." And he was laughing as if what I had asked was absurd. "How you been, best friend?" I couldn't quite answer that, not honestly, not yet so I settled with my first lie.

"I've been okay."

Ever so serious, Benji's voice rang through and I could imagine the deadpan on his face. "You ain't replace me, did you?" That made me laugh and we were back to us again, he'd tamed with time but he still had that incredulousness in his voice that often came out as a whine. And it hit me then, just how much I'd missed him.

"I couldn't replace you, Benji." Who could?

"Good." Sighing, I leant back on my bed. I was supposed to be packing for break, supposed to be holding my shirt together again but Ben's voice had stricken up emotions that I still wasn't really ready to deal with. "So, what's up?"

"Oh, you know, being a failure at life and all that."

And when he laughed, I found myself smiling. "Shouldn't you be used to that by now?"

"Uh, fuck you." Rolling my eyes, I pretended to be offended. "No, uh, nothing's really happening for me at the moment." Absolutely nothing, I hadn't texted Sullivan back in a week now, I was sure I'd fucked that up for myself. I fucked everything up. "I'm flunking college."

"Shit, man." Why did I say that? "What're you gonna do about it?"

He really expected that much of me? "Why do I always have to do something about it?" Probably because you haven't in months, because you were so pathetic to lay in your bed for six months and just let yourself have a depressive episode.

"Because you're Jules, you get shit done." I wasn't sure how true that was; everything in my life had fallen apart and I did absolutely nothing.

I snorted, "Yeah, right." I'm a failure, remember? And I knew he was joking but it stung a little that he thought of me that way.

He must've realize how cynical my laugh was because he was coddling my feelings now and suddenly, Benji was in the position to be my caretaker or whatever the fuck. I always did this, always put people in impossible situations where they'd be forced to care for me like I was a fucking child. "Who forced me to get my ass in gear and enlist?"

"You were already gonna do it."

But he wouldn't stop and is words were starting to register. "Jules, you stayed up with me for hours when I thought my life wasn't gonna amount to anything and you motivated me." Sure, I'd stayed up working on assignments with him because I'd also fallen far behind. Benji was going to make something of his life regardless of what I had to say about it. "Cause shit, if you can do it, I can do it."

He wasn't done, he words annoyed. "Stop being so hard on yourself all the fucking time." And I didn't have anything else to say, I didn't even feel like it was my place to interrupt him. "Figure out what the fuck is wrong and fix that shit because complaining about it isn't doing anything."

It was silent and my eyes connected with my suitcase for a second, I thought about it and then realized I was done thinking about it. And I sat up, trudging over to the closet and grabbing it, putting Ben on speaker as I sifted through some clothes.

I hadn't even unpacked this bag since my last trip, so weak because of what Paul and I had done. Fuck that.

Ben was on speaker as I pulled out all of my clothes that were stuffed haphazardly, stuttering at a t-shirt, the last time I wore it sticking in my mind. I remembered Paul's hands sliding up my chest underneath it, throwing it to the floor and kissing the skin he'd exposed. I thought about yanking it on with tears in my eyes, the other guy he'd been fucking behind the door- it probably still smelled like him.

Throwing it to the side, I sucked in a breath and I finally let Benji in. "My dad's getting married."

It was silent and he probably heard the crack in my voice. I busied myself with opening my drawers, pulling out a few pairs of jeans and looking through them. I hadn't worn jeans in so long. "What's wrong with that?"

"I kind of... told him that it was a bad idea."

"Because of your ma?" And I hated to admit that that was the reason but I knew it was. There was only so much pushing it away and Ben was right, I needed to figure it out, having Wren find me at my lowest and have to put me back together when I'd been so fucking awful to him.. that really cemented it.

I needed to figure my shit out, to stop letting myself fall into this fucking hole cause I don't want to deal with it. There was something wrong with the fact that at every little inconvenience, I stopped taking care of myself.

Maybe it was abandonment issues, maybe it was mommy issues again, maybe my therapist had a point.

I never talked about her, never thought about the possibility that all that traumatizing shit actually... traumatized me. Maybe it was because thinking like that felt like an excuse.

"Yeah." Folding the jeans I'd decided on, I placed them in the bag, trying to remain calm enough and oddly, packing was helping. I looked over at the hole in the wall and told myself that I wouldn't lose control like that again.

"Well... Maybe you should talk to her." he offered a solution and that sounded so fucking stupid.

I laughed, screwing my eyes shut in annoyance. There was no fucking way that I was going to find that woman and talk to her, beg her for some sort of apology that she wouldn't give because she didn't feel bad. She didn't care, she didn't come to the hospital when I'd been jumped, didn't come when I fucked up and almost killed myself.

She didn't come to my graduation, she wasn't there when I got into college, she wasn't there for anything. Why the fuck should I go see her? She made it so very abundantly clear that she did not want to see me.

"It helped with Calum, right? Talking to him?" And it did, but that probably had a lot to do with how he actually regretted what he'd done to me. He'd been receptive of me lashing out and sharing how he'd fucked me up and he was remorseful. I wasn't going to go see the woman who gave birth to me and then kicked me out of the house when I felt safe enough to tell her that I was in love.

Because going back to her would be like admitting a fault, groveling for her satisfaction and she wasn't sorry.

"Julian-"

I tried to stay calm, tried to remember that I had some sort of control over my own actions. I consistently talked about not wanting medication but never proved that I'd actually be okay if I tried other alternatives. "Drop it, Benji." I didn't call him for advice, or maybe I did but I couldn't remember the point of me even talking to him again. "I shouldn't have called."

"The fuck?" My voice came out so cold he probably didn't expect it, I didn't either. "Man, what's wrong with you?"

Too much. "I'm fucking crazy, remember?" I tried to laugh it off but the reality of that sentence alone came back rushing at full force and I was trying not to cry as I packed the rest of my clothes. I promised Wren I would tell my dad and if I actually did, I didn't know how long I'd be staying. "And I keep... letting people down and my dad's getting married and I just-"

I took a second, feeling myself starting to lose my breath again and I tried counting. I gave myself time before speaking again and my words came out slower. "I hate feeling like I'm disappointing people and I don't have anyone out here, you know?"

Head in my hand, I wiped at my eyes, holding back tears, if I were going to try to fix myself, I could start by actually keeping myself together. "I-I just- I feel-"

"Down." He offered again and that was the best I could articulate it myself so I just agreed.

And Benji spoke again, his words softer than before. He was always good at relating to me in these moments and he always knew exactly what I needed to hear... time didn't change that. "That's life." He was still my best friend and he was still there for me. "It's just hitting you harder right now."

Pulling my knees to my chest, I hugged them for comfort trying to relax my shaking hands. "You'll pick yourself back up, you always do."

"You got this, J." He said when I didn't respond and I found myself nodding even though he couldn't see me. I let it reassure me, let myself believe what he'd been saying and I tried to tell myself that this was some kind of progress.

"And-and you got me, okay? I got your back." I had no doubt. "No matter what."

"You're a really good friend, Benji."

"Duh, it's why I'm your best friend."

Ben was always good at talking. "I'm here to tell you that life is this big ass stupid series of ups and downs and all that shit and you're going through a rough patch right now."

That's what they all called it, a rough patch, and I tried to let myself believe it. Because his words were so sincere. "But you been through worse."

And I felt better now, at least a little bit from how low I'd been. I wasn't swimming in that same sad pool anymore. "And you been fine, you get up, you keep goin."

One thing about my best friend was that you couldn't be said around him for too long, Benji was so great at making others happy and bringing me some peace whether he was just being funny or making life-changing discoveries. "When did you get so wise?"

And he barked out a boisterous laughter then, instantly the weight in my chest felt less heavy and I found myself laughing as well. "When I figured out how to finesse the system. I fuck Lady Liberty one time and I get a house, a car and free education when I get out this bitch."

And his analogies were so weird but it never failed to put a smile on my face. "Very patriotic of you, Cadet Morris."

"I pledge allegiance to these bands."

: : :

sully: we're gonna miss you

sully: me and all the nursing home hotties I'm bathing all break ! :(

sully: u would think their grandkids would spend a singular break sponge-bathing their elders, white people have no respect!

sully: sry ** irish ☘️ n german

sully: btw ur like really cute, i already miss kissing you.

sully: ** u

sully: let me know when you land.

The plane ride wasn't as unpleasant as you'd think. Avoiding standing and contributing to chaos, I decided to slip my phone out of my pocket.

5 hours in solitude and I was suddenly being bombarded with 40 texts from Sullivan.

He wasn't kidding when he said he texts a million times a day, something about water signs. He had sent a pic of him posing with the cutest old lady around twenty minutes ago.

I sent a pic I'd taken when he took off, the view from the little airplane window.

sully: is minneapolis just greener than the rest of the world?

jules: michigan

sully: sry *minnesota

The flight back to Michigan was when it's my exhaustion really hit me, my eyes shutting and not opening until we'd landed. I laughed out the bit of energy left in me.

Trudging my way to baggage claim, I was sure I looked as dead as I felt. I felt like shit and I acted like an asshole and as a result, I didn't really expect anyone to be there to retrieve me.

I should've though because Jade had texted me at some time asking where I was and she'd pulled up in Dad's car, parking despite the fact that she wasn't supposed to. She'd stuttered when she'd seen me finally, stepping back for a second before hugging me. The force of it almost knocked me over and she paused when she'd let me go.

I was sure she could visibly see how bad I'd gotten, my eyes hollow along with my cheeks and the sweats and t-shirt that had previously fit were starting to swallow me a bit. I hadn't worked out in weeks.

There were bags under my eyes and my voice was soft when I greeted her, "Hi."

Her concerned look didn't fade but she'd hugged me again, holding on a little too tight. Jade before had never been so big on physical contact but maybe that ended when her angsty phase had or maybe I was just so depressing to look at now that she was worried.

When it felt like they'd start asking us to move our car, I pulled her away from me, throwing her a smile. And I felt so guilty at the fact that I forgot just how excited she always was to see me, I almost never saw this again.

When we were settled in the car and pulling away, I offered a chance to sit down and catch up. "Wanna get something to eat?" I hadn't eaten yet that day and I was sure she would offer to stop and get food before we got home.

Especially with how sickly I looked.

Mostly, I was avoiding seeing my dad already, knowing that I had a lot to think about, he was definitely still upset... I would be too. I had no doubt that he didn't want to see me either and I wasn't ready to try.

Jade had agreed, pulling into a McDonalds near the airport and her eyes had flitted over to me as we got to the drive thru. She was ordering then, adding an ass of food onto my small order and reaching her hand for my card when she'd finished.

Rolling my eyes, I handed it to her, only a cheesy smile in return and when we'd gotten the food, she'd pulled into a parking space to dig in. She had the same idea of not going home yet, I was sure and I knew that she wanted to talk about what I'd said to Dad.

Jade always felt some weird obligation to defend him from me and I knew it was because I never really let up on him.

Halfway through a burger that I didn't order but she'd pushed towards me, I found myself asking the question that had been lingering in my mind since Benji had mentioned it. "Do you think I should talk to mom?"

Jade scoffed through her chicken sandwich, disbelieving eyes flickering over to me and she rolled them. "Loraine?" When I nodded, she shook her head, lips turned up into a mocking smile that suddenly invalidated everything that I'd felt so far. "No, why would you?"

And I shrugged, choosing to forget why I thought it would be a good idea. "I don't know, I never really did."

When she didn't respond, I found myself shaking my head, biting back into my burger and ignoring the confusion on her face. "It's a stupid idea, just forget it."

It wasn't a good idea and she could forget I'd even asked. It wasn't like she would have any contribution to my life anyways. Jade must have realized that I still had some lingering hesitation because she'd stopped eating briefly, putting her food down and she looked over at me seriously. "What is there to talk about? She left us."

And she was right.

We sat in silence for a bit just eating and on a normal day, thoughts would've been racing through my mind, I would've felt flustered and fat for indulging in so much food. Instead of self-deprecating thoughts raising to the forefront, the only thing on my mind was my mother.

Was she still at Grandma's? Did Grandma know? Did Grandma agree with her?

I tried not to let that idea get to me, if anything, she was old. Elders were more homophobic due to past-principles, I told myself. It wouldn't hurt because I would expect it. I didn't expect my mom to hate me... that was why it hurt so bad, I told myself. I wondered if she was still at the same church, I hadn't been in so long and before everything fell to shit, there were talks of buying a new building.

"Anyways, Dad's gonna ask if you wanna go suit shopping with him." Jade offered conversation and instinctively, I reached up to twine my fingers around the necklace on my neck, my breath hitching upon realization that it was gone.

I'd taken off my crucifix years ago, there was no reason to even believe it would be there.

Jade was talking about the wedding now and just the thought of it made my stomach churn.

"They're getting married already?" Snorting, I mumbled under my breath. "She works fast." Golddiggers always did.

"She's nice." Jade defended, punching me in the arm half-heartedly. She was shoving fries into her mouth now and now I realized why she'd been parked here so long. I knew it was coming but with us being so far from the house, she'd planned it out so I couldn't walk away from the conversation. "He really loves her."

Rolling my eyes, I leant my chair back, knowing we'd be there awhile. "Yeah."

But Jade still had this cheery fucking attitude and I was starting to miss the fifteen year old that didn't want to talk to me, ever. She was looking over at me, ponytail bobbing with the movement of her head and her green eyes were boring into mine. "She's not that bad, you'd like Kenan too, he's super smart."

Okay?

When I didn't respond, she sighed. "Why are you so mad?"

"Why don't you move in Caspar too?" And I didn't mean to sound so angry but the idea that everyone just thought this was a good idea really made me look like the bad guy. They were all for it and now I was the asshole.  "Move in everybody's significant-fucking-other."

Her smile faltered then and I could see the anger behind it. "Jules-"

"No," and maybe I wanted an argument because I wasn't done. I didn't feel anywhere near done with the conversation and I knew Jade wasn't going to back down. She was stubborn and confrontational just like Dad, "no one even asked me, I was what? Supposed to just find out with everyone else, huh?"

"They moved in without even a thought to let me know and now they're getting fucking married and I found out last."

"You weren't there!"

We sat there for a second and I could basically hear the flare of her nostrils, my arms were crossed and I was fuming. And she was chuckling to herself. "I knew you were gonna react like this."

And fuck her for laughing at the situation when she could see how serious I was. That was the thing with Jade, she always knew how to get under my skin with the smallest amount of words possible. She knew laughing would piss me off and this was the most serious argument we'd had in years.

"Like what?"

"Like everything's about you." She was shaking her head then and I could feel my throat burning. I wanted to scream, and she was as calm as can be. She wasn't even looking at me, eyes on the bush in front of us and I smacked my teeth. "It's always about you, Jules."

It hadn't been about me in a long time. "It's always about me?"

And as if my question was for clarification, she laughed again, eyes flitting over to mine and they were wild, wide and angry. She was so mad at me and I knew it was built up, had been for years at least. "Yeah, it's always about you. It always has been."

I didn't know what to say to that. My mental health had always been the topic of discussion after coming out while Jade had rebellious teenage years. It wasn't like I was trying to take all of the attention, she was just never asking for it. Jade never seemed to have a problem either and I didn't know how to read minds, she was just lashing out now with all this information because she wanted me to feel bad.

And I did. I felt so bad at the realization that with all my issues, she'd been pushed to the background but it wasn't like it was intentional.

"Well, I'm sorry that you feel like that."

"Whatever," she grimaced, starting the car back up and I knew we weren't getting any further than this so I sighed. And she threw her bag to the backseat, frown on her face as she continued to lecture me about everything I'd done wrong. Her voice was shaky, almost as if she were ready to cry but she held it in. "You push and you push and it's like you don't understand it when people snap."

And Jade was always better at keeping herself together than me, always better at putting on a brave face, her green eyes glossed over with tears, she buckled her seatbelt.

"I don't know what you want me to do, Jade."

"I want you to be happy for him." She looked over at me, probably expecting an agreement and I was still thinking over what I'd done to hurt her. She shook her head when she got no response, lips sucked into her mouth. "You can't even do that."

"I want you to ask about me for once." She continued when I still hadn't answered, her eyes on the wheel and her hands still in her lap. "I want you to actually call us, I want you to talk to Dad instead of getting mad and guilting him because he's moving on with his life."

And that stung, I bit my tongue to keep from responding then, knowing it was a cheap shot. I knew what she meant and as if she didn't think I got it, she kept going, kept picking at the wound and now she was doing exactly what she'd accused me of: pushing until people snapped.

"Not everyone's stuck on a fucking ex."

I clenched my jaw and tried to speak through the anger. "Don't talk about things you don't understand." She didn't know anything about me and Paul, she didn't understand why I wasn't over him and it honestly wasn't any of her business. "What we have-"

"What do you have?" She cried, her voice almost a yell and she was laughing at me again, her eyes still angry, I wondered if she said it to hurt me. "You don't have anything."

If that was what she was trying to do, she succeeded because all the tears I'd been holding in were rolling down my cheeks and she wasn't eve looking at me now. She had her eyes on the road and she was driving home in silence.

A/N:

A little bit of Benji for your troubles.

So, I know I said that I wasn't going to update for a while but inspiration strikes. You know how I was saying at the beginning of writing this that I wanted to incorporate Paul's point of view? Well, I figured out exactly how to do it while keeping the book in the same tone. I've been hinting at it (especially with chapter ten), and I kind of want to do a two part book.

With the two part: Julian's college story and mental health is the first part and Paul's life and his drinking and all that is going on that you're curious about is the second part.

I was thinking this mostly because the direction that I've taken this so far will give Julian a resolution by maybe the 25th chapter and with how long Open was, half of the story felt like a robbery in a way. Paul's life was just as incorporated in Open as Julian's and it seems wrong  to make him just a love interest at this point.

What do you think?

Updated: Sunday, August 18th.

Do you think Jade's right?