Page 51 of Left on Read

OfficialEndeavourHigh:Seniors: anyone doing anything fun

So this is fall break.

For all of my plans to catch up on reading and work on my Beta Club election campaign and enjoy the leisure of actual free time, I’ve done nothing in the past four days. While all of my time has been free, none of it has been leisurely.

I’ve been sleeping through the day and staying up all night, and my TBR stack is sitting on the shelf, mocking me. I haven’t touched my Beta campaign. Every time I even think about it, I feel this tiny, sharp stab in my chest. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, because that stab issomething.

The numbness has taken over everything. I haven’t left my bed for longer than it takes to make an appearance at dinner so my parents will stop worrying about me. I’ve scrolled through every streaming service trying to pick something to binge, and I can’t fathom watching any of it. That stack of beloved, anticipated reads I’ve been curating for months hasn’t been touched.

I was supposed to spend this time resting and recovering from the past few months. It was supposed to be like lying on the beachafter a vigorous swim. I’m not lying on the beach; I’m caught in a riptide. I don’t know how much longer I can keep trying to swim against it.

There’s a knock at the door. I just saw everyone at dinner, and I would like to think I kept up a remarkable facade. (Even if Iwaswearing the same clothes as yesterday and my hairwassticking up at odd angles.) I don’t tell them to come in, but the door opens anyway.

Mom comes to sit on the edge of my bed, where I’m lying on my stomach with my face pressed into the pillow. I’m comfortable, so she’s going to have to have this conversation with the back of my head.

“What’s going on, Nova?” She whispers like this is a private conversation, even though we’re the only two in the room.

“I don’t know,” I tell her. I can’t explain it. Sometimes I just get Like This, and I don’t know how to find my way back.

“I’m worried.” She smooths down my frayed hair in a soothing, repetitive motion. “We’re all worried.”

“Yeah, right.” I chuckle. I can’t imagine the boys being worried about anything, least of all me.

“Yes, right,” Mom insists. “Gage is cleaning up the kitchen by himself. He told me to go talk to you instead.”

That’s oddly touching, and I feel the horribly overwhelming need to cry. There’s a wounded whimper from somewhere deep in my chest, and I close my eyes against the onslaught of tears. It feels so good to cry. It feels like giving up the fight against the riptide and somehow still ending up headed back toward the shore.

“Oh, no.” Mom rubs my back between my shoulder blades, like she used to do when I was a toddler who never slept. “Did something happen? Or is it all just too much?”

That’s what she’s constantly worried about, that this is all too much for me. That going to college and high school at the same time and joining every club and reading every book is going to overwhelm me enough to ruin me forever.

I roll onto my back. Look up at the ceiling fan. I can feel the tear-soaked pillowcase wetting the back of my hair.

“It was too much,” I admit. “It was way too much, and then I … hit a wall, or something. I don’t know. It was too much, and then it was nothing.”

Mom nods. Her face is grim, and I don’t think I realized how bad this all was until I saw myself through her eyes just now.

“There’s just nothing,” I admit, whispering it into the air like a confession.

“Okay,” she nods. “Tomorrow, I want you to do something. Just to fight the nothing.”

She smiles at me in encouragement, but I don’t think she knows what she’s asking. I don’t think she knows the Herculean task it’ll be to get me to do anything tomorrow. Or the next day, or the next.

“I’ll try.” It’s all I can promise.

“I know you will.” Mom leans over and kisses my forehead. “You’ll do your best, like always.”

OfficialEndeavourHigh:We hope you’re having a restful fall break!

“What do I even do?” I ask myself out loud. I’m well beyond the point of caring whether or not it’s weird to talk to yourself.

I just wish Mom hadn’t said those words:You’ll do your best, like always.I know she meant well and all, but right now, I don’t know what my best even is. Doing my best is what got me here, I think. Lying in bed in the same clothes with greasy hair and tears on my pillow. Doing my best is dangerous, because I don’t know when to stop. I can’t stop. I just keep going and going and going until I end up falling apart, like I am now.

So I take a shower. I wash the grease out of my hair and change my sheets. It’s a monumental effort on my part … but nothing feels different. The fresh jersey sheets are soft on my legs and my shampoo smells like coconuts. But beyond that, everything is the same. I just woke up an hour ago, but I could easily go back to sleep after all that. That’s how I know it’s bad: Taking a shower felt like a week’s worth of exertion.

My books still taunt me from the shelf. The TV’s black screen reflects my image. I look like I’m drowning in the fluff of my comforter. The wet hair dripping around my shoulders really completes the look. I don’t hear any signs of chaos, and I didn’t have to fight anyone for the bathroom, so I’m assuming the boys aren’t home. There are so many things I could be doing right now, so much work I could be getting ahead on. So many friends I could talk to.

I don’t think I want a friend, though.