Page 75 of Lift Me Up

Chronic illness plays a part everyday of her life, and Georgie’s mood feeds off her anxieties, her need to please people, her need to not let people see the hardships she faces as a weakness. She has built a wall around her that is almost impenetrable, although I thought I was making some headway. I will never stop trying to make headway.

It’s very hard to not give in to that little voice inside of my head that says, ‘why are you doing this when results could end in heartbreak’? The thing is, I see the potential, and I see the worth and the value of Georgie, and I want to strive for that ending that I can see for us. But right now, it's difficult to even picture that ending when there really isn't even an us here in the middle of it all.

Georgie is shutting down on me again. She's not letting me take the mental load when she needs a break, even though I am more than willing to take it. Sometimes, there are no words or ways to get someone to understand when they don’t want to be helped. I am at a loss at how to get her to see that she isn't a burden, that I do feel like she is worth it. I can only hope that she can see the efforts that I made in the past and the efforts that I make now to show her how much I care, to show her that I want these things with her. All the good, the bad, all of it. I'm here for it, as long as she will let me be.

I try to respect the boundaries she sets, try to respect the space and allow her to breathe and allow her to be whatever she needs to be. And when she's ready for me to be there for her, I will be. But I also can't help but feel a slight bit of rejection from her, and maybe that fear of rejection stems from my issues with my parents, but it doesn't make it any less true.

The thing is, I am an all-in kind of guy, I always have been. I think I have made that clear to Georgie. And that may be the one thing that makes me question whether or not I want to keep fighting for this, because if she can't respect the one boundary I have when it comes to communication, then I don't know that I want to keep fighting a battle I am destined to lose.

One can only sit alone with their thoughts for so long before I need to find a distraction. The day fades to night, the rain pounding heavily outside my window. A perfect reflection of the turmoil I am feeling inside.

In an effort to feel closer to Georgie when she's so far away from me, I pick up one of our latest joint reads that we left at my house the last time we stayed here. Georgie's copy sits atop mine on my nightstand, her ridiculously haphazard receipt of a bookmark sticking out between the pages. It makes me smile, the ridiculousness of the bookmark. It symbolises everything that makes me love Georgie so damn much.

She's chaotic in a calm way, and although I have no idea how that's even possible, she makes it look effortless. I can't help but be drawn in, a feeling that only grows when we're apart. It makes me long for her, yearning for something intangible. And it makes this all the more difficult.

I know Georgie, know that she doesn't like confrontation, but she's also headstrong and when cornered will fight back at every chance she gets. If I push too far, she'll shut down completely, and it will be like starting all over again. But I know for my own heart and peace of mind, I simply can't keep walking on eggshells waiting for the other shoe to drop. It’s like living my childhood all over again and I can’t afford another round of therapy sessions to process the trauma of it all.

Georgie doesn’t answer any of my calls or texts, her phone likely put aside or turned on silent when she gets like this. She avoids my calls for days, and the longer the silence drags on, the more anxious I become about the whole situation.

“Have you tried, oh I don’t know…. Telling her how you feel?” My extremely hormonal, very pregnant sister asks me during our daily video chat. The groan that escapes me as I flop back onto my bed echoes audibly through the rest of my apartment. Sienna sighs, “I’ll take that as a no, then.”

“How do I even say what I am feeling? I am not exactly known for my ability to express myself.”

“Yes, yes. Our parents did a number on us, I get it. But don’t you think all your problems would be solved if you did? What’s the worst thing that happens if you do?”

I ponder the thought for a moment before meeting Sienna’s earnest gaze through the screen, “The worst thing to happen is she decides she doesn’t want what I want or feel what I feel, and I am left alone, brokenhearted, rejected and…. I think that would probably ruin me.”

“Oh Noah…” her voice is soft, empathetic even as she realizes how quiet my words leave me, coming to the realization that this is it. Georgie is it for me, she has been for a while, and to think that she may not feel the same about me… it’s a whole new level of emotions I can’t even name.

There’s a break in my voice when I say quietly, “What do I do?”

“I mean, I think you already know what you want to do, it’s whether or not you have the courage to do it.”

“I know.” I agree with her, mostly to fill the silence in the room again and also partly because she is right.

I have to know, one way or another. I can’t keep wallowing in my apartment, or at work, or in every moment of every day. Not knowing is worse than the potential heartache that knowing might bring. At least, if she breaks my heart, I may stand a chance to recover, to be half the person I was before she made me feel whole again.

“I guess I should figure out what to say.”

“Well, to start, you should write ‘I love you’ in big fat letters across your forehead. That should open up the conversation nicely. Then follow with, ‘hey… we suck at communication, we should work on that’.”

I push up from my bed, knocking the books off my nightstand in the process and glower at her through the lens, “Pregnancy has made you mean.”

“If anything, it’s given me a backbone. An aching one, but a backbone no less. You should have seen me with Mom yesterday, she-”

Sienna continues to tell me about her most recent encounter with our mother, but if I am honest I am only half listening. Picking up the haphazard stack of books that’s fallen, Georgie’s copy of our joint read has landed precariously open and face down. When I inspect it for potential damage, I notice something has fallen out from where it was tucked in the back of the book. Odd, I have never seen these before. Although part of me wonders if maybe it’s just another scrap piece of paper placed there as a potential bookmark, something calls to me to open the creased pages.

The first page is dated almost two years ago, and Georgie’s handwriting details a day with her ex, Brandon. Realizing it’s a journal entry of some sort, I feel like I am invading Georgie’s privacy in ways I don’t think I can take back. I didn’t even know Georgie journaled to begin with, but maybe that was something she wanted to keep to herself, and understandably so. Because once I start, I cannot stop reading about how Brandon made her feel like she was a burden, how he hated to be a caregiver when she needed him most, and how he took and took everything she had to give and then some, until she felt like she was nothing. My hands shake as I read Georgie’s inner monologue, trying to justify all the wrongs, ending her journal entry with ‘if this is what love feels like, I would rather be alone’.

The next page is a list, dated shortly after the previous one, a list she’s written called ‘here’s what I know about love’, listing 5 points about why her love life is a mess, likely related to Brandon and all that he’s done to her confidence in herself.

It breaks my heart into pieces.

“Noah?” Sienna has realized I am in fact not paying attention, and I hold up the papers for her to see.

“I just found these in her book…. I think she meant to throw them away or something, but I couldn’t help it. I read and-”

“Hey, you didn’t know what it was... So what does the next one say? Mama needs details.”