Being in nature always helped me calm down. In the city, the brick walls seemed to close in on me like a cell. Sometimes all the noise helped; it drowned some things out, but more often than not, it just made the bad things even louder. The toxic thoughts. The spiraling. The sound of my ragged, tired lungs and strained, heaving heart. Like they were all battling to be heard. 

New York was never the place for me. Even after years living there, I never adapted. I was always the same tiny flower, trampled down and covered with cement. My mother was a city girl; she said the buildings had a pulse, but when I tried to feel it, all I could hear was my own. 

A-live. A-live. A-live.

I barely noticed him as he wandered over to me. He stepped so delicately, even in those combat boots that looked too big for his feet. Even with the leaves crunching under his gait. It was only when he spoke that I was hauled out of my head and back to reality though.

“You’ll catch a cold in just a sweater.” 

He peeled his jacket from his thin shoulders, then plopped himself down on the ground next to me and held it out. I watched, trying to read his intention, but his expression was easy and earnest, as always.

I took the jacket and wrapped it around my shoulders, leaning forward to hug my knees again, folding myself up under the new warmth. I couldn’t help but notice the smell on the cotton: woody and fresh like the air around us. 

His silence unnerved me. I felt self-conscious, painfully aware of how strange I was in comparison to his simple smiles. I sniffed, discreetly swiping at my eyes when I realized they’d been watering. 

“I’m not crazy,” I blurted out, unable to hold back my nervousness any longer.

He focused his gray gaze on me, nothing but a kind laugh shining in them. “That’s good. Neither am I.”

I stared at him. “That’s what you think, isn’t it?”

“Why would I think that?” 

“You’ve seen me come running out of the house hyperventilating twice now. You found me standing out in the ocean in my bare feet in the last week of October. That’s grade A, mentally unstable shit you’ve witnessed.” 

It was all true too. He’d seen me at the very worst moments since I arrived. Indulging in my most morbid fantasies. It didn’t even seem to faze him either. 

I felt the need to explain it away, to say all my usual excuses when people caught my strange behavior and asked questions. I’m fine. It was nothing. I’m just messing around. I’m totally OK. Because the truth was inconvenient. I’d learned that a long time ago. People would rather believe my smiles and lies than admit to seeing me falling apart and take on the responsibility of putting my pieces back together. 

I didn’t even blame them; most of the time I pretended to believe my lies too. 

“Aren’t you curious?” 

He was curious about everything else. Yet, he didn’t seem to mind at all that I was always showing him the ugly, broken shadows seeping through the cracks of my poorly put together mask. He looked at me with the same sincerity as always, no pity or concern, no judgement.

It was weird. It made something twist inside me. Or maybe… Unwind.

“Do you want me to be?” 

The meaning behind his question surprised me, and I had to stew around in it for a second to grasp its full intention. I needed him to ask questions, so I could explain away my insecurity as I always did. Without his curiosity, I was stuck in my head with my own doubts. I needed my excuses as much as everyone else did. When I told others I was ok, a part of me believed it too. Until I wasn’t, at least.

“I dunno. Maybe I do?” 

He nodded, agreeing to play my game. “OK. Why are you in Newport? Not enough room in the psych ward?”

The joke could have been offensive, but something about his delicate delivery was nonabrasive. A giggle crossed my lips briefly, letting my head fall into my knees again. I thought to joke back, because that’s what I did to ease people’s minds. The doctors said I was only a danger to other people. I’m not crazy, the voices in my head are. Make fun of it, make light of it, don’t show people it’s serious. Hide it. Nobody wants to see.

I played with the sleeve of my sweater, tugging it down to my palm, the stitches on my wrist begging to be scratched. It was so hard to lie to him. I opened my mouth to fib, but the truth came out again. 

“I tried to kill myself.”

I didn’t know why I said it. Certainly not for attention, as I already had his. Maybe I wanted to shock him. To wipe the kind, teasing smile off his face. He was being nice, but nice was easy when you didn’t really know.

A line appeared between his brows. It was as drastic a reaction as I’d ever gotten from him, and for a moment, I thought I had proven myself right.

After a pause, he reached out for my wrist, as if just now remembering the gauze he touched while dragging me behind him. I flinched, almost pulled away, but he was so gentle. His thumb glided over my wrist until he touched the skin under my sleeve, and I felt a hot fire flare up from under my collar. 

“Why?” 

It was the simplest question and yet, when I opened my mouth to answer, I realized I didn’t know what to say. No one asked me that before. Not really, at least. My mother had once, but she didn’t really want to know why. She wanted to know why I did it to her. Why did I have to be so difficult? Why did I have to cause a scene? Why did I have to have meltdowns and panic attacks she could never understand because I barely understood them myself? Why now, when she was trying to make her relationship with her boyfriend work, or trying to get her promotion, or just generally dealing with “a lot?” 

The doctors didn’t ask why either. They asked questions about how I thought, what music I listened to, what books I read. They asked me if I was nervous sometimes, then gave me pills that numbed not only my anxiety but also all my other senses. The pills made me want to hibernate the days away even more.

“I dunno,” I said finally, feeling as if I needed to speak but not having the words. It wasn’t entirely true; I knew why I did it, why I still wanted to, but to explain would take a lifetime, and even then, I still felt like my reasons might not be good enough. 

Because none of it made any sense. I knew that. No reason would ever be “good enough.” But thinking about fading away, about disappearing, about finally not existing to take up what little space I did in the world, it was the one thing that helped me feel as if everything wasn’t spinning completely out of my control. 

It felt like peace. The only peace I knew.

He allowed me my limb back, the skin of my hand slipping through the warmth of his palm as I withdrew. As if he heard my previous thought, he sighed, turning gray eyes up to mine to give me a somber look as he said, “I’m sure it was justified in the moment.” 

I didn’t understand why it was so easy for him to accept. Like telling him I’d tried to kill myself was as simple as telling him I got up every morning and ate breakfast and brushed my hair and did all the other things any normal human being did. 

It was frustrating, that it didn’t shake him, that he barely even reacted. When someone says they tried to kill themselves, it’s the type of thing that should make a person run. The kind of thing that… Makes a person dump you in the middle of nowhere with your aging grandmother and comatose grandfather.

He wasn’t allowed to accept it so simply, like it was the easiest thing in the world. So I pushed further, to see what I could say to scare him away. Because I would scare him away eventually. It was inevitable. I scared everyone away. 

“I’m going to try again.” 

I wanted a reaction, and with my words I got it. His fingers, which were digging through a pile of crunchy leaves between his legs, stopped fiddling. 

“I’m going to try again, and I’m not going to mess up this time.” 

He looked up, and I was prepared to see the shine in his eyes that showed the first sign of discomfort, but it never came. There was something else in its place.

Sadness. 

“Why are you so eager to leave when you just got here?” 

Those words came out strange, like he meant something else besides what he said, but I was lost to their true intention. I felt my heart twinge terribly in my chest, regret twisting in my gut for trying to play with his emotions. I never intended to hurt him; I just didn’t want my vulnerabilities to betray me. Like they always did.

“It’s not about Newport…” That wasn’t enough though. I needed an explanation. I needed to say something. “My whole life has felt so out of my control. I need to know, that I have this one last thing. I die when I choose to. No sooner or later. It just needs to be this way.” 

Vocalizing it made me realize how stupid it sounded. But I still believed every word. 

He watched me for a really long time. Until I felt small and silly and the heat crawling up my neck assaulted my face with an embarrassed flush, and I tried to hide deeper in the collar of his jacket. There was never judgement in his expression though. Not a single time. His stare was simply one of trying to figure something out. Like he was attempting to bore into my skull and assemble the pieces of my thoughts into even a fragment of understanding.

He sighed when he finally averted his gaze. I don't think he found what he was searching for in my head. "I guess there's always a chance you'll change your mind."

It was my turn to stare, because he didn't argue or deny the legitimacy of what I’d revealed to him. He didn’t say it was stupid or foolish or that I was crazy. He didn’t tell me I should want to live. That something was wrong with me. That it didn’t make sense.

He just accepted it, in all it’s ridiculous, illogical foolishness.

I couldn't help the breathy laugh that escaped me. He was unbelievable. But then again, maybe I was too.

"I guess so." 

There was no chance though. I was positive.