Not Pretending Anymore, Ward, Penelope [books that read to you TXT] 📗

words surprising me. “If something is bothering you, Declan, I need to know. Now. Please? It’s okay. Do I look like I’m going anywhere tonight?”

He stared into my eyes for what seemed like an unusually long time. Then he finally nodded. “Let’s go over to the couch.”

My heart sank. My imagination ran wild as I waited for him to sit down with me. Had something happened back in Wisconsin? Had he gotten someone pregnant? That last thought was really random, but anything was possible. He took our plates to the sink before joining me on the sofa.

We sat close and faced each other.

“There’s something I haven’t told you,” he began. “Something I didn’t fully realize about myself until recently.”

My heart pounded. “Okay…”

Declan didn’t say anything for a full thirty seconds.

“Getting these words out is harder than I thought.” He took a deep breath in and blew it out. “Okay. I’m just gonna come out and say it.” He closed his eyes. “There are times when I don’t feel right, when I get down.” He paused. “I suffer from depression, Molly. It’s something I’ve been treated for since high school. My mother also suffers from…bipolar disorder.”

Wow. Okay. Hadn’t seen that coming.

“I’ve always worried that my depression might be the beginning signs of bipolar disorder,” he continued. “It isn’t easy to diagnose because it progresses over a long period of time. I only recently discussed that worry at length with my doctor. He doesn’t seem as concerned as I am, but he also couldn’t tell me definitively that my worries are unfounded. I take medication for the depression, and for the most part, it helps. Though sometimes I go through these terrible low periods where I struggle, and then my doctor usually adjusts my medication. The night you came home from staying at your dad’s for a week, I was in one of those rough patches. The toughest part is not being able to get myself out of it right away when it happens.”

I let that sink in. It pained me to know he’d been suffering in silence and hadn’t felt like he could tell me. Moreover, it hurt because I’d been too damn wrapped up in my own shit to figure it out, even though I’d seen the signs. I knew something was bothering him when I came home from my dad’s, but I never imagined it was coming from within him.

“Are you feeling okay right now?” I asked.

“Yeah, I am. While I’d always had it in the back of my head that my issues could spiral into something more serious, lately I’d really begun to worry I was turning into my mother. The worry itself became a problem for me, and I needed to admit that to myself and to my doctor.”

“So you said you spoke to your doctor?”

“Yeah. I spoke to my doctor back in California. We’ve started doing some Zoom therapy sessions, and he’s put a lot of my fears to rest. He seems to think if I were bipolar, it would manifest differently. He believes I’m just depressed. Though, of course, he can’t be fully certain.”

“You never talked much about your mom. Now I realize it’s a delicate subject.”

“Growing up with her mood swings and episodes was really hard. It’s never been easy for me to talk about. And believe me, the last thing I wanted to do was bring all of this up tonight.”

I reached for his hand. “I’m so glad you did.” I felt like I was finally getting the missing piece of a puzzle. As close as he and I had become, I’d always had the sense something was missing. Now I knew.

“Declan, you have no idea how much it means that you’re sharing this with me right now. I’ve always wondered if there were parts of yourself you never showed me—almost like you were too good to be true.” I laughed a little.

He smiled. “Yeah, I get it. I’ve grown pretty good at hiding a lot behind a smile. Sometimes I think I overcompensate and try to make people laugh so they aren’t busy looking any deeper at me. Not many people are able to tell when I’m covering my feelings, but I had an inkling you could see through my bullshit that night you came home from your dad’s. I didn’t want to burden you, even though I knew you’d be supportive.”

“I know how hard it can be to talk about things like this.”

He nodded. “You’ve always been honest about your own anxieties. It just took me a while to get to that place.”

I exhaled. “I wish I’d known so I could have helped.”

“The fact that you know now and I don’t have to hide it anymore makes me feel better.”

Over the next half hour, Declan talked a bit more about his mother and the challenges of growing up with a parent who had a mental illness.

“Again, I’m so glad you told me.”

“Me, too.” He flashed a hesitant smile. “I’ve taken the past few weeks to deal with my shit in a way I should’ve been doing for some time. I even went back to Cali for a few days.”

“Oh, wow. I didn’t realize that.” I smiled. “Are you sure you’re feeling okay tonight? You must’ve traveled all day and then you sat at a wake for hours.”

He took my hand. “I feel especially good tonight because I’m with you—even under the horrible circumstances that brought me here. I really missed you. I don’t think I realized how much until I saw you tonight.”

His words nearly melted me. What is going on? I thought I’d started to get over Declan. Things had been going so well with Will. But right now, all I could see, all I could feel was Declan.

I wanted to say so much, but the only words that came out were, “I missed you, too.”

Declan took a deep breath in and smacked my leg. “Enough about this now, okay? We need to talk about happy things for the rest