Chapter 29: Sawyer

I panicked when Bryn told me the truth. My mind was racing and like she said, the thoughts that’s immediately came to mind were all the misconceptions that you hear about when it comes to most mental illnesses. Key word ‘mental’…

She thinks I’m like those other people who think having a mental illness is bad. It’s not like she can control it and until I found the pills, I hadn’t considered she had any issues. So far, she hasn’t given me any hint of being off. The few times she acted off, I just figured it was the old her coming out. The fun, outgoing girl I remember, but now that I know, maybe she’s had this condition for a while now.

Either way, I don’t care. It doesn’t change how I feel about her. She’s still Bryn to me, and it’s going to take a lot more than this to break us. Now I just need her to open the door and let me in. I can hear her soft cries from here and it’s killing me that she feels like I don’t want her because of this.

“Bryn, please let me in. This doesn’t change anything between us. You’re still my girl, and this doesn’t change that. You’re still you. Please open the door.” I begging at this point, but I can’t hear her cry anymore.

There is a faint click of her unlocking the door, and she cracks it open only enough for me to see half of her face.

I smile at her, and she narrows her eyes at me. “Hey beautiful, wanna come out now?”

“No.” she says and closes the door on me again.

“Please Bryn. You’re breaking my heart here, babe.”

“Then leave me alone! The door closed and locked means I want to wallow in my misery alone.” She yells through the door.

There’s a sniffling noise and I squeeze my eyes shut. I want to kick this door down and tell her a hundred times that I don’t care about this, but I don’t want to scare her.

“If I leave you alone for a little while, will you come look for me when you’re ready?” I don’t want to overwhelm her and if she really needs space, I should give it to her.

When in truth I want to grab her and never let her go until she is feeling better.

“Fine.” she says after a few agonizing seconds.

“Okay. I’ll order us some of those garden burgers you like.”

Silence…

“With sweet potato fries?” She asks.

Her voice sounds small and sad, but I smile at her request. My girl loves food, and veggie burgers are her favorite. They always have been just like people who eat meat and done well it tastes just as good. I haven’t eaten this well in a long time, but it will no doubt help my performance on the ice. Also, Bryn makes these killer muffins that fill me up but doesn’t make me feel weighed down when I’m on the ice. They also taste amazing, and she made sure some of the guys tried some and they had no idea they were vegan. She’ll be converting them in no time.

“Of course.” I assure her. “I’ll tell you when it gets here.”

“Okay.”

I pull out my phone and start the order right away. When I leave her room, I keep her door cracked so I can listen out for her. While I wait, I type in ‘mood disorders’ into the search engine on my phone. Bryn needs me to understand her better if I'm going to accept this side of her.

There are tons of articles available, so I pick one and start reading. It’s an article written by a woman who suffers from the illness herself and fuck, it’s complicated. She talks about things like not being able to go to movie theaters because of how overstimulated she can get. There is also a kind of mood disorder that causes the person to be overly empathetic to the point where they will mimic the energy of the person they’re talking to. Or they can be overwhelmed in crowded places because they can sense every person’s emotion in a room.

I can’t imagine how that would feel like. How did she manage going to that party? Her medication must work well if she managed that.

The next article talks about living with someone having Bipolar Disorder. It makes it very clear that there is no cure and expecting your partner to suddenly get better is an unfair expectation for both parties. The person suffering from the illness needs to be dealt with patiently and with understanding. I think I can do that.

I keep thinking about those times when Bryn had patched me up over the years when I was learning hockey. She fixed my physical injuries, but hers aren’t visible. Even the articles say it's easy to forget the person is fighting a lifelong battle because on the outside it’s hard to see how hard they are fighting on the inside.

That means this whole time Bryn could have been trying to act normal around everyone when she was fighting back all kinds of shit. I don’t like that at all. She shouldn’t have to pretend, but I can understand why she doesn’t broadcast her condition. Not many people are going to research the truth about Bipolar Disorder and will go off misinformation instead. Assholes.

I’m not sure how long I’ve been scrolling and reading until the doorbell rings. It startles me at first, but I recover quickly and jump off the couch. I pull out my wallet for a tip and open the door with a smile on my face. That is until I see who’s standing at the door. It’s the same asshole that delivered to us before and was flirting with Bryn. I thought I told him not to come back here.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, without hiding my displeasure.

“Delivering an order. We’re short staffed tonight.” He doesn’t look displeased in the least by that.

In fact, he looks fucking smug.

“I see, well I’ll take that then.” I hold my hand out and he smirks before pulling it out of reach.

“Actually, I was hoping to deliver it to the correct person. It says this order belongs to Bryn Raven and you don’t look like her.”
“I’m the one who ordered the food, and I gave my name.” I’m losing my patience with this guy.

He looks at the slip on the bag and shakes his head. “The order was placed by a Tim Randall.”

Who?

“I don’t know who that is, but Bryn is in the bathroom right now. So I can give her the food-“ I stop short when I get a whiff of the food. “That’s vegan?”

“I work part time at the diner down the street.” He says as he turns the bag so I can see the logo.

“Right. Then you need to take that back where you came form. Bryn can’t eat that, and I’m not accepting food from some random guy for her. So take your delivery and get lost.” I slam the door on his face and ignore him when he rings the bell again.

Tim Randall…

It takes a second for me to put it together, but once I figure it out, I’m fucking pissed. That asshole sent her food again. What the fuck? Why is he doing this? Don’t weirdos send flowers and shit like that? It’s as if he’s purposefully trying to make Bryn sick.

Hang on…

I walk back into Bryn’s room and she’s stepping out just as I walk in. She doesn’t meet my eye and is biting her lip anxiously. First of all, I wrap my arms around her and breath her in. She smells like strawberries today, and it’s intoxicating, but I have to push that aside for now.

“B, did you visit the doctor here before school started?” I ask her.

She pulls back enough to look up at me and gives me a confused look. “No. I stopped at the clinic to give them my medical records in case I had an allergic reaction.”

Right…

“That doctor we saw…he sent you food again, but if he has access to your medical records, he should know about your allergy.”

“So why would he be sending foods with meat in them to me?” She asks.

I nod. “Exactly. We need to report this.”

She doesn’t fight me. I grab her hand and pull her to the front door. On the way out, I grab my keys because there is no way I’m going to rage drive in her car. That thing will only put me in a worse mood.

“Why is he doing this to me? We only met for five minutes.” Bryn says after we are both in my truck.

“Hell if I know, but we’re reporting him and getting his ass thrown out of this college.”