Adelaide

by Genevieve Wheeler

Physically, Adelaide was held together—her thighbone connected to her knee bone, and so on and so forth—but internally, mentally, she was a mess of jagged, disconnected pieces, and she didn’t believe she was capable of putting herself back together. She didn’t want to die, per se, she just wanted to stop existing. Stop being.

Her heart didn’t break once. It had broken multiple times over the last year—over the last decade, really—and each time she’d started to put the puzzle back together, to reconstruct her heart and soul with metaphorical superglue, they would shatter again. The pieces were getting smaller, less recognizable, more difficult to reconnect with each blow.

She was always going to jump into this lake, no matter how dark or dangerous it might turn out to be; she was too intrigued by its shimmering surface to even consider turning away. There was no world in which she wouldn’t dive headfirst in love with Rory Hughes. This was the only way.

You know that feeling, her colleague would whisper, when you’ve reached a goal, or a dream comes true, and you just don’t really trust it? Like, you’re waiting to hear it was all a mistake? That this was given to you accidentally?

Still, she’d expected Death; prepared for it, even. But she had not expected this. Adelaide could barely wrap her mind around how neatly the pieces of her life had begun to fit together: The job; the love interest; the perfect, rain-soaked city. How lucky she was to exist in this reality. How terrified she was of this luck running out.

The thing about Adelaide is that she felt everything. Truly, everything. She cried during documentaries, while reading books, when royal babies were born. She cried when she was happy and when she was sad and when the world felt like it was all just too much and her face was on fire and the only way to cool it down was to cry, cry, cry, cry, cry. It often felt selfish and irrational. She knew she was so lucky, so blessed. That there was no reason to cry. It didn’t matter; she would cry anyway.

Because young women with promise, with kindness, with ambition and swarms of adoring family and friends … they’re not meant to die suddenly at twenty-seven. They’re meant to live. Nothing makes sense in a world where they do not live.

pretend you’ll never have to grieve their absence. Because if we knew, if we honestly knew the price of love was grief, we’d never do it. We’d never succumb in the first place.

Fuck you, Adelaide, she thought to herself. How dare you cry over this person you barely knew. How dare you waste other people’s concern, their kindness, on your tears.

You have to love fiercely, and unselfishly, and with intention, her mom said. It’s the only way.

No, vomit was one of the many ways her body tended to react to stress: Her mind would scream that she needed a break, a few more hours of sleep, a proper meal. When Adelaide ignored these signs, her body would revolt and, inevitably, she’d find herself kneeling on a bathroom floor.

But it felt like such a waste. All of those words, those books, that love. All of it felt wasted on someone who didn’t want it, someone who would let it all burn.

(The reality, of course, is that Rory was looking to patch up a Nathalie-sized void. No person was big enough to stretch across that hole in his heart and hold it together—though Adelaide really did try. But even this knowledge couldn’t make it all hurt any less.)

The only way to bypass having to be extraordinary, Adelaide knew, was to die young.

Mental illness was a shape-shifter. It could appear in different forms, with different presentations, and still bear the same name.

The trouble with this specific breed of pain, she thought, was that she’d not lost herself. The qualities that had long been integral to her character and being, the desires that had always existed within her—to be successful; to be a good friend, daughter, employee; to be healthy and presentable and desirable—they all still existed. They pulsed through Adelaide with the same regular rhythm and pace. She still cared. But she’d lost her ability to fulfill these duties, to check these boxes.

She wanted to be good. No, she wanted to be great—but she couldn’t be. She physically could not do it. Hell, she could hardly wash her hair, get her mail. How was she meant to become anything close to the person she wanted to be when she could barely make it outside?

Your problems are not small at all, Meg corrected. You completely emptied your tank on someone who fucked you over and that is a horrible feeling that you are absolutely allowed to feel. You’re running on empty, Adelaide. But we’re going to figure it out, okay? We’re going to find a way to refill your tank.

Her sister Izzy had a mantra, one Adelaide had learned decades earlier: Pain is pain is pain. It was important to recognize your privilege, yes. To show gratitude, to count your blessings. But it was also important to acknowledge and accept your pain, to understand that no matter how large or small your problems, your losses, your wounds—they are yours. And you’re allowed to feel them. The hardest loss will always be your own.

Adelaide—the girl who felt everything—had to remind herself that it was, in fact, okay to feel. That it was okay to fill her lungs with air, her tank with fuel, her brain with the chemicals it needed. It was okay to go to hell and back, to carry every ounce of light and darkness inside of her. It was okay to love herself fiercely, a little selfishly, and with intention. It was all okay.

Lately, though, she’d learned that the good, light, joyful days were often followed by darker moments. There were no more hiding spots for her sadness,

She was relearning how to experience full joy, full calm, full happiness, but her mind also now knew how to access full hopelessness, complete self-hatred. At times, it bounced between the two like a pinball.

You forget what it feels like to have fallen apart once you’ve pieced yourself back together, what the scars feel like once they’ve healed. You know, vaguely, where they were, how the fresh cuts had stung, but you can’t run your finger over the surface anymore and say, Here. Here’s where you hurt me. The pain will eventually dull. But not yet.)

Her colleagues were likely frustrated by her repeated absences, she knew. But Adelaide was learning that, sometimes, her needs trumped others’ minor irritations.

But, Adelaide continued. But my brain has been to this incredibly dark place now. And that darkness is always kind of lingering at the periphery. No matter what. No matter how much light is in my life.

Sickness feels different when it takes place inside your head, Adelaide thought. When the illness flows through the chemicals of your mind rather than clogged sinuses or broken bones. No illness is ever really linear. But the thing is, once you’ve gotten so sick you nearly kill yourself, your mind knows where it can go. It knows that no recesses are out of bounds or off-limits.

But maybe, the darkness isn’t such a bad thing. Maybe it’s a reminder that you’re capable of turning the car around, you know? You’re capable of rerouting from a very dark, scary path back to the light. You know how to go to ...

It’s like I’m seeing everything through Rory-tinted glasses right now.

It’s like he owns them, she said. It’s like I can’t even cross that land anymore. Metaphorically, you know.

They went up to the Parlour and ordered warm scones, gooey sundaes, steaming cups of tea. They talked about life in New York and London, speaking of everything except Rory Hughes. And together, they started to rewrite Adelaide’s memories.

don’t want you to believe you were a martyr meant to save him from himself, but think about the compassion you demonstrated. Think about the donations you made to that girl’s memorial fund. The books you gave him, the times you left his flat in the dead of night so he could sleep more soundly. Think about the sacrifices you made and the kindness you showed him at a fundamentally challenging time in his life. Maybe he wasn’t meant to enter your life, per se, but you were meant to enter his.

There was no equation in which she was not overwhelmingly kind. She had been more good than bad, by every measure. She had been enough.

There are parts of our hearts we give away. Not lend, but sacrifice entirely. And there are some people to whom we give these pieces, knowing we’ll never really get them back. It felt like Adelaide had been holding on, with all her might, to the chunk of her heart she’d given to Rory. No, she said. I still need it, she said. But there was no use. It was his now. It would always be his. And, with the gentle thunk by which her letter landed in the postbox, Adelaide felt like she’d finally let it go.

She doesn’t know that she’ll write her own vows, calling Brennan a dream, comparing him to a nap in the sunshine—warm and comfortable and the closest she’s ever felt to real magic. (She won’t say the next bit: That she once thought Rory was the sun. That she’d flown too close, like Icarus. She knows better now.)

She doesn’t know that after this indelibly special day, there will be days that feel uniquely, unconquerably difficult. That there will be more pregnancies lost, more deaths to grieve, more unrest and hurt and suffering and incredibly heavy baggage to carry. She doesn’t even know these days will exist, but somehow, she knows she’ll survive them as well. (Just as she has every other hard day.)