"I'm fine, Charlotte."
She was tired of the phone calls. The buzzing of her phone every night was getting old. Addison, her mother, even Violet sometimes. Calling, always calling. But Charlotte was the worst, which was to be expected. She called twice a day at least, more if Amelia didn't answer. But she always did, eventually. She had to, for her sanity.
"I'm fine, Charlotte."
"Hello to you too."
Amelia answered for two reasons. One, to calm Charlotte down. Of course her friend was worried about her, who wasn't? And Charlotte knew better than anyone what grief could do to people like them. People who felt pain too strongly, too intensely. People who had discovered an alternative to feeling. Such a tempting alternative.
"I'm fine, Charlotte."
"I don't believe that for a second."
The second reason was more selfish. Amelia answered because the sound of Charlotte's voice was a comforting presence in her chaotic psyche. In the twisting turmoil of her thoughts, Charlotte was a constant force. Someone who would try to pull her back. Even if it didn't work, it helped for a minute.
"I'm fine, Charlotte."
"Amelia."
Sometimes she didn't answer on purpose. So that Charlotte would leave a voicemail, and Amelia would have somewhere to go when the cravings got really bad. Because she'd never call Charlotte on her own, she knew herself well enough to know that. She'd never admit defeat, she'd never disrupt the perfect family life Charlotte had so carefully built by admitting how close she was to falling apart. So she'd let Charlotte leave a voicemail, and when her whole body tensed and her throat went dry and she couldn't hear her own thoughts over the screams of wanting drugs, she'd press play. Let the calming voice of her friend take control in a time when Amelia didn't have any. It worked, most of the time.
"I'm fine, Charlotte."
"You're not."
She would never tell anyone this, but she answered Charlotte the most. She almost always ignored her mother, and Addie even more. She didn't want Addie's sympathy, didn't want to have to think about Derek. She knew Addison would want to talk about it, about the most recent glaring loss in Amelia's life, and so the first time her name appeared on Amelia's caller ID, she froze. She answered once, but said she had to go after 30 seconds when it became too much. She'd told Addison she had a surgery. Then she ran into the bathroom and threw up.
That was the closest to feeling Amelia had gotten, and since then she only answered Charlotte. The one person she knew could maybe understand, maybe keep her from drowning.
Maybe.
"I'm fine, Charlotte."
"Tell me you're going to meetings."
"I'm going to meetings."
It was a lie. They both knew it. Or maybe Charlotte didn't. Amelia hoped she didn't.
"Are you?"
Silence.
"Amelia?"
"I'm here." She swallowed hard, then bit her lip even harder. She missed LA so much. The one reason she'd come to Seattle was dead, gone, forever disappeared. She was okay here, but as the days went on her resolve became more precariously balanced. People would catch her in LA. Catch her if she fell. Would anyone catch her here?
"Amelia. You can't keep doing this to yourself. You and I, we don't have the luxury of ignoring our emotions, hoping they'll just go away. I've said it before and I'll say it again: it bites people like us in the ass. Do ya remember what I told ya?"
Silence.
"The only way you're gonna get through this is to let yourself feel every heart-breakin', gut-wrenchin' part of it. That's how this works for us, Amelia. You know that."
Amelia was tired of feeling. She felt the heartbreak and gut-wrenching pain when Ryan died. She felt it when she discovered her baby had no brain. She felt it when her baby died. She felt it when she realized that her life with James couldn't last. She was tired of feeling it. Covering it up was so much easier. So, so much easier.
She squeezed the bag of oxy in her pocket between two fingers, wishing more than ever that Charlotte were here in person. She would tell her if she were. Tell her how close she was to slipping. And Charlotte would call Cooper, who would call Addison, and they would take the oxy from her and hold her until she knew she was loved and she would live. And she would be okay.
But Amelia was alone now. Derek was dead, and she had just yelled at Richard, and she'd ruined things with Owen. It was her own fault. She was alone. And so she blinked back tears and repeated the only words she knew how to say.
"I'm fine, Charlotte."
If only it were true.