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Becoming the de facto leader of about 200 teenagers didn’t solve the grief surrounding Cassandra’s death. Executing her murderer exasperated the situation twofold, it didn’t make her feel any better. She’s tried to make do, keeping herself busy, not dwelling on her sister when possible. Falling short of self-medicating, she’s done everything to get them to try and stop, and it’s just not working.
Driving around in his expensive cars didn’t stop his depression from manifesting again. Throwing parties and drinking over the edge didn’t make him feel normal again. He tried to hide it all beneath luxurious housing, a cocky attitude, that didn’t stop it from consuming him whole, leaving him to conceal himself away from the rest of the lost teenagers.
Allie and Harry start picking up the pieces of themselves.
—
Cassandra’s death was a shock to the system for Allie. They’d always been there for each other, supported one another through anything that life could throw at them. The idea that the person she had embedded in her future was no longer going to be there, was earth-shattering. Standing tall in the face of her death was not an option, Allie couldn’t gather her thoughts and feelings towards the situation fast enough. The words she has spoken to Cassandra days before her death haunted her, being in her shadow, the shady little secrets, she all wished it remained unsaid.
Like most people, she allows herself to breakdown, messy tears, unmade beds and trashed rooms, expelling the anger and grief she feels. Through it all, she has to step up, fill the position that her sister once did, but it doesn’t stop her from laying awake at night, prevented from sleeping in fear of a nightmare, from sleeping in too much after a night of crying. Everyone can see it on her face, the sunken eyes, the pale skin, she can’t cope with it all. They surround her, the guard, Gordie, Helena, Will, Bean, Kelly, trying to make up for the pitfalls in the system of Allie. It doesn’t stop.
Holding that position comes with many weighing choices, the execution of Dewey, the expedition to find farmland, the underlying impression of insurgence. Those issues start to merge with the haunting from Cassandra, mixing and melding until Allie can’t sleep, let alone run the town correctly. She holds the guns, allows the guard a run amuck, all while trying desperately to hold the pieces together by the sheer power of will. Slowly, with every night she lays awake, listening to the sound of the second-hand clock tick, tick, ticking away, the pieces all drift away.
—
Harry thought he could conceal his ‘dirty little secret’, his hidden Xanax prescription, his secret therapy sessions. It’s not like he’s needed them for long, just after that overdose was he forced into them. Then he was poked and prodded until his mother could place him into two distinct boxes, anxiety and depression, just for her peace of mind, trying to fortify of herself that her son wasn’t to die as her husband did. She thought she could cure him with an overbearing attentiveness to his conditions, but it just made things worse. He thought that leaving home, going to college, would solve it, now, stuck in his ‘parallel universe’ so to speak, it hasn’t gone away.
After Cassandra’s murder, everything’s sort of gone to shit. Instead of facing the music, he’s secluded himself to his room, the only place in his house that he can get any privacy nowadays. He wants people around him, in fact, he craves the idea of ‘together’, being alone terrifies him, and that is what he’s done, isolated himself, the concepts of friendship and belonging are so far gone by now.
He gets up because he has to, he has to maintain some semblance of his former life, tricking everyone into thinking that everything’s just fine. So he goes to work, but it becomes harder to get up, to show up, to make an effort with his clothing or hair. He makes an appearance at the funeral, at prom, just so people don’t think he’s a heartless jackass (some people already think he is a jackass, but not heartless, yet). That’s when Campbell gets his chance to infiltrate his mind, through the small white pills that now control him.
Becoming addicted to opioids when they’re in limited supply did not help him with his depression, instead, it worsened it. Going through withdrawal when Campbell holds off on him is a dagger to his heart, igniting his mind’s wishes to stay in bed all day. So he does. He stops going to work and he stops eating, starts sleeping all day, starts tearing up at random points. The life that was built perfectly around him, the fast cars, the enormous housing, the luxury items, everything that gained him popularity, a sense of purpose, has quickly been crumbling around him, and he’s stopped trying to dig himself out from the rubble.
—
Allie moves through the motions, going to the church for the weekly meeting, keeping on top of the resource audits, sticking to her work schedule. It’s almost as if she’s trying to bury her feelings about what’s she’s done, what she’s become, after Cassandra’s death by overworking her mind and body simultaneously. It doesn’t go unnoticed. Grizz gets her sat down, a mug of camomile close by, trying to gently encourage sleep. Luke and Jason keep a close eye on her, calculating how far they’d have to carry her if she collapses randomly. These extra little precautions and actions that everyone around her takes starts to irritate her, even though they mean good by them. She can handle herself, she’s 17, the leader of their entire society, not some fragile teen who cannot do anything without help.
In continuance, Allie pushes all her feelings to the side, slotting into her ‘leader’ persona in the day, fitting back into her emotions throughout the night. Everyone, excluding her inner circle, perceives her to be capable to lead, no one starts to question her ability in the slightest, which was her entire aim. Yet, the work is back-breaking. The nightmares do not seem to relent.
They started the day after Cassandra’s murder became the focal point of Allie’s concentration. They worsened after the execution of Dewey, which she’d hoped would make her feel better. After that fateful event, she sits in her chair, listening mindlessly to the video game Jason is playing, denying the opportunity for food, her mouth is dry, meaningless tears dripping down her face. She stares at the wall, just past Luke and Will, barely being able to comprehend the situation at hand, let alone accept it.
Even after a teary Grizz leaves her side, she doesn’t feel any more alone than she did holding the gun that killed Dewey. Her, Luke, Jason, Grizz, they shared an experience, yes, but it hurts more. Dewey didn’t just kill her sister, he forced her into a corner, making her kill him, allowing the decision to haunt her now, for the rest of her life. She gets under her blankets, sinks into her pillows, the room pitch-black. Even though exhaustion has become commonplace within her system, sleep does not follow from the regular actions of getting into bed.
She lays awake, feeling the weight on her chest, pushing her in, overwhelming her, flooding her mind to overload. When she does finally fall into a sleeping state, sweeping nightmares of what she’s done wake her harshly, heightening her anxiety and fear of those who surround her. A concerned Will comes running, but his presence does nothing to quell the storm in her system. The hard-hitting reality crashes down on her, she’s killed someone, and she can’t press the undo button.
—
Harry tries so hard to make the effort, to get up, shower, eat a decent meal, go to work. Some days he can’t get out of bed, let alone do anything else. He feels the weight of his father’s death, this ‘alternative universe’ thing, fucking it up with Allie, having a hand in Cassandra’s death, the new rules of the town, all on his chest. It’s almost suffocating, the pressure to be simply more than just existing, to show up. So he doesn’t, he gives in to the voice telling him to lay in bed all day, unmoving, unmotivated to do anything, just plainly existing.
He supposes this is why Kelly has taken to make sure he gets out of the house and gets something that isn’t pre-packaged and easy to eat. The company of another, even though it’s his ex who probably still hates him to an extent, makes it easier. The feeling of hopelessness and fatigue sometimes relents, allowing him to move around his now shared home, being able to eat at the cafeteria, and do his job, that’s probably why no one checks up on him unless he’s missing work. Somedays he’ll appear as if everything is as normal, other days his hair will go unwashed for days and his body will remain under-fed and unloved.
It’s a blur in his mind, the guard coming around, witnessing him in his pitiful state, but he can’t seem to make himself care. He merely pops another pill, numbing himself from the outside world. From the sounds travelling from the kitchen, Mickey is baking for Thanksgiving. Later afternoon arrives and the house is silent, with Mickey dipping in quickly to ask if Harry wanted to come. He got no reply but left a lemon bar just in case Harry decided to get up and eat something for the first time that day.
The silence that the Thanksgiving meal brings is haunting and smothering, yet it’s what he wanted in the first place. He doesn’t feel like people are invading his space, using his things, filling up the capacity of the house. However, he feels lonely, abandoned, left alone to just wither without human contact. It’s not like he’s sought the comfort of others recently, he’s succeeded in pushing everyone away with his ‘go away’ mantra and his messy room, but it’s more like a push-and-pull situation. His mind cannot fulfil his desires, as if it is corroded with a dark sprawl of depression, surrounding him, engulfing him.
The depressive episode that he’s experiencing makes him curl up into his sheets, all bunched up in the wrong places, his pillows on opposite ends of his bed, trying to block out a downward spiral of thoughts. The state he falls into is best described as catatonic, lying still, staring into space. He’s slept all day, now he’s ‘awake’ all night. It’s like he can’t even feel the bed sheets on himself, that the mattress he’s laying on doesn’t exist, becoming so separated from the grounding of reality, that he doesn’t feel anything but worthlessness and negativity.
Time shifts around him, the household returns, the familiar sounds of arrival flooding Harry’s system. His body doesn’t react, as if his mind is keeping him prisoner. He just remains, still, unmoving, not even responding if spoken to. Catatonia prevails.
—
Even though the majority of the town is veiled from Allie’s disintegrating sleep-schedule, her inner circle sees the large extent of the effects. At first, everyone tip-toes around the subject, with only Grizz leaning in to try and help with literature quotes, which temporarily works. Allie has sunk deep into the depths of grief, in a lonely and isolated form. She rejects requests to stay with her at night, not wanting to expose the many times she’ll either wake from sleep, or the amount of tossing and turning is required to get her to sleep. It’s an endless cycle of request and rejection, but no one seems to be giving up just yet.
Grizz remains determined to break through the widening gap between Allie and her inner circle. She’s becoming increasingly irritable and closed-off, soon enough this will start to affect her leadership-style and the rest of the town could catch on, which would be disastrous for many reasons. So he tries to go beyond his first attempt, the Aeschylus quote was a start, but I didn’t stop the problems from occurring.
Allie appreciates the little nods towards her wellbeing, like Luke and Jason positioning themselves just outside her room to make sure she’s okay after waking up post-nightmare, or Grizz offering her a mug of camomile tea in the evenings. Will has often stayed with her throughout the night, but now she’s worrying that she’s preventing him from getting a decent night’s sleep, so she sends him away, feeling like this is her burden to shoulder. For an expanse of time, that’s how it remains. Until the situation starts declining rapidly, Grizz then intervenes, somewhat unexpectedly.
Grizz is on his shift of the house when he hears the continuous sound of tossing and turning. He sighs, to himself, knowing that Allie is currently stuck in a bout of sleeplessness that’s she’s been experiencing for about a week now, according to Gordie. Moving from his seat at the table, he slowly walks up to the stairs, not wanting to disturb the rest of the sleeping house. The door to Allie’s bedroom is slightly ajar, with Grizz already being able to see a frustrated Allie, laying uncomfortably on her side. He knocks lightly as a formality, but as soon as she sees the figure at the door, she just waves him in, knowing it’s probably important. Grizz sits at the foot of the bed, his hands gravitating to his lap as he glances over at Allie.
“Can’t sleep?”
Allie replies with an incredulous look and a “no, as usual.” She moves over to the right side of the bed, pulling down the covers and signalling Grizz to get in. He complies, slipping off his jacket and getting under the duvet as well.
“I think I’m afraid to fall asleep,” Allie confesses, focusing on a spot on the wall so she doesn’t have to maintain eye contact.
“What’s haunting you?”
“There this moment, when I first wake up where I forget,” Allie pauses, almost like she doesn’t want to vocalise what she forgets, “and then,”
“Maybe that gets better,” Grizz says, “or not… better, but, you get used to it,”
“I don’t think it will,”
“That’s why I said maybe, time can only heal certain wounds,”
Allie takes a second to think over those words, thinking about the idea of life without Cassandra, one she had never seriously wanted to imagine before.
“It’s just hard right now,”
“It gets easier,”
Allie already feels tired from this conversation alone. Grizz brings an unquestionable sense of peace with him wherever he goes. That awareness of a feeling of calm washes over Allie quickly, with her head slowly falling on Grizz’s shoulder as she continues to vent her emotional state.
“I just wish she was here to tell me what to do, I don’t think I can do this all alone,”
“You’ve got me, Will, Kelly, Helena, the rest of the guard, you’re not alone,”
“You can’t take the grief away from me,” Allie expresses bitterly, it’s all she truly wants to happen right now. Someone to just take the pain away.
“You’re right, but we can lessen the burden,”
With that, a couple of tears start to leak out from Allie’s closed eyes. Grizz wraps his arm around the crying girl, holding her tight to his chest. Allie latches onto Grizz, her hand fisted in a ball on his t-shirt neckline. Gently, Grizz lowers the both of them down, off of the headboard of the bed, laying them flush against the pillows. As she lays on top of his chest, her breathing slows, carefully dropping off into sleep. Grizz is content, even though his arm is looped around Allie from the time being, and his chest is being used as a pillow, he is just glad to take care of somebody.
—
Only Kelly knows anywhere near the extent of Harry’s depression, but she has only scratched the surface of the experience. She is in the dark concerning the drug abuse problem, the only thing that can get Harry out of bed some days. The real issue is when the drugs dry up, or Campbell is not as forthcoming with the supply he needs, that’s when thing’s start to get ugly. It remains a stark reality on the horizon, there is not a never-ending supply, and with no possibility of any more drugs coming to fruition, Harry knows to be careful about this.
What he neglects to realise is that drug abuse is a sharp spiral downwards, with not many opportunities to stop, especially within a depressive state as he is going through. With his support system non-existent, and his common-sense out of the window, Harry keeps going, digging himself deeper and further into a hole that is extremely hard to get out of. That is until the supply runs dry, and Campbell suddenly stops showing up. Harry drags himself out of the house, his stained t-shirt and sweatpants giving off an aura of desperation. He knocks, hard, on Campbell’s door, and is immediately turned away, the 'sorry man, I’m all out’ echoing in his head as Campbell’s sadistic smile is burned into his brain.
The walk back home is paved with panic, breaking out into a run, Harry returns, to the surprise of his house-mates, dripping in sweat, breathing heavily as he staggers into the house. The shout of ‘fuck off’ ensures their distance. He scrambles to the bathroom, frantically rooting through the drawers until his eyes catch on the orange bottle. Fuck, he’s nearly out, with only a couple Xanax pills remaining. At that moment, he doesn’t care, swallowing two dry, he slides down his pristine bathroom walls, his head in his hands. It doesn’t take long for that calming feeling to flow through, relaxing enough to fall asleep right where he’s sat. No one comes to check on him.
He wakes to muscle aches and sweat, so much sweat. He can tell instantly he’s in withdrawal, and there’s no hope for relief. There’s no way he could get his hands on any normal medical detox drugs, if not, the only way is up, fentanyl, carfentanil, which is a terrifying thought. He slowly crawls to his bed, feeling his heart rate increasing as he does. He tries to sleep it off, but his running nose, shaking and overall anxiety surrounding the circumstance prevent him from doing so. At some point he rises, chucking the objects in his room around, shattering empty glass bottles, clothes falling freely, covering the floor. Only then does sleep take hold, a figure sprawled over the sheets.
His house-mates become concerned when they hear retching from the bathroom. Remembering the commotion from last night, Mickey investigates his phone on hand, ready to call Gordie if necessary. He knocks on the door, asking Harry to let him in. When there is no answer, only the continued sounds of heaving, does Mickey gingerly open the door, witnessing the teenager slumped over the toilet, his clothing already soiled. He observes for a second, noting the shakiness and sweating and decides he can not handle this by himself, so he calls Gordie, hoping that he’ll know how to handle this.
Quickly, Gordie and the guard burst through the doors, heading straight to Harry’s ‘depressive hide-away.’ The guard waits anxiously at the door, already watching the chaos that’s ransacking Harry’s body. Gordie rushes in, the emergency medicine book shoved under his arm. He attempts to get Harry upright but soon recognises that he’s not willing to be moved so soon from his position. In a frenzied rush, he flips through the book, trying to match the symptoms he’s seeing in front of him to anything in the book.
“Drug... withdrawal,” Gordie whispers, his fingers tracing the bright red headline of the page. He looks once at Harry, again at the book, deciding that it’s a likely cause.
“We need to get him to the clinic,”
“Why, he’s just throwing up?” Clark voices, mostly unaffected by the rush that Gordie seems to be in.
“No, he’s withdrawing, and the clinic probably has the stuff we need to stop
it,” Gordie clarifies, motioning to Jason and Luke to help manhandle the teen into the car.
Oh shit, Luke thinks as he and Jason half-carry, half-pull among Harry’s shaking body into the car. Gordie commands them into the back seat, with Clark taking the wheel, already dialling Kelly’s number. He doesn’t explain, just leaving a mysteriously forced request for naloxone or methadone, giving no room for argument. It’s a rush once they’re inside, with Kelly waiting by the counter, her breath catching once she sees who Luke is carrying.
The rational side of her mind takes over, stopping the raging emotional storm from surfacing. Harry, partly soaked in his sweat and vomit, lays shaking on the stretcher, with Kelly and Gordie looming over him. He’s stuck in a lucid state, not being fully aware of his surroundings as Kelly injects the naloxone into his system. Within minutes he seems more aware, taking in the wetness of his clothing and the sterile surroundings. Gordie backs off with the rest of the guard, staying close enough to be shouted for, but not enough to hear the conversation.
“Come on, let's get you out of these clothes,” Kelly leads the way, slowly slipping Harry out of his top and sweatpants. Luckily someone had the insight to carry a change of clothes that’s been placed at the foot of the bed.
Without complaint, Harry’s frankly contaminated clothing is replaced with a comfortable hoodie and sweats. He draws the hood up over his head, with only one hand covered by the long-sleeved, the other rolled up as far as it can, ready, just in case another dose is needed. Which when the trembling and running nose continues, is deemed necessary. He lays back, as still as possible, sweat already heading on his forehead, almost contemplative.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbles, his hand grasping for Kelly’s.
“Why? Why are you saying sorry to me?” Kelly replies, taking his hand gently.
“I never wanted you to see me like this,”
“I never thought I would, I thought you’d be smarter, even without your parents around,” Kelly knows it’s a snide comment, Harry is still reeling from the loss of his father, but it’s well placed in the scenario. Harry is silenced, thinking about how he got right where he is currently.
“I think...” He pauses, feeling the tell-tale sign of nausea rise throughout his throat, “I’m gonna be sick,” Instinctively, Kelly shoves one of those cardboard bowls in his hands, not waiting for him to throw up all over his clean clothes and sheets.
“That’s what it’ll do to you,” Kelly replies bitterly, still rubbing Harry’s back as he throws up, a gentle hand pulling his hair out of his eyes.
He leans back once again, the expression on his face reads defeat, the appearance of exhaustion flooding back in. He curls around himself, in Kelly’s direction, as she places a warm hand on his hip. Gordie emerges from the sidelines, placing a bottle of water on the table, whisking away the bowl of mostly stomach bile away from the pair. Kelly drags her chair closer to the bed frame, once again carding her hand through Harry’s sweaty hair.
“How did you end up like this?” She asks, in disbelief and shock at the sharp turn Harry’s seemed to have taken.
“I just wanted to stop feeling so sad all the time, the drugs offered a way out,” Harry says, his shuddering hand holding Kelly’s in his own.
“That’s not the way to do it,” Kelly sighs, hating the situation that they’re in right now. Hating to see Harry the way he is right now, sweating and shaking, shrinking into himself.
“It was the easiest way,” Harry burrows himself deeper into the thin sheets, the flat pillows, wanting to hide from the reality he’s faced with.
Kelly is silenced by the revelation, placing her head on the edge of the bed, contemplative. Harry follows, laying his head on top of hers. She doesn’t know what to do, what to say, how to make it better, so she doesn’t. They sit, together, not truly knowing how to progress forward.
“I don’t want to do this again,” Kelly voices, a stray tear falling down her cheek.
“Neither, it fucking sucks,”
—
If she can help it, Allie makes sure that her ‘condition’ is on a need-to-know basis. Harry Bingham is not included in this so-called ‘need-to-know’ basis. However, since his major withdrawal scare, he’s been staying in the house, close to Gordie and Kelly, just so they can control his lingering symptoms. At first, she’s not exactly enthusiastic about Harry staying at her house, almost afraid that he’ll say something about the constant nightmares plaguing her. She comes round to the idea, though, once he finds out.
The house is quiet, Will and Kelly have escaped the atmosphere of a home in which everyone is tip-toeing around. Gordie remains, along with Jason who’s on-shift, leaving Allie with some peace, no one interfering in her nightly-routine that has become commonplace. She knows what’s coming, the struggle to get to sleep, the inevitable twisting and turning, giving up as the sun starts to rise. She’s wishing for it to get better, for the nightmares to recede, but it seems unlikely, especially as the memories of Cassandra and Dewey seem to torment her wherever she goes. Usually, amid a midnight-freak-out, she wakes someone, anyone who can hear her. The guard has become accustomed to just waiting patiently outside her door, attentively observing the situation at hand. Will, Kelly and Gordie sometimes join her, depending on how forlorn she looks. It’s become a routine, a system, one that is rarely interrupted. That’s until Harry comes along.
Allie can’t wind her mind down, it stays in full-throttle mode, going over worn-out past scenarios like clockwork, grinding her resistance down to the ground. She lays awake, chasing positions every couple minutes. Getting comfortable is impossible when the guilt of your sister's death is poisoning your dream-scape. At one point she considers getting up, binge-watching the sixth season of the office to death, yet again, but she’s too tired to even think about rising from her sheets, yet not tired enough to sink into them and sleep.
Harry is laid out, flat, on the frankly uncomfortable sofa. Awake, half-alert. His mind has sucked him back down into that dark place, throwing thought afterthought at him, critiquing the mistakes of the past couple days constantly over and over and over again. He can barely concentrate on the sounds around him, focusing just enough to be able to hear the tossing and turning upstairs. Pulled out from the space he’s starting to recognise all too well, he pushes up from the sofa, following the noises of perceived distress. He’s stopped at Allie’s door and is immediately torn or whether or not to knock, wondering if she’ll even want to see him. He does anyway, knowing that Allie might just need someone to talk to, Harry could probably fill that position.
Allie hears the tentative knock, following up with a ‘come in, I’m sorry’, preemptive apologising for distributing someone. Harry opens the door a crack, putting on a trademark cocky-smile as he peers through the gap. When Allie doesn’t immediately send him away, he walks in, taking in the stressed-out look on her face. The room is messy, clothes are thrown everywhere, bedsheets twisted and turned with the desperation of sleep, it almost reminds him of his room, just manifested in a different form.
“What’s wrong?” Allie asks, wondering if Harry Bingham has the compassion to check on her, or if he simply got woken up by her.
“Nothing, couldn’t sleep, seems like you couldn’t either,” Harry replies, standing at the foot of the bed.
“Sorry, I probably disturbed you,” Allie’s been doing that for a long time now, it riddles her with guilt every time someone steps in her room for that reason.
“No, I just wanted to see if you were okay,”
“Well, I’m fine, nothing to see here,”
“You don’t look fine,” Harry presses, sensing an issue laying just underneath the skin, “let's have some tea,” a flimsy attempt to get her out of bed, make it easier for him to talk to her.
Allie thinks for just a second, 3 AM tea with Harry beats laying in bed meaninglessly for another two hours, she follows him down. She sits at the island, her hand tracing the lining of the blanket she brought with her as Harry brews the tea. He slides her mug across, sitting down next to her, their arms touching slightly as they both slowly sip.
“Are you genuinely okay though, looks like you haven’t been sleeping right for weeks,” Harry pushes again.
“You’re right, since Cassandra’s death,” Allie pauses, saying it out loud affirms the hold it has over her life, “I haven’t slept right,”
“Particular reason why?”
“I get these, nightmares, about her, and Dewey, they stop me from sleeping,”
“Oh, I didn’t realise at all,”
“And that’s the way it has to stay, if anyone finds out, they’ll think I’m weak, then we’re one step away from this all crumbling down,” Allie knows the predicted outcome, her brain as drilled it into her more than once.
“You can’t be a leader if you don’t sleep at night,”
“It’s not like I’m not trying,”
“I get that, I’m the embodiment of ‘I get you, and what you’re going through’ okay, it’s just not great to see you like this,” Harry sees through the thinly-veiled barrier, Allie’s eyes are sunken, her skin pale, hands slightly trembling with the excursion it takes to sit upright and make conversation. It’s painful to witness.
“I just fucking wish my mind cooperated with my body,” Allie looks down, towards the swirling enchantment of her tea, feeling her eyes start to tear up.
“I’ll fucking drink to that,” Harry gulps his tea, reaching his hand toward to enclose his over Allie’s, “it should get better,”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Then you’ll learn how to cope, you’ll get up,”
The tears start to fall after that, with Harry quickly turning to hold Allie close in his arms as she sobs into his chest. He cups the back of her head with his hand, rubbing up and down the plane of her back with his other, trying to soothe her into sleep. It seems as if the crying has worn her out, her mind balancing precariously on the edge of unconsciousness. As if chasing a countdown, Harry manages to gather Allie up in his arms, climbing up the stairs to get her back into bed. He is successful, depositing her into the mass of soft pillows and blankets before her head snaps herself out of the exhaustion.
“No, stay,” Allie whispers as he turns to go back to his make-shift sofa bed.
He complies with her wish, allowing her to curl around his frame, finally achieving a decent nights sleep.
—
It’s been two weeks since Harry has escaped the persistent watch of both Kelly and Gordie after his withdrawal. He can feel himself starting to slip away again, down into the depths of his mind. Slowly, the blinds stay drawn, getting out of bed becomes a massive chore, even eating the food that Mickey lays out for him twice a day is near impossible. This whole feeling, it makes him want to scream out loud at the injustice of it all, but he can’t, he’s way too tired for that. So it stops turning up for work, going outside, leaving his room, and no one seems to care for a while until they do.
Allie gets word that Harry has seemed to relapse back into the same scenario that caused his drug dependence. Even though Kelly and Gordie have been going over every couple days just to check out how he’s doing, she decides that she should go, see if her presence will make a difference. Considering what he did for her, she should do the same. So she does, walking to the Bingham residence, alone.
Witnessing the state that Harry is consumed in pushes the extreme. Seeing him after the withdrawal, it wasn’t pretty, but this is worse, more mentally than it is physically. When he came to stay at her house, most of his issues could be solved, the shaking and hot/cold spells, they had physical solutions. This, however, is a new world for Allie. The blinds are drawn closed, making the room as dark as possible in midday, clothes, bottles and wrappers are flung all over the floor, all surfaces messy. Harry is laid, silently, on his bed, the sheets twisted around his body. He’s faced away from her, curled small, attempting to isolate himself to the utmost extent. Allie carefully navigates the room, stopping at the side of his bed, unsure of how to act.
“Go away, I don’t wanna see anyone, not right now,” Harry murmurs from under the covers, his voice not forceful or threatening, more of a disgruntled request.
“No,” Allie replies, firm, her hands moving over to the edge of the duvet, “you don’t have to be ashamed, we know each other pretty well,”
“This is different from last time,”
“Yeah, this time you’re not withdrawing on my couch,”
“You’re right, so go away,”
“I get it. Okay? I get it after Cassandra died I didn’t wanna do anything. I mean, fuck people, fuck food, fuck everything,” she motions to the half-full plates scattered around the room, he hasn’t been eating, “I wanted to just lay in bed and never get out,”
“And then you got up,” the way he says it, lacking any form of hope for himself, it’s like he intrinsically knows that getting up for him is not going to happen. “Good for you,” the bitterness coats his answer.
Allie sinks into the mattress next to him, reaching out a hand to grasp his, “it’s ‘cause I had no choice, neither do you,”
“Doesn’t mean I can get up, just like that,”
“You have to get back up,” Allie pushes, trying to get it into Harry’s head, he has no options, no choices, not now, not with the way they live. “It’s not gonna make you feel any better, it’s not going to make this suck any less,”
“It already fucking sucks, I can’t deliver what you want, you come in here, giving me this crap motivational speech isn’t going to cure my depression, isn’t going to stop my drug cravings,” Harry starts to become agitated, beginning to think that no one will ever understand what he’s going through.
“That’s why we’ll go day-to-day, I’m not saying you have to immediately stand, just show me it’s getting better, that you’re getting better,” Allie moves up against the headboard, ending up with a lap full of Harry Bingham.
“I’m trying,”
“That’s all I’m asking for,”
She runs her hand through his unkempt hair, keeping the other clasped on his back, maintaining enough contact for him to know that she’s there, with him in the moment. She didn’t come here to harass of bully him out of bed with harsh words and strong sentiments, she came to
comfort, to lead and to stay with him, through the ups and downs of it all. That is just the start of a long, long road to getting better.
—
It’s not like after both of them realise what’s happening to the other, it all gets better, the clouds don’t part and the sun doesn’t start shining again. It always gets worse before it gets better, and for Allie, it plummets to rock-bottom before she can even comprehend stopping it. She falls, deeper down into insomnia and underlying anxieties, preventing her from leaving the house, or leading the town. It scares her, the inability to exist as she should, forcing her head under, over and over and over again, making it all worse.
Soon, she stops turning up for work, and then doesn’t appear at a weekly meeting, Harry is swiftly becoming concerned. It’s not like he’s in the best place anyway, especially to help another, but it’s Allie, and he can’t help but feel somewhat indebted to her. It’s difficult to get a private moment with her, considering the guard is watching 24/7. He does succeed by merely asking Grizz, as, according to him, she’s rejected to see anyone, maybe she’ll say yes to him.
“Hey Allie,” Harry speaks tentatively as he slowly side-steps past the slightly jarred door. The room is darkened extensively, Allie laying, cocooned in her sheets. He can see that she’s awake, her eyes are barely opened, her head moving slightly when Harry stands fully in her room. She doesn’t respond to his call, instead of taking the time to roll over to face away from him instead.
For a second, he stands in place, contemplating his next decision. Realising that staying in place isn’t going to help Allie one bit, he moves over to the bed, taking a seat at the furthermost part. His hand moves to clasp Allie’s ankle, letting her know that he’s there, sitting patient, almost waiting for her to make the next move.
“Why are you fucking here Harry? I don’t need you to come and coddle me,” her tone is sharp, yet her voice sounds at breaking-point, rough and underused.
“Well obviously you do, no one’s seen you in the centre, I’m worried,”
“Yeah, sure, I’m fine, I don’t need you hovering over me like the rest of this damn house,”
“If you’re so fine, why don’t you just get up right now, get dressed, go outside, you look like you haven’t moved in days,”
“I’m not going to just do as you say, I don’t have anything to prove to you,”
“Fine, I’ll take your word then, doesn’t mean I’m in a hurry to leave,”
Allie stops responding after that, leaving Harry to wonder if he was being too harsh on her. Sure, she reacted well to his pandering last time, but this time it’s so much worse, it’s not like anyone else could get her up, he probably can’t either. He does as he said, sitting, waiting, watching.
“Okay, maybe I’m not fine,” Allie mumbles, after 45 minutes of Harry sitting in place, she realised he wasn’t going anywhere, not anytime soon.
“As I suspected,” Harry sighs, slipping his socks and jeans off.
“You inviting yourself into my bed now?” Allie doesn’t exactly resist, cocking her eyebrow, opening up the covers to allow Harry to slide right in.
“Well if this therapy session is going to progress any further I am,” Allie places her head just above the end of Harry’s ribcage. Harry’s arm curls around her form, his hand lightly brushing through the knotted strands of her hair, “what happened to ‘i had no choice but to get up?’,”
“They don’t need me, someone else can run the whole fucking show,”
“They need you, I need you,”
“No one needs me, all I’ve done the past week is lay in bed, alone, barely sleeping in fear of having the same recurring nightmare, how can I lead a town of teenagers like this?”
“How have you been doing it for months now?” He pauses, it’s rhetorical, but he wants Allie to give at least some thought to it, “you’ve had support from others, but it’s been you making the major decisions,”
“Finally I’m crumbling, I can’t do it anymore,”
“You’re Allie fucking Pressman, the girl I saw step up and lead these clueless teenagers through this whole entire shit-show in the backdrop of her sister’s death, pretty sure you’re a badass,”
“This ‘talking me up’ thing isn’t going to work, I’m still going to feel shit tomorrow, I did today,”
“Baby steps, why don’t we just get out of bed, go downstairs, maybe even just make a cup of tea? Sound good?”
“Hm, yeah, maybe,”
“Hm, yeah, get up,” Harry slips out from under Allie, pulling the duvet with him. Allie grabs onto the end of it but soon gives up, taking Harry’s outstretching hand and standing upright properly. She sways just a little before she makes it to the doorway, Harry’s warm hands guiding her down the stairs. Luckily for her, only Grizz and Luke are keeping watch, she doesn’t need an entire audience to watch her make tea.
Harry, once he’s confident that Allie will remain standing without help, takes a seat at the island, watching Allie go through the motion of making tea. Even though her movements are full of exhaustion and remain sluggish, he’s just happy that he got her up and somewhat active. She rounds the island with two full mugs of steaming tea, taking the seat beside him, easily resting her head on his shoulder. His arm loops around her once again, his other hand preoccupied with sipping at his tea.
“Feels good to be up again, right?”
“I feel like shit,”
“Yeah thought so, wanna drink this and fall asleep on the sofa?”
“Sounds nice,”
Soon enough Harry has Allie on top of him, her head resting on his clavicle, his hand positioned on top of her back. She’s shortly soothed into sleep with a combination of a downloaded drama that’s been watched hundreds of times and the repetitive motions of his hand on her back, feeling just a little bit better than previously. At some point a blanket is draped over the pair, Harry returning the delighted smile that Luke sends him after seeing Allie in the living room for once.
She’s hit her low, but Harry is ready to climb the mountain it takes to get back to the top, right by her side.
—
From then on, Harry becomes a constant presence in her life, helping her to help herself. That’s until he isn’t, dropping back into his zoned-out state of depression. At first, she’s not concerned, he’s gone through it for a couple of hours then bounced right back, she’s done the same thing. Then she doesn’t see him for two days, he’s not responding to her calls or texts, then she realises how wrong she was before. She rushes to his house, leaving her guard detail behind. Within minutes she’s there, standing in the doorway to his room, wishing this wasn’t happening.
“Hey Harry,” she calls, using the same words he did a couple of months ago, hoping he’ll respond.
“Hey,” his voice sounds lethargic, his head only barely turning to her direction, his eyes unfocused and lazy.
“Can I just sit with you, just for a little while?” Even though she’s experienced an episode before, it doesn’t mean she’s used to it, or that she knows how to solve all of his problems. Instead of getting someone else to try and fix it, she’ll just stand-by, hoping her presence means something until she can figure it all out.
“Yeah,” she gathers that it’s an improvement on last time where it was all hoarsely shouted ‘go away’s’. She takes a seat, Harry’s moves to place his head on her lap, trying to seek some kind of comfort.
For a while, they just sit in each others company, only the small sounds of their breathing altering each other to their existence. The silence allows for her mind to wander, thinking back to all the segments of Gordie’s medical books she read when her insomnia took over her life recently. She knows the signs of a major depressive episode when they are right in front of her. It seems that Harry is going through hypersomnia, considering that it looks like he hasn’t made it out of bed for three days, meaning he also hasn’t been eating. It’s a long spiral and he’s practically halfway.
“Have you eaten today?” Allie prods.
“Can’t remember,” the words feel like sand in Harry’s mouth, dragging along his tongue.
“Brushed your teeth?”
“Nope,”
“Gone outside?”
“Nada,”
“Stood upright in the last 12 hours?”
“No,”
“Fuck,” Allie whispers, it’s worse than before.
“You’re right, fuck,” the small amount of humour Harry has retained his being spend in this moment, tiring him out completely.
“Come on then, let’s get up,” Allie encourages, hoping Harry will just follow along.
“Yeah, I’d much rather just continue to lay here and watch the ceiling for another seven hours, thank you for the offer though,”
“I will drag you out of your pit if I fucking have to, do not test me,”
He surrenders, quickly realising that she’ll probably give up trying to help him soon enough. Maybe if he complies, for now, it’ll make him feel a little better along the way. So that’s exactly what he does, his vision swimming before him as he stands. Allie pushes a clean top over his head and leads him out to an empty kitchen.
“Where is everyone?” Already his tongue feels heavy in his mouth, his limbs weighing down on him, the gravity of the situation he’s arrived in forcing an understanding. Just a little socialisation, a small walk around has drained his weakening battery.
“At work, or just out, where you should be, drink this,” Allie knows that almost guilt-tripping him is most likely the wrong way to go about the entire situation, but maybe it’ll also remind him what he’s missing out on. She sets a large glass of water down, knowing that he’s somewhat dehydrated.
“I’m no use to anyone, period,” Harry is letting that overwhelming emotion of worthlessness and self-doubt have a voice right now, which he normally likes to keep all internal.
“That’s a fucking lie,” Allie turns, her voice already shaking with the emotion running through it, she starts on what is possibly Harry’s only source of sustenance in the past few days, knowing that if she looks at him, she’ll start crying.
“No, it’s the fucking truth, and everyone is just too scared to say it to my face, they think I’m gonna fucking overdose again,” Fuck, this isn’t Kansas anymore Dorothy, no one knows about the overdose, the therapy sessions, the Xanax prescription that is running dangerously low.
“Again?’’ Allie repeats, her mind immediately running back to his recent withdrawal, maybe he’s just confused.
“At the start of 11th grade, you remember when I was off for two weeks?” His mouth struggles to form the words, a painful memory surfacing.
“Yeah, you had measles?”
“No, I’m vaccinated, I actually overdosed on cocaine, I was under suicide watch for a week, then I went to rehab for another week,”
“Jesus fucking christ,” Allie turns around, her eyes wet with forthcoming tears, she can’t believe it almost.
“That’s exactly why I told no one, not like my mom would allow me to tell anyone anyway,” in reaction to Allie, Harry’s eyes start to gloss over, hoping the memory passes quickly, “I don’t wanna talk about it,”
“Yeah sure, that’s fine, just let me,” Allie abandons the breakfast she’s making to pull Harry into a hug from his seat on his stool. His head is tucked under her chin, her hands clasping around Harry’s back tightly, “I can’t believe that we almost lost you, and no one ever knew,”
Once Allie lets go, the conversation stops. Silence falls over the pair, the background noise of Allie preparing breakfast washing over Harry as he slips easily back into his previous state, merely letting the world turn around him. The trace is only broken when Allie pushes a moderately sized plate in front of him, already holding out a knife and fork. She holds a sandwich, full of the contents of his plate, making sure he’s not eating alone.
“Thanks,” Harry whispers, feeling grateful that someone has taken the time of day to help him.
It’s only when he’s a quarter of the way through the plate that he realises that food has retained some flavour, which is strange, usually food tastes like nothing for weeks, so he’s put off from even attempting to eat. He starts to shovel down the rest, making it half-way through before his stomach twinges uncomfortably. Before he can even grasp the recognition of the situation, he’s heaving over the side of the counter, down over his jeans and all over the floor, a combination of watery stomach bile and half-digested food.
“Sorry,” Harry croaks out, worried about upsetting or disgusting her.
“Hey, hey, no it’s okay,” Allie soothes, knowing that she does not want to clear up his vomit, but also knowing that it’s not his fault. She rubs down his back, waiting for anything else to make an appearance before making a move.
He’s weak and shaky after emptying his stomach contents over his kitchen floor, so she merely guides him along to the bathroom, stripping him down and sitting him straight in the bath. She runs it shallow, leaving the door wide open as she goes to clean up his mess. Soon, after disinfecting the kitchen and herself, she sits on the toilet lid, holding a fresh set of clothes ready.
For a second, the through swarms her mind, a year ago she would have never imagined sitting in Harry Bingham’s bathroom, after cleaning up his literal vomit, let alone waiting for him to stop disassociating in the bathtub. Now, she’s doing exactly that, while also having the comfort of knowing that he’d do the same for her. He may not be in the best place right now, in fact, she’d call this pretty much an all-time low, but she’ll stick it out with him, for as long as he’ll let her.
—
Living like this is hard, the struggle for a long-term food supply, the never-ending questions surrounding getting home, as well as the maintenance of two-hundred teenagers. As long as Allie trusts Harry to sit with her while she’s awake, and Harry trusts Allie to stay with him whilst he’s asleep, life gets a little better.