A memory prompt written for “Creative Clusterfuck,” a memoir-focused writing seminar taught by the legendary Molly Guy.
When my first boyfriend broke up with me at 15 I genuinely thought I was dying. We went to California Pizza Kitchen after school, I paid, then as he drove me home he casually said, “I’m not sure this is working out since I’m graduating and going to college,” the same way one would recap an episode of a tv show or acknowledge the weather. I screamed and asked why. He didn’t have an answer. I insisted I couldn’t be home alone so he took me to my dad’s office 10 minutes away. I continued to wail and kick my feet on his dashboard in a physical response to the confusion like someone who had just been delivered the most horrific news of their life instead of realizing the impracticality of the situation- he was years older, moving hundreds of miles away, and in the closet.
My dad greeted us in the parking lot. He was partially embarrassed we brought this to his place of work yet also approached with the grounding ease of a helpless father. I was awake all night, on my hands and knees, throwing up in my bathroom and replaying the entire 1.5 year relationship on loop in my head, audibly asking more ambiguous questions. At 3 a.m. my mom came in and yelled “ENOUGH” and turned off the lights. She drove me to school the next morning in silence so I could take my French final before summer break. Madame noticed my swollen eyes and puffy cheeks. Every capillary on my face had burst. My feet drug below me. This was a drastic shift from my usual tardiness to her class, sarcastically yelling “bonjour” as I entered, enunciating every letter, and getting in trouble for talking during her lessons. I cried the entire test, distracting my classmates from my isolated desk at the front of the room. I was awarded a pity 100% even though I left multiple answers blank since the vocabulary I’d studied all year escaped me in the last 24 hours. That summer I stopped eating, lost 30 pounds, and was hospitalized 3 times for malnutrition. The only person I spoke to was a therapist named Barbara who charged $250 an hour to filter through my every dark thought. My dad left her checks on the counter every morning and we never spoke of it, any of it, not even once.