Car Therapy

The blurry ceiling was all I saw, as I lay on my bed with an unfocused gaze. My head drifted through the memories of the past couple hours. I dropped off Seri at midnight, and just finished showering.

So much for sleeping early.

There was still the remainder of my evening studies, which I opted to skip. Not that it would’ve helped anyways — I had too many emotions to work through. I thought about the conversation I had with Seri in the car.

~~~

“On a scale of one to ten, how are you feeling right now?”

“What are you doing?”
“I’m helping you process your emotions! I heard guys are really bad at that.”

My cheeks grew warm. Despite her backhanded compliment, I found the gesture really sweet.

“I guess an eight,” I replied.

“Wonderful! On to the next question: what has your lowest point been since we started school, and when was it?”

“Ha ha,” I laughed uncomfortably. “That’s…”

Seri lowered the banana and softened her tone. “Was it when we saw Vivian?”

I scratched my neck. “Yeah, at hotpot.”

“How did that make you feel?”

“You’d make a pretty good therapist.”

“How did that make you feel?” she asked again, holding out another blackberry for me.

“No thanks. I felt… nauseous lol.”

“Why’s that? Were you nervous?” Seri kindly ignored the fact that I said “lol” out loud.

“I don’t really know,” I said. “There were a lot of feelings I had trouble making sense of, and none of them made me feel good. If I had to describe it, watching them meet up without me felt rather lonely.”

“Lonely? With me here? Preposterous,” she joked.

“Well, that’s different.”

“Different how?”

“…I don’t know.” How exactly was that different? I saw her all the time, so maybe I had started taking her for granted. “I did feel lonely, but I’m also happy you’re here.”

“Satisfactory answer. Moving on, what has your highest point been?”

“Probably at the fancy coffee place,” I admitted slowly. “When we planned our study schedules together. That made me happy.”

“Wasn’t that right after hotpot?”

“Yeah, but it cheered me up pretty well.”

“You seem to cycle between high and low pretty often. Are you bipolar?”

“…oi. Are you qualified to make a diagnosis?”

“I’m a nurse.”

“You’re a dropout.”

“Just kidding~” Seri sang. She turned to the side, so that her ponytail stuck out towards me. “But honestly, it’s the same for me too.”

“What do you mean?”

“My lowest point also turned into a high when you came to my house with a cheeseburger,” she said. I couldn’t see her expression.

We didn’t speak a word as I decelerated towards the end of the freeway. I finally broke the silence after pulling up to the red light.

“I think I feel similar to how you did back then,” I chuckled. “It’s the final week and I just need one last push, but everytime I think about the exam I just want to lie down and sleep. Maybe it’s the same thing you were going through.”

“Yours might be a little different,” Seri said. “Mine was more like a motivation crash after the midterms, since I burnt out from studying so much.”

“You practically scheduled nine hours a day just to study.”

“Yeah, and look at me now! So much more effective at studying,” she bragged. “Yours, on the other hand, seems more like idealistic procrastination.”

I kept quiet, anticipating her explanation. She really loved using niche productivity science terms.

Seri leaned closer to my driver’s seat. “It’s when you worry so much about doing things perfectly, you end up doing nothing at all. You probably think ‘I need to cover all twelve units’, but if you only have time for one or two, you just procrastinate instead.”

“Ouch.” She didn’t just hit the nail, she hammered it in brutally. Metaphorically, I was about to bleed.

I swallowed. “That’s part of why I quit nursing.”

“You couldn’t reach your expectations?”

“I couldn’t be perfect,” I said. “Every imperfection you make in the hospital affects the patients. You can see it in their faces.”

“But no one’s a perfect nurse,” she gently placed a hand on my shoulder.

“That’s why I hated it. Time management was tight, and everytime something wasn’t on schedule, you’d see people suffer because of it. People cut corners everywhere, and even the veteran nurses were so jaded towards how that affected the patients.”

I tapped the wheel furiously as we drove down the city streets. Seri gave my shoulder a light pat.

“Thanks for sharing. I’m glad you feel comfortable enough opening up to me today.”

“Now you’re really sounding like a therapist,” I said.

“You’re right though,” Seri agreed. “The hospital’s a rough place, and I don’t want to head back either… at least, not as a nurse. Everyone kept yelling at me.”

“Who?”

“Patients and nurses. My group had less students, so we were each assigned five patients. On our first hospital placement!”

“Shit. That’s crazy.” During my placement, I was struggling with only three patients. Only professional nurses did five or more, but at that point it was already hell. I would always see those same nurses smoking after shift, despite being healthcare workers.

“Right?!” Seri complained. “No one’s able to manage that their first time. Everyone was snappy, and I stuck it out for another year thinking that things would change when I became a better nurse.”

“Did they?”

“You know the answer,” she said.

As I neared her neighbourhood, I saw a fast food place on the roadside. It was the same one I picked up a cheeseburger from when she was feeling sad.

“Cheeseburger?” I asked.

“No thanks. It’s a fruits only kind of weekend, remember?”

“Right…” I was disappointed. I wanted the conversation to last longer. How did Seri feel when I called her while she was sad? When I gave her the cheeseburger? When she knew I felt lonely, even though she’s been such a great friend to me?

“How about…” I started.

“What?”

“We could just chill in the parking lot there?”

“Uh-” Seri sucked in a quick breath and shrank back in her seat. “I dunno…”

My heart sank. “Huh?”

“I’m not really ready for that yet…” she turned away.

“Oh…” my shoulders drooped. We drove in silence again for what seemed like hours.

Of course. We’re not that close. Why’d you push it? Weirdo? Now she thinks-

In the middle of my own mental beating, I had an epiphany. She could’ve misinterpreted my offer as something else entirely.

“Oh, wait!” I panicked. “I didn’t mean that!”

“Mean what?” she asked cautiously.

“I just wanted to talk with you a little longer before I dropped you off. I didn’t mean that I wanted to…”

Her eyes widened, then Seri burst into a soft laughter. I sighed in relief. Was it just me, or were her happy expressions less explosive recently? Maybe she was tired too.

“Well, that’s the first thing girls think about when guys drive them to an empty parking lot.”

I gulped. “Have guys done that to you?”

“Eww, no. Cars are gross and the windows are see-through.”

“… I see.”

Our late night run neared its end as I entered her driveway. The lights were still on in the house.

“Do you want to come in for a bit?”

“Huh?” I looked through her windows. There weren’t any shadows, but some of the room lights were still on. My heart sped up its pace. She didn’t say anything about her parents being gone.

“We should probably go to sleep,” I said through gritted teeth.

She nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. Maybe another time.”

“For sure. You should come over too. My mom wants to meet you,” I prodded. Did she just want to spend time together, or was she insinuating something more? I could never tell with girls.

“Well…” Seri fidgeted. She seemed like she wanted to say something.

“What’s up?”

“We can talk about that later...” she trailed off into an awkward silence. It was hard to make out her chocolate brown eyes in the dark. She opened her mouth, and asked:

"Where's my hug?"

~~~

“AAAAAUUUGH!” I screamed into my pillow. “IDIOT!”

Footsteps creaked up the stairs outside my room. My mom was used to hearing me vent like this, but she still loves the drama. I didn’t care. I was too busy beating myself over not going into her house.

“Fuck.”