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Judy has always known there was something off about the way her mind operates. She’s never addressed it before, she just nursed her wounds with cigarettes and weed and cowered under her sheets until morning. The trembling would stop eventually, but she never fell asleep, her body would never rest.
Sometimes, she felt like an imposter lodged inside of her brain, pulling the wrong strings and pressing the wrong buttons. Maybe he made himself at home, set his coffee on the table and watched as the wildfire that is her head drove her to new extremes, new rooftops and edges of cliffs. She liked to stare down at the ground and imagine what it would feel like to fall, her body soft and willing and open.
She never expressed those thoughts to anyone, not even Jen. But since her best friend knew her so well, she eventually caught on to the way Judy would claw at her skin whenever she felt like she did something wrong. The way she hit herself so hard she’d leave bruises in the wake of her angry fists.
Jen never directly addressed any of those things until she found Judy in the bathroom one evening. She’d heard the sobs from the living room and immediately ran to where Judy sat, leaning against the toilet, sweat soaked through her nightgown. When the woman looked up and saw her standing at the doorway, she tried to smile, but the corners of her mouth lilted downwards and her thin lips shook with excursion.
“I’m okay, I’ll be out in a few minutes,” Judy said, but her cheery voice betrayed the strong, desperate way her hands gripped onto the toilet seat.
“You’re not okay,” Jen said. Her eyes scanned over her friend’s hunched figure, silently searching for injuries, for anything she could fix. She could bandage a wound and wrap a cut, but she couldn’t mend something broken inside. She couldn’t heal her heart. When she saw nothing wrong with Judy physically, she sighed and leaned down beside her friend. “Judy,” she pressed, “what do you need right now?”
That simple question, those six words, managed to open a floodgate inside of Judy; she collapsed forward into Jen’s arms, her whole body heaving with loud, heavy, earth-shattering sobs. Jen didn’t know what to do, so she settled on wrapping her arms around her until they melded into one. Together, she rocked them back and forth, running her hands over Judy’s back, just letting her cry.
In that moment, Jen felt needed. She felt needed when Judy’s cried subsided into whimpers, when she whispered, “hold me tighter”.
They didn’t speak about it; Jen, because she didn’t know what to say and Judy, because she didn’t know how to feel. She never knew how to feel. Her emotions changed constantly, her thoughts transformed into these giant creatures that stalked her, breathed down her neck. She regretted letting Jen see the side of her that she feared, that she hid from. The giants and monsters and demons.
———————
They didn’t speak about, avoided it, even, until one night, a few weeks after the incident. A bottle of vodka sat between them on the couch, their legs entangled. They were both quite tipsy, the alcohol running warm and fresh through their veins.
“I can’t believe Perez cried in front of you,” Judy said, her eyes alight with the fire only Jen could bring out in her. But still, behind her smile, crept a certain sadness no one could shake, waiting until she was alone to attack.
“Oh my god!” Jen gasped. “It was monumental! It was like watching a sheep in wolf’s clothing.”
Judy snorted. “Do you mean a wolf in sheep’s clothing?”
Jen took another swig of vodka and shook her head. “No, no I mean... wait, yeah, maybe that.”
Judy giggled and snatched the bottle away from her friend’s hands. “I think we’re done drinking for tonight.”
Jen sighed and dropped her head down to rest on Judy’s shoulder. “Fucking party-pooper,” she mumbled into her shirt.
For a while, they sat there in silence, basking in the dim light of the setting sun. Whenever their eyes met, they would smile and glance away, playing a game of tag that neither could keep up with. Eventually, the conversation dwindled down as the night sky cloaked then in darkness.
“Jen?” Judy whispered. She shook her shoulder gently until a head popped up from its resting place. She tried not to think about how natural it felt there, like she was sculpted to hold Jen, just Jen. No one else.
“Mmm, what’s up?” Jen sat up and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes with messy fists. She looked over at Judy, who was staring intently at the trees, watching them sway with the breeze of midnight.
“I have PTSD,” Judy said. She didn’t mean to spit it out like that, and she feared the reaction she would receive.
Jen furrowed her eyebrows in confusion, but no matter how hard she searched, Judy couldn’t find any trace of judgement nestled between the deep grooves of her forehead, the worry lines etched there. Instead, she just found sincerity, and love, love, love.
“Wow, Judes,” Jen said. “How long have you...”
“Had it?” Judy supplied, and Jen nodded. “Ever since I was a kid, when my mom was taking care of me. They took me to therapy and found out I was a basket case. I was always able to manage it. But I think, after that night, it came back stronger.”
They both knew which night she was talking about. The reminder of it was like a dull knife, jabbing Judy in the side and twisting. Every time she fell asleep, she’d see it: the crash, the figure standing in the middle of the road. She couldn’t stop it, she couldn’t save him, she couldn’t-
She bowed her head and tried to force away the stubborn tears that were trying to leak out of her eyes, well aware of Jen’s concern looming over the both of them. Judy felt as if her guilt was tangible, like she could feel it stuck to the bottom of her shoes, sticky and attached to her. It overwhelmed her, present in everything she did until she became it, the guilt. An entire being made up of everything she wished she could do different, everything she hated about herself.
Before she knew it she was shaking, clenching her teeth and scratching at her arms, leaving loud, red marks. This is what she deserved. The pain served as a scapegoat for the emotional turmoil she felt just by breathing, by existing, by living.
Suddenly, she felt the pressure of two arms, wrapping tight around her torso like a shield. Her only coherent thought told her that Jen was creating a barrier to stop her from hurting herself. She tried to push the offending hands away, away, away, but she was too weak, too tired, and eventually let her arms hang limp at her sides.
“I’m sorry, God, I’m sorry” she cried. “I can’t-“
“Judy, honey, breathe with me,” Jen spoke into her ear. “You’re safe, and you’re here with me. Please, just breathe. I love you, I love you, I love you.”
Every whispered word floated into Judy’s rib cage and stayed there while she tried to calm herself down. Slowly, she settled on the beating of Jen’s heart against her own, willing her lungs to take in the air she needed. Listening to Jen’s heartbeat helped Judy remember that hers was still beating, too. She was still alive, she was still here.
“That’s it,” Jen whispered. “That’s my girl.”
Judy sniffled. “Your girl, huh?”
She felt Jen tense beneath her, but then relax again when she laughed against her sweatshirt, which was drenched with snot and tears.
“I’m not a girl, Harding,” Judy said. “I’m a woman. An emotional, mess of a woman who has way too many traumatic events she needs to sort out.”
Jen huffed out a chuckle and pulled away slightly, so that their faces were only a few inches apart. From there, Judy could see the way the moon’s light shed itself across her features, like she was the source of all of it- the light, but also the darkness, too, wrapping themselves up into something Judy could touch. Something she could kiss.
“Jen, can I do something only an emotional mess of a woman would do?”
“If that means kiss me,” Jen said, sliding a hand up to cup her face, “then yes.”
At that, Judy finally let herself lean in and brush her lips against Jen’s, drinking all of her in. Her breathy sigh, the hands on the back of her head, resting in her hair. She kissed Jen like she was her oasis, her liberation. She never wanted to stop kissing her, she would die if she stopped kissing her.
It was Jen who pulled away first, pecking her lips one more time before slowly separating them, leaving them both gasping for air. Judy’s brain short-circuited, and threw her head back and laughed, buzzing and giddy and in disbelief. She wanted to lean in and kiss her again, and again, and again.
“You’re not a mess, Judy,” Jen breathed. “You’re a fucking masterpiece. A beautiful, layered, messy fucking masterpiece.”
“Who are you, and what did you do with Jen?” Judy quipped, leaning farther into her embrace
Jen rolled her eyes and pinched Judy’s side, causing her to giggle again.
“I was trying to be fucking serious, you bitch.” She frowned in mock anger, but then her face softened, and she pulled her lips into her mouth, thinking, waiting, wishing. “I think I’m in love with you, or whatever the fuck you want to call it,” she said. “And I want you to know that you don’t have to be ashamed for letting yourself feel things.”
Judy felt the tears tricking down her cheeks, and this time, she didn’t try to stop them from falling. She let herself feel, she let herself love.
And most importantly, she let herself be loved in return.