(Image provided by Annette Forrest Taylor)

Get up.

The injunction was there, hanging in the air like a floating balloon just out of reach.

There’s nothing wrong with you, just get up.

He did not get up. He wasn’t sad, or angry, or…anything, really. No desire at all for anything filled him to the brim. A vast, empty ocean of apathy. He didn’t want to get up or get ready for the day or go to work or talk to his girlfriend or go shopping. He could go on but he didn’t want to. Big surprise.

Get up. You’ll feel better once you get moving.

That was debatable. It was closer to a coin flip whether or not he’d actually improve by getting up but those were still better odds than if he stayed lying in bed.

The alarm on his phone started going off. It was the third one he had set. It rang for a full five minutes before it went quiet and still he didn’t move.

You can call in sick today but at least get up. How about that?

It was a tempting off. He had the sick leave saved up so he could use it and be fine.

You can go to the beach or walk along the trails you like instead. There’s the cheap ice cream place you always want to go to but never do. You could get an ice cream cone. Triple scoop. All you gotta do is get up and get dressed. Don’t even bother with the shower today if you don’t want to.

An arm shifted a couple inches.

Keep going.

Nothing.

What if someone saw him while he was out and told his boss? He didn’t live that far from where he worked so it wasn’t totally out of the question for it to happen. Then again, would his boss really care? Mental health was still a viable reason to call in sick, wasn’t it?

There’s nothing wrong with you, just get up.

If there was nothing wrong, then why wasn’t he up by now and getting ready for the day? Why was everything so hard for no reason? Why did he lie there staring at the same spot on the ceiling without blinking until his eyes burned?

The phone began to ring. At first, he thought it was another alarm but he hadn’t set a fourth one. Someone was calling him. No one ever called him these days, not even spam callers. The surprise was enough to get him to check his phone.

It was his girlfriend. He tapped the screen, intending to send her to voicemail but he missed and accidentally answered the call.

“Hey,” he said in a fake happy voice that did not sound convincing. He’d intended to say more but his voice died in his throat.

“I’m outside,” she said, “could you come down and let me in.”

Why was she here? They had plans for the evening but that was hours away.

“Uh, yeah, give me a minute,” he said and finally pushed off his blankets.

It took him a couple minutes to get dressed and clean things up around his apartment before heading down and letting her in. The apartment really needed a door buzzer or something but that was out of his control. Several tenants had made the suggestion but so far nothing had been done. When he got down to the lobby and let her in he was surprised to see her still in her pajamas. She also had a backpack on and a couple of grocery bags in her hands. He took the bags from her once she was inside.

“What’s up?” he asked as they walked back towards the stairwell that would take them up to his floor.

“I’ve been worried about you,” she said carefully. “You can tell me if I’m being crazy or whatever, but you’ve been pretty depressed lately and this morning I woke up and had a really strong feeling that you needed some help today.”

It was an established fact between them that he had depression but where he always said he would just power through it, she wanted him to go to therapy or pop pills or something like that. He hated the idea of therapy and pills. She didn’t push him but she certainly let him know her opinion about it.

He looked down at the grocery bags he was carrying and noticed they were full of, well, groceries. She took them back from him once they got inside his apartment and she carried them into his kitchen. As they put the groceries away, he was made uncomfortably aware of how empty his fridge and pantry both were.

“Why don’t you call in to work today,” she suggested.

For some reason, it was a lot easier to do that with her here, saying it, rather than him trying to convince himself to do it. He pulled out his phone and made the call. While he did, his girlfriend wandered off to his bathroom with her backpack. She was in there the entire time he was on the phone and when he put the phone down she called for him.

Gentle music was playing from a speaker and a scented candle was lit. She held out a bath bomb or him and pointed to the tub.

“Take a nice hot bath with this in it,” she said, handing him the bath bomb. “You don’t need to scrub, just soak. I’ve got a neck pillow so you can relax without worrying about falling asleep.”

With that, she turned on the tub to start it filling and walked out, shutting the door behind her.

“Breakfast will be ready in forty-five minutes,” she called through the door.

Well, what else was there for him to do than to take a bath? He wasn’t sure about the scented candle or the music but neither one was annoying. They were actually pleasant.

He disrobed and got into the tub. It was hot and the neck pillow was a nice addition since he usually found lying in his small tub to be too cramped. He’d gotten more than one neck cramp from taking baths but this time he was quite comfortable.

You should get yourself a pillow like this one.

The heat from the bath soaked deep into him right away and his muscles began relaxing. It’s amazing how tense you can be without noticing until you relax. His breathing slowed and the tightness in his chest and throat faded. The gentle candle light, the bathroom light was off, gave the whole bathroom a pleasant flickering ambiance that was aided by the music. It wasn’t something he would have ever done on his own but this was legitimately amazing for how simple it all was.

By the time he was done with his bath and drying off he was already feeling quite a bit better. The fact that he was feeling anything at all was an improvement. Still, it wasn’t like he was all better. He knew if he was left to his own devices he’d just flop down onto the couch and go right back to where he’d been before.

Am I safe to be alone?

That was a frightening thought. He didn’t spend much time thinking about…about those sorts of things, but it did come up from time to time. He was surprised he hadn’t thought much about just slipping beneath the water and –

“Breakfast!” his girlfriend called and he snapped out of his thoughts.

He finished toweling off and got dressed. When he stepped out of the bathroom he was met by the smell of sausage, eggs, bacon, and waffles.

“Wow, what’s the occasion?” he asked and felt immediately stupid for it.

“You’re the occasion, silly,” she replied and handed him his plate while she picked up her own and they both sat down at the table.

“This is really good, thank you,” he told her after a few bites.

“I’m glad. Did you enjoy the bath?”

“Yes it was perfect.”

She smiled and they ate, their free hands touching and their fingers playing with one another.

“Are you up for some serious talk?” she asked when they’d finished eating.

He checked himself mentally and wasn’t sure how good he actually felt but it was much better comparatively to earlier this morning so he nodded and tried to put on a confident smile.

“I really need you to get some help,” she said. “I don’t care what kind of help,” she added quickly, “but you aren’t doing well and you’ve been getting worse. I know you said you’d push through and get over it, but…but I don’t see you pushing through so much as you getting pushed over by it. I really care about you and it hurts to see you hurting like this. Please. Please get some help?”

“I’m fine,” he insisted.

“Not counting today, how many times have you called into work this week because you couldn’t get out of bed?”

He almost said zero but that was a lie.

“Twice,” he said finally.

“It’s Wednesday,” she said flatly. “You’ve called in every day this week.”

“It’s just a slump. I’ll be fine by tomorrow or Friday.”

“And what about last week? And the week before? How many bad days did you have then?”

He was quiet and didn’t answer her. They both knew the answer to that question and it wasn’t in his favor.

“You’re sick,” she said and now there were tears in her eyes, “and I’m afraid. I’m worried…it’ll be fatal if you don’t get help.”

Again, he couldn’t speak. He hadn’t told her about those thoughts but he supposed they did tend to go hand in hand with depression. It wasn’t exactly a big mental leap to assume he was struggling with them.

“I can go with you, if you like, or make the appointments. Whatever you need. I’ll even pay for them.”

“I-” he began but his throat choked up so suddenly he couldn’t go on. A massive weight he had been ignoring, pushing away and fighting for months finally became too much and he broke down. He sobbed and got angry at himself for crying.

You’re a grown man, stop it.

That didn’t help. His girlfriend scooted closer to him and held him while he cried.

“You don’t have to go if you really don’t want to, but I’m going to make an appointment for you,” she said as she pulled out her phone. “There’s a clinic just up the street from here and I figured it would be as good a place as any to start.

“Okay,” he managed and she made the call.

They had an opening that day, in fact, and he agreed to go and she’d go with him.

This is stupid. I don’t even know what to say.

Maybe he didn’t need to know what to say. Maybe that was their job, knowing what to say, what to ask. If it was useless he could then use that to get his girlfriend to stop suggesting it but a part of him, a frightened part of him, hoped it would help. He was so tired of feeling like this, of thinking those things. If this worked, then it would be worth it.