Page 41 of Finding Hope

I didn’t tell my family that my cravings had me chewing my nails down to the quick, I simply told my body to sit down and shut the fuck up, and in a self-imposed mute prison, I endured shakes and nausea unlike anything I’ve ever felt before.

Today, day four, the detox shakes seem to be lessening, though Bobby’s bullshit training has replaced them with those of a deathly exhausted man.

I can’t say I like this kind, either.

Throwing jabs toward Bobby’s pads while wanting to both spew and cheer – since I’m impressed I can still move pretty fucking fast – I thinkabout Sunday afternoon, about the working bee my siblings created and the production line they formed to move my shit from my house into my sister’s.

They moved me back into my old room, back into the twin bed that I’d outgrown before she even got it home from the store. My legs hang off the end, and my arms flop over the sides, but despite the neck kinks I wake to every day, I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

I’m home, and despite the fact I’m a twenty-five-year-old badass fighter, my heart is happier for living under the same roof as my family again.

My youngest niecestillwakes crying in the night, and her older siblings are constantly helping themselves to my room and my shit. They bicker non-stop, they whine, they fight… and I can’t get enough of it.

Their theatrics and bullshit have filled some of the gaps that Steph and alcohol and weed left in my chest.

I spend the next few weeks of my life repeating the same cycle; training, vomiting, arguing with pre-teens, sleeping. But after the first two weeks – two weeks that I was better than before, but not actuallybetter– add in a therapist that Jon insisted I see.

Sonia’s a nice older lady that’s seen me cry more than anyone else on this planet ever has before.

My first day, I walked in with that same chip on my shoulder that I’d worn for months. I didn’t expect her to help me, I expected to take the hour to nap, but I left feeling lighter than I had in a long time.

It was exhausting, it was painful, it was especially brutal reliving time and time again that day on the I40 as I held my sweet girlfriend’s body in my arms.

Sonia would tear me apart, ask me about the worst day of my life, then when I’d think the worst was over, she’d throw a curveball and ask about my dad.

Turns out, I resented the fact we were a broken family, that my mom was dead and buried, that my sister was so much older, had already moved out, and had already started her adult life. I resented the fact that I was a teen, a latchkey kid, while my dad worked to the bone, and after everything he worked for, he died anyway.

I held onto so much resentment for so long, Sonia told me my reactions after he died, then again after Steph died, aren’t uncommon.

Her words don’t excuse my shitty behavior, but I’m working on me. I’m working really fucking hard on making it up to my sister somehow. And better yet, I’m working on making it up to myself.

I’m working on it.

The kindest thing I can say about myself this year;I’m working on it.

12

BRITT

TWO MONTHS LATER

“Where are you going dressed like that, Brat?”

I stop in the kitchen doorway and frown at my brother as he flips open a pizza box. I look down at my outfit, at my four-inch pumps and black dress that goes almost to my knees. It’s form fitting, but it’s formal and decent.

“What?”

His eyes slide up and down my dress. “Nothing.” He shrugs. “You look pretty.” His nose scrunches up, like it really bothers him that I look pretty.

I look more like Schoolteacher-Britt tonight than theotherBritt. No nose ring, it clashes with my dress. No flashing ink, no visible belly bar. I look thoroughly respectable, because myadditionsclash with my Audrey Hepburn look.

“Oh, well, thanks.” Smiling, I walk to the fridge and grab a bottle of water. No need for cranberry juice, because tonight isn’t a club night. “I have a date.”

My brother’s eyes narrow. “With who? Is he a criminal?”

“No.” Laughing, I unscrew the lid on my water. “I really don’t think he is.”

Brad’s the PE teacher at the same school I teach at. There are two schools in this town – sitting on opposite sides of town – and students are allocated by their address. I attended theotherschool as a student, but as a teacher, I’m employed by the school across town.

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