Page 102 of How to Hide in Plain Sight
“Can I bring you some food?”
“I’m not hungry.”
She pauses. Then: “Are you sad?”
Beneath the covers, my toes clench. Carefully, I ask, “Why would I be sad?”
“Because of Manuel.”
She knows. How does she know?
But then she goes on: “It must be hard being apart.”
“Oh.” My toes uncurl and my spine relaxes. “Yeah. I’m sad.”
“Oh, honey.” She reaches out and strokes my hair, which spills over my pillow in a long tangle of dirty blond. “If it’s any consolation, I miss him, too.”
I almost say,It’s not, but I bite my tongue. I bite my tongue so hard it bleeds.
—
EVENTUALLY, I GIVE UP. STOPfighting. Let the Worries wash over me.
Lesbian, they say.
Pedophile.
Incestuous freak.
I squeeze my eyes shut and grip the blanket until my knuckles start to hurt. I know I’m not any of those things. I do. Sort of. Sort of not. Whenever I go looking for proof, all I find is more doubt. It’s like…I don’tthinkletting someone’s spit stay on my hand counts as cheating on my boyfriend, but what if it does? Who gets to decide, ultimately?
At every moment, I feel the universe watching me. Keeping track of my every move. Every bad, every wrong. But no one else can see it. No one else knows I might be a pedophile. No one knows how awful, how deviant, how disgusting I am.
Dr.Droopy once described self-hate as “addictive.” I thought that was ridiculous. How the hell could you crave self-hate just as much as you crave a chocolate cupcake or a drug-induced high?
But I get it now. I do.
I don’t know how to turn it off, but what I do know is this: I’maddicted to the Worries. I’m addicted to self-torture and self-hate and any other version of the self that reaffirms my belief that there’s a deep, disgusting darkness within me.
And what’s the best way to avoid relapse? What did Speedy tell me all those years ago?
Getting clean isn’t a question of doing. It’s a question ofnotdoing. Of not going back. Of not getting high again. Of not calling the wrong people.
Not doing.
I start to research recovery. I read articles on Twelve Steps and relapse. What I find, exactly as my father said in his own story, is that the two highest risks arepeopleandlocation:
A “high-risk” location or person is one that brings up memories of time spent engaging in substance abuse. The best course of action is to avoid these people and places altogether.
The best course of action is to avoid these people and places altogether.
Avoid them altogether.
Avoid them.
—
AND THEN, A DAY LATER,a new voice. Similar to the Worries but not quite the same.
