Page 62 of Don't Let Me Go
“Is everything all right?” Jackson asks.
I shake my head and let out an exasperated snort. “This guy that I used to date keeps texting me. He’s in town and wants to meet up so he can apologize for being such a shitty-ass boyfriend.”
“Oh.” Jackson blinks. “Are you gonna see him?”
Again, maybe it’s my imagination, but does Jackson sound jealous?
“No, I am definitelynotgoing to see him.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t believe in second chances.”
Jackson flinches like I’ve hit him. I’m not sure why until I realize what I’ve said.
“I didn’t mean that,” I backtrack. “Of course I believe in second chances. But even if I didn’t, my situation with Alex is completely different from your situation with Devon. Those are two totally different scenarios. Alex was a shitty person who did shitty things. You’re a good person who made a mistake and owned it.”
Jackson nods but doesn’t look convinced.
I wish I could take back my words. I hate that I’ve let my bitterness toward Alex hurt Jackson. I guess this is why literally every therapist in the world says it’s not healthy to hold on to resentment.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“Don’t be,” Jackson says, rallying slightly and forcing a smile. “You’re allowed to be mad at this Alex guy. Especially if he hurt you.”
“He did. But he hurt me because he was scared. He didn’t want anyone to know he was gay and that fear really messed him up. I know I should forgive him, but dating Alex kind of kicked off the worst year of my life. And part of me wonders if a lot of the shit that I went through could’ve been avoided if I’d just never met him.”
“What shit?” Jackson asks, his eyes narrowing in concern.
Crap. I was really hoping to avoid this conversation. It’s never much fun introducing new people to your old trauma. But after my “I don’t believe in second chances” comment, I feel like I owe Jackson the truth. Besides, if I’m worried about any lingering sexual tension between us, a trip down memory lane to the worst year of my life seems like a surefire way to kill the mood.
“This is going to sound way more dramatic than it was,” I say, hoping to play down what I’m about to tell him. “But basically, after Alex dumped me, I kind of got depressed and stopped eating for a bit, and I wound up in the hospital.”
As I expected, Jackson looks horrified by my announcement. “Shit, Riley. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine,” I insist, hating the pity in his voice. “I’mfine. This was almost three years ago. I’m okay now. It’s not a big deal. It’s just something that happened.”
Jackson nods. “You must have really liked this Alex guy.”
“I guess I did,” I concede with a shrug. “But if I’m being honest, the whole not-eating thing wasn’t entirely his fault. There were other factors. I was being bullied at school. The teachers weren’t really doing anything to stop it. And Florida had just passed yet another fucking awful anti-gay law that was bringing all the homophobes out of the woodwork. Basically, there were a lot of crappy things happening in my life at the exact same time, and Alex was just the final straw.”
“So you stopped eating?”
“My therapist at the time told me that when people feel like they don’t have a lot of control over their lives, they try to take back control by imposing a sense of order. And one of the ways that some people do that is by deciding not to eat. I know it doesn’t seem like that makes sense, but by refusing to eat, you kind of feel like you’re in charge of your body.
“You might not be able to control anything else in your life—like which of your classmates is going to call you a faggot on any given day or which of your rights the government is going to take away—but you can control what you eat. You can control your weight. You can control how much of you actually exists in the world. It’s not healthy—obviously—and you absolutely shouldn’t do it. But it doesmake you feel like you have a certain amount of control over your life. Like you’re not just spiraling through chaos. And sometimes you need that.”
Jackson doesn’t say anything. Instead, he runs his eyes over my body, and I can tell he’s asking himself the same question that my dad and my friends have asked themselves every day for the past two and a half years.
“I don’t have a problem anymore,” I tell him, answering his unspoken question. “I’m just thin.”
“I know,” he protests, attempting an unconvincing smile.
“Really, Jackson, you don’t have to worry about me.”
“Maybe I like worrying about you.”
He says it with a slight laugh, but his eyes aren’t joking. I’m about to ask what he means when his face clouds over. “What I mean is, if you were feeling stressed or like your life was out of control again because of something—or someone—you’d tell me, right?”
