Page 51 of Brutal for It
“Okay.”
I fall asleep with our hands laced together on top of the covers, the fan turning and the list on the table and the towel still over the mirror because there are some things I don’t need to look at to know they’re true.
Night edges out the corners. Somewhere down the hall, Red laughs at something Tank says and it sounds like home. The beeping that counted my heart earlier is gone because I don’t need the machine to tell me it’s still there. I can feel it. It’s a little stronger now. A little more mine.
I wake once to the soft scrape of a chair. Tommy is up, leaning over to tuck the blanket back around my shoulder because I must have kicked it off. He doesn’t know I’m awake. He presses his mouth to my hairline and whispers, “Proud of you. And I love you, Tiny.”
It threads itself into my sleep like a stitch.
Morning brings toast and a new light through the shade. I manage half without negotiating and the room applauds like I climbed a mountain. It embarrassed me for half a second and then I let it in. Letting in good has always been the bigger fight.
Head Case brings a folder. “Options,” he explains. “Local inpatient. Out-of-town residential. Partial programs. Schedules. Pros and cons. We don’t have to pick today. But let’s hold them in our hands so they feel real.”
We go through them slowly. I cry once because the word intake makes my throat close. Tommy puts his hand on my back and rubs circles he must have learned standing in a kitchen with his mother who has always been gentle. Doc sees my struggle and orders, “Break,” and we take one. Then we keep going.
By noon, the list on the legal pad has a new line in pen (not pencil): Call: Sandhills Recovery — ask about beds, women’s track records, no-narcotic protocol.
Head Case will dial. I will do the speaking. Tommy will listen. That’s the division of labor. It feels possible.
I look at him then, really look. The bruises that were blooming when I opened my eyes the first time have softened at the edges. There are lines at the corner of his eyes I don’t remember and a grief in his mouth I put there. I want to kiss it away and I don’t. Not because I don’t want him. Because my body is mine today, mine in a way it hasn’t been for weeks, and I want to keep it that way until I hand it to him on purpose and not because the world took its hands off for a minute.
He seems to hear the thought because he doesn’t lean in. He just holds my gaze and nods once, like a promise to meet me on the road I pick.
I sleep again in the afternoon, and the dreams are loud but the room is louder. When I wake, the towel is still over the mirror and I don’t hate it for that.
I ask for Jenni for ten minutes and she appears like a magician who lives in the hallway. We cry less and talk more. She says she loves me in every season — past, present, future — and I believe her. She squeezes my hand and leaves before the light changes, because Doc says transitions are fragile.
When it’s just Tommy and me again, I find the list and tap line ten with my fingertip: let Tommy keep holding my hand without apologizing.
He watches my finger. He doesn’t move.
“You can,” I say, and the permission is a door and a vow. “Hold my hand.”
He does. Our fingers slide together, palms warm. We breathe at the same pace without trying.
“Okay,” I say into the quiet. “I’m more than okay.”
It’s the smallest word and the biggest. It holds: I lived, I will try, I will go, I will fail and try again, I will love you when I can and let you love me when I can’t love myself. I will keep choosing light even when the room goes dim.
I’m still here.
That’s the whole chapter for today.
Tomorrow we write the next one.
Fifteen
Tommy Boy
I tell her at dawn because mornings are kinder to hard truths when she has the energy for it. The duplex is quiet, fans whispering down the hall, the lemon and laundry smell that’s become our version of incense hanging in the air. She’s propped on pillows, hair damp from a careful shower Doc insisted on timing like a nurse tracking an eclipse. Her hands are steady enough to butter toast today. Getting her eating more regularly is helping her gain some strength. She came back skin and bones, a frail shell of the woman she was. It feels like a miracle to watch her get stronger every day, which is exactly why this is the worst time to say what I have to say.
“I’ve got club business,” I tell her feeling like I am ripping off a bandage.
It lands like a dropped plate. I see it in the flinch she tries to hide, the way her jaw tightens and her fingers pause over the bread.
“How long?” she asks, eyes on the knife, not me.
“Couple hours. Sermon. Might roll into planning after.” I make my voice soft, trying to cushion the blow. Since we got her here and through her entire detox I haven’t left her. “I’ll be back for lunch. I’ll bring soup.”
