Page 10 of Nailed (Dad Bod Contracting 3)
“No need to apologize—I did ask.” I laugh, shaking my head. “She must have been really hot and really good in bed for you to overlook that amount of crazy from the first hookup.”
He nods. “Yeah, I guess she was. I don’t know if I can even explain it or rationalize it now, honestly. I just… I couldn’t help myself.” A pause. “That’s kind of par for the course, how things with her started. Only…it got worse. She was bipolar but refused to get diagnosed properly, refused any kind of medication, and insisted her self-medication worked fine…that being copious amounts of alcohol, pot, and whatever pills she could get her hands on, but mostly a lot of boozing.”
I wince. “That never works out well.”
He shakes his head. “No, not at all. We got married after dating for eight months—which again, all the guys pleaded with me not to do, and I ignored them. So, there I was, married at twenty-three to a bipolar, alcoholic, pill addict with a lot of emotional baggage. I never really knew much about her past because she’d never talk about it, but I knew it involved sexual abuse of some kind, probably physical abuse, chronic homelessness, and who knows what else. But she put on a good show, you know? When she was up, she was way up. Super bubbly, full of life and energy and joy and just…an infectious wildness. She made you feel like anything was possible. You never knew where the day would take you when she was on an upswing. She was totally unpredictable—which was part of the fun. She’d decide to go roller skating in the rain, or drive around topless at eighty miles per hour, or break into a YMCA in the middle of the night to go skinny-dipping. And she’d always get away with it, somehow. Looking back, it was miraculous we never got arrested, because she did some crazy illegal shit, and I was always right there with her. But when she was up, she was invincible, and she convinced you she was, and the facts seemed to agree with her—she never got hurt, never got arrested or caught, and the crazy shit we did was always a hell of a rush.”
“I can see how that’d suck you in,” I say.
“Right, well, the downswings were the polar opposite…thus the term bipolar, I guess. When she was down, the world was ending. Life was meaningless. She became, in her own mind, the most horrible, useless, disgusting, fat, ugly, sad sack of shit walking the face of the earth. When she was up, drinking and drugs were just icing on the cake, enough to loosen her up and add to the fun. But when she was down, she got vicious with it. She’d kill fifths like you and I would polish off a bottle of beer, and then she’d pop a handful of pills or smoke a bunch of pot. And she’d…” He sighs. “These benders would last for days. I couldn’t stop ’em, couldn’t slow her down, and couldn’t rein her in. She’d vanish for days on end, and after a year or two of living through the cycles I started to learn that she always ended up in the same places. There was this park which must have been near where she grew up or something, because she’d always crawl into one of those yellow plastic tubes that connect one part of a play structure to another. I found her there by accident once—I happened to be driving past the park looking for her, and just happened to look at the exact right moment to see this shape in the tube, wearing what she’d been wearing when she’d run off three days before. After that, I’d find her there eight out of ten times.”
I wince. “Yikes.”
“Yeah.” He’s quiet for a while, and I don’t rush it. “Those benders…man, they started taking their toll, and I’m talking financially, too. Eventually, her luck started to run out.”
“Uh, oh,” I say, hearing the heaviness in his voice.
He nods. “Yep. She got in a car wreck—totaled the used Hyundai I’d bought her, and miraculously didn’t hurt herself or anyone else. That was the beginning of the really ugly period—I told her that she had to get help. She agreed, tried to cut down on her drinking, promised she’d see someone. And she did, a couple times. And then she started feeling better—the upswing of her cycle, and was convinced she was all better, and quit seeing the doctor, quit taking the meds she was prescribed to manage her mood swings.”
“That never ends well,” I say.
He shakes his head. “Nope, but it’s part of the cycle. You hit an upswing and mistake it for being fixed and decide you can manage without the meds, and then the next time you shift to a downswing, it’s a huge crash, and it’s nastier than ever. She got trapped in this cycle. I refused to buy her a new car until I was sure she was clean and stable, and it took about two and a half years, but finally she convinced me she was okay.” He’s not drinking his beer, just swirling it, staring into it. “So, like an idiot, I believed her and bought her a car. A used Wrangler. I guess in the back of my mind I sort of knew she wasn’t fixed, because the Jeep I bought her was older, and not in great condition, but I’d had to pay the fines for the wreck, and my insurance premium went up, and business was getting a little sketchy for reasons outside my control, so things were tight, but she wanted a job and she really seemed to be more stable than I’d ever seen her.”
