Page 115 of Beneath the Surface

I’ve lived constantly on edge.

On the edge of my sanity.

On the edge of my life.

My trigger has always been emotion. Or rather, the lack of being able to control it. The guilt. The shame. The fear. The reason I dove into drugs in the first place was because of the numb they provided.

And beingnumbwas the only thing I cared for. After we were removed from the last foster home before Sam and Anna, I was angry. I didn’t understand why we had to leave again. I did everythingmy foster father told me to do. I never spoke a word. It washimthat got sloppy, it washimwho got caught sneaking into my room by my brother.

I don’t know what happened after, but I know it took months to convince Chase that nothing ever happened. I didn’t want my foster father to get in trouble. But as I got older, I started to realize that what he did wasn’t normal. It wasn’t okay.

I can’t even think his name without falling into the darkness he created.

My biological mother did a lot of unforgivable things, but it washimwhofucked me up for life. He conditioned me into believing that the pain was pleasure, and that his dirty body splitting mine apart was love. I was nine and too young to know better. Eventually, I grew attached to the way he could make me feel. I craved his approval.

He turned me into something shameful.

Something twisted.

Somethingsick.

I remember driving away from their home, in the back seat of my social worker’s car, and being absolutely terrified.

He had always warned me that if we were taken, Chase and I would be separated. And it was always supposed to be Chase and me against the world.

We weren’t, of course. We were put with Sam and Anna.

And when we moved in with them, I stayed up late at night, waiting for a new stranger to sneak into my room.

But the stranger never came.

And oddly, I felt a sense of loss. LikeIhad done something wrong.

As I grew older, I began to understand what truly happened to me. The rage bubbled like witch’s brew until it overflowed from the cauldron, burning through my insides like acid, allowing the shame to plant roots in the holes it left behind.

Because what was wrong with me if I enjoyed it?

What was wrong with me for not knowing and not speaking up?

What’s wrong with me for still not speaking?

I tried to mask it at first with laughter and light, but eventually the mask became too heavy to wear. I so desperately wanted to be normal. To be accepted. To be loved. I didn’t want people to look at me and say the same things they always said about my “troubled” brother. But the truth was that I was miserable, standing in a roomful of people, my own hand muffling my screams.

It wasn’t until I met Darryl at the airport, coming back from our first “family” vacation that everything changed. Looking back, I realize now that Darryl was just another predator, preying on weak and vulnerable children, looking to get his kicks.

He was twenty. I was fourteen. He wasexciting. So when he pulled me aside as I came out of the airport restroom and had us exchange numbers, I was giddy for the adventure.

I had never given Sam or Anna any reason not to trust me, so when I told them I was going out with Becca and Lee, they didn’t second-guess it. Besides, most of their energy went into making sure Chase was acclimating appropriately.Hewas the problem child, not me. And that’s what made it so easy.

Darryl fucked me the first time we hung out. I hadn’t wanted it, but I didn’t know that whatIwanted mattered. So, I let him use my body the way it was used before, and I convinced myself I liked how it felt. And when he cut my first line of coke, teaching me how to snort, it made the pretending fade away, a glorious bliss taking its place.

He was my foster father two point oh. He told me I was special. Told me I could trust him. That he’d never steer me wrong. He was popular because he was everyone’s drug dealer. He was dangerous, which made me feel safe. He was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and by the time I figured that out, it was too late. I was too gone, too dependent. My self-worth had been whittled down to a nub, shattering at the slightest touch.

But where he’d tear me down one day, he’d build me up the next, and so started the toxic cycle.

The thing about active addiction is that you’re a slave to the drugs that flow through your veins. You become someone else entirely. You’ll hurt, lie, cheat, steal.Anythingto get that next fix. It becomes the only thing that matters.

One night, when I was seventeen, Darryl decided to share me with his friends. I did what had become normal for me, letting my mind drift away and float above my body, watching as if it was a movie on the screen so I wouldn’t have to feel the pain. But when it was over, the shame wrapped around my insides and squeezed, creating an agony so deep I thought I’d never be free. Alone, on a dirty mattress in an otherwise empty room, I freebased to the point of overdose. And nobody there cared enough to save me.

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