Page 25 of Unloved

Me: Do you have time in your recovery to teach me sign language?

9

RHYS

Ican’t explain why a simple sentence on my screen has my stomach filled with butterflies.

There’s nothing about this night that’s been even remotely predictable. Arlo left and I’m still sitting here with his foster brother and his… boyfriend?

I can’t tell if they’re together, but it’s obvious Samuel is protective over Lennox, and Lennox is dependent on his presence. They kind of move like a well-oiled machine, Samuel knowing Lennox’s needs before he even opens his mouth.

If Lennox’s injury had been older, I would guess that the both of them had perfected the art of communicating without words. But I’m certain this isn’t that.

I look down at the screen again and back up at Lennox, who is not so patiently waiting for me to reply.

Me: You want me to teach you to sign?

Lennox: Us. Can you teach us to sign?

I turn to Samuel, who looks completely unfazed by Lennox making decisions for them both, reiterating the fact I haven’t been completely imagining something going on between them.

Samuel: Only if it fits into your schedule. We don’t want to get in the way of your recovery.

I learned quickly that if you tell people early on you’re in recovery, then you’re less likely to invest your time into unsupportive relationships. It was a way to weed out the trash from your life, so to speak.

The two men in this room make me cautiously hopeful that I can maybe make friends who understand the importance of putting myself first, without thinking I’m selfish. It makes me want to lay it all out on the metaphorical table from the get-go and see where the cards may fall.

They’re watching me with equal parts curiosity and patience, content with waiting for me to answer the question.

Bringing my chair back closer to Lennox’s bed, I feel the knots I usually carry in my upper back slowly start to loosen. I can do this. I can be honest with them.

I find a comfortable position and just focus on getting the words out.

Me: I’ve been sober for a little over three months, but I was in rehab for most of it. I started taking drugs when I was a teenager, but I finally admitted to having an addiction when I was twenty-one.

Me: I left home to meet up with some friends and get high. I did this all the time. But this one day, I was so desperate for my next hit that I forgot I was babysitting Kayla. She was napping, and I left. Five hours later, my dad found me passed out in my friend’s pool house.

The memory alone forces bile to creep up my throat, and it takes every ounce of willpower I have to keep the pizza I ate earlier from making a reappearance.

I continue typing.

Me: He drove me home, helped me get into the shower, asked me if I wanted to eat anything, then put me to bed. He didn’t say a single word about Kayla. And it wasn’t until I woke up the next day that I realized she and my mother weren’t home.

Me: When I found my dad in his home office, I asked where they were. He sat there, staring at me incredulously, and at that time I didn’t realize why. Like a switch flipped, he rose up off his chair and launched himself at me. And that was the last thing I remembered.

Me: I woke up barely clinging to my life and was sent to rehab a week later.

Keeping my head down, I wait for a text from either of them, but when nothing shows up, I know I’ve fucked up. I’ve told them too much, or, as they should be, they’re completely repulsed by my actions.

One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi.

“So.” It’s Lennox’s voice that breaks the silence. “What you’re saying is your dad tried to kill you?”

When I hear his question, my throat constricts, and I’m grateful for all the technology in the world.

Me: With reason. I left my four-year-old deaf sister alone for five hours, and I didn’t even have the decency to remember it in the morning.

I leave out the part where I deserved to die, and that almost every day since, I’ve woken up wishing he finished the job.

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