The Thrill of It

by Lauren Blakely

  Her words trip me back in time. To Trey giving an alcoholic a tattoo saying that. Would this ache go away once the arrow is out? Or will I always hurt? Will I always feel wounded? “But how do you know? How do you know the pain isn’t just the pain? How do you know the pain doesn’t last?”

  “Here’s how,” she says, her voice clear and precise as she keeps her eyes fixed on me. “Look at me.”

  “I am looking at you.”

  “Do you see a lying, cheating, whore?”

  I recoil. “No! God no. I see you. You’re the woman who runs SLAA. You’re the pink-haired lady who knits.”

  “So I’m not a bad person to you?”

  I shake my head. “No. No. No.”

  “Good. Because I was you. I am you. I will always be you. A sick person trying to be well. Not a bad one trying to be good. That’s how I know the pain subsides. Because I’m here. Because I made it through. I made it beyond. I survived. And you can too. Whatever is weighing you down now will pass.”

  I start tapping my foot against the frayed brown rug and I know I won’t last much longer taking my medicine. There’s only so much you can down in one sitting. But then, maybe the medicine is working, maybe it’s churning up all the vile things inside me that need to come out, because the next thing I know I am spilling it all, only this time someone is here to listen. “It’s too much. It’s all too much,” I say, the words rushing out, landing on top of each other in a pile-up. “My mom talks about her sex life all the time and always has, the woman blackmailing me will never let up, the guy I think I like for real is the most confusing person I know, and the man who took care of me and made me who I was is the only person I can trust. It’s all safer and better and easier with him. My life is spiraling out of control, and I just want to return to the one thing that made sense. That felt good. That felt like I was living my life on my terms, not anyone else’s.”

  I hold my hands out wide, and stare at her. Solve this, pink-haired lady.

  “I know,” she says. “I know it feels like you can’t hold on. But you are more than those things that hold you back. You don’t have to listen to your mom talk about men. You can walk away when she does. You can tell her you don’t want to hear about her boyfriends. You can start with that,” Joanne offers and it sounds so simple and possible when she suggests it.

  But I don’t know that I’d have to guts to walk away. “I don’t know if I can do that,” I say.

  “And as for this guy,” she says, and now she slows down, speaks carefully, as if this is a delicate subject. “Is this boy Trey? Are you and Trey still spending a lot of time together?”

  “Why are you asking?” I press my spine against the back of the metal chair, digging away from her trying to know the real me, the me I am with Trey.

  “Because I know you’re friends.”

  “Right. And you disapprove because I haven’t been in recovery for a year yet,” I say, raising my walls once more. I can’t let them down for long.

  She shakes her head, smiles sympathetically. “Layla – if that’s even your name and I doubt it is, but I respect your privacy – I’m not going to say the heart wants what the heart wants, because if we followed that line of false wisdom that we’d all be partaking of our vices. But I will say this. Sometimes you meet someone in recovery and it feels like the real thing, but it’s not. And sometimes you meet someone in recovery and it is the real thing, and I’d be a fool if I told you to stay away. Because SLAA is not like AA or NA. You’re not going to withdraw completely from sex and love. All I want is for you to be able to have a healthy relationship at some point, if that’s what you want. And if the real thing comes along, I want you to have the strength and fortitude to deal with all the messiness and yuck-iness and problems, but also the wonder and potential and possibility of the real thing. And I think you can only have that if you can step away from the hold the past has on you.”

  She makes it sound easy, but the path looks so shadowy to me. “I’m not capable though. I’m not fixed. I’m not healed. I can’t even tell what a healthy relationship is.”

  “You are capable, sweetie,” she says, reaching for my hand, resting hers on mine. It’s not a motherly gesture, but maybe it’s a sisterly one, and I don’t mind it. It feels warm, comforting. It also feels appropriate. “You just let go of the past.”

  Let go.

  Maybe she’s right. Maybe, just maybe, if I try letting go of the past, at least one way it chains me, I can move forward.

  “Is it really that easy?”

  “Yes, it is. It is easy to let go. But to do so you have to take ownership of your behavior. Your choices,” she adds, and now her voice is firmer now.

  “But I do take ownership of them,” I protest, but then I find myself wondering. Do I blame my mom for everything?

  “I think you’re getting there. And I’m not saying you need to beat yourself up. But I think the key to healing is to acknowledge that while you might have had reasons that led you down the path of love and sex addiction, you also need to accept that you made those choices. You made them, you own them, you are accountable for them.”

  “But what does it mean to be accountable for them?” I say, pressing her. I want to understand her advice, I want to be like her, I want to be happy on the other side.

  “It can mean being honest about them. Talking to the people who might have been hurt, or shut out by your choices.”

  With a sharp pang, I think of Kristen. Of my total lack of honesty with her. Of how I haven’t let her in. When you’re an addict, there’s a divide between you and your normal friends and that divide is their not knowing. The divide is alive, pulsing with its own secret heartbeat only you can hear every time you hang out with them, talk to them. It’s as if a ghost is in the room, chattering constantly, and you’re the only one who can see it or hear it.

  Am I ready to banish that ghost?

  “Does that make sense?” Joanne adds. “That’s my wish for you.”

  I nod. “It does make sense,” I say, nerves jumping as I picture myself holding a chisel, banging it on the brick wall between Kristen and me. But what happens when the wall crumbles? Does the friendship fall to rubble too?

  Joanne tucks her needles and sweater-to-be away, reaches into her white leather oversized shoulder bag and pulls out a book. There’s a stick drawing of a girl on the front carrying an oversize, misshapen heart. The caption says “Carry the heart.”

  Is she carrying her own heart? Or someone else’s?

  Joanne hands me the notebook. The white pages inside are empty. “It’s for you. If you ever want to write down any thoughts. Or not. Maybe it’s just a pretty picture on the front and you write grocery lists in it,” she says with a shrug. “It’s whatever you want it to be. All I hope is that you can someday know that love doesn’t have to be a brutal, bitter, power game. Love can be the ugly beautiful.”

  The ugly beautiful.

  I’ve never heard the saying before, but it resonates deep in my bones.

  It’s an oxymoron. But like many oxymorons, it makes sense.

  Like this malformed heart drawing. Like my lack of mascara, like my telling off of Neil, like the kitten hanging in there, like the arrow that’s coming or going.

  I don’t know if the arrow is coming or going. I don’t even know where I belong. But the arrow is real, it exists, and it’s in my misshapen heart.

  “Is that what you have with your fiancé now? The Ugly Beautiful?”

  She nods. “I think so. He knows me. I know him. I am flawed and I made mistakes, and I did things that were horrible. But I learned to forgive myself. Because I learned how to change. I don’t have to be the person I was. I know she was sick. And she was hurt. And she was terribly flawed. But I own up to it. And now I try to live a different life. I try to make some good out of it by helping others.”

  “By helping the ugly become beautiful?”

  “Yeah. I believe that’s possible.”

  “Thank you,”
I say to Joanne and I mean it.

  Because I don’t want to be stuck in the past anymore. I don’t know what my future holds, but I know I need to start moving forward.

  I leave, feeling a surge of adrenaline as I run up the steps in my Converse. I dial Trey’s number again. I want to tell him my plan. I want to tell him what I’m going to do. I want to share this moment with him. Even if he’s vague, even if he’s hot or cold, even if he’s messing with my head.

  He doesn’t answer, but that’s okay. I’ll find him soon, but for now I don’t need him. I don’t need Cam right now. All I need is myself, and the one thing I’ve been doing my whole life over.

  Writing.

  Because I am going to take care of one thing at a time. I will figure out how to say goodbye to Cam, how to let Kristen in, and how to be honest with Trey.

  But first, I will pay off my debt to Miranda. I will stay up all night tonight and keep going all day tomorrow and I will be done. I will finish and I will be free of her. I will finish ahead of schedule.

  I need to get the bitch off my back.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Trey

  Beads of sweat form on my upper lip and I lick them away.

  Another drop falls and lands on my tongue. Salty.

  The needle is hitting every nerve ending in my body, frying them. My ribs rattle and shake, and I am queasy. I swear I’m about to revisit this afternoon’s turkey sandwich if this isn’t over soon because I can taste the bile rising in my throat. I draw a sharp breath, like that can center me. But nothing changes. A thousand bees still sting my ribs, my sides, my hip. I grip the edge of the chair, digging my fingers hard into the vinyl, as if I can relocate the pain, send it elsewhere, deliver it to this inanimate object I’m sitting in.

  Then, like a rainstorm ending in a snap and the sun appearing, the pain ends. It doesn’t drift off, it doesn’t fade away. Nope. It’s like electricity. On. Then off when Hector removes the needle from my skin.

  He steps back, a master artist appraising his work. “It’s beautiful,” he says.

  “Thanks, man. It’s all you.”

  He shakes his head. “You gave me a beautiful drawing. All I did was bring that drawing to your skin.”

  “We were a team then. I couldn’t have gotten this sucker on my flesh without you.”

  He hands me the vaseline and I apply it to the new ink, smoothing it over. Then he gives me a bandage and I wrap it over the tattoo and tape it down. I’ll leave it there for a few hours.

  “You know the drill. It’ll scab over tomorrow,” he says.

  “Like a sunburn.”

  “It looks good, man. I want a picture of it. Those trees are works of art.”

  A tree is the symbol of strength. Of healing. Of remembrance. Of understanding. But most of all a tree is the the symbol of regeneration, of new life. And it’s the record on my body of the trees I planted myself in a park one night when my parents were out on a call.

  They are my trees. They belong to me.

  Harley

  I spend the next twenty-four hours running on Diet Coke and determination. I churn out page after page for Miranda, more than she asked for, more than she expects. I am a machine. I am a turbo-charged robot on meth. I am an elite athlete jacked up on performance drugs. I ride faster, climb harder, run further than anyone. Kristen knocks on my door a few times, asks if I’m okay, if I need anything. I tell her I’m working on an epic history paper for my final assignment of the year.

  I only hate myself slightly for the lie. Because I am so accustomed to lies they feel true now.

  “Want something to eat?” She offers. “I’m making myself a peanut butter and honey sandwich. It’s kind of awesome. Especially with a cup of milk.”

  “Sure.”

  I eat the peanut butter and honey sandwich, but not the milk. There will be time for calcium later. Besides, Diet Coke makes my bones stronger. I briefly consider ordering in a triple espresso too, but the coffee shop around the corner doesn’t deliver. Bastards.

  I crumple up can after can as I down them. Sounds of crushing, followed by sounds of typing are the soundtrack of finishing. I give Miranda everything she wants. I satisfy her every salacious demand with more, more, more. Shame, shame, shame. Whore, whore, whore.

  It’s what she wants. Even though she’ll never know the whole truth of how I got into the tangled mess.

  I write more, stopping a few times to text Trey to check in, but I don’t hear back from him. My mother writes though. She tells me things with Neil are growing stronger, and that she’s even starting to forget about Phil. Isn’t that great?

  I want to say: We should all forget about Phil.

  Instead, as I do for Miranda, I give my mom what she wants. I am so happy for you, Barb.

  Another lie. But soon the lying will be over.

  At ten-thirty-five p.m. on Sunday evening I am done.

  I should be exhausted. I should collapse. I don’t. I feel victorious instead. I want to kiss the moon, I want to tango with the fattest, brightest star in the sky.

  I snatch the thumb drive from my purse and save the file on the tiny silver drive for safekeeping. Then I email it to Miranda. “Dear Miranda: I believe I have satisfied the terms of our agreement. Good bye.”

  I jump up, snag my field hockey stick and pretend I am slamming ball after ball into the goal, raising my arms in victory.

  Kristen opens my door. “If you are playing field hockey in the apartment, I want in.”

  “Dude, I will crush you!”

  “You’re on. Downstairs. Laundry room.”

  “Let’s do it.” We grab a tennis ball and run down five flights of stairs and then one more into the basement with its storage room, washers and dryers, and a long hallway. We start whacking the tennis ball up and down the dingy linoleum floors.

  Laughing, racing, chasing, trash-talking. Like the good old days in high school. Back when I was still a normal girl. Well, as normal as I could ever be. But before I wrapped myself in lies, concealed my life in secrets.

  It feels good to play free.

  “So Jordan is kind of cool,” she says.

  “Yeah? Are you guys a thing?”

  “I don’t know. But I sorta like him. Even though it’s complicated since he has bad taste in movies.”

  “That’s an awesome kind of complicated.”

  I deliver a punishing blow to the green ball, sending it careening down the hall and bouncing off the white concrete cinder block walls with several loud twangs. “Oh man! Someone is going to hear us,” I say. “But I don’t give a shit. Because I am a free bird.”

  Kristen darts in front of me, her agile field skills in play, and she slams her stick against the ball on its return path. Then she smacks the top of the ball, skipping it up in the air and catching it in her hand.

  “What are you free from?” Her eyes are brimming with curiosity. Nothing gets past this girl.

  I suppose I should feel stupid for letting free bird slip out, but I don’t. It felt strangely good to unspool some of my wound-up secrets with Joanne the other night, and I’ve been wanting to do the same with Kristen. To take ownership of my actions, to be honest, to let go to the past, no matter how risky that may be. Because this is the real risk – will she stop wanting to be my friend when she knows? I can feel my heart beating faster, my nerves skating back and forth under the surface of my skin. This must be what it feels like to open yourself up, to let someone see who you really are.

  Especially if that person might not like what she sees.

  “Sometimes I go to group therapy,” I blurt out.

  She tilts her head to the side, furrows her brows. “Does. Not. Compute,” she says like a robot.

  I laugh, loving her ability to be totally direct and silly too.

  “This group. It’s like a support group,” I say and I’m still kind of embarrassed to say it, am still totally ashamed, not of the group, but the fact that I am a card-carrying member.

 
“Like AA? Is that why you don’t drink?”

  “Sort of, but not for alcohol addiction. For something else.” I swallow hard. “I’m in a sex and love addicts recovery group.” I don’t tell her that’s how I know Trey, or that he goes, because that’s not my secret to tell. Instead, I start to unravel one little lie. “Because I’ve made some pretty dumbass choices about boys and men.”

  “But you’ve never even given a blow job,” she says, as if she’s found the loophole that will prove I’m wrong.

  But I push through and focus on the facts. “I know. And I’ve never had sex either. Which I know makes it seem ridic that I’d go. But yet, therein lies the conundrum. I took money for sex. Well, not sex. But weird little fetishes. I was sort of an escort.”

  Kristen drops the field hockey stick on the floor. “You were an escort?” She repeats. “Like an escort-escort?”

  I nod, bracing myself for the goodbye. For the sneer. For the tell-tale signs that she’s thinks I’m disgusting. “Yes. A high-end call girl.”

  “But you never had sex with them?”

  “No. Never. Not even close.”

  She exhales loud and long, as if that will somehow help her make sense of this news. She holds out her hands. “I don’t get it. You were a call girl during the time we were friends in high school?”

  “I started when I was seventeen. So, yes. When I was a senior in high school and all through freshman year of college.”

  She smacks her palm against her forehead. “Am I stupid? How did I not notice? Not see it?”

  “You’re not stupid. I’m just really accustomed to covering up. It became a way of life for me. To cover up.”

  “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” she says, still in a monotone, eyes wide as the moon.