by Tyler King
This place doesn’t feel like home without him. Too big, too empty. It doesn’t smell like him anymore. I’ve spent so many nights on his side of the bed, even his pillow has turned dull. Every time I hear a car pass outside or park at the curb, I rush to the door and look outside. But it isn’t him. For two weeks, it hasn’t been him.
So I bury myself in work. I’ve accepted C.J.’s offer to move into her old job in the Features section once I’ve wrapped up this Phelps article. Alone now on the story, I work fifteen hours a day pulling it together. It’s almost there, and I guess I should be proud of myself, but it’s a hollow victory when the one person I want most to share it with isn’t here. After the first week, I was certain he’d be back by Monday. Now closing out the second, I’m starting to wonder if he’s ever coming back.
It’s the nights, though, that are the hardest. Alone in bed, in the dark and restless. I feel adrift on the water with no wind and no stars to navigate by. Loneliness is my new normal. I’ve started leaving messes around the house, just to make it feel like someone else has been here. Dishes in the sink and laundry on the floor. Sometimes I leave the TV on all night just to hear the voices. Leave it on when I go to work so I come home to someone.
I hate this. Hate that he won’t at least tell me he’s okay. Hate that he’s capable of ignoring me this long when I’m crumbling inside. It isn’t fair that every day I pack my bags and put them by the door, tell myself it’s been long enough and I’m not doing it anymore. Then I hate myself some more for putting my clothes back in the dresser and kicking the bag under the bed.
His father says he hasn’t heard from him, but I don’t think he’d tell me if he had. Six times a day I consider showing up at their townhouse in the city, taking the bus out to their home in Greenwich, or hopping the train to Montauk. Then I think about his mother, and I remember that the last thing that poor woman needs is the crazy girlfriend showing up to rain drama and unholy hellfire down on her dying days. That woman’s been through enough. The least she deserves is some privacy. Every day I check the obituaries, dreading the day Mrs. Ash’s name shows up and uncertain what it will mean when it does.
Carter’s no help. He must know where Ethan is, or at least that he’s alive, because his only answer is that an adult isn’t missing if they left on their own. Clearly not concerned that Ethan’s lying facedown in a ditch or floating in the East River. If there’s something Carter doesn’t want to tell me, there’s no dragging it out of him. Anything more would require a car battery and methods prohibited by the Geneva convention.
So I wait.
And I work.
Trapped in a cycle of doubt and fear.
If I knew how to get in touch with Vivian, I’d try, but no one at the magazine has a working number for her, and online searches for an address only bring up the old apartment she had in Brooklyn before she took off to New Hampshire. She’s a ghost, dropped off the map.
By the third week, Ethan’s phone goes straight to voicemail, telling me the mailbox is full. So I text him. Every morning and every night. A few lines to say I miss him, I love him, please come home.
My mom calls every day now. To make sure I’m alive. She begs me to move in with her. Leave the city and all traces of Ethan behind. But I can’t. Because I know, deep in my bones like I know my hair is red, the minute I leave, he’ll walk through the door and wonder how long ago I left him. He’ll see the first day I packed a bag and set it by the door, and he’ll watch me walk out, think I’m gone for good. I can’t do that to him. Not until I know. I just want to hear it from his lips. That we’re over, have been for weeks, and I should have taken the hint by now. Then at least I’ll know I tried. Did everything I could to stick it out, be strong. He’d do the same for me.
That sounds stupid, I know. The level of pathetic to which I have sunk doesn’t escape me. One week I put on five pounds, the next I drop ten. My meds do nothing for me anymore. My brain chemistry is too disrupted to use them like it should. I can’t explain it other than to say that I know, in my soul, that if our positions were reversed, Ethan would be waiting.
No, that’s not true.
If our places were reversed, Ethan would have found me by now. He’d have searched every building and basement in the city. He’d have scoured every tunnel and sewer. Because though it was brief, our love was real. I felt it. In his touch, in his kiss, in the sound of his voice and the beating of his heart. It was real. And right now, I’d do anything to get it back.
26
The Sharpest Lives
Something wakes me. A sound that produces a fleeting dream of walking down the street when a garbage truck passes. Then I’m standing on a subway platform. In pitch black, the noise persists. I ignore it, rolling over in bed to the big empty space beside me. Then my brain catches up and I realize my phone is vibrating somewhere. I reach to the nightstand, but I can’t find it. Buzzing, skittering. I crawl around on the bed then drop to the floor. Finally, I see the light and reach for it. Carter’s name flashes on the screen.
“Carter? Hey, you there?”
“Yeah, Avery.”
“What’s wrong? Did you find him? Where is he? Is he okay?”
“Listen. I need you to take a breath, all right?”
“Tell me, dammit!”
Sitting on the cold cement floor, my heart races. My head is filled with the sound of a beating bass drum and blood rushing between my ears. I brace for impact, eyes clenched shut. If it’s bad news, if he’s hurt or worse, I don’t know if I can take it.
“Ethan’s been arrested. He’s okay, but—”
“What? What for?
Air fills my lungs, big and heavy.
“Avery, listen to me. He was arrested outside his parents’ house uptown. Police found him with a baseball bat smashing out the windows of his father’s car.”
Christ, Ethan.
“Paul isn’t pressing charges—”
“So he’s being released?” I jump to my feet and dart around in the dark for the first pair of jeans I find and start yanking them up my legs, bouncing on one foot. “Then I can pick him up? Where is he? I’ll leave right now and—”
“Please, Avery. There’s more. He’s been involuntarily admitted to a psychiatric hospital for a forty-eight-hour observation period.”
“What?” I fall to the bed, jeans tangled around my ankles. “Why?”
“When the police arrived, he was violent and incoherent. It’s likely he was on something, but we won’t know until they run a urinalysis at the hospital.”
Oh, Ethan. What have you done?
“Then what happens? I mean, if he—”
“It’s likely he’ll be released after the forty-eight hours, but that’s entirely dependent on the eval and whether he cooperates with the doctors. If he makes this difficult on himself, they could hold him.”
My hands tremble. Up my arms and down to my toes. I can imagine what Ethan’s going through right now. Anguished and confused, so much rage and pain exploding inside him. I should have been there. Somehow, I should have gotten to him. The idea of his spending the night in a psych ward, alone, it breaks my heart.
Then a thought occurs to me.
“Carter, was anyone else with him?”
He’s quiet a moment, perhaps debating whether to tell me, until he says, “Vivian Mott was arrested and charged with possession of narcotics. She’s being booked and held for arraignment.”
After I get off the phone with Carter, I lie awake in bed, staring at the ceiling, anxious and breathless, trying to think of what to say. I don’t want to screw this up again, drive Ethan farther away when he’s at his most vulnerable. The last thing he needs is a lecture or someone else pointing out all the ways he went wrong. There’s time for that later, once he’s released and he’s had a chance to recoup. Once he’s home and I can make him understand that I’m not fighting him.
I know what addiction does to people. How it changes us, controls us. We aren’t bad people, we’re
just sick. Our minds aren’t our own when we’re chasing our next fix—whatever it may be. It’s tunnel vision that filters out everything that isn’t what we’re after. Anything that gets in the way is an obstacle to be destroyed. We sacrifice everything to maintain the high. Most of all, the people closest to us. They’re the easiest targets. Because at its core, addiction is hatred. We hate what we become because this thing has taken control. Every day we wake up and say, No more. This time I stop. This time, I’ll be stronger.
It isn’t that easy.
So we hate ourselves a little more each time we fail, and we take that hatred out on the ones we love.
What’s happened to Ethan isn’t his fault, but he does have to take responsibility for getting better. He has to want it. Getting sober, no matter how many people stand beside you, is a solitary effort. All the counseling in the world can’t change the fact that 90 percent of the fight happens in our own minds. Every day is a choice. He has to want to make the right one.
If not, I can’t stand by and watch him suffer.
No matter how much I love Ethan, and I still do, I can’t sacrifice my recovery for his vices. It nearly derailed me once, and I can’t take that chance again.
The last several days, I wake in a cold sweat, dreaming of the rush and numb euphoria. I imagine the pure, excellent bliss when it hits my bloodstream and calms every nerve. How perfect and peaceful it is when the rest of the world melts away and there is only light and beautiful warmth. Ethan used to give me that. Without him, the repressed parts of my mind yearn for another source. Every old instinct screams at me to find the thing that fills the void. Sometimes I go to sleep afraid I’ll wake up with a needle in my arm and no memory of how it got there.
The only thing harder than getting clean is doing it again. There’s nothing on this earth that could make me go through another round of detox. Not for love or money or the promise of curing world hunger. It really is that fucking bad—the parts I can remember. The parts I can’t are worse.
27
A Parting Gift
The bed dips beside me. Warm fingers trail across my shoulder and down my arms. I know it’s a dream when I feel his body pressed against mine. That I’m hallucinating his lips at my neck, his arm draped across my stomach. He traces patterns beneath the hem of my shirt as I clench my eyes shut and try to hold on, not to wake up. It smells like him, his skin. I feel that indescribable energy that wraps me in light when he’s near. A tear falls down my cheek and my chest constricts. I want to roll over, weave my hand through his hair, and feel the strands between my fingers. Want to touch his lips, soft and tender. Taste him on my tongue. To look into his deep-water eyes and remember what home feels like. But it’s a dream, and if I move, if I breathe, disturb the fragile, formless moment, it’ll disappear like smoke.
“Avery,” he says, tucking my hair behind my ear and brushing his fingers down my neck. “Baby, I’m home.”
His arm around my waist tugs me, turning me toward him. I open my eyes, morning light bleeding in, and he’s still there.
“Ethan?”
A spike of adrenaline rushes through my body.
“I’m here.”
I throw my arms around him, fingers digging into his back. Face buried under his chin, I inhale. He takes my leg and hitches it over his hip, arm firm against my back. We can’t get close enough. Can’t feel enough of each other. We cling tighter, straining to kill the space between us.
“I thought you weren’t getting out until this afternoon,” I say, my tears dripping on his shirt.
“It is afternoon.”
I’ve slept all day, exhausted from insomnia and worry, still so delirious I almost can’t believe it’s real.
“I’m so mad at you,” I cry against his chest, voice strained. “I’m so fucking mad at you. What the hell were you—”
“Baby, I know. I’m sorry.” His hand tangles in my hair, massaging the back of my neck. “I’m so, so sorry, Avery.”
Fisting his shirt, I want to scream. Scream into his chest and let out all of this anxiety and anger and all the ways he’s tortured me over the last three weeks. Now that he’s back, he’s safe, I’m overwhelmed with the need to…I don’t know. Break something just to hear it shatter. Destroy something. Blow it up and burn the remains.
“I hate you so much. I hate you for leaving and for never calling me back when—”
“It’s okay. You can hate me if you have to.”
So I do. Minutes or hours, I don’t know. But lying in bed, tangled in each other, I hate him. While he’s kissing me and stroking my back. While he tells me he’s sorry and I cry, aching, pressing my hand against his chest to feel his heartbeat. Until I don’t have the energy left in me.
“Where did you go?” I ask, fingers combing through his hair.
“Nowhere.”
I would demand an answer, an explanation of where he was and who was with him and how the hell it got so bad, but I think I already know. And now that I’ve calmed down, I don’t want to chase him away again.
“Why didn’t you call? Just to let me know you were okay.”
“I wasn’t okay.” Ethan closes his eyes and exhales. He’s ragged. Color absent from his face, dark circles under his eyes. There are new lines and creases that weren’t there the last time I saw him. He’s been through the wringer and come out worse on the other side.
“I was angry,” he says. “At you, at first. My father and my mom and everyone else. But then I was just angry at myself, and I didn’t know how to talk to you. I was pissed off and ashamed, and I didn’t want to be that in front of you.”
Gazing into my eyes, full of sincerity, he cups my face to run this thumb under my bottom lip.
“Avery, I never wanted you to see me like that, and I am so embarrassed that I let it get so ugly. I hate that I hurt you. The longer I was gone, the more I convinced myself that you’d left and there was nothing worth coming back to. I’d torpedoed our life and the only thing left to do was drink myself to death.”
“None of that matters to me. All I cared about was that you were in pain and you wouldn’t let me help. I’ve been here, alone, worried that you weren’t coming back or you were lying dead somewhere. I’ve never been this scared in my life.”
He rolls onto his back and tucks me under his arm, the blankets draped over us. His heartbeat slows, deep breaths making his chest rise and fall.
“Avery, am I too late? I need to know if I’ve ruined us. You don’t have to stay with me out of some sense of obligation or pity. You can be honest with me. Can you still love me despite everything I’ve done?”
It’s an easy answer. And also not.
I still love everything he’s been to me since we met. I still love how he brings me to life when he holds me in his arms. The feel of his body next to mine and his voice when he whispers in my ear. How he’s always there to stand up for me, always has my back. All the love he has trapped inside him and the adoration in his smile. Ethan is a good man, and I know, completely, he never meant to hurt me. He’d rather throw himself off a cliff than cause me pain. But sometimes we can’t help ourselves. We all have demons, that innate human nature to destroy. Ethan’s worst target is himself.
“I love you,” I tell him. “I never stopped loving you, and I don’t think I’d know how to stop if I wanted to.”
“But?”
“But I can’t stay with you if you’re drinking.”
“You’re breaking up with me.” There’s no argument behind his eyes. Steely and calm, he doesn’t flinch.
“Because I think it’s the best thing for both of us. I failed you because I didn’t recognize what was happening right in front of me. Now I do, and I can’t ignore it. Ethan, I want so badly for us to be together, but I have to respect myself first. And so do you.”
He swallows, muscle flexing in his jaw. I know how an addict’s mind works. I see the gears turning, searching for an excuse or rationalization or some bargain he can strike with himself
that adheres to the spirit of the deal if not the letter. He opens his mouth to speak, but I press my fingers to his lips.
“I love you, and I will always be your friend, but this is something you’re going to have to do alone. I can’t make the decision for you, and I won’t hold a gun to your head. When you need me, you’ll always be able to find me. However long it takes, no matter how bad it gets, I will be your friend. But you have to make an effort for yourself. And you have to stay away from Vivian. She’s poisonous.”
There’s nothing about their parasitic relationship that I enjoy, but I do understand it. Addiction loves company. Ethan fills the black, empty space in Vivian’s hollow life. She provides all the reinforcement he needs to feed his destructive cravings. And I never did anything to stop it.
“Whatever else you decide,” I tell him, “please, let her go. Trust me when I tell you I know how that story ends. You deserve so much better.”
I don’t let him respond right away. I’m not after a quick surrender that turns to regret and resentment when the sun comes up. So, for tonight, we just enjoy being together again. We order pizza and watch Netflix. I cheat at gin rummy and laugh when he catches me. I take his hand and lead him back to bed when he goes to the fridge, standing in front of the open door, and realizes what he wants is a beer and it isn’t there—he can’t have it. These are profound moments for addicts. Confronted with limitation. When they reach for their drug and see, for the first time, how unconscious and ingrained the need truly is.
That night we lie in bed, wrapped in blankets and darkness. With his arms around me, my head on his chest, I sense we’re both holding our breath, in fear of the same impending cliff: What if this is the last time? What if he chooses his addiction and I choose myself, will we ever have this again? Comfort and security of being in the arms of the one we love. The trust and compassion of the person who sees through our faults. I can’t bear to look down, peer over the edge at the black uncertainty.
