Page 98 of Chaos

“Am I dead?”

Jolting with surprise, I shift my gaze to the old man lowering himself to the seat opposite me, invitation be damned. “Not far off it, it looks like.”

Silas snorts. “You’re wearing pants.”

I smooth my palms over the jeans I pulled on this morning as rain pelted the attic roof, letting me know that November was hitting hard and fast. “They play a lot ofProject Runwayat the old folks home, don’t they?”

“I live with my granddaughter, smartass.”

“Does she know you escaped?”

That weathered mouth quirks. “Does your handler?”

Grunting, I trace the rim of my mug with the pad of my thumb.

“How long you been sober for, kid?”

The random, blunt question makes me jolt. Makes me realize, “Two months today.”

“Well.” Silas lifts his own mug, tilts it towards me. “Cheers to that.”

I don’t move. I feel slow. Sluggish. Like I’m not fully here. I rub my eyes, but everything remains a little blurry.

My ears ring, but I still hear Silas say, “You gonna talk today?”

I shrug.

“I thought your generation was all about therapy.”

“AA isn’t therapy.”

“How would you know?”

“Because therapy is supposed to help.”

Again, he asks, “How would you know? That AA doesn’t?”

“Because it didn’t. Rehab didn’t either. I’m still like this.”

“Like what, kid?”

I don’t answer. Can’t he see for himself?

A thoughtful noise leaves the old man. He shifts, and I think he’s going to get up, to leave me to stew in peace. But instead, he leans forward, arms resting on the tabletop, head ducked low and his voice low too. “I was sober for thirty years before I slipped again. My daughter died and I drank my body weight in whiskey at her funeral. And the day after. Andeveryday after for a very long time. Chose drowning in alcohol over drowning in grief. Chose alcohol, full stop. I lost one thing and gave up everything else.”

I blink at the unexpected admission. Don’t know what to do with it. Don’t know why he’s telling me. Don’t know why I reply, why I’mhonest. “Yeah, well, I've never really had anything to lose.”

“You said your parents died?”

I nod. Normally, I would leave it at that. Today, for some reason, I don’t. “My mom, yeah. A few years ago. My dad, he… he was in New York, the last I heard. I don’t know if he still is.”

“Sounds like there’s a story there.”

There is. A long, fraught one that I don’t often get into, that I don’t like to think about, let alone discuss, yet… Fuck. I’m so tired. Of holding things in, of secrets, ofshame.

I start talking.

“He was a politician—he’s aphilanthropist,” I add with a dry laugh. “Who kept knocking up a woman he didn’t wanna marry and couldn’t afford the scandal of one bastard let alone five so he just pretends we don’t exist. He’s not even on our birth certificates. And my mom just let him get away with it for years, for four fucking kids, until my little sister was born and then I think she kinda snapped or something. So she signed over custody to our grandparents and we never saw her again.”

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