Page 35 of Unholy Confessions
This show about people who meet their significant others while they're in jail is awful, but I can't bring myself to stop watching it. I'm totally invested, even when I shouldn't be. "Oh come on girl, he's lying to you. He's got a girlfriend, Sarah! Even though he's married to you, he's cheating."
A knock at my door has me groaning. I do not want to see anyone, but it gets more insistent, and that's when I hear it.
"Montgomery open the damn door. I know you're there. I have breakfast from Tipton's."
It's Skylar, and she's mentioned my very favorite breakfast spot. Sighing heavily, I get up and stomp to the door, and throw it open. "Get in here bitch."
She grins, and comes in, carrying a large bag with her, filled with food. "I figured you might have had a rough night after that text you sent me at around two. Wanna tell me what happened with you and RJ."
Tears spring to my eyes, and I find myself getting emotional as I think about the cookout last night. "I don't even know where to start. Things have been weird for a couple of months. I can't even put my finger on when it happened, or what actually started it."
She hooks her arm around my neck, and steers us over to the counter. "Then let's eat and you tell me about everything."
So I do. Starting with his jealousy of Hayden and ending with the way he was talking five hundred miles a minute last night. When I'm done, my tears have dried, and I've finished eating what she brought me, but I don't feel better.
Skylar sets down her coffee cup and looks at me with those knowing eyes that have seen me through every crisis since middle school. "Montgomery, honey, when you describe the way he was acting last night... the rapid talking, the paranoia about Hayden, the way his pupils looked... what do you think that sounds like?"
My stomach drops because I know exactly what she's getting at, but saying it out loud feels like crossing a line I can't uncross. "I..." My voice cracks and I have to start again. "I can't even say it, Sky. I can't even think it."
"But you are thinking it, aren't you?"
The tears come then, harder than before, and I'm sobbing into my hands like a broken little girl. "I never thought I'd be here. I never thought I'd be with someone who might... who could possibly..." I can't even finish the sentence. The accusation sits in my throat like a piece of food too big to swallow. I fucking hate this. I've already dealt with it once.
Skylar moves closer, rubbing my back in slow circles the way she's done since we were kids. "You don't have to accuse him of anything until you know for sure. But Montgomery, ignoring the signs isn't going to make them go away. His family checks in, but addicts are good liars, and we both know that."
"You don't understand," I choke out between sobs. My chest heaving as I try to inhale, pain causing my voice to crack as I let it out. Her situation with her dad was completely different than the one with mine. I saw more than she did. "I was twelve when my dad relapsed. Twelve, Sky. I watched my mom's face when she found his stash, watched her cry in the bathroom thinking I couldn't hear. I watched her stand by him, make excuses, lie to protect him while he slowly destroyed himself and our family along with it. And the thing is, I know what that looks like. What opioids look like, and it's not what RJ looks like."
The memory hits me like a physical blow. Dad stumbling through the front door at three in the morning, Mom's face pale and drawn as she helped him upstairs. The hushed phone calls to his manager, the way Hannah came over and would give me the look of sympathy, the cancelled tours, the way she'd smile at me and tell me everything was fine while her hands shook.
"I promised myself I would never be her," I whisper, sniffling, rubbing the back of my nose with my hand. "I promised myself I would never put myself in that position, never let someone I love drag me down with them. Never stand by and let them do it, let them think it's okay."
Skylar's quiet for a long moment, and when she speaks, her voice is gentle but firm. "But you've been with RJ since you were fifteen, Montgomery. That's seven years. You don't even know who you are without him."
The truth of it hits me square in the chest. Fifteen. We were just kids when we started dating, and now I'm twenty-one and about to graduate college, and I've never been with anyone else. Never even considered it.
"I don't know how to do life without him," I admit, my voice small. "He's been part of every major moment, every decision. When I think about my future, he's always in it. I don't even know what I want if he's not there."
"Maybe that's the problem," Skylar says softly. "Maybe you've been so focused on being part of 'Montgomery and RJ' that you forgot to figure out who just Montgomery is."
I look at her through my tears, feeling something shift inside me, something terrifying and liberating at the same time. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying maybe it's time you explore what your life is going to look like if maybe you two aren't together anymore." She reaches over and takes my hand. "You're in your senior year, Montgomery. You're about to graduate and start your real life. Maybe it's time to spread your wings and realize that perhaps the rest of your life won't be with RJ."
The words hit me like a slap, not because they're cruel, but because they're true. The thought of life without RJ has never even crossed my mind, not really. Even when we fight, even when things get rough, I've always just assumed we'd work it out. That we'd be together forever because we always have been.
But sitting here now, thinking about the man he's becoming - or maybe the man he's always been that I just refused to see - I realize that forever might not be an option anymore.
"I've never thought about it," I whisper, fresh tears spilling down my cheeks. "I've never let myself think about it because it felt like giving up. But now... God, Sky, now I think I might have to."
She squeezes my hand. "It's not giving up if the relationship isn't serving you anymore. It's not giving up if staying is hurting you."
I think about last night, about the way my heart raced when RJ was talking so fast, about the cold fear that settled in my stomach when I looked into his eyes and didn't recognize the person looking back at me. I think about my mom, about the way she aged ten years in the span of Dad's worst relapse, about the promise I made to myself in my childhood bedroom while listening to them fight downstairs.
"I don't want to become her," I say, more to myself than to Skylar. "I don't want to wake up in ten years and realize I've spent my twenties making excuses for someone who doesn't want to get help."
"Then don't," Skylar says simply. "You have a choice here, Monty. You always have a choice."
My phone buzzes on the counter, interrupting the heavy moment. I glance at it and see Hayden's name on the screen.
