Page 35 of The Way I Used to Be
“What about them?” I ask.
“They’re just—” he starts, but stops. “You know, they’re not really at my cousin’s wedding. They just think that’s where I think they are.” He stifles another laugh so it’s just a short burst of air. “My mom doesn’t know how to clear her browser history, that’s how I know where they really are....”
“Well, where are they really?”
“They’re at this retreat—I guess you could call it a counseling thing.”
“Like for couples, you mean?” I ask, just to clarify.
“Like rehab,” he says flatly. We both pause, neither of us knowing exactly how the air suddenly became so thick and heavy. I notice my hand has stopped touching his arm. His fingers stopped running along my back. He holds his breath. I can hear his heart through his shirt, feel its beat accelerating. “My dad,” he says uncertainly, answering the question I was silently asking. “He’s been in and out of rehab for—well, forever, really—my whole life, anyway.”
I raise my head to look up at his face. He stares at the ceiling, his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows once, not looking at me.
“He just can’t stay clean.” He goes on like he’s having a conversation with someone else that only he can hear. “I don’t understand why. Things will be going really good for a while, sometimes for even a year or so, but then he just goes back to it. Nothing works, this won’t work either.”
“Rehab,” I say, like a moron morbidly unprepared for the realness this conversation requires of me. “What for?” I ask.
“I’m not sure. He’s gotten into drugs before—nothing illegal—like prescription stuff. I mean, not that it’s actually prescribed to him or anything.” He laughs bitterly. “But drinking is always the biggest, you know, problem.”
“Oh,” I breathe.
“I remember this one time when I was a little kid, my dad was supposedly on a business trip, and he had been gone for what seemed like a really long time.” He pauses, like he’s remembering it all over again right now. “But then I overheard my mom on the phone with my one aunt, saying something about how my dad was at a halfway house.” He laughs again. “And I thought it was like, half a house, or something. So, I remember I drew this picture of my dad sitting in this house that was like, sawed in half, right down the middle,” he tells me, his hand dividing the air in front of his face. “And when I showed my mom, I remember she started crying and I didn’t know why. I guess that was when I first understood—in some really vague way, anyway—that something was wrong with him.”
I wish—wish to God—I knew what to say right now. I open my mouth, but there’s nothing in my brain, so I just touch his face, his hair, try to help him relax.
“I was cleaning the leaves out of the gutters the other day,” he continues, “and I found five bottles in the gutters, like, just sitting there. Full. I don’t get it, I really don’t. I mean, when? Why? When did he even do that? Why the gutters? Who does that?”
“Oh God, I don’t know,” I whisper. Except I think I might—they were there, just in case—and it scares me that I might kind of understand.
“I knew it had to be bad this time, so I told my mom and the next thing I know they’re going out of town for a wedding. I just wish they would tell me the truth, it’s not like I’m a kid anymore. It’s not like I don’t already know what’s going on.” He repositions his body against me, and while I’m listening to him, I am also acutely aware of the fact that I have never felt so completely unthreatened in my life. “When I busted my knee sophomore year, I got a script for painkillers, and my mom made me hide them from him. My own dad.”
I open my mouth. I’m about to say something useless, likeI’m sorry, orThat really sucks, but thankfully he just keeps talking.
“The thing is,” he continues, “when he’s sober, he’s great. He really is. Like, we do stuff together and everything, you know, like, he takes me to games and camping and fishing and all that shit. I mean, he’s basically a good dad, but then there’s this thing that, like, controls him. My friends all say they wish he were their father. Of course, I would never let them see him when he’s fucked up. So, they don’t really know shit about it.”
Somehow, when we had started talking, I was in his arms, and now it’s the opposite.
“So then that’s why you wanted me to leave earlier, when you thought I was high, because of your dad?”
“Oh, maybe,” he says, as if he hadn’t realized the connection. “It’s not just you, though. I don’t like being around my friends when they’re doing that stuff either. I don’t even like being around them when they’re drinking. Because you never know what could happen. People do things and say things that are just—things can get out of control so quickly. It just makes me... I don’t know, nervous, or something,” he mumbles.
“I want you to know I don’t do anything like that. I really don’t. I smoke, that’s all—cigarettes. I mean, I don’t even drink.”
“Sorry I thought that. I guess that’s just the first thing I think of whenever anyone is acting weird. Well, not that you were acting weird. I mean, it’s just that sometimes you seem, I don’t know, distracted. Like you’re not really there or something. And that’s how he gets all the time—he gets this look on his face, you just know he’s somewhere else. That’s how it seems with you a lot of the time.”
“Oh.”
“Or like tonight,” he continues. I really didn’t think I needed any more examples of my weirdness, but he keeps talking. “I don’t know—it just seemed familiar, that’s all.”
“Oh” suddenly seems like the only word I’m capable of speaking.
“Sorry, I’m probably making it worse. I’m not trying to. I’m just trying to explain. I’m not trying to make you feel bad. I’m sorry, I’ll just stop talking.”
“No. It’s okay. I know.” I know I act like a complete freak, I just didn’t think it had gotten to three-ring-circus sideshow proportions. Enough to make the person I’ve been fooling around with think I’m on drugs.
“Okay. Sorry,” he says one more time. He kisses my hand, which is resting on his shoulder, and takes a deep breath. He exhales slowly and says, “You know, I’ve never told anybody about that. Some of my friends I’ve known since first grade, but I could never tell them, and I’ve only known you, what, a couple of weeks?” He laughs a hollow nonlaugh.
“Why can’t you tell your friends?” I ask.
