“Congratulations on your sobriety.” I smile as I sit across from him. “That’s quite an achievement.”
“It is. I’m proud of it, but I’m not confused. You know, they have a saying, that while you’re in recovery, your addiction is outin the parking lot, lifting weights and doing push-ups. I think it’s important not to be fooled by longevity. I take each night, one night at a time, always aware that there’s a shadow in me that can jump out.”
This brings up the second vision I have of him. My mind takes me back to a bathroom. Phury is standing in front of the mirror over the sink, staring at himself. It’s a scene out ofLover Awakened, Z’s book—and you know, it always made sense to me that there was a lot of Phury in Zsadist’s story. Anyway, I can remember looking through the open doorway and seeing him there, and thinking WTF are we doing?
Like the Jolly Rancher scene, it wasn’t anything I’d seen in the outline.
As I said, I get pictures in my head, and boy, I have no control over them—or when they come. I can get them at totally random times, and they snatch me out of the present and my surroundings—I can’t tell you the number of times I find myself in a different room in my house, wondering how I got there. Or discover the tinfoil in the refrigerator and the skim milk in the cupboard. Or realize that I’m standing in front of someone and they’re talking to me, but I don’t have a fucking clue what they’ve said or are saying because I’ve taken a side step into this other world.
My job, as I’ve always said, is to put these scenes into an order that creates an impact for the reader, and then describe what I’m seeing so that they can approximate what I’ve been shown. That’s it. That’s why I call myself a secretary. I don’t generate the people or the content, outside of choosing the words—and even when I outline everything in preparation for the drafting, there is still ten to fifteen percent that happens live time.
That’s actually always the best parts of the books, btw.
So there I was, looking into the bathroom, and thinking…what the fuck are we doing here? This is toward the end ofLover Awakened, when Z is about to give himself over to thelessers, and Bella is pregnant with their Nalla and he doesn’t know it yet.
Phury knows it, though.
When he started shaving off his hair, I got a chill because the plan he was working suddenly became plain. And then when he picked up the knife on the counter, I was like…holy shit—
I can still remember seeing him take that sharp, pointed steel and draw it down his own face, turning himself into his twin. I was horrified, and not surprised. The pair of them were inseparable then, even though it was only on Phury’s side. And here he was, taking the entanglement to a whole new level.
He was prepared to sacrifice himself, to take the place of his brother with the Lessening Society.
“Some nights still must be hard for you.” As I realize what I’ve just said, I want to grab the words back. “I mean—”
“Oh, it’s okay.” That smile is so calm, so centered. “They are. Especially as Aggie wants to get out into the field and fight. He’s been trained, of course.”
“But that doesn’t matter.”
“No, it doesn’t. I’ve seen and done too much in all these years to have faith that being prepared is enough of a shield. It’s better than not, for sure. But…things happen.”
I feel like apologizing. For everything.
Phury holds up his forefinger. “And that’s what’s different now that I’ve been so long in recovery.”
“I’m sorry,” I say roughly.
“Well, now when things are hard, they’re hard because of life, not because I’m fighting the urge to go smoke. That was really tough in the beginning. Even though Cormia and I were so solid back then, the need to light up was such a habit, something I did to treat myself or take a break. What everybody said was true.When you give up your addiction, whatever that is, you lose your best friend, the thing that’s closest to you. It’s a very specific void that has to be filled, and I don’t care how much you love your mate, that is something a person has to come to terms with on their own terms and in their own time.”
“Yes, I agree.”
“And again, even after all these years, I’m not confused. I know where the banana peel leads, and the only thing I can say with absolute surety is that I’m not going back there today. That’s the only timeline I can rely on.”
As he refuses to project any farther out into the future, I reflect on the discipline needed to stay in recovery. It’s such a constant, an unrelenting, and at times exhausting, toll that has to be paid, even though you didn’t want to be on that highway at all. A lot of readers and fans overlook Phury, and I get it. I understand why some of the other Brothers, who are much more…extra…get the attention. Still, I continue to maintain thatLover Enshrinedis one of my best books. The Wizard and the ivy. The way Phury finally lets himself fall in love. Cormia and the Chosen.
In the last twenty years, I can’t even fathom how many people I’ve met at my events and at the conferences I’ve gone to. It’s definitely well past the hundred thousand mark. Yet there are exchanges that have stayed with me, moments where I’ve connected deeply with someone who read one of my books. I think now of an event I did about a decade ago.
I was getting close to wrapping things up, and it had been a lot of fun. They’re always a lot of fun, let’s be for real. I had only a couple questions left that I could take and there was a woman who was sitting on the left, down close to the front. She had long, pretty blond hair, and I remember that she was sitting precisely in the chair, her legs crossed at the knees, her hands in her lap. Blue jeans. Some kind of cream top, like a sweatshirt ora sweater. When she raised her hand, the rest of her didn’t move. She wasn’t excited, she didn’t have a smartass expression on her face (these are my favorites), she didn’t lean forward like she was going to fall out of her chair.
I called on her maybe because her energy was different, and it was time to get serious. I ride the energy of the crowd at events, and try to vary the vibe between laughter and other stuff. Or maybe I just thought her hair was pretty. Or maybe, I don’t know, I was supposed to call on her.
She stood up. I can’t remember whether I gave her a mic or not. But I do recall how she spoke in a halting voice: “Do you have any idea how many people you reach with your books?”
I’m not one for compliments, and as I was thinking of a delicate way of parrying that, she continued. “Lover Enshrinedreally helped me.”
It turned out her husband had served in the military and lost his legs during combat. When he came home, as a result of the pain medications he’d had to be on, he developed an addiction to the pills. As she related their experience in a hoarse voice, I stayed quiet and let her share her testimony. She said that the stuff in Phury’s book was so close to what she and her husband had gone through that she was able to see parts of them both in the story—and that had healed her.
I’m not sharing this to blow my own horn. It’s more that addiction affects so many people, and in a lot of cases, you wouldn’t know it from the outside. She seemed like the very last person who would have to deal with such a thing, with her pretty hair and her good posture.
