The Thrill of It

Chapter Fourteen

Trey

I crouch down on the floor, wrist looped over the top of the sketchpad, like I’m cradling it, as I draw. A candle flickers from the scratched-up kitchen table that’s wedged next to the counter of my studio apartment. The flame illuminates the pages and all the crumpled-up, tossed-aside ones behind me. I am adrift in a sea of discarded drawings, a jumble of not-good-enough sketches.

Angels are littered behind me.

I’m no angel. I would laugh at me if I wore angels on my body. The sign of the hypocrite. Pages upon pages of wings have formed a towering pile by my side. How can I wear wings on my body after all I’ve done with it? Numbers, dates, names. I’ve tried them all, in every script imaginable. But they give too much away. They invite questions, and questions demand answers, and my life, my past, my brothers are not answers anyone can have or know.

They are mine, they stay with me, by my side. Always.

I outline a new drawing in a faded pencil. This one could live on my ribs, grow roots in my flesh. The candle burns until my hand is cramped, until my wrist hurts, until my knees are sore from digging into the floor for hours upon endless hours.

I’ve probably missed a meeting. I’ve probably missed everything. But everything is already missed.

I blow out the candle as my phone rings, and now her name is the only light in my home.

I slide my thumb across the screen and bring the phone to my ear, but when I open my mouth no words come out.

She says hello. She says my name. She asks me if I’m there.

But I can’t manage speech, so I hang up.

Don’t talk about it. Don’t talk about it. Don’t talk about it.

After Will died, I figured the house would feel like a funeral home. Hushed voices, sad music, the sounds of distance and longing echoing against the walls, the sad lament to our lives. My mom, my dad and I would trudge to the breakfast table, go through the motions, manage a spoonful of cereal, a bite of cold toast, we’d heave a sigh, a pat on the hand, some kind of we’ll-make-it-through gesture and then we’d be on our ways. Me to school. Them to the hospital.

Eventually, over time, we’d find a way to move on. I hunted for those ways. I tracked down a non-profit that planted trees to remember the dead. I printed out information online, brought it to the dinner table, and took a deep nervous breath, steeling myself.

“Maybe we could plant a few trees for Will, Jake and Drew.”

She cringed when I said their names. “Why would we do that?” She asked, as if my question made no sense.

“To remember them. Don’t you want to remember them?”

My mother glared at me with cold eyes. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“But I thought it would be nice. I thought it would help.”

She shook her head, huffed out through her nose. “No. There will be no trees.”

I tried to protest, but she held up a hand, then left the dinner table, her chicken salad untouched.

I looked at my father. “What did I do wrong?”

He sighed. “You didn’t do anything wrong. She’s just having a hard time.”

A hard time. That was a euphemism if I ever heard one. More like an ice age. Because that’s what she became.

The next morning, she locked the door to the room that would have been the nursery. But at dinner that night, I decided to try talking about them again. I’d received a sympathy card from one of my teachers. A drawing of a midnight blue sky with winking stars, next to words from The Little Prince.

I showed the card to my mom, then gulped nervously before I read the words out loud. “In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing when you look at the sky at night.” I placed the card on the table. “I believe that. Do you believe that too?”

Something mournful flashed in her eyes. For the briefest of moments, I saw all her sadness well up, all her pain, and I swore she was about to fall apart. Maybe that’s why my dad reached over to her and gently laid a hand on her shoulder. But then her eyes went dark as if any remnants of light had been snuffed out.

“No. I don’t believe that,” she said crisply, and stabbed her pasta with her fork. She took a bite, then started rambling about a new clinical study she was undertaking on a better form of Botox.

She buried herself in work, in her patients, in fixing noses, tucking tummies, lifting breasts. Same for my dad. As for me, the message was clear. That was that. My brothers were gone. Dust off your hands, don’t discuss it, move on.

Jake, Will and Drew were not be mentioned. Their names were never breathed in the house again.

Harley

“Hi. I’m Layla, and I’m a sex and love addict.”

The meeting begins and I say the words of introduction, the words we all say, the words that make me cringe. Because I know what people think of love and sex addicts.

They think you screw everything in sight. They think you have zero control over sexual urges, you’re a bunny rabbit, a bitch in heat, you bark at the moon. They think you climb the walls, scale the fences to get your next fix. They think sex addicts are nymphos, porn stars, jokes.

And they think love addicts are just fine and dandy. They think love addiction is maybe kind of cool. There’s a song about it, right?

What could be better than love? The thing that makes life worth living. If you’re going to be addicted to something, it might as well be love right? It’s such a better neediness than drugs or alcohol or eating disorders.

Don’t ask me.

I don’t have a clue about love.

I don’t understand it.

It’s a code, it’s a cryptograph, it’s the puzzle I will never solve.

It’s the riddle that leaves me scratching my head, saying huh. Because I thought I had an inkling, I was coming close, but then bam. Blow to the head, knocked me down flat.

I glance around the claustrophobic Sunday school room at the other junkies, parked on tiny chairs, with our nervous little twitchy fingers tapping out rhythms of worry, of wishes, of I-have-to-get-away. We’re all fumbling in the dark. Deaf, dumb and blind.

Or maybe I’m the only one like that. Maybe my feet are encased in concrete, immovable, and the rest of the former users are gliding on, skating away from me.

I scan the faces as we go through the requisite hellos, thanks for sharing, and daily affirmations, wondering if the rest of them flit through their days and nights tailed by the same black cloud of confusion.

“Little victories,” Joanne begins, while the steadfast and hardy hanging kitten watches over us from her framed post on the wall, some sort of patron saint of recovery. “Let’s talk about little victories today. Who wants to start?”

Ainsley raises her hand. She’s the gal who can’t stay away from her teachers.

“Ainsley. Tell us about a victory.”

“I made it through classes this last week and didn’t try to flirt with any of my professors.”

There is clapping all around.

“Excellent news. That is a huge accomplishment. Every little step matters. Chloe, what about you?”

Chloe smiles proudly. “I had an awful day at work and I went for a run instead of trying to find a guy at a bar for a booty call.”

More praise from Joanne. More clapping. Everyone has been so behaved today, it seems. Maybe something is in the air. A new drug, an elixir that makes us forget how love and sex, sex and love used to fuck us all in the head, and yet how much we wanted to be fucked back. It’s hard to stay away from the fix. Because the fix feels good. The fix takes away the pain. The fix mends the hole in the heart.

Caoline turns to Gavin. He’s gay and he’s hooked on anonymous sex through Craigslist. “I haven’t been on Craigslist in a week,” he admits, and we all cheer him on.

Trey should go next. Only Trey’s not here. He hasn’t texted, he hasn’t called, and I haven’t heard from him since he took off this morning. That boy vexes me, and I have no clue what to make of him. Trey is a riddle I can’t solve. Is what I feel for him real or not? Wise woman does not know. Fortune cookie doesn’t tell her. I cannot figure it out, it is too foreign. Nor do I know what to make of my mom’s work. My mind keeps returning to the terrible blackmail story she’s researching, but I remind myself there must be thousands of extortion stories unfolding every day.

Joanne turns to me. “Layla? Anything you can share?”

“A victory?” I scrunch up my forehead. Can we discuss all the ways the opposing team pummeled me instead? Fumbles, interceptions, and then how I let myself be sacked. All the losses I piled up from my own weakness. Because I can’t defend myself. I am indefensible. I am what Miranda called me, and there are no excuses, there is no redemption, there is only the never-ending payment.

Victories, I scoff to myself. As if I’m capable.

But then, I remember this morning in front of the mirror, how I resisted the mascara, and it’s the smallest thing in the world, but it’s the biggest thing in the moment, because it’s my only hope right now. I latch onto it. “I didn’t put on much makeup this morning,” I offer, because that’s all I can come up with.

“Hey, every little bit counts. Step by step. Day by day. You can do it,” Joanne says.

I don’t know what I can do. All I know is what I can mess up. I am wading in the knee-deep quicksand of my mistakes.

When the group meeting ends, Joanne calls me aside.

“Hey. I know I said this the other night, but I’m here for you. If you want to talk. We haven’t had a one-on-one check-in in a while. You want to sit with me for a minute?”

“Sure,” I say half-heartedly because what else will I do? Trey’s disappeared, so I might as well talk to her. I don’t have anyone else to talk to. I can tell my mom everything about a kiss, a screw, a schlong, but god forbid, I tell her my heart has been taking target practice my whole life and it’s full of bullet holes.

Can you fix it, mom?

No, but how about a mani-pedi and a little dish on best bedroom tricks?

I head into a separate room with Joanne, who dips her hand into a canvas bag, and sets to work on her latest creation, an earthy-looking brown and yellow mass of yarn that appears to be transforming into a sweater.

“Check-in time,” she says with a bright smile.

“Is that a sweater for your fiancé?” I ask, beginning my ritual dance of avoidance. I hate telling Joanne things. I hate telling anyone things. I hate people knowing me. But I go through the motions because otherwise I’ll probably wander aimlessly around New York City tonight.

“It is,” she beams.

“Does he like sweaters?” I ask, another deflection.

“He does.”

“What are his favorite colors?”

“Green and brown.”

“Is this sweater a surprise?”

“Layla,” Joanne says gently, cocking her head to the side. “Let’s talk about you. How was your week?”

“Good.”

“Now that is just TMI, Layla.”

I say nothing.

“Sweetie. I want to help you. I want to be here for you,” she says.

Joanne is thirty-one and has been running this college branch of SLAA since her first marriage went up in flames a few years ago. She travelled a ton for business and dabbled on the side until her husband discovered what happened on the road.

The divorce was swift, painful and embarrassing. He logged into her Facebook account and posted a status update - I’m a lying whore who cheats on her husband. She lost business, she lost clients, she lost face, she lost him, and worst of all, she lost the dog. He kept their German Shepherd-Border Collie mix who they’d named Jeter because of their mutual affection for the New York Yankees.

That was four years ago. She hasn’t seen him or Jeter since. She also has been faithful and is changing. She’s now engaged to someone else. Someone she met last year. Someone who knows her history. Someone who loves her for who she was and who she is and who she’s striving to become. Someone she’s in a healthy relationship with, she’s said.

A healthy relationship — one based on trust, respect, honesty. I wonder what that’s like.

Joanne keeps talking. “I can see that you’re hurting. I can see you’re angry. Believe me, I’ve been there. You are amazing at hiding it, but I can see it in your eyes.”

“What do you see in my eyes right now?” Maybe she can find the answers that elude me.

“I see a girl wanting to change, but who feels stuck. Who doesn’t think she can. Who thinks she is damaged beyond repair.”

I wish I could say her comment shocks me or hurts me or cuts me to the core. That it’s a swift punch in the gut that makes me reconsider everything in my life. That makes me take stock. But it doesn’t. Because it’s what I’ve known for far too long. “Yeah, and that’s why sometimes I want to go back to the way things were,” I admit.

Joanne nods thoughtfully as her needles click, and the sweater slowly grows. But there’s no judgement in her eyes. No condescension. “Feels easier sometimes, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“Safer, right? To go back to the past.”

“Definitely,” I say, in 100% agreement.

“That’s the thing.” She lays down her knitting needles. The room is silent now except for the low hum of the air conditioner churning out cool air. “The past is alluring. It puts on rose-colored glasses and seduces us. But if you return, you’ll only need more of the drug. You’ll need a bigger dose. You’ll need more to take the pain away. Remember, the pain is the arrow coming out, not the arrow going in.”

Her words trip me back in time. To Trey giving an alcoholic a tattoo saying that. Would this ache go away once the arrow is out? Or will I always hurt? Will I always feel wounded? “But how do you know? How do you know the pain isn’t just the pain? How do you know the pain doesn’t last?”

“Here’s how,” she says, her voice clear and precise as she keeps her eyes fixed on me. “Look at me.”

“I am looking at you.”

“Do you see a lying, cheating, whore?”

I recoil. “No! God no. I see you. You’re the woman who runs SLAA. You’re the pink-haired lady who knits.”

“So I’m not a bad person to you?”

I shake my head. “No. No. No.”

“Good. Because I was you. I am you. I will always be you. A sick person trying to be well. Not a bad one trying to be good. That’s how I know the pain subsides. Because I’m here. Because I made it through. I made it beyond. I survived. And you can too. Whatever is weighing you down now will pass.”

I start tapping my foot against the frayed brown rug and I know I won’t last much longer taking my medicine. There’s only so much you can down in one sitting. But then, maybe the medicine is working, maybe it’s churning up all the vile things inside me that need to come out, because the next thing I know I am spilling it all, only this time someone is here to listen. “It’s too much. It’s all too much,” I say, the words rushing out, landing on top of each other in a pile-up. “My mom talks about her sex life all the time and always has, the woman blackmailing me will never let up, the guy I think I like for real is the most confusing person I know, and the man who took care of me and made me who I was is the only person I can trust. It’s all safer and better and easier with him. My life is spiraling out of control, and I just want to return to the one thing that made sense. That felt good. That felt like I was living my life on my terms, not anyone else’s.”

I hold my hands out wide, and stare at her. Solve this, pink-haired lady.

“I know,” she says. “I know it feels like you can’t hold on. But you are more than those things that hold you back. You don’t have to listen to your mom talk about men. You can walk away when she does. You can tell her you don’t want to hear about her boyfriends. You can start with that,” Joanne offers and it sounds so simple and possible when she suggests it.

But I don’t know that I’d have to guts to walk away. “I don’t know if I can do that,” I say.

“And as for this guy,” she says, and now she slows down, speaks carefully, as if this is a delicate subject. “Is this boy Trey? Are you and Trey still spending a lot of time together?”

“Why are you asking?” I press my spine against the back of the metal chair, digging away from her trying to know the real me, the me I am with Trey.

“Because I know you’re friends.”

“Right. And you disapprove because I haven’t been in recovery for a year yet,” I say, raising my walls once more. I can’t let them down for long.

She shakes her head, smiles sympathetically. “Layla – if that’s even your name and I doubt it is, but I respect your privacy – I’m not going to say the heart wants what the heart wants, because if we followed that line of false wisdom that we’d all be partaking of our vices. But I will say this. Sometimes you meet someone in recovery and it feels like the real thing, but it’s not. And sometimes you meet someone in recovery and it is the real thing, and I’d be a fool if I told you to stay away. Because SLAA is not like AA or NA. You’re not going to withdraw completely from sex and love. All I want is for you to be able to have a healthy relationship at some point, if that’s what you want. And if the real thing comes along, I want you to have the strength and fortitude to deal with all the messiness and yuck-iness and problems, but also the wonder and potential and possibility of the real thing. And I think you can only have that if you can step away from the hold the past has on you.”

She makes it sound easy, but the path looks so shadowy to me. “I’m not capable though. I’m not fixed. I’m not healed. I can’t even tell what a healthy relationship is.”

“You are capable, sweetie,” she says, reaching for my hand, resting hers on mine. It’s not a motherly gesture, but maybe it’s a sisterly one, and I don’t mind it. It feels warm, comforting. It also feels appropriate. “You just let go of the past.”

Let go.

Maybe she’s right. Maybe, just maybe, if I try letting go of the past, at least one way it chains me, I can move forward.

“Is it really that easy?”

“Yes, it is. It is easy to let go. But to do so you have to take ownership of your behavior. Your choices,” she adds, and now her voice is firmer now.

“But I do take ownership of them,” I protest, but then I find myself wondering. Do I blame my mom for everything?

“I think you’re getting there. And I’m not saying you need to beat yourself up. But I think the key to healing is to acknowledge that while you might have had reasons that led you down the path of love and sex addiction, you also need to accept that you made those choices. You made them, you own them, you are accountable for them.”

“But what does it mean to be accountable for them?” I say, pressing her. I want to understand her advice, I want to be like her, I want to be happy on the other side.

“It can mean being honest about them. Talking to the people who might have been hurt, or shut out by your choices.”

With a sharp pang, I think of Kristen. Of my total lack of honesty with her. Of how I haven’t let her in. When you’re an addict, there’s a divide between you and your normal friends and that divide is their not knowing. The divide is alive, pulsing with its own secret heartbeat only you can hear every time you hang out with them, talk to them. It’s as if a ghost is in the room, chattering constantly, and you’re the only one who can see it or hear it.

Am I ready to banish that ghost?

“Does that make sense?” Joanne adds. “That’s my wish for you.”

I nod. “It does make sense,” I say, nerves jumping as I picture myself holding a chisel, banging it on the brick wall between Kristen and me. But what happens when the wall crumbles? Does the friendship fall to rubble too?

Joanne tucks her needles and sweater-to-be away, reaches into her white leather oversized shoulder bag and pulls out a book. There’s a stick drawing of a girl on the front carrying an oversize, misshapen heart. The caption says “Carry the heart.”

Is she carrying her own heart? Or someone else’s?

Joanne hands me the notebook. The white pages inside are empty. “It’s for you. If you ever want to write down any thoughts. Or not. Maybe it’s just a pretty picture on the front and you write grocery lists in it,” she says with a shrug. “It’s whatever you want it to be. All I hope is that you can someday know that love doesn’t have to be a brutal, bitter, power game. Love can be the ugly beautiful.”

The ugly beautiful.

I’ve never heard the saying before, but it resonates deep in my bones.

It’s an oxymoron. But like many oxymorons, it makes sense.

Like this malformed heart drawing. Like my lack of mascara, like my telling off of Neil, like the kitten hanging in there, like the arrow that’s coming or going.

I don’t know if the arrow is coming or going. I don’t even know where I belong. But the arrow is real, it exists, and it’s in my misshapen heart.

“Is that what you have with your fiancé now? The Ugly Beautiful?”

She nods. “I think so. He knows me. I know him. I am flawed and I made mistakes, and I did things that were horrible. But I learned to forgive myself. Because I learned how to change. I don’t have to be the person I was. I know she was sick. And she was hurt. And she was terribly flawed. But I own up to it. And now I try to live a different life. I try to make some good out of it by helping others.”

“By helping the ugly become beautiful?”

“Yeah. I believe that’s possible.”

“Thank you,” I say to Joanne and I mean it.

Because I don’t want to be stuck in the past anymore. I don’t know what my future holds, but I know I need to start moving forward.

I leave, feeling a surge of adrenaline as I run up the steps in my Converse. I dial Trey’s number again. I want to tell him my plan. I want to tell him what I’m going to do. I want to share this moment with him. Even if he’s vague, even if he’s hot or cold, even if he’s messing with my head.

He doesn’t answer, but that’s okay. I’ll find him soon, but for now I don’t need him. I don’t need Cam right now. All I need is myself, and the one thing I’ve been doing my whole life over.

Writing.

Because I am going to take care of one thing at a time. I will figure out how to say goodbye to Cam, how to let Kristen in, and how to be honest with Trey.

But first, I will pay off my debt to Miranda. I will stay up all night tonight and keep going all day tomorrow and I will be done. I will finish and I will be free of her. I will finish ahead of schedule.

I need to get the bitch off my back.