Chapter 10

Now

Today I go to pick up Alfred from the coffeeshop, and his greeting is, "Guess who's officially single?"

"Want me to throw you a party?"

"Yeah, a party would cheer me up," he says, smiling at the ground. Smiling at the ground is Alfred-code for having Feelings but being "too much of a man" to show them. I don't know who he's trying to fool, because I've seen him crying over shitty horror movies and Lassie. So.

I try to convince him that they weren't a very good match anyway.

"Don't even," he says half-heartedly. "You never even met the guy."

"You never talked about him."

"Yeah, so how would you—"

"Because you never talked about him."

Alfred stares hard at the ground and syncs up our steps. Each footfall marks a beat of silence, one more wasted opportunity to understand each other. He finally says, "It's not like I wasn't excited to be dating him or whatever. It just would have been weird. I couldn't talk to him about you, because…well, it's complicated. And I never talked to you because you never talked back."

I nod. Fair enough. I try not to wonder how much I've missed that way.

"So anyway, it's like. The two of you always existed in separate spheres or whatever."

"Was that…tough?"

Was that tough. What a great question, Matthew. You're just such a wonderful friend, wonder why you haven't got more of them. I want to encourage conversation, though! I don't want him to think that I don't care about his feelings. Maybe it came off that way before, when I was using his money and refusing to say a thing, never saying thanks, and Jesus H. Christ I could walk out in front of a bus right now and still feel too good for myself. You know? Better than I deserve.

"I don't know. I guess not. I mean, it sounds really bad, but he was like a break from you and you were like a break from him. That sounds really bad, doesn't it? I'm sorry."

I watch our steps for a while again. Then, "Nah, everybody's a shitty person. You don't have to pretend otherwise."

That's probably the difference, though, between shitty people and good people. Shitty people have accepted that it's human nature to be bad, and they rationalize their lack of effort with that truth. Good people are always reaching for the impossible, never admitting they can't be perfect, reaching as far as they can forever.

Sinners just want to be understood, but the good are trying to get better.

I shouldn't try to make Alfred more reasonable like me. He was always trying to be such a good person in high school, in college, when he slammed that door in my face.

I guess "good" is a relative term.

Alfred sighs. "Wow, everyone's a shitty person. That's really cheerful, I feel much better. Listen, what were your plans for this afternoon?"

I give him a questionmark expression.

"Were you gonna stay in the apartment?"

"…I can go somewhere else if you want me to."

"No, I don't want you—never mind," he mutters.

Is he trying to break it to me that he wants me gone today? "You can tell me if you don't want me to be around you right now. I'm a big boy. I can take it."

"It's not about you, Matthew," and he says it with enough vehemence that I know he's under the impression that I think everything's about me. Okay. "I mean, I just. I want to be alone for just a few hours. Just a couple hours to myself. But I don't want to chase you out of the apartment if you were planning on spending the day there."

"I'll go somewhere else then."

"No, seriously," and I can't tell if he's exasperated with me or himself or both of us, "if you didn't have any plans—"

"I do. I'll go to a Twelve Step Meeting."

"You'll what?"

"Twelve Steps, I said. Don't look at me like that. Maybe I finally have something to say."

He regards me skeptically, but it's true. I finally have something to say.

Then

"Yeah, I went to twelve-step meetings and shit. Kinda stupid if you ask me. I only got one life, and I'd rather spend a few years of it high and a little fucked-up than a thousand years bored and miserable." The toothless old man grinned at me, said, "'N' anyway, look at me. They said I shoulda died at twenty-five. And here I am! Ten years older 'n that! And still goin' at it."

I nodded and burrowed deeper into the grip of my donated coat. Somebody named "James" had written his name on the tag. I wonder if James felt a little warmer that night, wherever he was.

"That other life wasn't for me, you know? Workin' to get money to have a house and a poor wife and a couple kids who never asked to live, and me, stickin' them on the conveyor belt as soon as they born."

"The conveyor belt."

"Yeah, man. The whole world is the conveyor belt. We jumped off. Them twelve steps is trying to stick us back on, but me, I'm glad I jumped off."

I nodded again and thought to myself that it must have been a very great fall.

Now

"That's the worst advice I've ever fucking heard."

This is only the second thing I've ever said at a Twelve Step meeting, and unfortunately I was actually heard. I forgot that that happens when you talk. This only a few minutes after the first thing I ever said at a Twelve Step meeting, in response to the group leader's question: "Matthew, since you're new, perhaps you'd like to share your story with us." Me: "Perhaps hell might like to freeze over first."

Luckily this isn't some auditorium session, like you get at the really big community centers. Not a whole lot of people go to the weekday meetings, as far as I can tell. If the case were otherwise, I'd probably be stuck to the floor in a pile of hateful goop with the way everybody's staring at me all scandalized.

But this is just a little church reception hall with twenty seats and no stage. "Please use respectful language here, Matthew. Do you have something you'd like to say?" The woman who'd been talking about "letting Jesus take the wheel" now regards me with both irritation and curiosity.

"Sure," I say, drawing strength from that peculiar state of mind where you've gotten yourself into something but it's all moving too fast to sit back and freak out. Maybe there's some kind of equation for it, mind sub don't-give-a-fuck equals the weight of the situation times conversational velocity, which, on second thought, equals momentum, and I guess that makes sense. The momentum of the situation prevents me from giving a fuck, so I go up to the front of the room, all eyes tailing me like hunting hounds.

The church reception hall looks a lot bigger facing the other way. I address the clock up near the ceiling, thinking of the chalkboard I gave to Alfred. "I'm Matthew"—"Hi, Matthew"—"and I've been sober for like a week. Before that I had a four-month streak going for me, but I slipped up."

"It happens," I am roundly informed.

"Um." I try not to meet anyone's eyes as I climb onto my soapbox. "Admitting that you have a problem is the first step to getting better. Obviously. But the second step in this dumbass program is the most counterproductive, self-exonerating, enabling piece of bull—"

"Matthew, please don't be disrespectful."

"Okay, but think about it. How is anybody supposed to try if they think everything's out of their hands? Leaving all your responsibility at some god's feet isn't any kind of solution. Calling yourself powerless, that's just a cop-out. We can always do more. We can always try harder. Saying otherwise is an excuse to give up."

The people shift in their seats, twitchy under the weight of a questioned dogma. The Twelve Steps are sacred. The world thinks they're bulletproof because it allows for infinite interpretations of "a higher power," like that's the only point of contention in the whole thing.

"Anybody have something to say to that?"

A woman close to the front, heavily pierced with beautiful eyes, says, "I get what you mean. If we let ourselves stop trying…that's a bad thing. Trying to leave everything up to a higher power. Because then we get lazy and complacent. Because we think God's the one in charge, so we don't do anything. We stop being proactive."

"Getting over addiction ain't a matter of willpower," someone disagrees. "We aren't strong enough on our own."

"Yeah, but if you try to say that everything is in God's hands, then you won't do anything for yourself. You gotta, like, meet halfway."

"I don't think that anybody here is denying that it takes some work," the leader segues smoothly, stepping up to the front again. "Since you're up here, Matthew, why don't you tell us about yourself? Maybe talk about how you came to that conclusion."

"No, I—"

"C'mon, Matthew," encourage my fellow addicts. They want me to talk about myself. It's always a tricky thing to give your life story at a meeting like this. I can't pull off the charming self-deprecator—I am too genuinely sick of myself to seem anything but sullen and bitter, and so my audience will likely feel the same towards me. Going for the stoic hero isn't really my bit either—it's total bullshit and takes too much effort. I am many things, but selfless isn't one of them.

So I go with serious straight-talk. I wish I were funny. I wish I were noble. "I was in school. My roommate got me hooked on heroin and meth. I came back to the west coast to try to get clean, but it didn't work out. I did what most people here did to get money. I'm not special, I'm not proud of it, I'm just. Taking it as it comes right now."

This introduction is met with encouragement and applause. Taking it as it comes. Platitudes always get clapping, head-nodding, and amen-ing. Personally I want to wash my mouth out.

The rest of the meeting passes in a blur of banalities and suppressed irritation. The group leader congratulates us all on our self-awareness (evident in the fact that we showed up to a meeting), and suggests that we mingle a bit amongst ourselves. The pierced woman who agreed with my dumbass rant (why did I do that again?) approaches me.

"Matthew, right? I'm Yao."

"Hi, Yao." I'm trying to mock the AA-style introductions, but I'm pretty sure it goes over her head. Story of my life.

"I really liked what you said up there. I always hated that whole 'admit you're powerless' thing. Isn't that sort of counterproductive?"

"Always thought so."

She sits down, drags my stomach down with her. She seems pretty cool, but on the other hand: social interaction. I'm woefully out of practice. I pretend to not be rude and sit down next to her.

"I got into uppers at university," she says, and immediately there is a fellowship between us. I don't know a whole lot of other college students. And maybe—okay, definitely—it's elitist of me, but I like talking to educated people.

"Did you make it out with a degree?"

"I wish." She sighs and fiddles with an earring. "I've been trying to save up the money to take a few night classes. I have enough credits that I could possibly get a BA in two years. But saving up the money is so hard."

"It's easier the first time around, getting in. If your parents are there to pay. A lot harder the second time around."

"Yeah," she agrees. "My parents won't accept my calls anymore."

"Yeah."

We don't ask any further questions. That's just rude in a place like this.

"Hey, you should come by more often. I don't get to talk to a whole lot of kids our age, y'know? Most of 'em are still in denial. I don't want to be rude, but…" She trails off, gesturing at the trench in my left arm. "Support groups are really stupid, but everybody needs a little support from time to time. This right here is the free kind. And money's always tight, especially if you need pills."

An uncomfortable beat. I'm always very wary about accepting invitations, especially those made in conjunction with an observation of my scars. "I've got somebody who pays for the pills."

"How do they work?"

To be honest, I wouldn't know the difference. I suspect that I feel worse about myself right now than when I was on the streets, simply because I have the luxury. There's something to be said for desperation: lack of self-examination.

I settle on, "I can't tell yet."

She smiles at me and nods. "Guess we'll see."

Alfred has been teasing me about Yao for the past week-and-a-half. He has a real knack for making me regret the whole "talking again" thing.

"You met a girl, huh? Maybe you could invite her over for dinner sometime. I'd leave for a while. Heck, you could tell her that this apartment is yours! That would impress her."

I'm not looking to impress her. Maybe if I wanted a relationship with somebody who has no experience with addiction, but somebody like her would know I was lying. Or she'd at least know that I had a sugar-daddy, somebody who'd loaned me something to get started. It goes back to the whole reason I can't date Alfred: he knows me too well. As a fellow drug addict, she automatically knows the worst of me. And I can guess the worst of her. That isn't really the foundation for a healthy relationship, now is it?

And there's also the part where I'm gay.

"What's her name? Aw, c'mon Mattie, don't do this silent treatment thing. Haven't you had enough of giving me the silent treatment?"

Well jesus fucking christ, not if you're going to be like this.

"I bet she's pretty. It's always the pretty ones who have fucked-up self-esteem. Right? I mean, just look at you." The part of my brain ruled by a self-conscious sixteen-year-old cheers quietly in the back of my head.

To kill it, I say, "I will eat your shoes if it'll get you to shut up."

He peers down at his bare feet. "But I'm not wearing—"

"Alfred, I'm gay."

He looks up from his lack of shoes, then back down as though they might solve his confusion.

"No you're not."

I throw up my hands in wordless defeat, and climb out his bedroom window onto the fire escape.

Sunsets have been coming noticeably sooner these days, burning the sky a clean forget-me-not above the mess of orange and pink. I roll out my sleeves and tuck my thumbs into the little holes at the hem—Alfred makes fun of me for it, but I use those little holes to keep a low profile in public. They remind me to hide the tracks and that scar that sits on my left arm, a sullen snake-like reminder. Long sleeves remind me of being cozy and warm in the wintertime: sweaters and afternoon naps and dinners taken in the dark. My mother liked to turn on the electric fireplace and light candles even before it got properly cold. She loved winters. I used to, until I spent three of them out on the streets.

What the hell has my life even become? At the age of eighteen, I didn't even know it was possible to be this washed-up and pathetic. But I guess I've made a little nest for myself. Rock bottom's a hell of a solid foundation. So I snuggle into the hoodie Alfred bought me, smoking and watching the early sunset and wondering when I'll be allowed to wear mittens again.

A few moments later, Alfred joins me.

"I thought I told you to quit."

I take another drag. The cigarette is half-burned down, glowing like a heartbeat with every breath.

"But I guess it's not that big of a deal, as long as you're doing it outside."

He crouches down next to me, kneeing my back, and I'd like to ask him if he's ever made a proper apology in his whole damn life.

I remember how apologetic he was when I first came home with him, back when he was happy to accept all the blame for what happened to me. I miss that a lot, in a perverse sort of way. It's nice to have someone feeling guilty over you, even if guilt is motivated by selfishness—even if guilt is just a way to make another person's pain all about you. But it felt like being cared about, and I liked having someone around to accept my hatred, besides myself.

"Did you really mean what you said earlier?"

"What, about being gay?"

He rolls his eyes, a new habit I like to think he picked up from me. "No, about eating my shoes."

"Well, you aren't actually wearing shoes."

"Matthew."

I glance to the side and up a bit. His glasses wink the sunset back at me.

"Yeah, I'm gay. Do you know how many guys I've had sex with?"

He looks uncomfortable.

"Go on, guess." I wonder about the answer to my own question and conservatively estimate four hundred.

"No thanks."

I try to revel vindictively in the uncomfortable silence that follows, but instead I just regret it. When did being hateful stop being fun?

"Did you mean what you said?" I ask.

"What did I say?"

"That's it's always the pretty ones who have self-esteem issues."

"Well, I don't know if that's true. But most of the ugly people I know are sensible. All the fucked-up people I know are good looking."

I keep waiting for him to come out and say it again, but he doesn't.

"Like me?"

The skin on his cheeks is pink, but I can't tell if it's just the lighting or if he's embarrassed. "Well, I mean. Yeah. You were really good-looking." His use of the past tense offends the little vanity that's left to me. I know I'm too skinny and strung-out looking to be pretty anymore, but still. Ouch.

He seems to realize and overbalances with, "I mean, you're still good-looking! Just, like, in a different way."

"Uh-huh."

"Don't say it like that, uh-huh. Don't say it like you've already decided that I don't mean it. Because I do. You used to be hotter, sure"—Alfred the Motivational Speaker strikes again—"and you're still good-looking now…just in a different way. Haunted. Plenty of people would be interested in you."

It stings worse to hear him say it—when people tell you that you're wrong about something you know is true, in that tone of voice like they're making a concession, like, you're not that scary-looking. Aw, don't say that, you're pretty. You know, that tone of voice. The way Einstein would tell you that you aren't that stupid, Johnny Depp saying that you're hot too, Alfred F. Jones telling me that I'm date-able. He is just the worst possible person to hear it from. And so I tell him with all my heart to shut the fuck up.

"Okay, okay, jeez. You try to compliment a guy."

I take another drag of the cigarette, tugging Alfred's hoodie lower into my lap. Beneath the scratch of my undershirt, little circular scars stipple my ribcage. I have a weird relationship with cigarettes: they've burned me before, sharply and distinctly, and they're hurting me still in a nebulous achy sort of way. But I'll keep smoking them because it doesn't really seem like I have a choice, and god help me I like them.

"You poked holes in that goddamn hoodie? I bought it for you so you'd have a normal one! You freak."

God help me, I like him.

He doesn't bring up the fact that I'm gay again, which is either extremely kind or reveals his extreme reluctance to discuss romance with me. Maybe on the off-chance it would give me ideas. I've had ideas about him for something like six years, but I'd never consider complicating our relationship further by bringing it up.

Neither of us deserve the clusterfuck that would follow.

And then Kirkland adjusts my mood stabilizers, and I get weird.

Some days I just want to sleep all day, and some days I want to fling shit and shake the bars of my cage, wreck the outside like my insides in any way I can. Rage swings into dead sleep, and sleep swings into the ugly morning, bright and empty with Alfred at work. I slide off the edge of the bed only when my bladder demands it, or when Alfred gets back and I don't want him to see me immobile and pathetic, dropped out of the sky, wax wings melted in the heat of rage, broken and exhausted in my bed. I search for coffee some mornings, sometimes making it to the kitchen and sometimes lying on the floor tangled helplessly in my blankets, crying with frustration at the fact that my arms are too heavy to move, it's too much effort, it's too much. Some dead heavy emotion sits on my chest, blunter than sadness. Just mal, just bad, I just feel bad, just tired and done and done and I want it to be over.

Energy finds me again in the evening, and I get on the bus or walk the streets, a bundle of skin and bone and nerves nerves nerves. Alfred watches me leave with a suspicious expression, and every day I remind him that I'm completely broke. Some days I manage to sit through a Twelve Step meeting. Usually Yao and I duck out, me kicking the ground every other step in wordless anger. She talks me through it, mellow on the other side, and it pisses me off more. There's a permanent indentation in the tip of my shoe.

One night as we're setting the table for dinner Alfred asks, "How are you feeling?"

"I want to scream," I say, this close to actually doing it.

"Well that's not good," Alfred says.

"WELL THANK YOU FOR YOUR INSIGHT." Crash. He stares at the shards of broken glass and lumps of cheesy potatoes on the floor, and I burst into tears and tell him that my new medication sucks.

"I'm sorry," I say.

"It's okay, man. I'll clean it up."

"I'm sorry," I say again, biting down so hard on my fingertips that I worry the nails will crack. Crack, I am cracked. My solution is to punch the table really hard, and he drops the mop to hold my hands, fold my arms over and against my chest.

"Matthew," he murmurs, low and soft against my ear. "Matthew, stop."

"I'm sorry," I say against the side of his neck. It's damp with my tears, and I wonder what it'd be like if it was spit instead, if his skin was damp to my kisses. He'd probably still be saying "Matthew, stop. Please stop."

In the morning I wake up too tired to do a thing but breathe and hate myself. I can't even remember what it's like to have the energy to cry, much less smash a glass pot to pieces. Alfred will be home to put his hand on my arm and tell me it's okay, ask me to stop shaking, beg me to feel better.

He's the one who just went through a break-up. He's the one working and paying rent. Where the hell do I get off having these stupid senseless bitch fits? I want him to come home and give me what I deserve, throw me against the wall, smash my head with a lamp, tear the skin from my chest in bloody strips, squeeze my skull until it cracks between his hands.

But instead he comes home with a macchiato from the shop, more whipped cream than coffee, just the way I like it, and he tells me that he called and Dr. Kirkland says my moods should level out by the end of the week, and if they don't he'll fiddle with my dosage and see how that works. I say I hate being a guinea pig and Alfred says "I know," pulls me up from the blankets for a hug. I want to tell him that his kindness is unwelcome. That it's actually the worst cruelty possible to somebody who knows exactly what he deserves.

"I thought I was getting better," I say instead.

"Getting better isn't a straight line," he tells me, and I imagine his teeth on the floor. I hate these stupid fucking platitudes. "Not every day is going to be better than the last."

I wish I could just learn to live with that, but it isn't fair. Today I'm miserable, tomorrow I'll be angry, and if I'm very lucky, in a month I'll just be ashamed, embarrassed enough to hide under the covers forever. There isn't much to look forward to. I listen to Alfred bustling in the kitchen, humming like he's innocent. It isn't fair.