CH 11

Now

"I'm sorry you had so many side-effects with the new medication, Matthew. Has this week been easier than the last?"

What to say? I'm not smashing Alfred's dishware anymore, which is a noted improvement. But it still sucks and I'm not fucking falling for Kirkland's little positivity trick. I don't have a single damned good word to say about this med switch.

"If you don't tell me what's going on, I can't help you." His fat caterpillar eyebrows quirk condescendingly. "I thought you'd figured that out." What an asshole. Now if I talk, he wins. And if I don't talk, I'm a petulant child. Which hurts my pride more?

It's ridiculous that I even pretend to have pride sometimes. I open my damned mouth and communicate. "It really sucked ass first week. It's sucking less ass now, but I still don't like it."

Kirkland sighs. "Before we had you on Zyprexa and Xanax, right? That made sense a few months ago, when you were showing some pretty severe symptoms. Our priority was keeping you stable enough to get back on your feet without any more breaks. But we want to get you off the Xanax as soon as reasonable because of your history as an addict."

After years of regular use of Class 1 narcotics, a bottle of Xanax might as well be a bag of Skittles.

Kirkland has some experience with reading my mind, says, "I know it doesn't sound half as serious as a heroin addiction, but clearly your body had a reaction to the withdrawal."

"Maybe those weren't withdrawal symptoms. Maybe I was freaking out on the new stuff, the Sertraline."

He nods concedingly. "It's an SSRI, and those can sometimes cause erratic behavior in the first weeks. If you'd like, we can start with a lower dose and work our way up. I'm only concerned that the Xanax withdrawal will be more taxing if we do that."

"Bring it on," I sigh, swiping a click pen from his desk. Click-click. Click-click.

"Okay, just one pill a day then. I suggest taking it with breakfast." He scratches something on his clipboard, then looks up to watch my face.

"So, how have you been feeling lately?"

"Lately I've been feeling like I don't belong here. In there, I mean."

Yao and I are loitering in the shitty playground of Alfred's apartment complex. I'm pointing up towards my bedroom window. "Like, Alfred pays half the rent and his parents do the rest. And I just sit up there eating his food and cleaning sometimes? It's driving me crazy."

"Have you looked for a job or anything?"

Nobody will hire me because I'm a haunted, emaciated fuck-up whose only recent employers were a) pimps, b) drug dealers, or c) had to fire me for skimming off tills. To buy drugs.

Yao doesn't look at me, maybe sensing where my thoughts have turned and trying to leave me with them in privacy.

It's too damn scary, trying new things when you've fucked up so much of the good that was dropped into your lap: an Ivy League education, an unexpected ally, the cash he gave you, the job you had once, your boss's kindness, the hospitals that healed you for free, the therapy you refused to participate in.

Your former best friend dropping out of the sky to offer you a place to stay. How am I gonna fuck this one up? (By falling in love with him, probably.) If I look for a job, what then if I can't get one? (Worse, what then if I do. What happens when I fuck it up like everything else.)

"I feel like Alfred is starting to resent me for not trying harder. For just bumming around. And he's right, but I'm..." scared.

"It's hard to get out there again." Yao puffs her cheeks and expels sharp and fast, blowing long hair away from her face. "I get it, but you shouldn't be afraid. You're doing better, Matthew. Every time I see you."

Throat suddenly thick with tears—a reminder that I never quite succeeded, all those years I tried to kill myself on the inside. And outside, for that matter.

We sway back and forth, toes of boots planted in the dirt, oversized children on a rusty swingset. "Yao, do you date?"

Her laugh has a hysterical edge. "Just to confirm, you're not hitting on me?"

"You're lovely, but no."

"Okay, just making sure. Um…" she gets uncharacteristically bashful. "I don't know. There's a guy. I go to the public library to use their computers for the job search. He's some kind of aide there. But I think he's too straight-laced for me—you know how some people just have the sweetest little faces, and you can tell the worst they've fucked up is a forgotten homework assignment or something?"

In my mind's eye, I see Alfred's warm smile, his innocent confusion when I shy from his touch, trying to get me to eat on days I've decided I deserve to starve to death.

"Meanwhile, my life is just one giant fuck-up. And I'm trying to fix it, I really am, but there are some things you just...I don't know. Listen to me, talking about it like I know anything. I've only been clean a year. Don't listen to me. You thinking about dating him?"

She gives a knowing nod in the direction of Alfred's building.

"That obvious?"

"Oh yeah."

Fantastic. I wonder who else is laughing about my pathetic crush behind my back. "Well, I'm not an idiot. There are a thousand reasons I would never go there, least of which is the fact that if I fuck it up, I'm on the street again."

"That's least of the reasons?"

"Yeah." I wonder if I can talk about the dumb shit that went on. She waits, quietly, for me to decide. "He...wasn't always as charitable as he is now. Before everything got really bad, I tried...I reached out. And he didn't do anything. I sometimes...I mean, I know I'm not his responsibility and he had no obligation to help me out or even take me seriously, but...I sometimes think that I'd still have my old life. If he'd just been less of a self-absorbed asshole. Like, I know I don't deserve to feel this way—"

"Don't use that word. I hate that word."

"Asshole?"

"No. Deserve. You have to let go of that. You have to stop thinking about what you've done and what should happen now because of that. I've robbed innocent people, and shamed my parents who worked so hard to do their best for me, and ruined lives besides my own, and if I stop to think about what I deserve, it's...nothing good. I think 'I fucked up so I deserve to get fucked up. I don't deserve good things.' But then that just leads to more fucked up-edness. If I died, that would cause more pain for my family. For my friends. Do you want me to get hit by a bus, even if I deserve it?"

"Yao, you don't deserve to-"

"Then neither do you. Do you think I should be happy?"

"Of course, but-"

"I don't deserve it, considering all I've done. I really don't. But you think I should have it anyway, right? Because you care about me, so all that doesn't matter to you. And like, haven't enough bad things happened because of me? Maybe now it's time to just...be the best we can. Even if we think we don't deserve the best, the people who care about us do. And all we can do to try to make up for what we've done is move on for their sake. Stop dwelling on our mistakes when that only leads to more hurt."

But Yao is a beautiful human being. I can see clear as day, that bright shining light. She doesn't know the depths of my pollution. "Yao, I've done things…"

"I'm telling you, that doesn't matter. I don't care what you've done, I just want you to be happy. If you want me to be happy, you have to try to get there yourself. Moping around being miserable and self-sabotaging as some kind of 'penance' only makes me sad. See?"

Grief as selfishness, penance as sin. I can almost see what she's getting at, but then I see a metal pipe in my hand, a deadly syringe in my arm, my knees on the ground in front of hundreds of men. I do not belong in Alfred's life. I do not belong in polite society. I don't deserve—

"I can tell you don't believe me yet. But promise me to think about it."

"So, how have you been feeling lately?"

Click-click goes Kirkland's pen. "Lately I feel like I need to get the hell out of Alfred's apartment."

Fun game: try to unsettle your therapist by making dramatic statements as abruptly as possible. In the split second before he decides how to react, you will see his true feelings.

Upon hearing that I want to move out of my benefactor's apartment, Judge Kirkland is...supremely skeptical. Wow Arthur, thanks for the vote of confidence.

"Why is that?"

"I think he's sick of me. I'm not trying hard enough to find a job. Sometimes I get violent and break his dishes. I'm kind of a downer." Click-click.

Dr. Kirkland glances at the pen in my hand, makes no comment even though he must be annoyed. I'm trying really hard to annoy him. "Maybe you're being paranoid. Projecting your own insecurities and fear of failure onto Alfred. To me, Alfred has only ever expressed a desire to help you get back on your feet, no matter the cost." Click-click. That's a convenient little shrink's tool, the concept of projection. Every time anyone in my life is causing me problems or anxiety, surprise! it's actually all my fault.

"Also I'm in love with him, and that's been pretty distracting."

Click-click.

Now for the pure unadulterated view of Judge Kirkland's true opinions. He looks...supremely unsurprised. Damn. Yao knew, Kirkland knew, is there anyone on this godforsaken planet who isn't aware of the totally pathetic tragedy that is my unceasing, unrequited obsession with Alfred F. Jones?

Besides the man in question, of course.

Hopefully.

"What does it mean to you, to be in love?"

"What, like butterflies in my tummy? Carving 'Alfred + Matt 4ever' into a tree?" Despite my reflexive assholishness, I reflect. What is it about him that I want so badly?

It's the memory of being safe and successful together in high school. His magnetic personality, somehow drawn to me, somehow finding me worthy of his attention. Sometimes. Forgetting me for years, leaving me alone to languish on the streets, leaving me to fantasize about the day he'd come in like a hero and bear me away from that hell. The day that it actually happened, the way he dropped everything to be my savior and my friend again. Being safe in his apartment. Sleeping together on his little couch in high school, sleeping together on his little couch last month. The tantalizing possibility of an apology. Maybe if he says sorry for ignoring me, I can hate myself a little less. Maybe if he doesn't forget me this time, maybe if he keeps thinking I'm worthy of his attention, I'll start to believe it myself.

"I don't know. I guess love is the wrong word. There's a lot about us that feels...unresolved. Part of that is a physical attraction to him. Part of it is feelings I had for him in high school that I never expressed. And part of it is...an apology I'm waiting for."

"What apology is that?"

"He didn't give me the time of day when I was really in trouble. I used to show up on his doorstep when i was home from school, and leave all kinds of desperate voicemails...he just ignored me a lot. He never took my problems seriously."

"Well, Matthew...do you really think Alfred would have been capable of helping you at that point in his life?"

"Objection, leading the witness."

He rolls his eyes. "Overruled."

"Okay, so I'm not allowed to want him to apologize for not helping me when I asked for it? Okay, sure, that's fine. I'll just forget what you've been telling me about how my feelings are valid and shit."

"I'm not trying to invalidate your feelings—"

"Could've fooled me."

"—but I think you're overestimating the value of his apology. Here, how about you imagine the ideal situation. If he were to say everything you wanted him to say, what would those words be? And why would they bring you closure?"

The night is warm. Alfred and I are at the same restaurant where we celebrated our birthdays a few months ago. A candle flickers on the table between us, striking a fiery glow on the rims of our wine glasses.

"Matthew." I meet Alfred's eyes, raise an inquisitive brow. He reaches both arms across the table, palms up in offering. I reach out to take them. My arms are thick and the skin is whole and unblemished.

"Yes, Alfred?" My voice is deep, vibrates the air between us. Making waves. Unignorable.

"Matthew, I have to get something off my chest." His eyes are huge and earnest, and I can see him tearing up because there's magically no glare on his glasses from the candlelight.

"Go on." There are no other patrons at the restaurant. Or wait staff, for that matter. Just me, Alfred, the wine glasses, the candle, and the tension between us.

"Matthew, I'm sorry. For everything that happened to you. I should have listened when you called me. I should have done something when you showed up on my doorstep. I should have paid more attention to you. I shouldn't have forgotten about you when I rushed with that frat. You were obviously in trouble, but I ignored it because that was easier. I was selfish. I should have realized. I should have tried to help you." He draws his hands away to cover his face. "It was so obvious. Why did nobody help you?"

He sobs into his hands. I feel a brief vindictive thrill that quickly gives way to an even deeper frustration than before.

It's raining. I shiver under my donated patchwork overcoat. The parkbench I'm shivering on seems kind of familiar, but maybe it's just the familiar act of weathering the elements in public, exiled perpetually into mutual spaces of human activity. I'm broke and jonesing and bruised from a bad job, curling in on myself in a vain attempt to cover up.

"Matthew?"

Screw into a tighter ball. That voice has never helped me before.

"Matthew? Is that—Jesus, you're hurt. Let me see. Let me see."

I unravel for him, inch by painful inch, to show the soft white underbelly of my weakness. The coat is shrugged off to show tracks up and down my wasted arms, the thick line of scar tissue from Attempt #3, bruises like fingerprints around a bony bicep. I am fractured and spilling onto the dirty pavement below. I sink into the cracks of the sidewalk.

The figure looming above me leans down to grab at my wrist, turns my arm over roughly. My shame shines in the glow of a streetlight, my arm is pelted by raindrops, and his breath fogs in a vehement gust as he says—

"Pathetic."

His eyes are obscured behind the glare of his glasses.

"W-what?"

"Pathetic. Disgusting. Mess. I didn't help you because you didn't deserve it. I can see that hasn't changed."

He shoves my arm away and rises to leave. "Alfred, wait—"

But he's already gone.

Footsteps behind me. Hot gusts of air down my neck. I try to sew myself shut again, but it's too late. He's seen, and he knows. He always knows just what I need the most.

"Oh, Matvey. Alone again. You know, I will never leave you. I will never, ever let go of you. I think that makes me the only man on this earth who cares enough to stay."

Sometimes I wonder which was Ivan's more addictive bait: the heroin or the attention.

"He's not sorry. Why should he be? You are invisible and ignorable and you deserve it."

Okay, for real this time.

"Alfred, can I ask you a question?"

Over a dinner of mac'n'cheese'n'peas-not exactly the most cultured spread imaginable, but this isn't a movie. There aren't any candles, and there's no park bench in the rain under a lonely streetlamp. Just the tacky formica table between us and the hum of the heater in the background.

"Shoot," he says absent-mindedly, concentrating on spearing a pea with each tine of his fork. I've already lost my powers of attracting attention just by speaking. They've gotten used to it again. They've stopped listening again.

"Sometimes, Alfred, I really fucking hate you."

You gotta startle them to get a reaction now.

He drops his fork with a hurt and confused slant to his brows. "Sorry, is me playing with my food really bothering you that much?"

Is this guy joking? I can't even tell anymore. "No. Dr. Kirkland asked me to have this conversation with you. Not in so many words, but. I want to know something. It's been bothering me for a long time." Shreds of my napkin fall to the table. I can't stop destroying whatever I put in my hands.

"Dr. Kirkland asked you to tell me that you hate me?"

"I said not in so many words. I don't hate you. Most of the time."

"So...what are you talking about."

I put down what's left of the napkin. "Alfred, what do you remember about those times I called you from Yale? And the time I showed up on your doorstep, the spring break before things got really bad?"

His baby blues go over all thoughtful. "Not much. I don't think I realized what was going on at the time, so I...don't remember it that way. You left weird messages on my voicemail. I'd stopped picking up 'cause you were getting pretty weird and intense. I don't remember what I thought, except that you'd probably gotten in with a sketchy crowd and I didn't understand you anymore. It didn't occur to me that you might have gotten into serious trouble until...well, until it was really obvious."

He looks up at me suddenly, pins down my expression and examines it. "What exactly are you asking?"

Why you didn't ask me what was wrong. Why you didn't try to get me to come back to the person I used to be. If you know what it did to me when you didn't care. Are you sorry. Are you sorry.

Why the fuck should he be sorry? He was a kid. Still is a kid. What the hell was he going to do about it? Was he my fucking keeper? No, he was just a friend. One who probably only put up with me out of pity, just like now.

You know what? "Never mind." This is stupid. I'm looking for something Alfred can't give me.

"Matthew, wait." He follows me out of the kitchen and into the living room. I feel hunted. I don't want to do this anymore.

This isn't really how I expected this to go.

I stand by the window like I might jump out of it if Alfred corners me into having this conversation. He's going to damn well try anyway.

"Matthew, what does this have to do with you hating me?"

He gets up real close and personal now, tone cautious and movements slow. Approaching a rabid animal, sedative in hand. Easy now.

"I told you, I don't. I don't hate you."

"I'm pretty sure you said a minute ago—"

"It wasn't—I didn't really mean it. I…" Oh god, my throat is swelling up. Tears? How about no. Not in front of him, not like this.

"Matthew…" His voice breaks a little. He brushes his fingers across my cheek, and the spot becomes the epicenter of an earthquake that rips through every inch of my body. I try to hide my trembling hands behind my back. "Please tell me what you were trying to say."

He's so close now that his socked feet are practically bracketing mine. I address them to say, "Sometimes I have a hard time forgiving you for not answering my calls back then. I know it's stupid and unfair, but I...it hurt me a lot. Even with everything else going on, that was one of the worst...well. Anyway, it's stupid. It's not like I fucking deserve an apology anyway, after everything I did."

My words are met with a heavy silence on his part, while that stupid chalkboard clock ticks from the kitchen. Panic sings so loud in my head that I can't hear my own thoughts. What's he going to say?

I'm sorry. It was so obvious. Why did nobody help you?

Or:

Pathetic. I didn't help you because you didn't deserve it. I can see that hasn't changed.

His hands return to my face, pushing my chin upwards.

"Matthew, look at me."

"I am not a fucking child," I snarl, jerking my head up to meet his eyes defiantly.

"I know," he says, voice infuriatingly gentle. "Matthew…"

Stop looking at me like that. I don't want pity, I want remorse. Or contempt. Either take the blame for how things turned out, or convince me that I deserve it. That what happened is right. Anything but this in-between, detached sorrow that things happened the way they did without placing any kind of blame. I can't handle it. I need the loose ends of my downfall tied up, either around his neck or mine.

"Matthew. I'm sorry. Can I…?" His feet shuffle even closer until our chests bump. His arms descend, wrap around my ribs, squeeze. For what feels like a small eternity, we stand in a frozen embrace, swaying slightly. He seems really into it, so I don't jerk loose.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there for you," he mumbles into my hair.

It doesn't make me feel any better. At this point it's becoming obvious that nothing will. "It's not like you could have done anything for me," I insist, trying to convince myself, trying to figure out why his apology is so infuriating. Why I still feel so helplessly angry.

His breath catches on aborted little beginnings of arguments. Finally one emerges: "That's not really true, but...I mean, it's not the point what I could or couldn't have done. The point is...I knew you were having a hard time. And as your friend, I really fucked it up by not figuring out what was wrong. I had no idea how shitty things would turn out. I had no way of knowing the consequences. But I'm still sorry for not paying enough attention to realize how badly you needed help."

I struggle to get free, and he releases me immediately when he notices. A backward stumble sends my ass smack into the windowsill—I'll have a bruise tomorrow.

"But it's my fault. That I got into that mess in the first place. Right?"

I hate the edge of desperation needling my voice, the way I've lobbed this needy and essential question right at his feet like a grenade, hoping he'll fall on it for the sake of my dubious peace of mind. My voice is barely recognizable, and I wonder for a moment—is that voice really who I am? Shrunk down to my pathetic essence? Help me, save me, tell me what I want to hear. The needy needling voice deep down my real voice, True Blue Matthew, and everything else is just a mask I wear to hide it.

"Matthew, listen to me. You can't go around blaming yourself for everything that went wrong. You need to forgive yourself and just like...move on."

Believe me, if I could I would.

"Like, what's that step where you make a list of all the people you need to apologize to and reach out to them? Make amends."

Step eight: make a list of all the people hurt throughout the course of your addiction.

Step nine: express remorse and make amends wherever possible.

"You need to do that, but with yourself. Burying yourself under a pile of blame is just counterproductive. Try to forgive yourself, Matthew."

It's their right to tell you to fuck right off, though. Those steps aren't about forcing a begrudged forgiveness out of the fucked-over. Can I forgive myself? Over and over, the answer is no. But I haven't really tried to make amends yet. I haven't tried to repair any of the damage I did myself.

I fucked up my life. Maybe when I unfuck it, I can "forgive myself and move on."

His feet shuffle toward me again and his hand lands cautiously on my cheek. "What would you do to make amends to someone you put in this position? Like, considering what you want out of life that you haven't gotten because of the drugs. What would you try to give yourself to make amends?"

"A job. Independence." You.

"Okay!" The unexpected brightness in his tone finally makes me look up at him. His penetrating blue eyes meet mine, taking me in. Unflinching and unapologetic. "We can do that. Let's make you a LinkedIn account. I'll endorse your skills. It'll be fun."

It's weird, trying to repent by nourishing myself instead of punishing myself. Tonight Alfred and I curl up on our living room couch with his laptop, and I try to pull his fingers away from the keyboard while he tries to add increasingly ridiculous accomplishments to my professional social media accounts. It devolves into a petty slap-fight, and when he grabs my hands and pins them above my head, the intent look in his eyes barely fazes me.

Sure, I still worry that I'm ugly and damaged and a mess and a burden and I don't deserve this—

And I fucked myself and the whole world over more times than I can count—

And sometimes I feel so dirty that the fact of my body frightens and repulses me—

But today I'm trying to put it behind me. And when he leans in a little, lips parted uncertainly, I dare to meet him head on.