Two nights before the showing, Jacob helped me lug my bed up a narrow set of stairs to the landing outside of my new apartment. “Come on, big guy,” I told him as I supported the bulk of the weight and he guided at the top.

“Big guy?” he asked between huffs. “I don’t have any muscle tone.”

“I’m glad you said it.”

Jacob scoffed and let go of the end of the mattress, sending me backwards into the bannister. “Jesus, are you trying to kill me?” I asked him between laughs.

“You’re calling me a wimp,” he said and grabbed the top of the mattress. He wasn’t angry; he was used to my teasing.

I waited until we were safely on the landing before speaking again. “When I first met you, I almost asked you where Scooby was.”

“Scooby?”

“Yeah, as in Scooby Doo.” It took a minute for it to click and awareness to spread over his face.

“You thought I looked like a dog?”

“Jesus, Jacob.” I dug my keys out of my pocket and unlocked my apartment door. “No, you look like Shaggy. Scooby’s sidekick.”

He brushed his brown and straw colored hair away from his eyes. “I do?”

“Yes.” I grunted as I guided the mattress into the tiny apartment and shoved it against the wall. “Tall and lanky and a little awkward. Don’t be self-conscious about that,” I quickly added. “It’s quirky. I like it on you.”

“Where’s the rest of the place?” he asked, spinning around one of the three-hundred square feet I could afford.

“This is it. It’s a studio.”

He stepped into the kitchen which was more a cabinet and a narrow stove and mini fridge than an actual kitchen. “It’s tiny.”

“I’m tiny.”

“Yeah, but Griffin.”

I stepped over to the window that overlooked the garden. “There’s space out there. A community backyard, so we all share it. She can lounge out there and,” I pulled open the door off of my bedroom, “there’s access to it here.”

“Those stairs look a bit precarious. I don’t think Griffin can climb them easily.”

“Quit raining over my parade, dude. That’s what the regular stairs are for.” But he had a point. Griffin was aging quickly. The studio worked for me and was within my budget, but I envisioned lots of carrying my giant dog up and down the stairs. “I’ll figure it out,” I said, because I had to. Because I wanted to.

It was my first place since becoming sober. In some ways, Brooke’s home had been a halfway house for me, transitioning me to my own adult life.

“Where will you paint?”

“I don’t have much besides my bed and a nightstand. I’ll have plenty of room. Maybe here,” I said, stretching my arms across the wall beside my ‘kitchen’.

“I can see it.” His hands were on his hips as he gazed around the apartment, taking it completely in. “It’s gonna be great.”

“There’s the positive thinking I need.” I playfully slugged him in the arm. “Wanna help me get the rest of it?”

* * *

Later, Jacob and I curled up on the end of my mattress with warm mugs of tea, a documentary about whales on the television. Everything was so quiet, even the birds outside had ceased their morning songs. And that was when it hit me. This was a new beginning, after another pause.

In two days, I’d have my showing. I’d come back here alone, unless one of my friends invited me out. The fact that I had friends, a showing, a place that was my own—not funded by my mother or by Six—hit me then. It’d only taken me thirteen years to support myself.

I did this. Yes, Six had helped me. But after I’d pushed him away, I could’ve fallen back into indulging in all the things I did pre-Six. I’d had to make the choice not to. And for so long, I thought I’d been helpless to my mind and its decisions, thinking of my body as merely a host for my madness.

But I wasn’t a host to my madness or a spectator to my own life. All I’d needed was to make the decision to do it, and then actually do it.

“What’re you thinking about?” Jacob asked, when I thought he’d been engrossed in the documentary.

Rubbing my lips together, I tried to keep my voice even. I wasn’t in the mood to cry, to lapse into any kind of emotional discharge. “If you’d told me thirteen years ago that’d I’d be here, I’d never have believed it.”

“I can’t agree with you, because I didn’t know you thirteen years ago.”

“You knew me ten years ago.”

“And you’ve come a long way since then.”

“I used to believe that our present was defined by our past. That the things we said or did the day before colored our tomorrow. That choices weren’t possible, not when you’d made so many mistakes.”

“Choices were always there. It was a choice for you to stay stagnant and reckless. It was a choice to not choose sobriety.”

“I know that now,” I said. “But I guess, for the longest time, I was just waiting for my next fuckup. As if it was inevitable and couldn’t be changed. But I made the choice to stop drinking, to stop taking drugs. To stop hurting myself—at least with blades. I didn’t always stick to those choices, and I still feel the itch for them. I think they’re as ingrained in me as a muscle now; but that muscle is slowly atrophying.”

“‘I never think of what has been done; I only see what remains to be done.’”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Buddha,” Jacob said sheepishly. “He’s a smart guy.”

“Why do you know so much about Buddha?” I asked. “You use his quotes all the time.”

“When I was a kid, I was depressed. I didn’t have any external reasons to be depressed: I was privileged, I was sheltered. On paper, I wanted for nothing.” He leaned back on the bed, closing his hands over his chest. “My dad was working with borderline patients and learning something called Dialectical behavior therapy, DBT.”

“What does borderline mean?”

“Borderline personality disorder. Anyway, one of the more effective treatments was DBT. It wasn’t just useful for borderlines, but people with depression, too.”

“Huh. And how does that relate to Buddha?”

“A lot of the mindfulness practice is based on Buddhist meditation. Mindfulness is one of its core ideas.”

“What the fuck does mindfulness even mean?”

“You know,” he bobbed his head back and forth. “Like meditation, but you’re focusing on the present moment while still being aware of your thoughts and feelings.”

“So it’s not like a bunch of machines hooked up to your head, monitoring your brain activity?”

He laughed. “No. DBT isn’t like that. It’s a kindness, really. Being kind to yourself.”

I thought of my last appointment with Dr. Brewer. “Like telling yourself you did a good job on something that’s pretty fucking silly?”

Jacob gave me a weird smile. “Did my dad ask you to do that?”

“Yeah. So I’ve been high-fiving myself all week for doing stupid stuff, like not burning loaves at work and remembering my keys when I leave the house and not dissolving into a pile of warm goo when Brooke told me she was engaged.”

“Well, good job then!”

I rolled my eyes at him. “I don’t think it’s working yet.”

“It probably isn’t. It’s not instant. But replacing a few of your negative thoughts with productive ones instead might help you adjust your mindset.” He grabbed our tea and set it in my miniature sink. “And it might even help you to stop being so damn hard on yourself.”

“Sometimes,” I told him, “it feels like I’m talking to a mini-Dr. Brewer.”

His pale cheeks flushed from that. “I guess I’ve learned a thing or two from him.”

A knock on my door sounded and my eyes shot to the microwave. “It’s nine,” I told Jacob. “Who the hell would be here?”

I poked my head outside to make sure Griffin hadn’t escaped or something, but no, she was lounging in a pile of brown grass, lazily trying to catch flies with her mouth.

“Who is it?” I asked at the door.

“It’s your mother.”