Chapter Twenty-Three
In Vince’s arms, Trey remained silent, shaking. “Do you want to talk about it?” Vince asked.
Trey shook his head. Vince wasn’t surprised. He guided Trey to the couch where he continued to hold him, stroking his hair and making shushing noises. He could feel Trey putting himself back together, pulling that mantle of normalcy and nonchalance back around himself. He wasn’t surprised when Trey gently pushed him away.
“I’m fine,” he said. “I’m sorry to barge in on you—”
“Don’t be silly.” He stroked Trey’s hair again. “I’m here for you, whatever you need.”
Trey nodded, although he kept his eyes on some distant thing only he could see. “I need to study.”
“Sure,” Vince said, although he wasn’t fooled for a minute. Trey needed something, even if he didn’t know it himself. Vince had to give him time to work it out. “Do you need me to turn off the TV?”
“No.” Trey finally turned to smile weakly over at him. It was such a sad attempt at happiness, it about broke Vince’s heart. “Thank you.”
Trey pulled a textbook and a spiral notebook out of his backpack, and at first, he really did study. Although the TV was on, Vince had turned it down low, and Vince paid it no attention. Trey sat cross-legged on the couch next to him, reading his text, highlighting, occasionally jotting things down in his notebook. He managed to make a bit of progress, but at some point, Vince noticed he hadn’t turned the page in some time. He sat perfectly still, staring down at his book, but Vince was sure his focus was a million miles away.
No. Not a million miles. His focus was somewhere over on Loomis Street.
“Was it your mom?” Vince asked at last.
Trey’s head jerked, nodding as if it pained him to do so.
Vince wanted to comfort him, but he had a feeling it wouldn’t be welcomed at that moment. Accepting comfort would mean admitting that something was wrong, and Trey couldn’t do that. He couldn’t admit that whatever was happening at home was killing him. He’d hold on to his determination that he could handle it all. I’m fine, he’d say, if Vince dared to ask, and so there was no point in asking. Except that Vince couldn’t stand to sit there, doing nothing.
“Trey?”
He wasn’t sure Trey heard him, but it didn’t matter, because all at once Trey started to talk.
“You know what’s weird about addiction?”
A lot of things, Vince figured, but he shook his head. “No. What?”
“The way it changes words. It makes them mean something else. Like disease. To the rest of the world, disease is something random. It’s something awful. It’s a bad thing that happens to good people, like breast cancer killing a mom, or leukemia taking little kids. Disease is some tragic, malignant thing killing innocent people.”
“Like cerebral palsy.”
“Right. But not with alcoholics, or addicts. Because for them, disease is a free pass. It’s their get-out-of-jail card. No matter what they do, no matter how fucked up they get or how much they hurt people around them, they hold up their card. ‘It’s a disease.’ And it’s bullshit, because a disease is something that can’t be helped. I mean, one day you notice something weird, like a lump under your arm, or something off, like your vision is blurry, and you go to the doctor, and he says, ‘You’re sick.’ Or maybe you make one bad decision, like one time you go home with a guy and don’t use a condom, and now you have a disease.
“But this? This is different. This is making a conscious choice, not just once, but again and again and again. And anytime somebody tries to call you to the carpet for it, you smile, and you say, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, but it’s not my fault. You see, I have a disease.’”
Vince reached over to Trey and touched his shoulder, but Trey didn’t budge. He kept talking as if Vince wasn’t there at all.
“And hope. It changes that word too. Because to other people, hope is something good. It’s something bright and helpful and optimistic. But when you’re dealing with an addict, hope is nothing but a trap.”
“Trey—”
“Every once in awhile, you have a really good day. Every so often, you see a break in the clouds, and you spend an afternoon together eating pizza and talking about that vacation you took back when things were good. And you might be tempted to hope. Back when I was a teenager, I did. But I know better now, because hope is a lie. It’s like fool’s gold. Pretty soon you learn that all hope does is make it easier for them to crush you. Hope is like a window in a top-story apartment, and if you open it up, you’ll be able to breathe for a minute, but sooner or later they’ll come up from behind you and push you out. And so, you kill it. Like in that movie with Vincent D’Onofrio and J.Lo, where he knows his dad will kill the bird, and so he kills it himself instead. He holds it under the water until it drowns, but he does it to save the bird from pain. And that’s what you do with hope. Because it’s not just some innocent bird. It’s bigger than that, and it’s cruel, and if you let it grow, it will smash you to pieces. So you kill it fast, before it kills you.”
Vince struggled with what to say. You’re wrong? I’m sorry? It shouldn’t be like that? But Trey was still talking.
“And promise. That’s the worst one of all. Because a promise is supposed to be real. Like a vow. Almost sacred. But with an addict, a promise is no better than hope. It’s a lie.”
“Trey, honey, I don’t know if I understand.”
“Do you have any idea how many times she’s promised? How many times she’s said it won’t happen again, this is the last time, I won’t let you down, I’ll stay sober. ‘I promise, Trey.’ And she even means it when she says it. That’s the worst thing about promises. People promise, as if they have any control over it at all, but they don’t. She can promise me the moon, and she might mean it too, but when it’s all said and done, a promise is nothing but words. Empty, stupid, meaningless words. It proves nothing. The only thing that would mean anything at all would be to stop talking and act. To stop making promises and actually quit. But that never happens. You know why, Vin?”
There was a lump in Vince’s throat, but he forced himself to speak. “Why?”
“Because that bottle is stronger than any words. That goddamn disease will give her the only excuse she needs to walk down to Lucky’s and grab a bottle of vodka, or worse yet, one of cough syrup—”
“Cough syrup?”
“And just like that, it’s over. And if you’d been stupid enough to let hope live, or if you’d been fool enough to believe the promise, you’d be crushed. Ruined by that bottle. But I know better now. I kill the hope before it can start. I ignore the promises. That’s how I survive.” He looked over at Vince, his blue eyes wide and vulnerable. “That’s the only way to survive.”
It was the saddest thing Vince had ever heard, this reasoning that living in such a dark, horrible place was the only way Trey had to protect himself from the pain. He grabbed Trey and pulled him into his arms, and Trey came, not caring when his books fell from his lap to the floor. He huddled against Vince, curling into him, and Vince kissed his blond head.
“We’ll find another way,” he said. I promise. He stopped himself before saying the words out loud, because Trey wouldn’t believe them anyway. And that was the part Vince hated most of all.