NOW
I think a lot in here about the paths not taken. Perhaps because the path I took was so bleak.
In one of these alternative futures, Seth never cheated on me. He found a medication that leveled out his moods without destroying his creativity. He quit the hard drugs. We’re still together and in love, and we’re planning to tour the world with Petty Crime after I graduate from high school. Then we’ll settle down somewhere bitchin’ where he can be a rock star and I can go to college. The sex is good, as always.
The most heartbreaking thing about that future is that it could have happened. We were so close. But maybe our ideas of forever were just different enough that they could never be reconciled. Perhaps to him, I was just another facet of the machine, making demands and trying to conform him into something he wasn’t. The old ball and chain.
In another future, I broke up with Seth for good that summer. I focused on improving myself. I rose to the top of my class, and now, instead of rotting here in rehab, I’m touring Ivy League colleges with my dad. Every once in a while, during our trip, he’ll glance over at me and give me that closed-mouth smile that says he’s proud of me.
But neither of those scenarios will come to pass. Instead, I sit across from my parents in a hard, plastic chair during their scheduled weekly visit. My dad won’t speak to me, won’t even look at me, so my mom fills the strained silence by asking me logistical questions about my lodgings and food and what types of activities we do as a group, which I can only partway answer because if my mom knew even half the shit I know about the people in here, she’d pull me out in a heartbeat, and even though I absolutely hate it here, I know there’s no other place for me right now.
I’m safe in here.
Safe from Seth. Safe from the drugs, and most of all, safe from my own destructive impulses.
So, I tell my mom what I ate for dinner last night, which is a random dish I’ve eaten at some point during my stay, but I can’t recall if it was last night because the days all tend to run together.
I tell her I’ve made a friend, but I leave out the part where I blew him and earned myself a single room as a result, though they probably know about it in some capacity because singles cost more than doubles.
I tell them therapy with Dr. Denovo is going well, that we’re making real progress, but I don’t tell her how I snorted Ryan’s antidepressants or how I spend most of my time in our one-on-ones crying.
I tell her I’m feeling better. I don’t tell her I still hate myself.
I tell her I look forward to coming home. I don’t tell her I’m terrified of leaving.
And that’s how I get by. That’s how I’ve always gotten by. By telling selective truths. Like Mai said, I’m not a liar; there’s just so much more of me that needs to be hidden. Because when you expand my folds, it isn’t a lovely depiction of a cherry blossom that’s revealed, it’s something ugly and selfish and dark.
Did Seth bring that out in me, or was it there all along?