I'll Be You(47)

“I don’t think of God quite that literally. More like, a spiritual power. The force that helps me when I’m trying to help myself. I don’t know what that is, exactly, but why not call it God? Everyone needs a reason to keep carrying on when it feels like the world is falling down. To persevere against this.” His hand did a sweep across the table, taking in the empty wine bottle and the spots of grease on the tablecloth, and then landed—oh so casually—on mine. “You have one, right? Something that keeps you hopeful, that makes you keep trying? Something to believe in, even if you don’t name your reason God?”

Did I? I couldn’t pinpoint anything. The wine and the weight of his hand on mine were making it hard to think. “Can we table this conversation until a time when I’m not already drunk?” I used my free hand to lift the glass of Lambrusco and drain it. I felt dizzy. “I’ve clearly fallen off the wagon tonight and am now clinging to the moving cart with my fingernails so talking about my reasons for staying sober is kind of beside the point.”

His hand tightened over my fingers. I knew so little about him, really, and yet his presence across the table made me feel safer than I’d felt in some time. I felt an urge to bite the corded muscles along the sides of his neck. “Do you want to talk about something else?” he asked. “Like, what happened today that set you off?”

“Not really,” I said. The edges of the room had grown round and soft, shapes blurring in the candlelight, and I wanted them to stay that way for a while longer. This was what alcohol had always done for me: It sanded away the sharp corners of my life, made it possible not to focus too hard on what remained. Was this why I’d never stayed sober for longer than a year? That I didn’t have a reason that felt as strong as this compulsion toward blindness? I wobbled in my seat, felt my head—unbearably heavy—dip and sway on my neck.

“Well, what do you want to talk about?”

I let myself succumb to gravity then, my body lifting forward over the grease marks and breadcrumbs that marked the distance between us. “Honestly, I don’t want to talk at all,” I said, as I fell across the table to kiss him.





14




MY SLEEP WAS SUGAR-TOSSED, the residue from the wine sour in my mouth, a sharp ache throbbing in some central lobe of my brain. I drifted in and out and under and finally dreamed of Elli as a child. She was standing on the beach watching me, motionless, as I was pulled out to sea by the tide, choking on the salt water. Or was I the one on the beach, watching her as she drowned? Then we were both in the water together, pummeled by the rolling waves, clinging to each other with slippery limbs and eventually dragging ourselves under with our combined weight.

I woke up, coughing on the saliva that had pooled in my cheek while I slept.

The pillow under my head was strange, a corded velvet. When I sat up to look around—a stab of pain accompanying the movement—I realized that I was lying on a couch in an unfamiliar living room. Someone had put a chenille blanket over me and left a glass of water sitting on the coffee table just a few feet away.

The couch was large and worn and full of crumbs, with a water-stained Malcolm Gladwell paperback left open on the arm. The IKEA rug below my feet was scattered with puzzle pieces and art supplies; instead of framed photographs, the walls boasted construction paper artwork taped at a child’s height.

I was in Caleb’s apartment. Presumably. I didn’t remember arriving here.

Where was Caleb? Why had I slept on the couch and not with him? Was that my choice, or his? A familiar void at the center of my memories, the muddy shape of a midnight binge. Once, I had been happy to wake up oblivious; the emptiness had felt like a blindfold that kept me from witnessing my own misdeeds. Now my cluelessness made me feel ill.

I had blacked out. Of course I had—I’d drunk two bottles of wine, which once might have felt like nothing at all, but after a year of sobriety was guaranteed to knock me right out. I recalled exactly how long it had been since I last got blackout drunk—386 days—and that uncomfortable memory was what finally shook me alert.

From the open door at the end of the dark living room I could hear the faint sound of a child’s snore. Jesus, had Mae seen me like this? I needed to leave, before they both woke up. But when I looked at the clock on my phone I discovered that it was still only 3:45 a.m. I couldn’t go back to my parents’ house, not like this, not at this time of night. I imagined my mother standing in the doorway of her bedroom, watching me creep down the hall in yesterday’s clothes, smelling of booze. Shame shattered me.

I had been so close to being OK, to proving her wrong, and instead I fucked it all up, yet again.

I gathered my shoes and purse, which were neatly arranged beside the couch. I imagined Caleb watching me sleep, taking off my shoes and aligning them on the floor, filling the glass of water and putting it within arm’s reach of the couch. At least I was fully dressed and clean, which suggested that I hadn’t done anything too embarrassing—hadn’t thrown up on myself or jumped in a pool fully dressed or shed my clothes in the street somewhere.

I’d kissed him, though, hadn’t I? Yes, I remembered that much. Had I slept with him, too? That, I couldn’t answer.

I found a purple crayon among the art supplies on the floor and scribbled a note for him. Thank you for taking care of me. I owe you. I stuck it to his fridge with an alphabet magnet—S for Sam, S for Sorry, S for So Ashamed, S for Not Sure I’ll Ever See You Again.