Before I Let You Go(80)
“I work nights—”
Lexie wasn’t buying it. She pulled away from me and started walking through the apartment, and I watched the slow dawn of horror on her face as she surveyed the garbage and the vast emptiness. She walked toward the bedroom and I caught her arm as she approached the door. I glanced inside and saw the pillow had only half covered the kit. The tourniquet was in plain sight beside it.
“Lexie, no—”
She shook me off and walked straight to the pillow. She pushed it out of the way with her foot, then raised her eyes and stared at me.
I know you counseling types like to talk about rock bottom, but I don’t actually believe in it—because if it was actually a thing, that moment with Lexie would have been it, and we wouldn’t be in this situation seven years later. That moment was worse than anything Robert had done to me, or even the ground falling out from under my world when I lost Dad. Lexie was staring at me with such terror and disgust that my skin was crawling with shame.
I ran into the room, picked up the kit and stuffed it back under the pillow as if that would somehow make her unsee it. Lexie walked right out of the room, and I stood alone for a moment, adrenaline pumping through me. I might have stayed there forever to avoid the looming confrontation, except that Lexie was now alone in my living area, and I couldn’t remember where I’d hidden my stash. So I ran back out and found her standing in the middle of the empty space with her arms over her chest.
“You’re going to rehab,” she said flatly.
I opened my mouth to argue, but only the monster came out.
“Who do you think you are, you controlling bitch. You think you can come in here and fucking fix me? Really?” I laughed at the shock on her face, and then I took a step toward her. Lexie stepped back, away from me, and I saw the fear in her eyes and I fed off it. “You think you’re so fucking perfect, don’t you? Clever little Lexie, with her fucked-up-sister project. Well, Dr. Perfect, you can take your good intentions and your perfect life and you can get the fuck out of mine.”
“Annie, please—”
Lexie’s eyes were swimming in tears, but through the veil of moisture—they pleaded with me.
“Fuck off, Lexie! You stupid, meddling bitch—”
She’d backed all the way to the front door, and then I saw her turn and fumble for the handle. She was scared that I was going to hurt her, and she was right to be. As the door opened, I raised my hands and I pushed her. She stumbled into the hallway and landed against the wall—her face colliding hard as she fell to the floor. I didn’t care—I didn’t even check that she was okay. I slammed the door and then I turned what was left of my apartment upside down until I remembered that there was no stash left to find—I’d already used it. I needed a fix so bad that the inside of my brain felt like it was going to burn right through my skull, but there was only one thing left to hock.
I sold my computer that day.
I didn’t even think to make a backup of the manuscript I’d written, or any of the dozens of stories and essays I’d finished.
I should have known it would take more than a physical assault to scare my sister away; she came right back the next morning. When I opened the door and saw her there, her face marked with ugly purple bruises, I burst into tears.
“I need help,” I choked.
“I know,” she whispered, and she rushed to embrace me. “I know you do, love. But I’m here now, and we’re going to sort this out. Okay?”
It was months before Lexie told me Mom and Robert gave her the money for me to go to a private rehab clinic. Lexie hadn’t spoken to them for almost nine years—but when she found out how long the wait list was for the public rehab centers, she felt she had no choice. I don’t know if I would have gone if I’d known who was paying, but in the end, it didn’t matter. I managed four days of the thirty-day inpatient program. On the fifth day, I got into an argument with a counselor who wanted me to sing at a group therapy session. I refused, she tried to make me and I inadvertently elbowed her in the face.
They escorted me to the door two hours later. When Lexie picked me up, she asked me how I was feeling, and then she casually asked me if I wanted to move to Montgomery to live with her for a while. She didn’t yell or cry, or tell me she was disappointed. She simply offered an olive branch, and I grabbed at it with both hands.
If anything was ever going to work, it might have been that approach. Lexie’s no-strings-attached love has been one of the only good things that has persisted in my lifetime. She put up with five years of my addiction before it got to be too much and she cut me off altogether—and even then, she reached that point only when I nearly got her fired.
I lived with her for most of that time—I rarely paid rent, hardly contributed around the house, regularly stole from her, went on and off methadone and Suboxone, got and lost countless jobs—I alienated her friends and scared away her boyfriends. I overdosed three times—twice in my bedroom, and for some reason I can’t remember, once on the floor of her en suite bathroom. Lexie found and revived me three times. She kept syringes of Narcan in her handbag, and in her car, and in her cosmetics bag.
She found so many kinds of rehabs for me to try—I’ve done them all. I’d always go when and where she asked—but honestly, I’ve never understood why she bothered. How many thousands of dollars do you sink into a person before it stops being selfless, and starts being ridiculous? How many times do you bother to revive someone who is nothing but a drain on you and society?