So Much More(67)

“For a few days, yeah. How’ve you been?” I don’t know how to describe it, but she looks different, healthier. She was always so pale before, but she’s has some color like her skin’s seen the sun. Her hair has been washed and is pulled back in a ponytail.

“I been good,” she says, and I know she means it.

She asks me to stay and watch her favorite movie. I do. Just like we’ve done dozens of times before. We eat toast and applesauce and play a board game afterward.

But at four o’clock she announces, “I gotta go. You wanna come with me?” and walks to the door and slips on her flip-flops.

I’m puzzled because she never leaves during the day. “Where are you going?”

“Upstairs to help my friend, Miranda, cook dinner,” she says it like it shouldn’t be news to me, like I haven’t been gone for weeks.

“Miranda?” I question. Seamus’s ex-wife? My stomach turns, and I wish I could take back the question. I wish I could take back being here right now. I wish I could take back seeing her this morning. I wish I could take back a lot of things, because the next thing Hope says, stomps all over my heart.

“Miranda lives with Seamus. They’re a family.”

I want to look brave and take the news stoically. He’s not mine. He was never mine. He belonged to her for years. They share a connected past. And children. I should be happy for him.

But, I’m not. I feel like I want to beat my head against the wall, throw up, and scream all at once.

I walk out of Hope’s to my apartment without saying a word. She didn’t notice. She was already walking upstairs when I shut her door behind me. I saw the envelope with Seamus’s name written on it that I left with Hope still sitting on her floor, unopened, half buried under a pile of junk mail. I guess she didn’t get around to giving it to him. Which, is for the best, given the news I just received.

The minute I’m inside my apartment, I’m sitting on the floor crying. I’m grieving a man I have no right to. I’m grieving birth parents I’ll never find. I’m grieving this apartment I’ll have to leave in a few days. I haven’t been this down in years. It’s all mounting. And suddenly ugliness is rearing its head. The demon I slayed years ago is back clawing its way from the inside out. Breathing down my neck, leaving a trail of sweat covered goosebumps.

I’m shaking my head, chanting, “No, no, no, no, no. I won. You don’t own me. I’m stronger than you are.”

I want to use.

I want to use so f*cking bad.

I can’t see through my tears.

I can’t hear through the voices in my head.

I need to get out of here.

Now.

Packing up my bag takes minutes.

I set out on foot.

And I pray like hell that I find strength.

I don’t know who to call. The last thing I want to be is a burden. But I also don’t want to be a statistic. I fought too damn hard to get clean. And I promised myself I’d never go back. I take my cell phone—which will be canceled in a few days—out of my bag and call Claudette. She’s the only person I can confess this to. She helped me fight this monster once before.

“Hello,” she answers.

I take a deep breath and jump in. “I need to get high. Right now.” As soon as I say the words out loud I’m crying again. “I need help. I can’t do this, Claudette. I’m not strong enough.”

“Honey, Faith, listen to me. You are strong enough. You don’t need to use.” Her voice is calm, but I can hear the subtle vibration that worry adds. “Where are you?”

“I’m walking to the beach,” I answer. I don’t know where else to go.

“Whatever you do, do not hang up the phone. Do you hear me?”

I sniff. “I hear you.”





An hour later I’m walking in the door of Good Samaritan House. It’s a homeless shelter that Claudette tells me offers counseling and other services.

I’m met at the door by a gentleman in his late forties or early fifties, who introduces himself as Benito. His hair is graying and his eyes are thoughtful and wise, like thousands of stories and lessons are housed behind them. He’s the shelter’s crisis manager. After a brief, no holds barred, verbal retching of my guilt and doubt, he asks me to leave my bag in his office and follow him. “Before we do anything, you need to eat. It’s dinnertime.”

The tables are all full of men and women in various stages of neglect and vagrancy. I try to turn down the food because I ate a few hours ago with Hope, but he won’t hear of it. “Eat. We’ll talk after you eat.”

I give in and eat.

And afterward, he talks, addressing our earlier discussion and my confessions. “Since you were brave enough to share your story with me earlier, please allow me to share mine with you because I think you need to hear it. I was a heroin addict for fifteen years. I lived on the streets for many of those years. My family disowned me because I lied to them, I stole from them, I disrespected them. I chose getting high over them. I chose getting high over everything. Until I overdosed and woke up in a hospital bed, being told that not only had I almost lost my life, but that I was HIV positive. HIV positive. There aren’t many other words that will get your attention like those will. Every drug addict gets a wake-up call, and if we’re lucky, the wake-up call isn’t death. That was my call. It was also, coincidentally, the moment my little brother, who I hadn’t seen in five years, reentered my life. When I was released from the hospital, he took me directly to an inpatient rehabilitation facility. My little brother saved my life. I haven’t used since. That was twelve years ago. I don’t let my past define me. For a long time, I did. I carried a lot of guilt. Then I realized that I had potential and something to offer the world, everyone does. So, long story short, I see myself in you. I like your spirit. You overcame. You have so much potential, Faith. You just need a little help.”