She doesn’t judge me for admitting that, she just takes it and uses it to forward the conversation. “That’s a fair question. We’re not really working toward ‘girlfriend.’ We’re working toward making healthy choices.”
“Choice sounds boring,” I say, making an annoyed expression.
“Choice sounds like getting to a place where you using your body isn’t an escape anymore; it’s a place you take care of and respect.” She folds one leg on top of the other. “We can separate these from each other—sex, intimacy, and attachment. You don’t have to want attachment to heal and be able to accept intimacy. And you don’t need to have sex to experience real intimacy either.”
I lean back. “So what, I just knit or something to pass the time and ignore the urges?”
She grins. “You could…but I’m referring more to taking back the power with your own nervous system. Right now, sex is how you think you have to run away; you think it’s the only way out of a scary place in your mind. Our plan is to give you other exits so that when you’re ready for that again, it’s because you want pleasure or connection, not anesthesia or validation.”
I pretend to look off like I don’t care, even though I’m listening more now than ever, because it’s all hitting hard, making too much sense. “And if I just…never want the attachment part?”
“Then you never want it,” she says simply. “You don’t owe the world a relationship arc to heal. Your job is to make sure whatever you choose isn’t a slow form of self-harm.”
I stare down at the floor because eye contact still physically hurts sometimes. “What if I can’t do it?” I ask. “What if I try, and I still end up…messing up, or going back to all the old easy ways of getting out of my head?”
She doesn’t rush or try to give me an overly clinical answer, she just talks to me like I’m a normal—not totally screwed up—person. “Then we use that as a learning experience. That’s all any of this is in life. If you mess up, you acknowledge it, and then we try to figure out what job the behavior was trying to do, what it was trying to achieve. Then we find a better and healthier replacement to reach for next time. This isn’t some trial you have to be on and be perfect for. You’regoingto mess up, that’s a part of it. You have to keep the mindset that it’s okay to mess up. You learn from that mess up, and grow from it. The more you do this, the better you get at it.”
“You make it sound…doable,” I say, not believing it can be that simple.
“Itisdoable,” she replies. “It may not be easy. And it won’t happen overnight. But…itisdoable.” She leans forward. “And you’re not doing it alone.”
I’m not fixed. I still feel broken. I still want to run to a place I know doesn’t exist. But I also want to be here. Both are true, and I’m learning how to hold both of them without thinking I can only hold one.
58
Bash
I spent the entire summer at home for the first time since I left for college.
Spending longer than a week or two back home since Isabel died was never something I could stomach. I rarely came home, and when I did, I kept my bags packed and counted down the days until I’d leave again. Staying in that house dragged me into the darkest parts of my grief. Every summer, I’d make an excuse for why I couldn’t spend the whole break there—summer job, extra credit classes, someone else’s couch, anything just so I didn’t have to spend three long months stuck there, and stuck in the past.
This year I stayed, though.
I realized in that hospital parking lot, alone with my thoughts, that not going home had turned into its own kind of avoidance. I was losing or damaging my relationship with my parents by being scared to be around them and around the house because of the baggage and ghosts stuck there.
I told myself I was going to do the hard version this time. So I’m making myself stay. No other plans, no escape route, no running away.
The conversations came insmall pieces. One night, we made dinner together, and even though it was box pasta with jarred sauce, my mom pretended like it was from a five-star restaurant. And after my dad poured two glasses of scotch and set them down, pushing one toward me. I just stared at it until the ice almost melted, and then broke down and told them about everything—the anxiety, the guilt, the drinking, the coke, the women, all the useless band-aids I let control me for so long.
I didn’t minimize any of it. I told them how, when I left for college, I could pretend I was okay during the day, and then blackout at night. I started to use alcohol so I wouldn’t ever have to think about the grief, about how I could have maybe stopped her, how I could have prevented all of this, how I wasn’t a good enough brother to her, how I was so lost after without my best friend, the person I told everything to. Going from hearing her voice every day to never being able to again altered my brain in a way I couldn’t handle.
My mom never interrupted me. She just listened and took it all in, even when I could see she wanted to comfort me. My dad’s jaw did that old thing where it was stone, then tried to soften up. When I finished, it was so quiet from nobody knowing what else to say.
“I should’ve asked you more,” my mom said finally. “I should’ve pushed to know how you were really handling everything.”
I shook my head. “I wouldn’t have let you in back then. You couldn’t have known.”
My dad and I talked about the way never being allowed to show my emotions growing up kept me from asking for help when I really needed it.
My dad cleared his throat. “Men where I come from don’t…we weren’t taught to talk about our hurt and pain.” He tapped a knuckle on the glass. “This is how I brought up mine. And times like these show me that’s not a good way.”
I nodded. Half of my family is Southern Black, half Puerto Rican. I grew up with two different languages for love and none for weakness. My uncle used to clap me on the back and say, “Stand tall, mijo,” like the bad weather would see how strong I was pretending to be and keep moving. When Isabel died, the only thing I knew how to do was pretend to be strong. So I ended up standing until my legs gave out.
We started really talking on purpose after that. Not fighting, just laying everything bare without being scared. We sat on the back porch in the heat and just named out all the things we felt like impacted us and our relationships the most. My dad told me how he used to sit in Isabel’s room at two a.m. and count the books on her shelf because it was the only thing that made his heart slow down when he thought it was going to beat out of his chest. My mom admitted she still bought things at the store for her out of habit and then would come home and hide them from the guilt. I told them how I avoided coming home because my body would always automatically walk to her door to check on her, and my heart would break every time reality reminded me there was no need to check anymore. They asked me questions about school. I told them how much I was loving my major, how much I was learning. I told them about the practicum coming up in the fall, where I’d be doing more clinical hours. I also told them one of my new classes required therapy of our own and that I was weirdly more afraid of that than any site placement.
“You on both sides of the chair,” my dad said. “That’s a lot.”
“Yeah, but I think it’s time,” I told them.
