“But you told me to leave you alone last week, Sidney. You walked away from me. You seemed really upset, and I didn’t call or text you because I didn’t want to upset you more or ignore what you asked for, but I wasworried.” His voice cracks again, but this time tears follow it, streaking down his face. He wipes them away with a sleeve. “I was afraidyou were gonna, like ...and then you were out of school, but your friends were here, and Alexander told me that Jayden told him you were having a hard time but you were OK, and I was so relieved, but it also ...really ...hurt.” He pushes the last words out, like they’re hard to say, and every one hits me in the stomach. I hurt Forrest. I thought I was avoiding hurting him by walking away, and instead I did even more damage, maybe, than I would have otherwise.
“So I don’t know.” He shrugs. “I think I need some time.”
“OK,” I say in a tiny voice.
“I just need some time,” he repeats. “I’m gonna go.”
And this time he’s the one to turn and walk away, and I just watch him leave.
I go home, and I do my best to ignore the barrage of images swirling in my head: Forrest ignoring me in the halls, Forrest telling all my friends how terrible I am and all of them abandoning me to join his group, everyone in Queer Alliance voting that I leave the club. Maybe that counts as a compulsion, pushing the thoughts away, but I don’t know what else to do.
For a while, I try to do homework, and I get a few more paragraphs of my rough draft written, but then somehow my phone ends up in my hand and I start scrolling and suddenly it’s been two hours and I’m on my bed, Brekky curled beside me, and I can hear Mom and Shar talking in their room. They came home and I didn’t even notice.
A tap sounds on my door. “Hey Sidney,” Mom calls from the other side.
“Come in,” I say dully, and she enters, crossing to my bed and sitting down beside me.
“How was school today?” she asks, squeezing my foot.
I shrug. I don’t know how to put it all into words.
“How are you feeling?”
“OK. Ish.”
“Ish?” she asks.
The tears fill my eyes again—it’s like they’re right at the surface, waiting for a moment to come out—and she clicks her tongue in sympathy. “You wanna talk to me, sweetie?” “I don’t know,” I mumble, sniffling. “My brain is just being...” I wave my hand at my head. “What if it never gets better? What if it pushes everyone around me away?”
“I know what you mean,” she says, and I don’t know what I was expecting her to say, but it wasn’t that. “You know ...I never told you this, but after the divorce ...I was really anxious and depressed. I was on medication for a while.”
“You were?” When Mom and Dad first separated, I could tell they were both upset; Dad, because he would rage and snark about Mom whenever I was with him, and Mom, because she was quiet and sad, like a light bulb with a dimmer switch turned down to almost nothing. She was worried about me all the time too; she hardly let me go over to friends’ houses, and whenever I got back from hanging out with Dad she would watch me as if I was a porcelain doll that might break at any moment. When she won full custody of me, she’d cried. I’d known she was sad, and I tried to be as good as possible, so she wouldn’t have to worry about more than she already was. As time went on, I stopped noticing her sadness as much, and then she started pursuing her newcareer, and I didn’t think that much about how she was doing.
But maybe it wasn’t just starting a new career, and then meeting Shar, that helped her.
“It was anti-anxiety medication,” she says, as if she can hear the question in my mind. “It took the edge off, made it so my brain didn’t spiral so much.” She twirls a finger, and I nod. I know that feeling. “I don’t know too much about OCD, but I do remember my dad was pretty anxious too. When we went on trips, he used to go back into the house over and over to check that the stove was off. One time it took an hour before we were finally able to leave. We were really annoyed as kids, but now...” She trails off. “Tracy gave me some websites to look through, so I can learn more about what might be going on, but whatever you want to share, I want to hear.”
I nod.
“And I wanted to check in about your dad too,” she says. “He told me that he relapsed, but that he got right back on the wagon. He said he told you as well. How are you feeling about that?”
Huh. Dad told Mom what he told me. I didn’t realize they talked like that, but I guess it makes sense. They’re both still my parents, even if I live with Mom. And if he was honest with her about that too ...maybe he really is trying.
“I don’t know,” I say finally. “I kind of ...don’t trust him.”
“I hear you,” she says.
“Like, he’s tried to get sober so many times, and it’s never stuck, and I don’t get it. If he really wanted to stop,why would he relapse? Why am I not—” My voice cracks, and then I’m crying again. “Why am I not a good enough reason?”
“Oh, honey,” Mom says quietly. “Addiction is really challenging, and his struggle to stay sober has nothing to do with you or me. It’s about what’s happening inside him, the demons he has to fight. Substances are really powerful coping mechanisms for that, and he has to build new ones, and that takes time. And relapses are part of that.”
She scoots closer to me, wrapping my hand in hers, and I squeeze back. Her brown eyes are soft and kind as she gazes at me. “I believe he’s trying, that he always has. But I realized a long time ago it’s not my role to walk beside him in that. You get to choose your relationship with him too.”
I nod. I don’t fully get what she’s saying, how addiction is about what’s inside him. But my thoughts and my compulsions feel that way too, when they come—like something taking over my body, something I can’t control no matter how much I try. Maybe, in time, Tracy can help me learn how to handle them. Maybe Dad will learn how to handle his addiction.
“He loves you,” Mom says. “But whatever he does or doesn’t do, it’s not your fault or your responsibility.”
“Thanks,” I say. I want to believe her, but I’m not sure I do.
