From anyone else, that would come across as a scold. From Marcus, it’s just a statement of fact.
“It’s been an adjustment,” I admit. “Busy.”
“I bet. I mean, it’s been a while since you’ve had a job with an inflexible work schedule, right? Sounds like that’d be a rough change.”
“Easier than you’d think, really. Or maybe I just like the structure. I had worried I’d be less productive if I had to teach classes and grade projects, but if anything, I’m getting more work done. It’s like I take my free time more seriously now.”
Marcus shrugs. “We expand to fill the time that we have,” he says. “Or that’s what Ji told me, anyway. Feels like it might be a thing.”
I just hope I can keep it up for the rest of the semester and the following school year. I’m also well aware that I tend to distrust good things that happen to me; I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop. If things go too well, at some point my brain will sabotage me. So…we’ll see how long this burst of productivity actually lasts.
“What about the girl?” he asks. I should have known Marcus wouldn’t avoid that subject for long. I bet he’s been sitting on it all week, only just keeping himself from texting me about it. Probably because he doesn’t want to feel like a gossip.
And suddenly, of course, I can’t look Marcus in the eye anymore. Downside to being friends with someone for nine years:You start to actually care what they think about you. And I don’t want Marcus to hear what I’m about to say and hate me for it. I knew he’d ask eventually, so I’ve run through this conversation so many times in my head. Half the time he’s sympathetic but firm, reminding me of my responsibilities, the precariousness of my sobriety—even after this long. The other half the time he’s so disgusted he can’t even look at me.
Even imaginary Marcus’s disappointment stings.
But I have to suck it up, because what’s the point of friends—or recovery, even—if you aren’t being honest? So I tell him about Ely. About this joke the universe is playing on us, like something out of one of those YouTube prank videos where any second a guy in a backward baseball cap is gonna jump out from behind the bushes and yell,Gotcha!
“Seems like you’ve only spoken to this girl a few times,” Marcus says once I’m finally done. “How do you know she’s even worth the risk?”
It’s a fair question, and it’s not like I haven’t asked myself the same thing more than once—usually while I’m lying in bed awake at night running through the laundry list of my personal failures and reliving the most embarrassing moments of my life.
“I guess I don’t,” I say. “Not really. But we click, you know? There’s just something about her. Maybe it’s the fact that we’re both sober, or both photographers. Maybe it’s just her vibe. I can’t explain it. When we’re talking, it’s like the whole rest of the world falls away. And I like whoIam around her. She makes me…funnier. Kinder. I feel like a more complete person, or at least like she sees something in me that I want to nurture. I want to be the person she thinks I am.”
Marcus gives me a considering look just in time for the waitress to return with our coffees. He takes a long sip, watching me over the rim of his cup. “And what is the worst possible outcome that could happen here? What are you most afraid of happening?”
“It goes badly,” I say immediately. “We don’t work out, and we risk both our careers, not to mention our sobriety.”
“I think you’re catastrophizing, bud. Plus it sounds like she’s the one who’s pushing for more involvement, not you.”
“I mean…yeah. With her project. She wants my help.”
“And you agreed to give it to her. You’re both grown-ups here.”
I shrug. “I guess I’m not sure which is worse: continuing some kind of professional relationship with her after what happened or punishing her by refusing to teach her when half of why she came to Parker was to study with me.”
And this is exactly why they say not to get into relationships with students. This exact kind of predicament. Because no matter what I choose, I’m choosing badly.
“Maybe there’s not a best choice,” Marcus says. “She’s only here for the summer program, right? It’s hard to imagine how you could mess up her career so badly in a single summer just by helping her out with an art project. And you said she’s been clean for four years. It’s not like she’s some newbie with a one-month chip hunting for validation. You know, some might argue that being with another person in recovery is the best move. You can build each other up, not tear each other down.”
It’s so different from what I thought he’d say that I blink twice in quick succession and sit back in my chair, turning his words over in my head. It’s also pretty much the opposite of the feedback I got from the other guys in NA, which I fully expected Marcus to echo tonight. Isn’t that what sponsors are supposed to do—tell you to get your baser impulses in order and control yourself?
“I guess….” I say.
“It sounds like you don’t believe me.”
“No,” I say quickly. “No, I do; I get what you’re saying. And maybe you’re right. It doesn’t have to go beyond that. But…yeah. Yeah.”
Wow, Wyatt. Great conversational skills. Really a pro there.
“If itdidgo beyond that, it’d be okay, you know. No one’s gonna smite you.”
I’m not 100 percent sure I believe that. But maybe that’s paranoia. Or fear of fucking up somehow, of turning into one of those assholes like my father, who used people and then threw them away. Who prioritized his own wants over everything and everyone else.
I’ve spent my whole life trying to get away from that shit. I’ve built everything I am today from the ground up—from underground. I’ve come so far. I’ve got walls, and they’re fuckinggreatwalls.
I don’t want to risk anything that might compromise them.
