“Back here,” she says, and leads me through a door across the living room.
Ely’s bedroom is tiny, about the size of a moderate-to-large suburban bathroom. The bed itself takes up most of the space, with a rickety desk crammed into what remains, its chair facing the window that peers out over the street below.
She kicks the door shut behind me and drops down onto the edge of the bed. I choose the desk chair, even if it—frankly—looks like it may not hold my weight.
Being here, shut in a bedroom with Ely, feels illicit. I can’t quite figure out where to rest my gaze; it ends up settled on Ely’s hands, watching her fingers clench and flex against the duvet fabric.
I remember how she gripped the sheets as I drove into her that first night. Our only night. The perfect shape her mouth made as she moaned. The line of her arched throat, her thighs tightening around my hips.
Think about cats think about cats think about cats—
“Thanks for coming,” she says eventually, which—thank god—puts a halt to my obsessing over her hands and everything they remind me of. I drag my attention back up to her face, but she’s looking away, staring at an empty spot on the opposite wall. “Seriously. I know this is probably…a lot. It’d be a lot for anyone,but you’re in recovery too, so…If this is too much, I understand. I don’t want to trigger you.”
“What? No. No, don’t even worry about it. I’m fine.” I had no idea she was even concerned about that. “I’ve been clean for years. It’s a lot easier for me to just not think about it, most of the time. You aren’t triggering me at all.”
Her lips twist into a sad facsimile of a smile. “I wish that were me. I wish I could just not think about it.”
“It will be, if you stay clean long enough. Recovery takes time.”
She nods slightly. “I felt like I was getting there, maybe. This past year or so…I was able to forget. It felt like I was just like anyone else. And maybe that made me cocky, because I swear, I thought…”
I know what she thought. It’s the same thing I thought before my relapses:I can do this. I’m better now. I can handle it. But I couldn’t handle it. And Ely is no different.
I just wish it hadn’t taken this slip for her to figure that out.
“Remember what you told Haze the other day. It’s just a blip, and you’recontinuing. That cat will hold you to it. Trust me.”
It earns me a brief, muffled laugh, which is something.
My hand is on her wrist. For a moment I tense—I should move; I should stop touching her—but then I curl my fingers around those delicate bones, and she draws back just enough to press our palms together. Her fingertips rest light atop my veins. Against my will, I shiver.
This is it: This is the point where I always pull away. Every relationship, it feels like. They open up, they become vulnerable, and the pressure to reciprocate that vulnerability makes me want to run.
I don’t want to run this time.
“When I was first starting out,” I say, “I had a really hard time breaking into the scene. I felt like I was pouring everything I hadinto my work and no one cared. I was telling people who I was, and they were looking right at me, looking into my soul, and rejecting it. I mean, that’s what art is, right? It’s personal. So when people hate it, it’s like they’re saying they hate you.”
Ely is watching me with her big dark eyes, and right now it feels just like that: like she’s looking at my art. Peering past all the layers I have wrapped around myself into a part of me I haven’t shared with anyone.
“I thought about quitting. So many times. Honestly, I’m surprised I didn’t. I was barely holding it together at that point. I was just a few years out from everything that happened with my family, and I just…my head went to a dark place. Too many times. My dad was an asshole. The violent kind. I guess that left a mark on me in more ways than one—I kept thinking maybe this was what I deserved anyway. Kept hearing his voice in my head saying I was a piece of shit, better off dead. And then out of nowhere my work got noticed by the right people, and suddenly I had a gallery show, and I was selling work, and I’d finally fucking made it—or at least I was well on my way.”
It felt like a dream. And my first instinct—god, I hated this—my first instinct was to call my mom.
Instead I called everyone else I knew. Maybe it was spiteful in part. I’d been the last person to succeed. I’d been the one they’d all pitied. But here I was, and my gallery was better than theirs had been, my art was selling for more, and a fucked-up part of me wanted them to know it.
I hope I’m a better person now than I was back then, but sometimes I’m not sure.
“So after the opening night, some people took me out to celebrate,” I say. “Important people. And I figured…why not, right? I had earned it. It was worth it. And it wasn’t a big deal just this once. So I had a glass of champagne, which turned into a few,which turned into shots at the bar. And that one night turned into a relapse that took me months to claw my way out of.”
Ely’s hand tightens around mine. I hadn’t realized we were still holding hands. After a second, I squeeze back.
“I guess what I’m trying to say is…you aren’t alone. And you aren’t the first person this has happened to, not by far.”
Ely attempts a smile, but it comes out tremulous. I wish I could squeeze her hand tighter, but if I did, I’d worry about breaking fingers. “I just feel stupid. I should have known better.”
“If you’re stupid, then I’m stupid too. Maybe we can just be idiots together?”
The smile is still shaky, but it widens slightly. She lets out a shallow breath and says, “I’d like that.”
