I start to pick up my clothes, shoving them into my bags.
When I see some of the pages from my notebook that I’d worked so hard on, scattered across the floor, the tears return.
He never even read them.
Of course he didn’t.
We’d been on a fucking binge for the past few months; it was all a blur of time and sensations that felt so grubby and dirty now that the trance had been broken.
I don’t know what comes after this, but I can’t continue this way.
Elijah is at rehearsal and he’ll be here before the show, at least to shower.
My phone dings on the nightstand and I rush to grab it.
Dad: We haven’t heard from you in a few weeks. I hope you’re okay, darling.
I sink to the floor with a soundless sob.
Me: I might need you.
My phone rings, this time with an incoming call.
“Hello?”
“What’s going on?” My dad forgoes a greeting.
The tears are relentless. But I somehow find my voice, even if it’s shaky and uncertain. “It’s just a mess, Dad. I need to come home.”
“Where are you?”
“Toronto,” I whisper.
“We’ll book your flight.”
He is the only anchor in the life that threatens to take me away.
I am washing away in Elijah’s sea.
MY THINGS ARE PACKED NEATLY in the corner of the foyer of the hotel suite. I wait the hours it takes for Elijah to come back, pacing or cleaning.
As soon as he walks in, he pulls a fresh stash from his pocket and sets it on the table. My heart speeds up and my hands shake, knowing I’m so close to what could be my next fix.
Knowing I could take another pill and continue existing in this space with him.
I don’t want to leave him.
Even when I know he’s so far from the boy I grew up with.
But he doesn’t even notice my packed bags as he heads to the bedroom.
“Elijah.” I follow him as he pulls his clothes off, and I am aware and near jealous of his jolly disposition. He’s all smiles. Because what is pain when you’re rolling? “I need you to listen to me.”
“I gotta get ready,” he says over his shoulder.
I reach for his arm, but he jerks away.
“I don’t have time for this, T. Just grab one and let me get ready.”
He thinks this is about the drugs?
I can’t fault him because, in a very large way, it is.
“I’m leaving,” I tell him, my voice a little louder and a lot clearer.
He stops, just in front of the shower, his back to me. It’s beautiful, brown, and now marked with exquisite art.
He is everything magnificent and worthy.
But he is also numbing himself and I can’t live this life anymore.
“I…I thought you were happy here…with me,” he says.
His face turns just far enough so I can see the tip of his nose. The scruff of his perfectly trimmed beard. The way his lips are pressed together.
I’m ruining his high.
But he was always mine.
“I can’t keep taking drugs and…”
“Not this, man. Not from you,” he says, squaring his shoulders.
“This is not good for y…”
“I’m not listening to this shit. If you wanna go, go.” He steps inside the shower and shuts me out.
Physically, emotionally, and mentally.
It all hurts, but I will be heard. I need to be heard.
I slide the shower door open and step inside behind him, not caring that the water is nearly stinging, it’s so hot. Not caring that my shorts and the bottom of my shirt are now drenched.
I place my hand between his shoulder blades. He tenses but doesn’t pull away. Doesn’t say a word as I step closer and press a kiss into his shoulder.
“I love you,” I say against his skin, willing the words to push themselves through flesh and bone and organs. To seep into his soul and be felt.
He turns so quickly, I wonder if it’s anger fueling him, and he takes my face into his hands.
Before I can get a good look at his eyes, he’s kissing me.
Hard presses that feel desperate. Hands travel over and under my clothes, as if he wants me as naked as he is.
And even though I want that too, there’s something I want more.
“Promise me you’ll stop,” I whisper between kisses. “Promise me and I’ll stay.”
He pushes away from me with a groan and braces himself against the wall. “I could.”
I lean my head against the tile as I listen to him. I can’t look at him while he lies.
“But I don’t want to,” he says.
He leaves the shower and I keep my eyes on the ceiling, telling myself that I tried.
I am the sun and the moon.
And I can only ever save myself.
37
STUPID GIRL
I wake up alone again, my head pounding. My eyes feel swollen and the room spins when I sit up. But I look for Elijah because I need to apologize. To tell him that no matter what, I’ll always be here. That I’ll always love him.
That we will always be that for each other.
When I open the hotel room door, I peek into the hall. Only one security guard roams, which tells me Elijah isn’t here.
“Hey, do you know where he is?” I ask the familiar looking guy as he approaches.
“Downstairs somewhere,” he answers.
And when I step outside the room, he reaches for the earpiece he’s wearing.
“Please. Don’t.” Because I know he’s going to warn someone that I’m coming. But I’m not just anyone. Elijah doesn’t need to know I’m coming.
“I have to, ma’am,” he says as he hesitates.
I don’t want to cost him his job, so I shrug and start walking down the hall, the plush carpet under my socks making me want to wiggle my toes in it.
I can feel him following me as he speaks into his earpiece.
“I’m with Ms. Morales. We’re heading downstairs.”
Nothing else is said as we get in the elevator. As we descend, I ask him what time it is.
He glances at his watch. “Three fifteen in the morning.”
“Hm,” I say as my eyebrows shoot up for a moment. “Way past my bedtime.”
He chuckles and I can’t help my smile. In real life, when I’m not rolling, I’m way too tame for this glamorous life of Elijah’s.
As soon as the elevator doors open, the atmosphere changes. I can hear a loud bass thumping through the walls. Women and men alike loiter in the halls. The former aren’t wearing much and the latter are definitely taking advantage of it.
I can tell which room Elijah’s in. There are too many serious-looking men crowding the door and too many women eyeing it, looking like they want nothing more than to bulldoze their way in.
As I pass, they watch. And their eyes bounce back and forth between me and the man following me.
I can almost hear what they’re thinking.
Her?!
I wish I could tell them all that this isn’t as glamorous as it seems. That it’s mostly time alone, wondering if he’s okay and what trouble he may or may not get into. It’s being high off our asses and wondering if we do it so we can stand each other.
It’s hoping he doesn’t decide to fall into someone else.
It would be so easy.
When I reach for the door, one of the men holds his hand out, stopping me.
“Mr. Williams has asked for privacy.”
“I can assure you he didn’t mean from me,” I answer. My confidence falters when he doesn’t step aside. “Ask him, then.”
“Ma’am…”
The door opens behind him and my eyes immediately focus on what’s going on inside the coveted room.
One of those barely-wearing-anything girls walks out, adjusting her clothes. And I look past her, at Elijah.
&nbs
p; He’s also adjusting his clothes.
And there are drugs.
Everywhere.
White powder.
Bags of marijuana.
Even fucking needles.
His eyes, hazy and unfocused, finally meet mine.
He’s stumbling toward me, but I blink and break the trance.
“T,” he starts.
Before he can reach me, I’m bolting toward the stairs.
ODD WHAT THINGS come to you in moments of mourning. Maybe Terrence had been right all along, and I was just a stupid girl.
I felt like a failure when I hugged my parents at the airport and they brought me back home. They didn’t ask me what happened.
Not when I stayed in bed for a week.
Not when I finally got out of bed, only to burst into tears in the middle of dinner.
My mom scheduled therapy appointments for me, but I refused to follow through with them, or anything that didn’t involve writing—or purging, it felt like.
Broken hearts birth brilliant art, apparently.
I’m sleeping when I feel hands shake me. Hands that rock my sleeping body into consciousness.
My eyes open and I witness the sunshine slanting across the room as my mom looks down at me.
“Hey, baby,” she whispers.
I don’t deserve her gentleness. I don’t deserve her understanding. So, I cry.
“Talk to me,” she pleads.
But I can’t. I can’t ruin the way she sees me. I can’t tell her that her baby girl can’t remember the time she spent away from home because she was high out of her mind.
“Then promise me,” she starts, her words wet with her own tears, “promise me I won’t come in here and find you…”
Dead.
There are promises I hate, ones I can’t make.
And then there are ones that deserve to be birthed and carried through life. This promise will save me.
So, I whisper, “I promise.”
She nods her head as if it’s settled and reaches for something on my nightstand. “Something came for you in the mail. I hope you don’t mind but…” She holds it up, showing me that she opened it. “You’d been getting them while you were gone, and I got a little curious. Hoped it was some good news.”
Her smile tells me it is, so I sit up and wipe my tears away. “What is it?”
She pulls my hands away from my lap and into hers, her eyes on my face, ready to see where whatever that letter holds takes us.
And I add this to my list of pivotal moments that will forever shape me.
“This man wants your stories.”
She’s sniffling and watching me, and I’m panicking.
My stories? The stupid ones I submitted to a bunch of places on a whim?
I grab the letter and eye words like:
…attempted to email you several times…
…unsure how to get ahold of you…
…interested in publishing your story in our anthology…
I’m not even sure what an anthology is, but I grab my mom and scream.
I scream for the past few months and the boy I left behind. But I also scream for the me I’m trying to get back to.
The one I’ll try to never lose again.
38
LIAR
L ife isn’t always a shithole.
But on days when I’m faced with the image of my superstar ex-boyfriend kissing another woman, it tends to be.
Strange that it isn’t the kiss that kills me. It’s thinking that this is probably what he’d been up to in the two years before I left my life to live around his. It’s knowing that he doesn’t know what he’s doing; not with this woman and not with his life outside of getting on a stage and singing songs. Some of them written about a girl who can’t bear to look at him anymore.
I recognize the glazed look of pleasure in his eyes as I try to move on from the article someone shared on Facebook.
I can’t bear witness to his downward spiral.
“How the mighty have fallen,” Miley says as she glances over my shoulder. My finger still hovers over the link and she grabs the phone from me. “Fuck him.”
I let her say it, but I try to keep from thinking it myself. The lessons life taught me wouldn’t let me brush it off so callously.
He’s crushing under the weight of his dreams.
It took time, but I finally understand the sentiment that we should all be careful what we ask for.
Elijah’s prayers were answered until they weren’t anymore.
“I can’t believe he got you hooked on drugs,” Miley says as she sets one of my last boxes down.
I close my eyes and try to keep from laughing. Only she could be so blunt.
“I got myself hooked on Molly, Miley.” I snort at the way the drug and her name sound so similar. “I only have myself to blame.”
Still, I can’t forget the sight of him as I caught him putting himself back together after being alone in a hotel room full of drugs with another woman.
I could never be one of those women who sticks around with a man after he cheats. I don’t have it in me to let go of that hurt. As if she’s read my mind, Miley mentions it.
“And he cheated! I mean, you were an idiot, yeah. But you wouldn’t have been exposed to it if you hadn’t followed his stupid ass around the world. Or if you’d called me.”
Her tone edges on hurt and though an apology—followed by an in-depth confession—had occurred, it isn’t so easy to let go of pain.
I have intimate knowledge of this.
“Do you believe that I’ll never ignore your calls again?” I ask as I stare down at the pieces of my new bookshelf that require assembling.
“No. I’m fucking annoying.” She slings her arm over my shoulder and looks at the mess on the floor with me. “But I hope you won’t ignore me for more than a day or two.”
“Deal,” I tell her, just as my phone rings.
She snatches it off the table she’d set it on and stops short. “Oh, hell no,” she says.
It’s my turn to attempt to look over her shoulder, even though her shoulder hits the top of my head. So, I duck under her arm and the smile falls from my face.
“This is one call you should ignore,” she tells me.
But I can’t.
“I’ve been having dreams about him,” I confess. Dreams that make me wonder what kind of dark path he’s on. And where it will end because everything eventually ends. “I think he needs me.”
“Maybe he does. But you don’t need him.”
Her tone is so resolute, but just like pain isn’t so easy to let go of, neither is love.
Miley watches me as I go back and forth, yes and no volleying in my brain until I make the final decision.
I take the phone from her and answer as I walk into my bedroom. “Hello?”
I’m not sure what I’ll hear on the other end, but it isn’t a distraught Elijah.
His tone is feather light as he says, “Hey, T.”
“What’s up?” I ask, pacing the room in an attempt to expel some of my nervousness.
“I was just thinking about you. I miss you, you know.”
What the fuck?
I want to be angry. I want to tell him that there was a time for this and now the times has passed. That it’s been six months since I last heard from him and in that time, I’ve cried for him, worried about him, yearned for him.
But I couldn’t bring myself to reach out and fall for it all again.
My lips are pressed together to contain the anger bubbling inside of me.
“Can I come see you?” he asks, as if it’s the most natural thing to do.
Like we’re at this place in our relationship and not complete fucking strangers at this point.
I didn’t even hear from him on my birthday.
“Are you clean?” The question escapes from my mouth before I can think it through.
He’ll lie to me. And I will believe him.
And then I’ll fa
ll all over again.
I couldn’t chance another fall. Not when I’d spent so long picking myself back up. Sure, I’d avoided traditional therapy. But I found healing in getting out of bed, in reading books, and social interactions. In discussions with strangers when I went to eat alone or walk in the park.
I found it in myself.
In the sun in the morning and the moon at night.
I healed from the universe and gave back as much goodness as I could in return.
And this? This felt like an old monster of mine, ready for round two. Or three.
“Yes,” he says. “I haven’t touched anything in months.”
His words sound solemn.
They sound so good.
But it doesn’t sound like any truth I’ve heard from him before. And the article I’d seen a few minutes ago backs up my gut feeling.
“You’re a liar. And that’s not my problem now,” I say.
“T, come on…”
“It does not stop here!” I am screaming into the phone and I don’t know who we are to each other anymore. But I know the drugs and lies and bullshit will not end with this phone call. “Don’t fucking call me again.”
It hurts to say it, like I’m ripping out a piece of myself and praying I can survive without it.
He tries to speak but I am no longer under his spell.
I hang up, just as Miley walks in.
“Are you okay?” Her arms are at her sides, but I notice the loose swing of them, as if they’re ready to reach out and catch me, should I fall.
But I’m not going to.
I don’t want to be hugged and coddled. I want to move the fuck on.
“I’m fine.” I brush past her, intent on building my bookshelf.
“Are you sure?”
She’s following me and I want to beg for space, but I can’t do that to her. Not when she leaves for New York again in the morning. Not when she came for the weekend just to help me celebrate the publication of my story and my big move.
“I am.” I offer a smile aimed at the pile of wood in front of me, knowing Miley has her eyes on me. “But what I’m not sure of is how the hell I’ll be putting this shit together.”
I’VE LEARNED that there are different types of deception.
There are lies; the ones verbalized, big or small, that sell you a story. Those are the kind that piss me off most.
Teófila’s Guide to Saving the Sun Page 18