Hiroku

by Laura Lascarso

  If you say so.

  My parents arrived soon after. Sabrina came in with them, and I deduced from their initial questions that Sabrina hadn’t told them much, if anything, about that night or the sequence of events leading up to it. I was thankful for that. I glanced toward the door, looking for someone else to appear, and Sabrina only shook her head slightly.

  “What the hell happened to you?” my dad said almost immediately. He never swore, so for him to say “hell” meant that he was rattled. He stood over me, a tall, tall tower, the kind where you get banished to live out your life forever in isolation.

  “I’m not sure.” My gaze veered over to Sabrina. I was asking her for the official story. I didn’t want my lies to contradict what they’d already been told or would soon find out from the doctors.

  “We found you in the back of Mitchell’s car,” she said carefully. She grabbed my hand. “I looked like you’d snorted some…something.” She paused, glancing over at my parents. “The doctors said they’d be doing blood work.”

  So, there would be no getting around the fact I’d snorted heroin. Or something. I didn’t think to ask James for the specifics of what I’d purchased.

  “Did I overdose?” I asked Sabrina. My mother swallowed. My father pressed his lips together in a blade-thin line.

  “We thought maybe you’d just passed out, but you weren’t breathing right. And you wouldn’t wake up. We figured it was better to call 9-1-1.”

  “Who’s we?” I asked Sabrina.

  “Me and Mitchell.” She glanced away. “And Seth.”

  “How long has this been going on?” my father demanded.

  I acted confused and disoriented, which wasn’t a stretch given my current condition. “That was my first time. There was a guy at the party selling it. I just wanted to try it.”

  Sabrina looked down at her hands, but she didn’t contradict me.

  “Why weren’t you at work?” my mom asked me.

  I swallowed. My mouth was dry, and my saliva felt like rocks going down my throat.

  “I took off. The band was having a release party. I lied. I’m sorry.”

  “We told them you wouldn’t be coming in any more,” my dad said sternly.

  I waited for them to expose my deception to me, but they didn’t. Seth’s contacts must have held firm.

  “We’re putting you into a program,” my dad continued. I breathed a sigh of relief, not about the idea of rehab, but that I could still get out of this without my house of cards tumbling down.

  “Hiroku, why would you do this to yourself?” my mother asked in her gentle, thoughtful way. “Why would you take such a risk?”

  Tears filled my eyes. I could justify lying to my dad, but I hated lying to her. “I was stupid,” I admitted. “So, so stupid.”

  A while later, my parents left to go to the cafeteria because morning was approaching, and it was just Sabrina and me alone in the hospital room. I had a single, so there was no risk of being overheard.

  “Thanks for covering for me,” I said. Sabrina shook her head and wouldn’t look at me.

  “Thanks for not fucking dying on me,” she said tersely.

  “You’re welcome.” I wasn’t trying to be a smartass. I didn’t know what else to say.

  “I swear to God, Hiro, if you don’t get clean in rehab and stay the hell away from Seth, I am going to tell your parents every goddamned stupid thing you’ve ever done. In detail with footnotes.”

  She stared at me with that fire in her eyes, smithed from the iron core of her being. Sabrina was around Seth even more intensely than me at times, and she’d never succumbed to the drugs or his manipulations.

  “That’s fair,” I told her.

  “And just so you know, Seth was too afraid for his own selfish ass to call the ambulance. If it were up to him, you’d probably be dead right now.”

  I let out a high, giddy laugh, not because it was funny, but because it was so fucking typical.

  “I guess that means I won,” I said.

  Sabrina punched my arm, gently though. I knew what those fists could do, and she went easy on me. Then a thought occurred to me.

  “What happened to the drugs?” I’d snorted a lot but definitely not the entire bag, if that was even possible.

  “Seth hid them,” she said, and I had to wonder if he’d done it to protect me or to protect himself. Maybe he just didn’t want the drugs to go to waste. He was probably getting high with that twink right now, thinking, Whew, that was a close one. Almost lost my stash…

  Then I felt bad for calling that kid a twink, even in my mind, because what I should be doing was warning him off Seth altogether, but I had my own skin to save. I couldn’t think about Seth right then. Or ever. It was over between us. Over, over over… I’d cast it like a spell until it came true.

  “I really am sorry for putting you through this,” I told Sabrina. “I never meant for you to find me like that or have to deal with my parents.”

  There was something else I was apologizing for too, that I’d exposed her to this darkness. I’d brought her into this circle, and I’d introduced her to Seth, which made me responsible.

  “We put you through this,” Sabrina said. “All of us in the band are partly to blame for always choosing him over you.”

  I nodded, feeling that familiar ache. Like a slow leak in a tire, my heart wasn’t shattered this time, just slowly losing air. By the end, it’d be a sad, dead ball in the playground. Discarded and left to rot.

  “I chose him over me too,” I told her, “but I won’t anymore.”

  She looked at me like she wanted to believe me.

  I wanted to believe me too.

  NOW

  I arrange a sit-down with my family, including Sabrina and Dr. Denovo. Mai is there as well, having come home for my upcoming release so that we can spend a little time together before her fall semester starts up.

  Dr. Denovo begins by saying I’ve come a long way since my arrival at New Vistas nearly twelve weeks ago, that he’s impressed by my willingness to share in both our one-on-ones and in group, and that I’ve made remarkable progress in understanding my addiction. I try not to cringe at that word.

  Then he says I have some things I want to tell them, and he gives me a moment of silence to collect myself, even while my dad is burning holes into my skull with his intensely impatient glare, and my mom and sister appear about to cry. I focus on Sabrina instead. None of this will be news to her.

  I begin by telling them how Seth and I met on the basketball courts, how I spent most afternoons in his garage getting to know him, how I skipped school a few times to be with him.

  “We became…romantic,” I say as a way to explain the nature of our relationship.

  My dad crosses his arms and turns toward the window. Mai comes over, sits beside me, and puts her arm around my shoulders. She’s probably the most familiar with the dynamics of our relationship. I don’t want to expose her as an accomplice by admitting what she knew, so I simply continue on by telling them that I found out Seth was cheating on me last spring and we broke up.

  “I tried to stay away from him.”

  “And then I left for school,” Mai says. We both know what she means. My safety net was gone.

  “I should have been stronger.” I don’t want her feeling guilty.

  “I should have been more accessible.”

  I tell them how we got back together at the end of summer. By that time, Seth was into hard drugs, and soon after, I started experimenting as well.

  “How could you hide all of this from us?” my mother asks with heartbreaking sincerity. “For months, Hiroku?”

  I drag my hands down my face wishing I could hide or disappear or evaporate into mist rather than tell them any of this. I hid it because I wanted to keep up the appearance of the honorable son. I want to be that person still, but I can’t lie to them anymore. I need their help.

  “I never worked at Sam’s Club,” I admit. “It was a way to get aroun
d my curfew.”

  “But the money…” my dad says. “How did you afford that bike? Were you selling drugs too?” His voice escalates, as does his anger. My mother lays a hand on his arm.

  I tell them I wasn’t dealing, but that Seth was making deposits into my bank account for my artistic consult on Petty Crime. My parents don’t believe me for a second. That’s when Sabrina, thinking she’s helping me, pitches in, “Hiroku filmed a video for us.”

  “What video?” my dad asks like he’s just now being introduced to the son he never knew he had, which in a way, is accurate.

  “Just some video,” I say, downplaying it.

  “A video that paid enough money to afford a new motorcycle?” Dad asks. He shoots a suspicious look at Sabrina, probably figuring out by now that she knows more than she’s letting on. “How do we know you’re not lying to protect him?”

  The video is my sexuality on screen for the entire world to see. There’s no way my dad could deny it, and neither can I anymore. I have to be honest about who I am and accept myself, even if he won’t.

  I pull up the video on my dad’s phone. It’s on YouTube and Vevo, and judging from the stats, it appears to have gone viral.

  Awesome.

  I sit there with my head buried in my hands while they watch it. Mai rubs my back. She’s already seen it. She’s probably scoured Seth’s Instagram as well, trying to piece it all together. Dr. Denovo sits back like he’s watching the screening of some sad-ass, made-for-TV movie about family dysfunction. That’s probably most of his workday. Being a rehab therapist seems like a pretty shitty job, but I’m glad he suffers through it, for my sake and that of my compadres.

  My father puts away his phone with a look of disgust. He takes a deep breath and says with the utmost conviction. “We are putting this person in prison.”

  I shake my head and tell them that isn’t the point, that everything I’ve done, I did so willingly. That by placing all of the blame on Seth, I’m not owning up to my own bad behavior. I lay on all of the psychobabble about TRUST, HONESTY, RESPECT, and RESPONSIBILITY I learned from Dr. Denovo, and then I say as my final word, “and if you try it, I won’t talk.”

  My mother gets mad then and yells at me in Japanese, which is rare. The gist of it is that I am her son, and she’ll be damned if she’s going to let some monster get away with what Seth did to me. She asks me if that’s where all those marks on my face came from, and I shake my head, because I know that will really send her over the edge. Even after all of this, I’m still trying to protect him.

  When it seems she’s finished, I finally lift my face to look at them. “I want to put all of that behind me. I know this is news to you, but I’ve been living it for the past two years, and if this treatment plan is going to work, I need all of you to help me stay away from him.” As an afterthought, I add, “and stay off the drugs.”

  They settle down. My dad asks me what I think I need in a tone that suggests I clearly have no idea how to take care of myself. I take him at his word and go over some of the things Dr. Denovo and I discussed: new school, new friends, a curfew they’ll hold me to no matter what, a tracker on my phone to make sure I’m not lying about where I’m going, and their support in my artistic endeavors because I truly believe that is what gives my life meaning. I ask them to please not take away my bike because it’s one of the few things in my life that brings me joy. I also say that it would be nice if they could forgive me, eventually.

  “We’re not mad at you, Hiroku” my mother says, then glances over at my father whose expression definitely does not echo her sentiment. “We can forgive you,” she assures me.

  “What can I do?” Mai pipes up.

  “I need you to call me at least once a week and ask me what I’m up to and hound me like you used to do.”

  She nods. A fresh round of tears springs into her eyes. “I’m sorry I left you behind.”

  I squeeze her hand and tell her it’s not her fault for having a life beyond Hilliard High. “You’re my guiding light,” I tell her, and I’m not being flippant about it either.

  Then I turn to Sabrina. She’s been distant this whole time. Perhaps it’s because she knows this played-out song already, or perhaps it’s because she feels partially responsible.

  “I need you to take him far away,” I tell her. “I can’t communicate with him anymore—not online or by text or phone, and especially not in person. You can’t tell him anything about me. In fact, I probably can’t be your friend for a while.”

  She nods. “I’ll move up some of the tour dates so that we’ll be gone by the time you get out of here.”

  “I can never see him again,” I tell everyone present, and they all nod like they understand how dire this situation is for me.

  I sit back in my chair, tired to my bones. We all share another round of hugs, except for my dad, who still can’t bring himself to do more than pat me on the back stiffly. After they leave, I ask Dr. Denovo what he thinks about my chances.

  “I think you’re going to make it.”

  “Don’t they pay you to say that?”

  He cracks a smile, finally. What an achievement it is to see his teeth. “Yes,” he admits.

  I grin along with him because I know that he means it. Then I experience a swell of confidence that couldn’t possibly be considered abundant but is certainly sufficient.

  “I think so too.”

  It may not seem like a lot to those who’ve never been through something like this or known someone who has, but at the end of all of this—Seth’s manipulations, the drugs, my overdose—I could at least say the words “I survived” and be truly grateful for it.

  There are a lot of us who can’t.

  EPILOGUE

  The first time Seth and I had sex, it hurt like a bitch—maybe because we rushed it or maybe that’s just the way it goes. Anyway, at one point, I told Seth to pull out. He was facing me, my hips bolstered up by pillows, my knees buckled on either side of him, and he told me it was supposed to hurt and to stop squirming because I was making it worse.

  “I think we should stop,” I said again while edging up on the mattress and away from him.

  Seth grabbed my shoulders to still me and said, “Take a deep breath and relax. Embrace the pain, Hiroku. This is your gift to me, and in a few minutes, you’ll see what I can give you in return.”

  I swallowed down my fear and nodded without speaking. Seth pushed himself all the way up inside of me. It felt like my rectum was being torn wide open.

  “Give in to it,” Seth said.

  At first, I was angry and bitter, but as Seth kept moving—slowly at first—the pain dimmed to a throb and was layered in with waves of pleasure that grew exponentially like ripples in a pond.

  He was right about it being worth it in the end, but I think back on what Seth said and wonder at what point my “gift” to him became a debt, which then became something he took from me.

  The things we once gave freely to each other became the things we withheld until it was just a ledger of what was owed. That’s probably the hardest thing about walking away from him, knowing this painful experience will never be reconciled and the debts will never be paid. I want back what I lost when I was with him, but the best I can hope for is to be able to walk away with my life.

  I feel cheated. I wonder if Seth does too.

  I think about that now as I stand in front of my mirror wearing new clothes, in a new room, in a new house, in a new town and prepare for my first day of junior year. It’s a small town, and there are bound to be some haters, but I apply my black eyeliner because I’ve come to see it, like my piercings, as a kind of battle scar representing all that I’ve been through. It also makes me feel tough, and I need all of the courage I can get.

  It’s taken me a long time to be able to look at myself in the mirror and not be disgusted by what I see. But with each passing day, Seth’s influence over me gets a little weaker, the memories a little dimmer, and the cravings a little less sha
rp.

  There’s something Dr. Denovo said to me at the beginning of my 12 weeks in rehab that has stuck with me ever since:

  Addiction may be a part of who I am, but I am not my addiction.

  I think that’s important to remember.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This story deals with a lot of controversial subject matter. My goal in writing Hiroku was to take some of those issues—abuse, addiction, and emotional manipulation—and explore the gray area in an attempt to foster conversation and reflection. That said, I realize readers may not agree with some of the choices I made. At the risk of sounding like a disclaimer, I wanted to make it known that in writing this story and The Bravest Thing, I did struggle with one aspect of Seth’s character and that was the decision to include his bipolar diagnosis.

  I included this aspect because I wanted to show that there are very valid reasons why people choose to self-medicate. My hope was to bring a little more understanding as to just how difficult it can be to manage one’s own mental health, especially when other environmental factors compound this struggle. Unfortunately, I couldn’t divorce this aspect of Seth’s character from his other destructive behaviors and impulses, which I believe stem more from his unstable childhood and the insecurities that resulted from it.

  This is the challenge for any author in crafting compelling and realistic characters, and this note is my attempt to both explain my reasoning behind Seth’s character and make room for rebuttal if readers feel I made the wrong decision.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  If you are new to my work, you may not know that Hiroku is the prequel to another book I wrote called The Bravest Thing. It’s an unusual way to go about writing a double feature, and it was a unique challenge to work within the parameters of a world I’d already created. I owe Hiroku, more so than any of my other stories, to my readers because it was at their insistence that I wrote the first chapter and posted it on my website.