But I don’t tell Stephen any of that because the thing about love is it’s almost more about you than it is about the other person. So, instead I say, “She makes me feel like I’m not myself and more myself at the same time. She devours me in the best way and kills me in the worst way, but I’m happy to be killed by her because she’s heaven too.”
I take a deep breath. My head is spinning, and I do not feel well. “I don’t know. I’m a terrible sappy drunk. It’s probably not like that at all, I just love her.”
I realize that Stephen hasn’t said anything or tried to pat my head awkwardly. He’s basically gotten pretty cold toward me, but I don’t even care. It’s actually the greatest thing in the world not to be the only person who knows my own secret anymore.
“Well, this is shit for me, Danny. You shouldn’t have sent me mixed signals or acted like you wanted to hook up tonight.” He looks at me like he wants an apology, but I’m really not liking his accusatory tone.
“Regardless of what I did before, mixed signals or not, you don’t get to bitch at me for deciding I’m not into this right now.”
I raise my eyebrow as he gets up to pour yet another drink. I don’t want to be the one cleaning up his vomit later. “Actually, they weren’t mixed at all,” he says, and his face puckers as he drains his glass. “You entirely led me on. Or did I make it up that you were flirting with me at Sara’s? Am I so self-delusional that—”
I cut him off. “No, no, you’re not delusional. I was flirting, or trying to. At Sara’s I needed my other friends to think I was into you so they wouldn’t suspect anything about Bugg, which was really shitty, and I’m sorry.”
He rubs his eyes for a long time, so long that I wonder if I should go sleep in the shed, but then he says, in a voice entirely devoid of emotion, “If you love her, you should get her back. I’ve seen plenty of romantic comedies with my little sister. It doesn’t look that hard.” He opens the door and stumbles out.
“Where are you going?”
“To pee.”
“You’re not going to tell anyone about Bugg, are you?” I call as he pads down the hallway to the bathroom. I start to follow him but the sound of him peeing stops me in my tracks.
“Shit, let me delete the Facebook status I was crafting,” he says sarcastically. Then his voice softens. “I care about you, Danny. I wouldn’t do that. Besides, with any luck I won’t remember this whole night tomorrow.”
He comes back and his cheeks are flushed from the alcohol. “I kind of hate you right now,” he says thoughtfully. “But I can’t be mad at you either. I wish I could be what you need.”
We stand there in the doorway and I have no idea what to say to that. I don’t like being pitied, but I’d also like for my one friend at Harvard not to hate me, so finally I ask if he wants to take shots. He does and we do and it’s not that things are good between us, but I think maybe our friendship can still be salvaged.
“Am I the first person you’ve come out to?” he slurs. We’re slumped against the wall in his room under a shelf of spelling bee trophies. Initially he’d put the record player back on, but watching it spin was making me nauseous so he turned it off.
“I’m not coming out. All I know so far is I have this feeling for this girl. I haven’t gotten any further than that.” The last thing I need is an invite to yet another club, because as soon as you’re in a club you have to be some sort of spokesperson. I declined in treatment and I’ll decline here, thank you.
Later we crawl into bed next to each other as if the last few hours of trying to make use of each other’s bodies didn’t happen. Within a few minutes Stephen is snoring, which is another reason I made the right choice in not choosing him. When Bugg sleeps her breath flutters like a butterfly doing ballet; meanwhile, Stephen is single-handedly taking down the Costa Rican rain forest.
I fall asleep anyway, feeling tired and right with myself, the way you do when you realize your suspicions about the Big Hunger were correct: There really is only one person who can make it stop.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
On the ride of shame home, I get a call from Kate. The problem with cell phones is they make you so accessible.
“Hello?” I rasp, holding the steering wheel with one hand and putting the phone on speaker with the other. I’m so hungover even sounds are making me nauseous.
“Hi, Danny, it’s Kate.”
“Yeah, I have caller ID on my iPhone.”
“Okay, well, I’m at the Coffee Place with Liz and we’re wondering where you are ’cause you’re thirty minutes late.” I swerve around an unidentifiable piece of flattened detritus, thinking it probably looks better than I do.
“Shit, I’m sorry, I entirely forgot about meeting today.” They texted me a couple of days ago about planning some fancy tennis tournament in Sara’s honor, and I said I’d go because I can’t not go, but come on. How am I supposed to remember all of my commitments?
“Well, can you come now?” I can tell she’s making a bitchy face, even through the phone.
“I guess so. I’m twenty minutes away but I’ll be there then.” I hang up and slow at a yellow light for once in my life, stopping before it turns red.
When I finally get to the Coffee Place and sit down at their table, they look clean, put together, and not hungover, which pisses me off.
“Hi, sorry,” I say, wishing I had a piece of gum to mitigate my cognac breath. “I got caught up with something.”
On top of not looking impressed, they’re staring at my lip like I had some sort of butchered plastic surgery. “What happened to your face?” Liz asks, swirling her green juice.
“Long story; let’s get down to business.” There’s a threatening pause and I adjust my smock.
“Danny, no offense, but—” Kate starts. Worst. Way. To. Start. A. Sentence. Ever.
“We don’t think you’re taking any of these things surrounding Sara’s passing very seriously.” She straightens out the napkin dispenser and looks at me expectantly.
“What are you talking about?” I ask, eyeing their water glasses enviously. My mouth is as dry as Death Valley.
“Well, the eulogy—”
“I had a stomach bug.”
“—and showing up late for this meeting. The tournament is going to be special, but it’s going to take a lot of work and a lot of planning, and Liz and I don’t think you’re being supportive, which is messed up because Sara was your absolute best friend. You can’t abandon us right now.”
I look back and forth between their faces. They both have lip gloss on. Who has the energy to put lip gloss on in a time like this?
“Look, I’m sorry that I was late for planning this tournament. I’m sorry I got stage fright and threw up all over Sara’s death day. I’m sorry that I don’t want to have a tournament because that sounds hot and sweaty and awful for someone who hates sports. And I guess I’m sorry that you feel ‘abandoned.’” I realize after the fact that the use of air quotes is unforgivably condescending. “But you can’t tell me how to grieve.”
“You’re not even wearing the bracelet,” Liz says and holds up her wrist. It’s one of those terribly unfashionable but fashionable rubber band things. This one says W.W.S.D.
“I don’t even know what that is,” I say too loudly, and a couple from the next table over stares at us.
“Yeah, because you disappeared off the face of the earth the past couple of weeks,” Kate hisses, turning hers so the letters face me.
“It stands for What Would Sara Do,” Liz adds, like I’m their intellectually challenged substitute version of a true friend. “We think you should be thinking more about what Sara would want.”
I reach for Kate’s glass and help myself to what is clearly not mine. I’m trying to swallow “what Sara would want,” but we can’t live out our lives in a perpetual quandary about whether Sara would or would not have done whatever we’re doing. She’s gone. We’re not.
“Look, I’m sorry that I’m not as strong-st
omached as the rest of you. I’m sorry the second that bad shit happens I lock myself in my inner closet and don’t come out.” Kate and Liz look at me with bewilderment, as if they couldn’t fathom any sort of closet besides the one housing all their shoes. I feel something swelling up inside me and I don’t know where it’s coming from, but it feels right so I go with it. “The thing is, I don’t want to do social things with everybody and talk about how Sara was our hero. I need to do this my way, and I’m sorry if that offends you, and even though I could probably try a little harder to do things your way, I like who I am and I like doing things my way.”
I stand up and walk out of the Coffee Place before they can argue. It’s probably a stretch to say I like who I am, but maybe if I say it enough times, it’ll be true.
When I pull onto my street, I’m feeling good with myself and bad with myself at the same time. I definitely took some sort of stand with Kate and Liz, but fights are shitty. Also, full disclosure, I ate a shitty breakfast sandwich then threw it up in a shitty convenience-store bathroom before I met them. I shouldn’t be hard on myself, though. I was just hungover. A lot of people throw up when they’re hungover. Just ask a lot of people.
When I go to pull into my usual spot in the driveway, there’s a minivan already parked in it. It’s weird to fathom my parents having a friend, but I walk into the living room fully prepared to be as social as a hungover antisocial person can be. That is, until I realize that their “friend” is Leslie, my therapist, sitting on the couch with my parents, looking like she’s about to deliver news about the impending apocalypse.
“Hey, guys,” I say, clanging the keys down on the counter just for something to break the silence.
“Hi, Danny,” they all say in unison, which has this eerie artificial intelligence feel to it.
“You’re kind of creeping me out. Are you robots impersonating your true selves? Should I be worried? IS THIS THE FUTURE?” Nobody laughs. I’ve been getting some tough crowds recently.
“Come sit down,” my mom says, and my therapist nods her usual nod, which is literally the only thing she’s capable of doing. I eye the couch next to her and try to figure out where the trap is. Something about all of this seems very, very sketchy.
“What’s up?” I ask as I sit down and my mom puts her hand firmly on my knee, as if my patella will fall off unless she holds it in place.
“We wanted to get together to let you know that we know,” my dad starts, and that’s when I get this awful pit in my stomach because what if they somehow found out that the failed attempt in Stephen’s bedroom was a cover-up for my real feelings about Bugg and now we’re all going to share our feelings on my sexuality, followed by a Q&A mediated by the damn therapist, who probably has loads and loads of textbook wisdom to convey. Just as I’m about to begin vehemently denying any sort of action involving my lips and Bugg’s body, my dad says, “That you’re not doing well in terms of your eating disorder.”
I sigh. True, this is the preferred topic, but now I have to vehemently deny any and all lost meals of the past week, and there are a lot to account for.
“This, combined with excessive drinking, which we think is a new behavior, has the three of us really worried.” He says “the three of us” like they’ve been spending spring break in the Caribbean with Leslie for the last nineteen years.
“We care about you too much to watch you go down this path,” my mom adds, and that’s when it dawns on me.
“Is this an intervention? Like, the shit they do for drug-addicted teens on MTV or whatever?” Suddenly, it feels way too crowded on the L-shaped couch. My dad stands and takes a knee in front of me so that we’re at eye level.
“This is the people who love you begging you to please consider going back to St. John’s for treatment,” he says, and I concentrate on the smudge on his glasses.
“So, yes. This is an intervention,” I say, looking among them, and they blink in unison like the robots they truly are. Well, except Leslie, who’s been trained not to blink. “I can’t believe you’d suggest that I go back there. You know how much I hated it. Or maybe you didn’t, since you never visited.” I get up from the couch and turn around to stare at them with my hands on my hips, hoping I’ll look like someone who is capable of being in charge of her life.
“It was your mother’s idea—” my dad starts to say, taking my seat on the couch.
“Not helpful, Jim,” my mom snaps.
“Let’s try to use kind words,” Leslie offers, with her pen poised over her notepad like she’s taking field notes.
“Fine.” My mom stands, sounding annoyed. It delights me to hear that I’m not the only one who finds the therapist’s condescension insufferable. “Danny, of course you can know it was my idea to intervene.” She adjusts one of my dad’s taxidermied mallards so that it won’t fall from the shelf and die. Again. “We’re doing this to save you from getting any further into a deep hole.”
“I don’t need you to save me,” I say quietly. Everything in the room holds its breath: my parents, the therapist, the cuckoo clock on the wall opposite the TV, the fake fireplace, the other taxidermied ducks, the shelves and shelves of books. They’re waiting for me to say something, but I don’t want to have this conversation with all parties in the room. “Can you give us a minute?” I ask Leslie. They all look at one another, my parents communicate telepathically, then nod, and she leaves the room. “Look, I’m not some cute teenage pattern who you need to sew up with your fancy wisdom. You had absolutely no right to bring Leslie into this and stage a coup on me.”
My parents try to get closer to me, but I back away until I can feel the handle of the sliding door. It’s comforting knowing the whole world is only a pane away.
“Danny, it’s part of the deal we made,” my mom says. She’s wearing a blazer and looks a lot more formidable than I do. Also her breath probably smells like a Tic Tac whereas mine smells like a dive bar. “We are involved in these conversations together so that you’re ready to go back to Harvard in the fall.”
“I’M TECHNICALLY AN ADULT,” I yell, but the tears are hot in the corner of my eyes. It’s not like I forgot what I agreed to—they remind me every damn minute—but I thought we were all on the same side. “JUST BECAUSE YOU BIRTHED ME AND PAY FOR ALL MY SHIT DOESN’T MEAN I DON’T HAVE THE RIGHT TO PRIVACY.”
I try to take deep breaths. I rack my brain for a time that something good has come from me being very angry and shouting at the people I love, but I can’t come up with a single instance.
“Danny, we love you,” my dad says, his eyebrows merging into one above the frame of his glasses.
“We’re scared for you and wouldn’t have been able to live with ourselves if we didn’t intervene,” my mom adds.
As she stands next to my dad and they look at me pityingly, I wish so much that Sara weren’t dead and that Bugg hadn’t broken up with me. Besides not having anyone to go to the movies with, it’s pretty shitty having no one left on your team to say what you can’t say for yourself. It’s so profoundly lonely being the only person in the universe that I think my head is going to spin off, but then I realize that it’s also very quiet when you’re the only person left. So quiet, in fact, that you can think for yourself.
“Look at what Sara’s parents are going through,” my mom continues, walking over to me and trying to give me a hug. “Can you imagine? If only they’d stepped in.”
“But at least Sara got to live a life that was hers.” I inch away from my mother in hopes of still being able to hear myself think. “She made a choice and the choice was hers, entirely, irrevocably hers.” I look out at the garden and the white plastic goose has gotten dirtier since I tripped over it. God it feels like a million lifetimes ago. “Isn’t there some dignity in that?”
“Now isn’t the time to get noble,” my mom says. “If it’s between your well-being or your so-called dignity, I’d prefer to lose the latter.”
“You’re being such vampires,” I mutter, then
lean my forehead against the cool glass of the window, feeling like this is some sort of prison. I can nearly feel my pulse in the tiny molecular crystals of the glass.
“Danny, we are one hundred percent on your team,” my dad says, but he sounds like he knows he’s lying.
The therapist pokes her head in. “Is everything okay in here?”
“Yes, Leslie, we’re fine,” I say.
“I think we could use some assistance,” my mom pipes up, and I bite my tongue so hard I think I draw blood. “We want you to get better, Danny.”
And Leslie chimes in with, “It’s my professional opinion that you’re headed down a dangerous path if you don’t get some help. Though our sessions have been illuminating, they’re not enough, not after everything that’s happened with the passing of your friend. Luckily, there’s an immediate opening at St. John’s that we were able to book you into.”
My jaw drops so low it grazes the carpet.
“We need to know you’re going to be someplace safe,” my dad says, and he looks truly sorry. My team, my ass.
“So just to clarify, I don’t have any say in this at all? This whole intervention was a puppet show to get me to agree with you? You know that’s even more screwed up than telling me straight up that I should go back to St. John’s.” My parents are nice people and they don’t like to come off as fascists, but when they are being fascists, I think they should own up to it.
“Well, we think—” my dad starts, but my mom cuts him off.
“No. You don’t have a choice, Danny. As your parents we have chosen to step in. Start packing up your stuff tonight and we’re going to head over on Saturday.” My mother buttons her blazer as if that’s that.
Love & Other Carnivorous Plants Page 19