18. Gage
18
GAGE
A person with sudden anxiety!
About reconnecting with friends from high school. Ones from that artsy group that felt good to be around, but I inevitably ditched when I needed to chase a high. We’re sitting in a restaurant that serves ten-cent wings and half-priced pints, and I’m getting the wings spicy, and the server is asking me if I’d like anything to drink.
And anxiety!
Because, yes. Yes, I would like something to drink. It doesn’t even matter that alcohol was never my method of destruction because I want some now. Half-priced pints sound splendid and sudsy and delicious.
But I’m a person. Not just an addict. And everyone is staring at me while I have an internal debate about ordering a drink, and the server is being awkward, like he knows I’m stalling but can’t fathom why. I’m a person, but I’m also an addict, and unless you are also a person who is also an addict, it might not make sense to stall on something as simple as a drink order.
Just say water.
Say Pepsi.
Say you’d like a glass of chocolate milk.
Order a goddamn Oreo milkshake, Gage.
I say nothing, and the server tells me he’ll give me another minute to decide. But then Ruby, this edgy chick a year older than me, pipes up for me and takes the pressure off.
“He’ll have Coke.”
“Pepsi,” I mutter in absolute relief.
“Pepsi,” Ruby repeats. “So will I. And a water with no ice. Thanks.”
She’s squeezing my sweaty hand under the table and giving me a look full of love or something, and I breathe a little easier. “Thank you.”
She winks and doesn’t make a thing of it. I try not to make a thing of all the half-priced pints that show up on the table four minutes later. They’re sweating as much as my hands are, so I eat spicy wings and order more spicy wings, and when those are gone, I order honey garlic ones because there’s a craving inside me that wings are going to have to fill.
“So, how’s it feel to be back, Gage?”
And like magic, that’s exactly when my brother Owen shows up. He’s late because his shift ran late, and I’m so happy to see him.
“I love living with Mom again,” I say, scooting my chair closer to my brother when he sits down. “And being near Owen.”
Owen looks at my many empty plates that haven’t been cleared and the three empty Pepsi cups that only have melting ice in the bottom. He smiles, which makes me smile.
I’m a person.
Owen isn’t an artsy guy, but he gets along with everyone, so we chat and laugh and actually have a good time with this group of friends I pushed away ten years ago. Just like that, I’m mending bridges and forging new relationships, making old things new again, just like Alexei will do in his workshop. I text my mom.
Gage: I hope your forging class is good. I’m doing some forging of my own.
Then I text Alexei.
Gage: Was it supposed to be the blue mug with the moustache on it? Are you trying to get me to grow a moustache?
Mom doesn’t text me back. She’ll probably find the text three weeks from now and think I’m talking about something else entirely, but Alexei answers.
Alexei 3 : I hung your fedora on my bedpost. And I’m wearing your black and blue checkered slip-ons.
I have no idea what that has to do with mugs and moustaches, but I smile at my phone and send him a picture of all my empty dishes. Then I send the ‘fried meats are our friends’ design and an orange heart emoji.
He rolls his emoji eyes at me.
Then the anxiety gets better because I’m surrounded by pints and cocktails, and I’m no longer hungry for one.
I’m a person.
Owen has to stop me from stealing a bottle of BBQ sauce, though, so there’s that. I haven’t stolen anything in over a year—haven’t even had the urge to.
The next day, I get really motivated. I update almost all of my digital designs, create some new layouts for planners with so many more hyperlinks, and when that doesn’t feel like enough, I start on sticker packs. Somehow, I end up with twelve different sticker themes for twelve different planner designs, and I’m smiling at everything except Slash. Because he’s sitting in my window seat, grumping at me about my productivity while he’s been a lazy asshole all day.
“Boys! Dinner!” Mom shouts, and holy fuck. A whole day has passed and I’ve barely left my room.
Maybe I’ll start making t-shirt designs. Maybe I love digital art again. Maybe I’m going to start digitally drawing again.
I’m a person. I’m an artist.
I’m clambering down the stairs, ready to compliment Mom on her dinner-making abilities, when I realize the back door is open and we’re going to the neighbours’ for dinner. And when I trip Cole, body check Nick, and win the non-existent race into Benedita’s backyard, I pause and stop smiling. Because there’s the friend. The wife of Paul’s co-worker. The only one I ever met, and she’s shocked to see me but still smiling. And Mom says these are the neighbour’s third cousins on her aunt’s side, and wow. What a small world.
“Hi,” I squeak. Memories are coming back, hazy ones from times I pretended to be sober, reminding me that she told me she has family in my hometown. We bonded over it. And then I forgot it because drugs were more important.
“Hey, Gage,” she says, beaming at me. “You look amazing! How are you?”
“I’m… good. Really good, actually,” I say and mean it for the first time. “You look different.” I obnoxiously point to the very round belly she’s sporting. “Are you just fat? Or happy to see a baby soon?” That was so insensitive and I have no idea why I said it.
“Just fat,” she jokes. “And eager to see a baby in less than a month.”
“Congrats!”
“Hello?” Alexei’s voice drifts to the yard from my kitchen.
“Alexei!” I shout, but then I’m speedwalking back home to grab him. “Hi.” I grin at him, taking his hand that says right. It really is the right one.
He has hearts in his eyes, but there’s skepticism, too. “Dubious again?”
“A little,” I admit. “Remember I said I had an ex? Well, someone I knew through him is in my neighbour’s backyard, and I’m being weird and making fat jokes. Please stop me.”
He watches me. Hard.
“And I made sticker packs and planners all day, and I need you to help me with sales and bundles. Am I still paying the non-flirting tax?”
“I’m the neurotic rambler in this equation,” he says. “What’s happening?”
“I’m nervous,” I admit. “Will you come to dinner with me? There are probably fried meats, but I don’t know.”
I want to kiss him.
“Okay.”
“That easy? I would have asked a lot of questions and assumed your family wouldn’t want me there.”
“Should I assume those things? I can ask a lot of questions if you want me to.”
“Nope. Just come with me. You look sexy today.” I link our fingers, and he corrects the hold, palms together without our fingers linked. Right. I smile. “I like these pants.”
“You can call them jeans,” Alexei says.
“Well, I didn’t want to draw attention to the fact they’re jeans, in case you weren’t aware. Never seen you wear jeans before.”
“I’m aware.”
“You told me you wear mascara sometimes, but I’ve never seen you wear it.”
“You pay that close of attention to my eyelashes?” he asks.
“Yes.” To all of him. Every bit. I notice everything about him every time I see him. If his hair stands up in a different direction. If it’s been recently re-dyed or is a bit more faded. His septum piercing switching from a silver humbug to a black metal one. I like the black metal one. A lot. His pale blue eyes and the state of his nail polish.
We’re still holding hands when we walk into the backyard. I haven’t really told my family I’m dating Alexei, but no one blinks at it. Not even Sonya, who only ever knew me as Paul’s hidden boyfriend. She smiles. I smile. The family smiles. Introductions to Alexei are made, and then we’re eating a Portuguese chicken dish that Alexei really likes, and he even has a slice of the orange honey almond cake for dessert. And the neighbour loves him, so she’s trying to force-feed him more and sell him on another serving of chicken, but my boy has an iron will.
And since my neighbours are very neighbourly, Marian, Pearl, and Nancy come by for a slice, and we chat about quilts. The sex shop owners stop by, and a whole other cake is pulled out of thin air. Then Nathan comes, and all the ladies love him, and Mom says he should come meet their forging teacher. Suddenly, there are kids and foster parents and neighbours I’ve never met but who have heard about me. Good things about me. Wow.
Everything is so happy and normal again. So I leave, disappearing to my own front porch for a cigarette. Once again, I find myself wondering if everyone is accommodating me. Are they avoiding alcohol because I’m there? Would there be an awesome Portuguese drink to pair with the awesome Portuguese meal?
I know people do it to be kind and courteous, but I can’t help but feel guilty about it. I make people change. I require accommodations. I don’t know if I actually have a justifiable reason to require these resources, and it makes me feel like shit. And it’s not something easy like a fucking fidget spinner. It’s the whole vibe of the night. It’s forcing people to stay sober until I leave, which inadvertently makes me feel unwelcome even though they’re doing it to be welcoming.
Fuck. My. Mind.
“I don’t feel overly enthused about moustaches.” Alexei swings around the porch pillar, making me breathe a little easier. “Sonya wanted to say goodbye before you left.” She follows him, waddling with her gigantic belly sticking out.
I smile at her but pat the step next to me to invite Alexei over.
“I don’t wish to die of second-hand smoke, Gage. I’ll be back.” He grins at me before heading back to the neighbours’ yard.
I offer Sonya a hand and help her get situated with a cushion under her ass. “We have chairs,” I inform her.
She looks at them on the porch. “I’m settled here now. No getting me up.” Her knee bumps mine. “I like him.”
“Who?”
“Alexei. He’s so weird and rude about it, but bashfully polite at the same time. Sexy, too. Way better looking than your last boyfriend.”
I laugh, putting my smoke out because… pregnant lady. “Yeah, he’s a bit of a mindfuck, but he’s adorable about it. I can’t believe we’re having dinner together. Like our lives were sort of connected, but now that the connection is broken, you’re still here. It’s strange.”
She smiles at the street and the maple on the front lawn. “Gage, I wanna say I’m sorry.”
“No,” I butt in.
“Let me say it!” She laughs. “Because I knew, okay? I knew what you were struggling through. I saw it, and instead of offering you any sort of hand to hold on to or a person to confide in, I just let it happen.”
“My sobriety nor my drug use is your thing to say sorry for. You had no responsibility to me, so stop with your sorrys.”
“I don’t mean that part,” she says, taking me right off guard. “I mean Paul.”
“Paul?” I look at her.
“He used you, Gage.”
“What? No. I used him. I manipulated him into giving me a safe place to live. Someone to take care of me.”
She shifts her body around until she’s facing me. “He used you, too. He told stories about your drug dependency at work. I don’t work there, but Henrique would come home and tell me about it. He pulled pity from people and made himself seem like this stand-up guy for taking you in. He used you to build himself up as a hero.”
Oh. I don’t really know how that feels. “Well, it’s no worse than what I did to him.”
“It is, though.” She takes my hand. “Because he… I know you didn’t see it or even care because you were caught deep in addiction, but he…”
“Sonya, I’m stronger now. You can tell me.”
“He wouldn’t be such a hero if you were sober, you know what I’m saying? He… kept you that way. Even when you went to rehab, he already anticipated you relapsing, and I never liked the way he looked when he talked about it. I think he… encouraged you. Offered you alcoholic drinks when you weren’t aware you were drinking. Left pills out on purpose. Not in large doses, but enough to give you a buzz and keep you looking for more.”
I’m already shaking my head at her story despite how badly it hurts. “No. I’m the junkie. I took the pills on my own. I looked for them and found his hiding spots. It had nothing to do with him.”
She smiles weakly, and maybe… maybe I’m on the cusp of believing her. Because Paul really did have a lot of single pills around that I couldn’t explain. I thought they were for his sore back or his migraines, but now that I’m thinking back on it, I don’t remember seeing him take them. But why? Why would he waste that kind of money on me? Especially when we fought so much and the comedown from the high was horrible for him?
“Wanna know something about Paul that you might not have noticed?” Sonya asks when I say nothing. “He needs to be needed. It’s his affliction. He needed you to need him.”
I look at her, trying to decide why she’s telling me this now.
“You know how I know, apart from witnessing it?”
“How?”
“He’s already got someone else. He moved a guy in a few weeks ago. This guy is in a lot of financial trouble, and Paul is about to become his hero.” She squeezes my hand. “So yes, your sobriety is on you, but I don’t want you to think you were the only one hurting yourself back then. He enabled you.”
But I picked him. My poor decision-making skills led me to Paul, and to be honest, I was in a similar situation to this new guy when he found me. I had money, but I had no home and no safe place to go. I met Paul at a bar, and we had a few drinks together and went back to his place to hook up. God, it was literally a week after that I moved in with him. Fuck, I’m such a loser. A few months after that, I forked up a lot of money to buy us a better place and didn’t care about the money because Paul took care of me.
“Why tell me now and not back then?” I ask.
“Because I was a little scared of you,” she admits. “You were happy-go-lucky most of the time, but… you weren’t always. And you lied a lot. I saw you cheat on him a few times, caught you sneaking people out of your place when we came to visit.” I cringe. “But mostly because I didn’t know how you would react, and we barely knew each other. I was scared.”
My eyes burn. “I’m sorry for scaring you.”
“Oh, baby,” she says, laughing. “That’s in the past. And now that I know you a bit better, I love who you are. My auntie and uncle love you, and I’m glad you’re neighbours. Means we get to see each other more often.” She pats my cheek. “I like you sober. And you look amazing. And you deserve Alexei. He’s so great.”
She’s gotta be ten years older than me, but for the first time, I think I’ve made a friend who actually knew me while I was a fuck-up. “Thank you. For, uh, not being scared of me anymore. For seeing me now.”
I haul her to her feet, hug her around her belly, and watch her walk away.
“I know you’re there.”
“How?” Alexei asks from beside the porch.
“I sense your soul.” I grin at him.
“You believe in soulmates?” he asks, sitting next to me now that I’m not smoking.
“Maybe. Never really thought about it before.” I trace the lines of his knuckle tattoos, wanting to ask what they are but enjoying the mystery of them. “How much did you hear?”
“I pretty much eavesdropped on all of it,” he says. “Sorry, but also, this is who I am.”
I like people who are unapologetically themselves, and Alexei has that in spades. “Wanna see all my new stickers?”