Chapter 26
I go home, and I do my best to ignore the barrage of images swirling in my head: Forrest ignoring me in the halls, Forrest telling all my friends how terrible I am and all of them abandoning me to join his group, everyone in Queer Alliance voting that I leave the club.
Maybe that counts as a compulsion, pushing the thoughts away, but I don’t know what else to do.
For a while, I try to do homework, and I get a few more paragraphs of my rough draft written, but then somehow my phone ends up in my hand and I start scrolling and suddenly it’s been two hours and I’m on my bed, Brekky curled beside me, and I can hear Mom and Shar talking in their room.
They came home and I didn’t even notice.
A tap sounds on my door. “Hey Sidney,” Mom calls from the other side.
“Come in,” I say dully, and she enters, crossing to my bed and sitting down beside me.
“How was school today?” she asks, squeezing my foot.
I shrug. I don’t know how to put it all into words.
“How are you feeling?”
“OK. Ish.”
“Ish?” she asks.
The tears fill my eyes again—it’s like they’re right at the surface, waiting for a moment to come out—and she clicks her tongue in sympathy.
“You wanna talk to me, sweetie?” “I don’t know,” I mumble, sniffling.
“My brain is just being . . .” I wave my hand at my head.
“What if it never gets better? What if it pushes everyone around me away?”
“I know what you mean,” she says, and I don’t know what I was expecting her to say, but it wasn’t that. “You know . . . I never told you this, but after the divorce . . . I was really anxious and depressed. I was on medication for a while.”
“You were?” When Mom and Dad first separated, I could tell they were both upset; Dad, because he would rage and snark about Mom whenever I was with him, and Mom, because she was quiet and sad, like a light bulb with a dimmer switch turned down to almost nothing.
She was worried about me all the time too; she hardly let me go over to friends’ houses, and whenever I got back from hanging out with Dad she would watch me as if I was a porcelain doll that might break at any moment.
When she won full custody of me, she’d cried.
I’d known she was sad, and I tried to be as good as possible, so she wouldn’t have to worry about more than she already was.
As time went on, I stopped noticing her sadness as much, and then she started pursuing her new career, and I didn’t think that much about how she was doing.
But maybe it wasn’t just starting a new career, and then meeting Shar, that helped her.
“It was anti-anxiety medication,” she says, as if she can hear the question in my mind.
“It took the edge off, made it so my brain didn’t spiral so much.
” She twirls a finger, and I nod. I know that feeling.
“I don’t know too much about OCD, but I do remember my dad was pretty anxious too.
When we went on trips, he used to go back into the house over and over to check that the stove was off.
One time it took an hour before we were finally able to leave.
We were really annoyed as kids, but now .
. .” She trails off. “Tracy gave me some websites to look through, so I can learn more about what might be going on, but whatever you want to share, I want to hear.”
I nod.
“And I wanted to check in about your dad too,” she says. “He told me that he relapsed, but that he got right back on the wagon. He said he told you as well. How are you feeling about that?”
Huh. Dad told Mom what he told me. I didn’t realize they talked like that, but I guess it makes sense. They’re both still my parents, even if I live with Mom. And if he was honest with her about that too . . . maybe he really is trying.
“I don’t know,” I say finally. “I kind of . . . don’t trust him.”
“I hear you,” she says.
“Like, he’s tried to get sober so many times, and it’s never stuck, and I don’t get it. If he really wanted to stop, why would he relapse? Why am I not—” My voice cracks, and then I’m crying again. “Why am I not a good enough reason?”
“Oh, honey,” Mom says quietly. “Addiction is really challenging, and his struggle to stay sober has nothing to do with you or me. It’s about what’s happening inside him, the demons he has to fight.
Substances are really powerful coping mechanisms for that, and he has to build new ones, and that takes time. And relapses are part of that.”
She scoots closer to me, wrapping my hand in hers, and I squeeze back. Her brown eyes are soft and kind as she gazes at me. “I believe he’s trying, that he always has. But I realized a long time ago it’s not my role to walk beside him in that. You get to choose your relationship with him too.”
I nod. I don’t fully get what she’s saying, how addiction is about what’s inside him.
But my thoughts and my compulsions feel that way too, when they come—like something taking over my body, something I can’t control no matter how much I try.
Maybe, in time, Tracy can help me learn how to handle them.
Maybe Dad will learn how to handle his addiction.
“He loves you,” Mom says. “But whatever he does or doesn’t do, it’s not your fault or your responsibility.”
“Thanks,” I say. I want to believe her, but I’m not sure I do.
She pats my leg. “OK, you. I’m going to help Shar finish cooking dinner.”
I give her a thumbs-up, and she leaves, pulling the door closed with a quiet click behind her. I pick up my phone again, staring at the wallpaper I chose months ago: a photo of a waterfall, from a hike I did with Mom and Shar near the end of summer.
Even though I’m still angry at him, I miss Dad. Is he at a meeting right now? Is he lying in bed, thinking of me? Is he even sober? He texted me a few days ago, and I still haven’t read it.
I take a deep breath, and open our thread.
Hey, kiddo, he wrote, and the words make me tear up. I can hear them in his voice, warm and reassuring. I just wanted to let you know I’m thinking of you. I understand if you need some time, so no rush, but whenever you are ready to hang out, I’m here.
I squeeze my eyes shut, tears leaking out and trailing down my cheeks.
I sniff, wiping them away, and curl up on my side, staring at his message.
For a moment on the mountain with him at our last hike, so many things felt possible, like we could have an actual relationship, one where I could tell him things and he would listen and care.
But what if he relapses again, and I just keep getting hurt?
I don’t know if I’m ready, I say. I’ll let you know.
His reply is instant, as if he’s been staring at his phone since he texted me, waiting for my reply. OK, sweetie. I’ll be here.
The tears well up again, and this time I let myself cry.
When I get home from studying with Jayden the next day, Shar is in the kitchen eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
“Kiddo!” she says through a mouthful of bread.
“Hey,” I say, dropping my backpack on the floor by the door and kicking off my shoes.
“We haven’t been out in the shop for a while,” she says. “I’ve been saving the bookcase to finish with you.”
The bookcase. I haven’t thought about it in weeks, but I could really use some power tools right now. Hammering, drilling, and sawing sound like exactly what my body wants to do. And it’ll keep the mental movies quiet for the next couple of hours.
A few minutes later, we’re out in the shop, getting suited up in protective gear. The bookcase is right where we left it, but the stain has set in, and instead of the blond, raw wood, it’s a deep, rich shade of dark brown.
“I have to confess I did do the initial wood gluing of the pieces,” Shar says as she rummages around in her tool organizer. “However . . .” She turns around, holding up the drill with a big grin. “You remember how to use this?”
“Uhhhhh . . .”
“I’ll take that as a no.” She grins. “We’ll be putting in screws today, and then we’ll be just about done.”
She walks me through how to use the drill and has me practice on a piece of scrap lumber until she’s satisfied. Then she stands back, and it’s my turn.
I turn the drill on, feeling it whir to life in my hands.
She’s predrilled shallow holes already, so all I have to do is fit the screw into place and drive it the rest of the way into the wood.
Sawdust collects at each drill point in small piles as I move around the bookcase.
It’s satisfying, seeing how it all fits together, how every step leads to the ending Shar planned for.
When I’m done, I turn off the drill and set it down. Shar high-fives me.
“This is looking really good,” she says, hands on hips, surveying our work. “Third time’s the charm.”
“What do you mean?” I push the goggles up on my head, massaging the bridge of my nose where they’ve already imprinted a groove.
“This is my third try making this bookcase,” she says, brushing the sawdust piles off the table.
“The first attempt . . . well, I did not measure correctly, let’s just say that.
The second time, I got it all built and there weren’t enough shelves.
That one’s in our closet holding shoes now. So this is round three.”
I look at the bookcase. It’s beautiful, with five shelves, the wood smooth and perfectly stained. I never would have thought Shar had messed something like this up; building things is her whole job.
“Shit goes wrong sometimes,” she says, shrugging. “Shall we clean up and get this bad boy on its feet?”
I nod and join her in sweeping the sawdust into a small pile.
She dumps it in the garbage while I tuck the drill back into its drawer.
Then she releases the clamps on the bookcase, takes one end, and I take the other.
We slide it off the table and set it upright.
When we step back, it stays standing, a little taller than me.
Shar laughs, clapping her hands together. “Nicole is going to love this.”