53. Lily
FIFTY-THREE
LILY
I’ve lived constantly on edge.
On the edge of my sanity.
On the edge of my life.
My trigger has always been emotion. Or rather, the lack of being able to control it. The guilt. The shame. The fear. The reason I dove into drugs in the first place was because of the numb they provided.
And being numb was the only thing I cared for. After we were removed from the last foster home before Sam and Anna, I was angry. I didn’t understand why we had to leave again. I did everything my foster father told me to do. I never spoke a word. It was him who got sloppy; it was him who got caught sneaking into my room by my brother.
I don’t know what happened after, but I know it took months to convince Chase that nothing ever happened. I didn’t want my foster father to get in trouble. But as I got older, I started to realize that what he did wasn’t normal. It wasn’t okay.
I can’t even think his name without falling into the darkness he created.
My biological mother did a lot of unforgivable things, but it was him who fucked me up for life. He conditioned me to believe that the pain was pleasure and that his dirty body splitting mine apart was love. I was nine and too young to know better. Eventually, I grew attached to the way he could make me feel. I craved his approval.
He turned me into something shameful.
Something twisted.
Something sick.
I remember driving away from their home, in the back seat of my social worker’s car, and being absolutely terrified.
He had always warned me that if we were taken, Chase and I would be separated. And it was always supposed to be Chase and me against the world.
We weren’t separated, of course. We were put with Sam and Anna.
And when we moved in with them, I stayed up late at night, waiting for a new stranger to sneak into my room.
But the stranger never came.
And oddly, I felt a sense of loss. Like I had done something wrong.
As I grew older, I began to understand what had truly happened to me. The rage bubbled like witch’s brew until it overflowed from the cauldron, burning through my insides like acid, allowing the shame to plant roots in the holes it left behind.
Because what was wrong with me if I enjoyed it?
What was wrong with me for not knowing and not speaking up?
What’s wrong with me for still not speaking?
I tried to mask it at first with laughter and light, but eventually the mask became too heavy to wear. I so desperately wanted to be normal. To be accepted. To be loved. I didn’t want people to look at me and say the same things they always said about my “troubled” brother. But the truth was that I was miserable, standing in a roomful of people, my own hand muffling my screams.
It wasn’t until I met Darryl at the airport, coming back from our first “family” vacation, that everything changed. Looking back, I realize now that Darryl was just another predator, preying on weak and vulnerable children, looking to get his kicks.
He was twenty. I was fourteen. He was exciting . So when he pulled me aside as I came out of the airport restroom and had us exchange numbers, I was giddy for the adventure.
I had never given Sam or Anna any reason not to trust me, so when I told them I was going out with Becca and Lee, they didn’t second-guess it. Besides, most of their energy went into making sure Chase was acclimating appropriately. He was the problem child, not me. And that’s what made it so easy.
Darryl fucked me the first time we hung out. I hadn’t wanted it, but I didn’t know that what I wanted mattered. So I let him use my body the way it was used before, and I convinced myself I liked how it felt. And when he cut my first line of coke, teaching me how to snort, it made the pretending fade away, a glorious bliss taking its place.
He was my foster father 2.0. He told me I was special. Told me I could trust him. That he’d never steer me wrong. He was popular because he was everyone’s drug dealer. He was dangerous, which made me feel safe. He was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and by the time I figured that out, it was too late. I was too gone, too dependent. My self-worth had been whittled down to a nub, shattering at the slightest touch.
But when he’d tear me down one day, he’d build me up the next, and so started the toxic cycle.
The thing about active addiction is that you’re a slave to the drugs that flow through your veins. You become someone else entirely. You’ll hurt, lie, cheat, steal. Anything to get that next fix. It becomes the only thing that matters.
One night, when I was seventeen, Darryl decided to share me with his friends. I did what had become normal for me, letting my mind drift away and float above my body, watching as if it were a movie on the screen so I wouldn’t have to feel the pain. But when it was over, the shame wrapped around my insides and squeezed, creating an agony so deep I thought I’d never be free. Alone, on a dirty mattress in an otherwise empty room, I freebased to the point of overdose. And nobody there cared enough to save me.
The only reason I survived was because it was Anna’s birthday and I wasn’t where I was supposed to be. Chase hunted me down and found me half-dead on the bedroom floor.
Some days, when I’m living in my regret, I wonder what that must have been like for him, finding me in the same position he so often found our mother. I don’t even remember it happening. I don’t know whether he screamed or cried or even stayed by my side in the hospital.
I just remember waking up.
And I remember running.
* * *
“Are you ready for this?” Chase asks, turning toward me as we sit in Sam and Anna’s driveway.
I take the moment to glance around, nerves pricking under my skin, making my movements jerky and painful. Baby Chase sits in the back seat, and I swallow down my nerves, knowing that if anything, I have to do this for him. So he can know his grandparents. So they can love him the way he deserves to be loved.
My heart clenches, and I blow out a breath, nodding.
Stepping out of the car, the memories spin around me like a sandstorm. The front yard looks the exact same as it did when we first moved here. My eyes glance three doors down to the single-story house with blue shutters. I wonder if Lee’s dad still lives there.
My mind takes me back without preamble to our first day here, when my brain was filled with possibilities. Sometimes, I wish I could reach out and grab the hope I used to have tattooed on my skin. Wrap it around myself again and wear it like a cloak.
I’ve never hula-hooped before. But Anna gave it to me as a gift, a “housewarming” present, and so here I am, standing in our new front yard, doing my best to swing my hips and let the plastic swirl around my body. I’m so invested in making sure it doesn’t drop that I don’t see the girl coming our way until she’s at the edge of the yard.
I stop in my tracks, the Hula-Hoop falling to the grassy ground, excitement at seeing another kid making a smile beam across my face. I’m so antsy from being here, from feeling a sense of normalcy for the first time, that I can’t stop myself from running over to greet her.
Her eyes widen as I approach.
“Hi! I’m Lily! Do you live on this street? I’m so excited that you came over. I’ve been so worried about not making any friends, but then here you are, and oh! Your eyes are so pretty. They must be the bluest things I’ve ever seen.”
My heart pounds in my chest and I gulp in a breath of air, realizing that I probably just scared her away with my rambling. But it doesn’t stop me from leaning in close to stare at her big, blue eyes. I can’t help it. She’s like a magnet. She just has this light about her, and I can’t help but try and take a closer look, wanting to know how to emulate it within myself.
“How do you talk like that?” she asks, stuffing her hands in her back pocket. “You know…just goin’ and goin’ for so long without havin’ to breathe?”
Her accent is thick, and a pang of jealousy weaves through my chest at the innocence that glows around her like an aura. It seems effortless for her, and I have to try so hard.
I force a laugh out. “You’ll get used to me. My mom used to tell me I had enough energy to light up all of Chicago.”
It’s not true. I don’t even remember much of my mom, but sometimes, telling stories like she cared—like she loved me—dulls the absence of her memory.
“I think I believe her.” She grins wide, her eyes sparkling. “Well, I’m Alina May Carson, but my friends call me Lee. I live three houses down that way.” She points down the street, and when her eyes come back, they float behind me to where Chase is brooding on the front steps, watching us in silence.
I should have known at that moment she wasn’t really there for me. Her eyes only spared me a second glance, but they were glued to Chase forever. And his were stuck on hers.
My heart spasms in my chest, my stomach turning from the memory.
I turn, opening the back door of the car and reaching in to unbuckle baby Chase from his car seat. “Okay, baby, you ready to go meet some new friends?”
He beams and nods, his arms reaching out as I lift him from the car and prop him on my hip. I grin down at him, his right hand coming up to rest on my cheek. “It’s gonna be okay, Mommy.”
Tears burn behind my eyes, guilt for showing my emotions raging in my gut. But I’m not surprised he picked up on my struggle. Children can feel things that adults choose to ignore.
I smile. “I know, baby. Thank you.”
He reaches his small arms around me, his Spider-Man stuffy dangling from his fist, and he hugs me tight. “I’ll wove you fowever, I’ll wike you for always.”
My nostrils flare, and I take the moment, gripping my baby boy tight and breathing him in. No matter what happens, no matter how many mistakes I’ve made, this right here in my arms is the greatest thing I’ve ever done.
“As long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be,” I whisper into his hair.
And then I open my eyes and walk to the front door, ready to tackle my past head-on.
For him. And maybe a little bit for me.