46. Mason #2
My dad and I have gotten into our altercations over the years, but he didn’t grow up beating me when I was young.
Mostly because my mom was still here to protect me.
He was rough, sure, but he was barely even around enough to have the time to put his hands on me.
Our fights didn’t start until I was much older.
I’ll be damned if I let him start doing this to them.
I used to think he loved those boys more than he ever loved me, and I was okay with that. If it meant they would get a better childhood than I did, I was okay with it.
The man can’t ever break a damn cycle, though. And it’s not just me who’s having to face the consequences for his anger and cruelty now. It’s them too.
This is what I never wanted for them.
That night, after they’re asleep, I sit alone in my room staring at the wall. I want a drink so badly it feels physical. Like an ache under my skin and in my head. Like my body is screaming for something that my brain keeps denying it.
I pace, sit, stand, and then do it all over again.
And again.
And again.
I clench my fists until my nails bite into my palms and break the skin.
It’s like my brain and body hate that I want better for it. It’s fighting me every step of the way.
The sick feeling in the pit of my stomach keeps growing louder and more painful.
All I want to do is go to sleep and be able to escape this feeling.
I try to lie in the bed, but my skin feels on fire, the sheets feel awful, I’m sweating, and as tired as I am, I can’t close my eyes and get any sleep.
It feels like torture.
I just want to sleep.
I just want to be unconscious.
I just want a break from feeling like this.
I have very few things to live for anymore, and I hate that those few things actually matter to me.
Sometimes I wonder if it would be easier to just not have to keep doing any of this.
But I can’t think like that. Not with those two little boys across the hall who have nobody else looking out for them.
Fuck.
I hate my mind.
Hate these demons.
Hate this fucking addiction.
I wish I had a real disease. You know, one people could actually see.
The one I have is invisible. It’s in my mind.
And if it kills me…if it actually ends up putting me in the ground, I’d just go out as someone who was weak.
I wouldn’t die fighting off some illness that people celebrate the strength in.
I’d die pathetic…because I wasn’t strong enough to overcome something I could control.
I don’t want to die. I just…don’t want to live like this anymore.
I don’t want my mind on a constant repeat of all my father’s words that are really just how I feel about myself, said out loud.
I don’t want my heart aching every day for my damn mom, who isn’t here to hold me and tell me it’s okay.
I don’t want this incredibly scary overprotectiveness I feel for those boys that makes me physically ill knowing I can’t prevent all the bad in the world from coming their way.
I don’t want to feel like such a fuck up all the time that I can’t enjoy life.
I can’t even entertain the thought of love because love for me comes with too many land mines.
I’m just…tired.
When does the break come?
I beat my fist against my leg, fighting the urge to get up and go downstairs.
There’s this pull, like something I don’t have control over.
It’s urgent and feels on fire inside me.
I can taste it on my tongue before it’s there.
I can feel the weight of the bottle sitting in my hand before I’ve even grabbed it.
I can imagine the relief it would give me, like it’s something tangible, something I need.
My mouth goes dry just thinking about it.
My hands won’t stay still. I keep rubbing my palms on my thighs, flexing my fingers, opening and closing them. My leg bounces on its own, fast and restless, a nervous energy buzzing under my skin that won’t shut the fuck up.
It would be so easy to give in to the clawing need, and that’s the worst part. Nobody would know, no one would even care, because no one is honestly expecting anything better.
Just walk.
Just grab it.
Just one.
My brain keeps trying to convince me to do it like someone trying to coax a wild animal into a trap.
One drink wouldn’t count.
One drink would calm this down.
One drink would make the noise stop.
My brain is so loud right now, trying desperately to convince me to give in to what it wants.
My stomach twists; it’s not hunger or nausea, it’s something anxious, like my brain and body are trying to brace for something bad happening if I don’t give in.
I try to breathe slowly. In through my nose. Out through my mouth.
It does nothing.
My throat feels like it wants the burn, like it misses the way alcohol slides down and takes everything with it—thoughts, feelings, memories—dragging them under and drowning them for a little so I don’t have to feel any of it.
I hate how convincing it sounds, because the voice in my head isn’t mean or angry or loud; it’s coaxing, nice even, trying to help me.
You’ve had a long day.
You’re trying. That should count for something.
You can stop again tomorrow.
I pace the room, running my hand through my hair and down my face, trying to wipe away the urges and feelings clouding all reasonable thinking.
Everything feels like too much right now; every small sound is blaring in my ears, and every movement makes me feel like I want to double over and beg it all to just stop.
I can’t help but think about Simone, about the way she looks at me when she’s sad or scared for me, about the way she can look at me and believe in me more than I’ve ever believed in myself.
I want to be what she sees.
The thought of her makes everything feel worse and better at the same time.
I press my tongue to the roof of my mouth, trying to ground myself in something physical, digging my nails into my palm again, where they’re already sore, just enough to sting—just enough to feel something that isn’t the cravings.
My body keeps arguing with my brain. My brain says no, and my body keeps saying please. It’s exhausting, fighting something that lives inside you, fighting something that feels like it knows you better than you know yourself.
I don’t want to drink. I want what drinking gives me.
Wanting peace shouldn’t feel this damn painful.
I grab my phone and scroll to her name, stare at it, then scroll past it and hit call on the only other person who can talk me down right now.
He answers on the third ring. “What’s up, man?”
“Hey, Bash,” I say, voice rough.
There’s a pause on the other end, like he’s clocking my tone. “You alright?”
I snort quietly. “Yeah. Totally thriving. Living my best Hallmark Christmas movie over here.”
Bash exhales a soft laugh. “That bad, huh?”
“Worse,” I admit. “But I figured I’d check in. See how things are back home for you. Maybe give myself a little distraction.”
“Things are…fine,” he says, and I know that word well. Fine for him means complicated. “My mom keeps trying to feed me like it’ll make all our problems go away. But we’re doing good. It’s the first time in years that we’ve started to talk about everything more. It feels like progress.”
“Well, I’m glad one of us is thriving,” I tell him sarcastically.
“It’s still hard. The good kind, though. Being here makes a lot of stuff loud for me, but I think that’s kind of the point.”
I lean back against the headboard, staring at the ceiling. “You always sound so put together when you say shit like that.”
He laughs again, quieter this time. “That’s ‘cause you can’t see me pacing my childhood bedroom like a psycho. And you haven’t watched me walk into my dead sister’s room just to cry all night.”
“Fair.”
He’s silent for a second, and I know he’s trying to assess why I made this call, trying to figure out what’s actually going on.
“So,” Bash says, casually but slightly prying. “What’s going on?”
I shrug even when I know he can’t see it. “Nothing. Like I said, just called to check in on a friend.”
“Mm, well, seeing as it’s—” he pauses. “One in the morning, and you never call over texting unless you’re drunk…I’d say something’s on your mind. Unless…are you drunk? You don’t really sound like it.”
I let out a heavy sigh. “No, um…I haven’t drank since I got here for break.”
“Okay,” he says, assessingly. “I would say that’s great. But something tells me it’s not. At least not in this moment.”
I close my eyes. “How’d you do it?”
“What part?”
“Getting sober,” I say. “By yourself. No program. No rehab. Just…deciding to go cold turkey.”
He stops before he answers me, and when he does, I can tell he’s trying to be conscious with his reply.
“I don’t know if I’d call it deciding,” he says. “It was more like…running out of options.”
I swallow hard at that.