“At the end of the day, other people ask themselves: Is this all there is? I don’t want to wait for the answer. I’m not stupid. I don’t wait to see if today will be better than yesterday, because I already know. And these pills are deep inside of me. What person could ever get this close? Who would want to? And I swear to you, and I don’t care how this sounds, I think it’s love. If you don’t understand, you don’t know what love is.” -More, Now, Again, by Elizabeth Wurtzel

81 days sober

I am never, ever late to a meeting, but I am pretty much always almost late. Every Thursday night, I slip into the meeting room at the Lakewood Rehabilitation Center at exactly eight o’clock, just as Ryan says, “Okay, guys, we’re going to get started.”

There are ten metal folding chairs set up in the circle, but only seven of them are occupied. I sink into the seat between Noel and Jason, who kicks the ankle of my boot in greeting. When I shoot him a questioning look and incline my head towards the cluster of empty chairs, he shrugs. I blink back around at the other group members. It’s not that I expect a full house at every meeting, because I don’t. Sometimes people have to work instead, and sometimes people briefly switch from the outpatient meetings to even less frequent Narcotics Anonymous meetings. They all come back. Since I entered rehab in June, our group has been comprised of the same ten people— nine addicts and one counselor. In three months, there has never been more than one empty chair at any given meeting.

“Before we start sharing, I have some things I need to tell you,” Ryan says, his eyes fixed to his ever-present clipboard. “First, I want to remind everyone that we’re still taking sign-ups for next month’s dry retreat. We’re going to be heading up to the woods to camp out, try to really dig deep into our issues, have a cook-out. It should be fun, and we still have space.” I glower at him. Both he and Doc have been trying to convince me to go on that stupid retreat, ever since it came up a few months ago; I’m beginning to wonder if they’re trying to hint that it’s not optional for me. Ryan is unwilling to indulge my bad temper, so he continues, “Now… there’s no pleasant way for me to say this, so I’ll just come out with it. Two of our group members won’t be with us anymore. Anna Maria has chosen to return to inpatient treatment, so she’s going to be assigned to a new group.”

This isn’t surprising— Anna Maria showed up high to our last meeting. I hadn’t even noticed, not until afterward, when Jason and I went out for coffee and he had told me, his voice tight, that he could tell she’d shot up before coming. Then, it was almost funny to me that we had such different ideas of what high meant. I’d looked at Anna, with her slow, careful voice and heavy-lidded eyes, and seen a cold; Jason had looked at her and seen heroin. I bet if Shelby, the only other coke addict, showed up shifting in her seat and grinding her teeth together, Jason would see anxiety where I’d see blow. On the off chance that such a problem has presented itself, I look around for Shelby, but she isn’t there.

I know what Ryan is going to say before he says it.

“I’m also incredibly sad to have to tell you all this, but Shelby passed away last Wednesday.”

The answering silence is deafening. Henry turns his head back and forth, as if searching to make sure that Shelby isn’t just hiding out of sight; Linda has one hand clamped over her mouth, though I can’t tell if it’s because she’s trying to hold in sobs or because she’s going to be sick. And then Elizabeth leans around Noel on my left to grip my knee. I squeeze my eyes shut. That’s the shittiest thing about a group this small— everyone knows each other too well. Everyone knows that Shelby was a cokehead, and everyone knows that I still am, and everyone knows that now, it’s just me. There are so many things I want to say, and I can feel everyone’s eyes on me anyway, so I say, “Did she do it?”

“Come on, G, I can’t tell you something like that,” Ryan says, apologetic but unyielding. Doesn’t matter, I already know the answer. I know it right down to my bones, where I can still feel the sting and shame of my own pitiful, months-past suicide attempt, still feel the weight of the Glock against my palm and the sharp pain in my nose from the one and only time Travis McCall ever hit me.

It’s not fair. It’s not fair that we’re all supposed to be getting over this, but Shelby just gave up on herself, on all of us. It’s not fair that she left her family to pick up the pieces, and it’s sure as shit not fair that she left me here as the lone cokehead in the group.

“Garen, what are you feeling right now?” Ryan asks me.

“You know what I’m feeling.”

“No, I don’t. Not if you don’t tell us.”

He wants me to say that I want to use. He wants me to say I’m craving it, bad. I open my mouth to spit back all the lines he wants, about feeling tempted, and anxious, and pressured, but what comes out is, “I’m feeling like Shelby is a selfish cunt.”

Elizabeth makes a soft noise of protest and finally releases my knee. I look around at her, and she says, in her fluttery whisper of a voice, “That’s so inappropriate, G.”

“No, ‘inappropriate’ is killing yourself when you’ve got a fucking family to take care of,” I say. My tone is flat, but my heart is pounding. Everyone is staring at me. Maybe I should be embarrassed, because I’m sort of having one of those outbursts that Doc is always telling me I need to learn to control, but I’m not embarrassed. Not at all. I’m just furious, and I’m on a roll, too. “‘Inappropriate’ is forcing your husband and your children to spend years watching you wallow in your addiction, and then offing yourself the second things get a little hard. ‘Inappropriate’ is the fact that a week ago, when I told everybody that I was scared I wouldn’t be able to deal with starting school again this week without using, that little bitch told me I needed to be ‘stronger than my cravings.’”

“She was right,” Jason says, letting his head loll on his neck so that his face is turned towards me. “Maybe she didn’t take her own advice, but what are the rest of us supposed to do? Are we all supposed to give up on trying to stay sober just because Shelby and Anna Maria couldn’t cut it?”

I slouch down in my seat and cross my arms over my chest, refusing to say another word. They always do this to me. They act like I’m a child, just because I’m the youngest person here, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. I’ve been through as much as the rest of them, if not more, and I don’t even lie about it. Elizabeth declared bankruptcy last year. She tells us it’s because her family abandoned her in her time of need, but really, it’s because she spent all her money on wine coolers. Noel got a DUI. He pretends that it made him see the light and want to change his ways, but he’s only here because it satisfies his court-mandated rehabilitation. Henry constantly whines about only being able to see his kids every other weekend, and acts like his stingy visitation rights are tantamount to being nailed to the cross.

In the past three years, I’ve survived one attempt to shoot myself in the head, three comas, eight broken bones, two fractured ones, three separate acts of prostitution, twenty-six fistfights, two sexual assaults, two accidental drug overdoses, one abusive relationship, countless beatings, and endless blackouts. If a single one of these junkies or drunks is unwilling to think of me as a man, it’s not because I haven’t earned the right.

When the meeting ends at nine o’clock, most of the group immediately heads out into the parking lot for a smoke. It’s a ritual at this point, something they tell me is typical of sobriety groups; the only reason we don’t spend every meeting in a cloud of smoke is because LRC bans smoking anything indoors. Jason puts two cigarettes in his mouth, lights them both, and passes me one of them. I accept it, but continue towards my car. At Jason’s questioning look, I make a face. “My dad told me to come home as soon as the meeting’s over. I think he invited my mom over again, for some late dinner.”

“Weird.”

“You have no idea,” I agree, tossing off a wave goodbye to everyone as I peel out of the parking lot.

Ever since I moved to outpatient, Mom has been coming over more and more frequently. First, to make sure the lease on the new house was settled properly; then, later, to drop off some things I left at her house last winter, after Dad kicked me out. Most recently, her excuse is the divorce. Personally, I think it’s kind of twisted that Dad is having Mom, the woman he was married to for fifteen years and has been divorced from for four, act as his lawyer during his divorce from Evelyn, the woman he was married to for two months. Every time I mention it, Mom just smiles at me and tells me Dad will regret refusing to let her be awarded alimony payments when he sees how much her retainer is.

Dad swears he didn’t choose the new house for its proximity to the LRC, but I know he’s full of it. Regardless, I’m pulling into the driveway within ten minutes, parking my Ferrari next to Dad’s car, the only other one there. I shuffle into the house, head for the kitchen, and announce, “Therapy on Tuesday? Check. Sobriety meeting on Thursday? Check. I have officially met my ‘talking about my feelings’ quota for the week, so don’t expect me to exhibit any tolerance for or understanding of human emotions until my next session with Dr. Howard.”

“Hey, kid,” Dad says, glancing up from the stove.

I peer over his shoulder into the pan. The amount of vegetables in the stir-fry is way more than enough for the two of us, so Mom must be around here somewhere. Instead of mentioning this, though, I say, “Hi. Smells good.”

“Hopefully it’ll taste good. How was your meeting?” he asks.

I shrug and hop up onto the counter, banging the heels of my boots against the cabinets below. One of the boots slides halfway down my foot, and I pause to kick it back on. I’ve really got to get around to finding the laces that the LRC made me take out when I first checked in, this is getting ridiculous. Dad looks around at me, clearly expecting a further answer, so I say, “It kinda sucked, actually. I don’t really want to talk about it right now, though.”

“Hmm,” is all he says at first. Then, after a brief glance over his shoulder, he says, “I noticed you didn’t change the board today. Are you okay?”

Ah. The recovery board, a plain, nine-by-twelve dry-erase board with a thin ledge on the bottom side, just big enough to hold one fat marker and a fluffy gray eraser. Another one of Dr. Howard’s brilliant ideas to keep reminding me of how far I’ve come. Most days, it just feels like another reminder of how much further I have to go (e.g. the rest of my life) but sometimes, replacing the daily tally is kind of fun. It was purchased just after I hit my sixtieth day sober, and in a little over a week, I’m sure I’ll be practically pissing myself when I finally get to mark my ninetieth day. Now, though, I hop back off the counter, erase yesterday’s message, and carefully print 81 days clean/sober. Capping the marker, and I turn back around and say, “Forgot. Sorry. Are we having company for dinner?”

“Yeeeeah, we are,” Dad says slowly, like he was hoping I might not notice. When I just blink at him, he adds, “Your mom came down again today to go over some new details that The Other Lawyers have just presented her with.”

Dad always says The Other Lawyers like it’s a title of some huge, secret society, instead of just the duo of douchebags that my soon-to-be-former stepmother has hired to make sure she walks away from the divorce with as much as humanly possible, including all of my dad’s assets, his income from long before their bullshit, two-month marriage, his savings, whatever he inherited when my grandfather died, and whatever I’m supposed to inherit when Dad someday eats it. There’s no way she’ll actually get everything she wants, and even her own kids think she’s being unreasonable; Travis told me so himself, the last time we spoke, a week ago.

“Evelyn still being a huge cunt about everything?” I ask.

Dad pokes me in the ribs with the clean end of the wooden spoon he’s holding and scolds, “Garen, that’s a completely inappropriate thing to say, and I don’t like hearing such a crude, sexist word out of my son’s mouth.” I pretend to look properly chastised, and after a moment, he adds, “But yes, she is.”

I roll my eyes. “God, I don’t get it. You’re letting her keep the house. You’re letting her keep everything in the house that hadn’t already been ours before everybody moved in. What else does she want?”

He is spared answering by the return of my mother, who doesn’t bother to knock or ring the doorbell before she comes in, announcing, “I barely made it before they closed the store. Really, nine o’clock? I hate this puritanical little wasteland of a state.” She appears in the doorway of the kitchen with a bottle in each hand. “Sauvignon blanc, not that there was much to choose from. You really should consider just moving to New York. Or at the very least, back to Ohio.”

“You know, most moms would avoid double-fisting wine bottles when they’re showing up to dinner with their alcoholic son,” I say, smiling sunnily at her. “But not you, Mom. You’re special.”

“And you’re having cider, provided you drop the attitude,” Mom says, passing me one of the bottles. I make a face at the label. Sparkling Apple Cider. What am I, a five-year-old celebrating New Year’s Eve? She adds, “If you’d prefer that your father shelves the wine, that’s perfectly fine. We only bought it because you told me last week that you didn’t want us to feel like we had to walk on eggshells around you.”

I scowl. “I was just joking about the wine thing, Mom. Seriously, I’m fine now, I don’t care if you guys want to drink around me. God.”

Mom sets the wine bottle on the kitchen table, but doesn’t open it. She gives me a pointed look, and I roll my eyes before starting to set the table for three. By the time I finish, the food is ready; Dad spoons some of the stir-fry out onto each of the plates, Mom dumps a pre-made salad into a bowl on the table, and I sit down across from my father and start to eat, even though my sobriety meetings pretty much always kill my appetite. After several minutes of silence, I finally set down my silverware and say, “So, what was the news from The Other Lawyers?”

“God, don’t even get me started,” Mom says, even though she loves when people get her started on her casework. To Dad, she adds, “The woman’s a troll. I can only assume you found her through a mail-order bride website and didn’t actually bother to speak to her before the wedding, because there’s no other excuse for that marriage.”

“She seemed much more reasonable at the time,” Dad hedges.

“No, she didn’t,” I say, then after another bite of dinner, I repeat, “What happened?”

Dad sighs. “Right now, our issue is the college fund I set up for Travis.”

I fumble my fork at that, and it clatters down onto my plate. Thankfully, both my parents have enough tact to pretend it hasn’t happened. God, the fucking college money. I’ve had this conversation before, with my father and with Travis. Without that money, without the two hundred grand that Dad gladly set aside to fund his stepson’s education, Travis can’t afford to go to college, not without making plans to spend the rest of his life drowning in student loans. Knotting my fingers together under the table, I say, “Yeah? Are you um… trying to make sure you get it all back?”

“Not at all,” Dad says quickly. “Whether he’s part of my family or not, I still believe that Travis deserves the best education possible, at whatever university he chooses. And I’m happy to pay for that myself.” The ‘because who the fuck knows if you’ll even get around to graduating high school’ goes unsaid.

“The problem all comes down to your father and Evelyn McCall being unable to reach an agreement about how the money should be handled,” Mom says. She finally grabs the waiter’s corkscrew near the salad bowl and opens the bottle of wine. From the second the cork squeaks out and gets dropped onto the table, the light, fruity scent of the wine is almost overpowering. Sauvignon blanc is one of my favorite wines, with all the dry, citrus flavor I favor in white wines, with none of the sometimes-overpowering sweetness of something like riesling. I take a long sip from my water glass and try to focus on what my dad is saying.

“—most practical thing would be to set up a trust that he can access gradually. Something to the tune of fifty thousand at the start of each fall semester for the four years he’s in college. From what I understand, he’s more than comfortable with that idea and has no interest in actually collecting all of the money at once, but his mother’s having none of that. She says the money should be hers to control, so that she doesn’t have to worry about Travis going off to college and using all the money recklessly, for something unrelated to school. She says it’s unreasonable to put thousands of dollars in the hands of someone so young.”

Travis McCall, with his color-coded note-taking systems and his driving-with-his-hands-at-ten-and-two ways, is maybe the only person on the planet who would use his two hundred thousand dollar college fund for something as boring as actually paying for college. Probably on a carefully scheduled payment plan. I say, “It’s not like he’s going to run away and drop almost a quarter of a million dollars on strippers and blow, or something. He’s not me.”

Mom cuffs me hard around the head, but Dad just cocks his head to the side and says, “Your sarcasm has been on overdrive ever since you got home. What happened at the meeting to put you off so badly?”

“Dad, it’s been almost nineteen years at this point. You’re really just going to have to get used to my piss-poor attitude sooner or later,” I say. Neither of them says anything, so I spend a few minutes carefully shredding my salad. Once I’ve gotten to the point where my fork tines can’t catch any of the destroyed bits of lettuce, I chance a glance around at them. They’re both watching me and waiting. I scowl, but I’ve never really been one for the virtues of silence, so I finally say, “Group got smaller.”

“Is everyone alright?” Mom asks, as if there’s ever a good reason for an addict to abandon treatment.

“Nope,” I say, letting the end of the word come out as a pop. “One of the heroin junkies went back to in-patient, and the um—” I cough, then try again, mouth dry, “Shelby, the other person who was dealing with the coke thing? Do you remember me mentioning her?”

“Of course,” Dad says.

I shrug. “Yeah, she’s dead.” Silence. “Ryan didn’t say she killed herself, but he also didn’t say she didn’t kill herself, and it kind of goes without saying that he would’ve denied it when I suggested it, if it hadn’t been the case. In my head, she shot herself. I mean, that’s how I keep picturing it. But I’m probably just projecting my own issues there. Don’t women tend to overdose?” I point my fork at my mom. “You should bring that up in court, if Ev starts to get fresh with you.”

“Garen.”

“‘Travis was straight until your faggot son came along!’ Like, really? Because at least I had the balls to pull out a Glock when I lost my mind. No wonder I topped the kid, considering—”

“Garen.” I fall obediently silent and eventually roll my eyes in Mom’s general direction so she knows I’m listening. “Are you okay?”

“Of course,” is my immediate, untrue response. Lies come so easily sometimes, especially to questions like that. Mom’s mouth is drawn into a tight line, like she knows I’m bullshitting her, but she wants to wait for me to acknowledge. After a minute, I relent, “It just sucks. You know… being the only cokehead left. It’s me, four drunks, and two junkies. The drunks are just, they’re clueless. They act like they have such serious addictions, but most of them are only there because they don’t want to serve jail time for DWIs. Plus, it’s a little hard for me to take them seriously, when I was admitted for alcoholism, too, but that wasn’t even the worst of my problems. How many more times am I going to have to listen to Linda bitch about how she’d kill for a martini, when the three people who came in for hardcore drug abuse are actually jonesing? And whatever, I get the heroin junkies a little more, because at least we’re on the same page in that we’re all addicted to shit that’s illegal. Jason’s cool, and I don’t really have a problem with Henry, but at the end of the day, we’re riding different animals. I like to go up, they like to go down. I like to have energy, they like to zone out. I like stimulants, they like opiates.”

Dad interrupts, as gently as possible, “You were admitted to LRC for three things, Garen. Cocaine may have been your biggest problem, but you were also an alcoholic and a prescription pill addict. Vicodin is an opiate. Even if the group seems divided based on what people abused—stimulants, opiates, or alcohol—you should be able to find common ground with anyone, because you’re going through all of those at once.”

“They treat me like a kid,” I say stubbornly. “I don’t like it.”

“Maybe that’s not such a bad thing,” Mom says, hands already raised in surrender. Clearly, after this many years, she knows that a protest is bubbling up in my throat. When I don’t try to cut her off, she continues, “You’ve been through a lot in these past few months, and I know that you’re doing your best to get better. But you’re still in high school, and perhaps it’s time for you to start acting like it. You know the lifestyle you’ve been living for years now, and recovery is a difficult enough process without trying to skip to adulthood. Personally, I think it might be a good idea to take advantage of your teenage years while you’re still in them. Make some new friends at school. Maybe get a part-time job, something not too stressful. Join a club at school, try out for a sport, get a hobby.”

“I hate all my classmates, and I suck at scrapbooking,” I say.

Dad sighs, and guilt curls in my gut. I know they’re both just trying to help. I know they’re my parents, they love me, they want what’s best for me, I get it. But it’s so hard, every day, just waking up and being sober and having to stay that way. They don’t understand what it’s like. No one but another addict could understand how badly I am just aching to go back to how I was—even now, how desperate I am to reach out, grab that bottle of wine, and toss it all back in one smooth swallow. How much easier it was to measure my ability to be happy in grams of cocaine and fifths of whiskey.

How much I crave it.

I stand abruptly, dump my plate in the sink, and say, “I’m going to my room. It’s getting late or whatever, and I need to be up early for school in the morning.”

Neither of them says goodnight, but neither tries to stop me. I kick my boots off by the front door before I trudge downstairs. That’s my favorite thing about the new house—instead of being split into a main level with a living room, kitchen, and study, and an upper level with all the bedrooms, like the last house had been, this one has a main level with the living area, kitchen, my father’s bedroom, and the main bathroom. The entire lower level—basement, I guess?—is mine. The staircase ends in a small entryway, with my bathroom set off to one side and the door to my actual living space on the wall adjacent. The room is essentially divided in half by a hip-high shelving unit that runs perpendicular to the wall the door is set in, stretching from the far wall to just short of the door itself. On the right half, my bed is set back in the corner, with a plain nightstand just to the left of it, and my desk against the opposite wall, with my closet door perpetually hanging open near it. The left side is for my musical equipment; my guitar stand, amp, and recently acquired keyboard are staggered random around the space, with a long gray couch pushed against the front wall, just to the left side of the door. It’s a big change from the set-up I had in the house that Evelyn has kept, and right now, change is good. Change is what I need, more than anything else.

I actually am nervous about school tomorrow, but not nervous enough to bother preparing for it. My backpack is somewhere around here, possibly out in my car, and I’ve got a few blank notebooks and new pens scattered across the desk. I’ve never been the type to give a shit about my clothes, so it’s not like I’m going to lay anything out in advance, or even bother to give it much thought when I dress in the morning. Every single pair of dark-rinse, maybe-a-little-tighter-than-necessary jeans that I own matches every single solid color—mostly black, or red, or sometimes dark green, if I don’t feel like I’m getting enough attention and want someone to tell me how oh my god stunning my eyes are— v-neck t-shirt that I own. Every day, I stuff my feet into my unlaced boots, because they’re the only pair of shoes I own, and if it’s cold, I throw on my black leather motorcycle jacket, because it’s the only non-short-sleeved thing I own.

Except, of course, for the LHS Varsity Track sweatshirt that I liberated from Travis’ closet before I left town last winter, but I haven’t been able to stomach wearing it since the day before I went into rehab. It had come back from my trip to Ohio as disgusting as I felt, covered in dirt and tears and a little bit of blood and possibly some truck-stop stranger’s cum—like I really wanted to toss that in my bag to bring to LRC. No, the sweatshirt had been washed, folded, and carefully tucked away on the top shelf of my closet. Sometimes, things are better left alone like that.

For the hell of it, I type out a short text to Travis--tell ur mom to quit being a bitch & stop trying to steal ur college $$$ before you even get it—and set my phone up to charge on the nightstand. Even if he does text back, it probably won’t be until later, around the time I begin my nightly ritual of pretending to sleep. The truth is, I don’t sleep. Not much, anyway; ever since I moved back home from LRC three weeks ago, I’ve spent most nights rolling restlessly in my bed and staring up at the ceiling. Jason says the same thing happened to him after he first detoxed, while his body was still trying to figure out how to run itself again, but Doc Howard says it’s a psychological issue, not a physical one. She says I can’t sleep because every time I close my eyes, my mind is running wild with memories and regrets and demons I should be trying harder to free myself from. Needless to say, the psychiatrist I met when I checked myself into a drug rehabilitation center after threatening suicide is unwilling to prescribe me medication to help me sleep.

On the nightstand, my phone starts to vibrate. I lean over to check the caller ID. Travis. I hadn’t wanted to get my hopes up for a text message, and now he’s actually calling me. I unplug the phone, flop down onto my back, and answer, “Hello?”

“So, can I assume that you’re being treated to the same divorce proceedings play-by-play that I get from Mom every single day?”

“I’d wager we’re getting very different versions, but yeah, Dad won’t shut up about it,” I say, stretching. “How much has she told you about the tuition money?”

“Not much,” he admits. There’s a pause, during which the only thing I hear is the faint scratch of shitty contemporary music leaking out of low-quality speakers. He must be at work, maybe on his break. The pause is probably him stopping to take a sip of the plain black coffee he chugs compulsively during every shift; I picture the roll of his Adam’s apple as he swallows, and it makes me feel warm right down to my toes. I’m blushing like a twelve-year-old when he finally continues, “She says Bill is trying to tie the money up in trusts so I’ll barely be able to access it. I guess the account was set up in my name, so the money is technically mine? But Mom says your dad is trying to limit the amount that can be touched so that he has time to have your mom figure out some legal argument that would take it all back. Then she started ranting about your mom—I think it’s really getting to her that your dad’s got his first wife helping him divorce his second.”

I snort. “Let me guess: she’s made some pretty choice Jew jokes about my mom trying to get her hands on everyone’s money.”

“Of course,” Travis replies. He spits the words out, like they leave a bad taste in his mouth. “You’d think she would have learned her lesson with that one, considering it’s a huge part of what prompted the divorce in the first place.”

“You ever going to tell me what she actually said?”

“No.”

I roll onto my side and grin, saying, “Oh, it must have been a harsh one, if you still won’t say it even after two and a half months. I know it was a Jew comment, but Dad won’t tell me what, he just says he wouldn’t have married her if he had known she would say something so bad about his son’s cultural identity, or whatever. Was it an oven joke? I bet it was an oven joke, some cheesy drug-and-Holocaust pun about me getting baked. Either that, or something about gas chambers?”

He sighs. “Do we have to talk about this? You already know that she made a comment about you being Jewish, but you know that wasn’t the worst thing she said. At least, it wasn’t the thing that made Bill file for divorce. And anyway, I’m the one who has to live with her, not you, which means I’m the one who feels infuriated every time I have to hear the way she talks about you. I’d prefer not to think about it, if at all possible.”

“Fine, fine,” I say. I contemplate pouting, but I don’t know how much longer his break is, or how much longer he’ll want to talk to me. I settle for neutral territory. “Scale of one to ten, how excited are you for school to start tomorrow?”

“A scale of one to ten cannot fully encapsulate my enthusiasm,” he deadpans, and I grin. “Honestly, though? I feel like school has already started. I’ve been doing track conditioning for two weeks already, and it’s killing me. Jack’s varsity captain this year, and yesterday, he had everybody meet at school to do suicide sprints for two straight hours. Three guys passed out from heat exhaustion.”

“Did you?”

“Oh, no, I got off way easier. Just, you know, disappeared around the side of the gym and vomited so much I almost blacked out. But considering half the team was doing the same thing, I didn’t get much sympathy.” Another pause, another sip of coffee. “If that’s how Jack’s new regime is going to be until graduation, I may not stick with it. I like track, I really do, but the guy’s such an ass. He’s the one who wrote ‘cocksucker’ on my gym bag last year, right after I came out. And, of course, he’s the first to make comments in the locker room. ‘Hey McCall, girls’ locker room is next door.’ ‘Hey McCall, you must be in heaven, surrounded by this many naked dudes.’ ‘Hey McCall, stop checking out my cock.’”

I frown and shift into a sitting position on my bed. “I hope you tell him to go fuck himself when he says shit like that.”

“Told him if I wanted to check out somebody as poorly endowed as he is, I might as well just go back to dating girls. Got punched. That was, what, a week ago? I still have a black eye. I have no idea how you can put up with getting into as many fights as you do, because that was the first time anyone’s ever punched me, and it hurt like hell.”

I tactfully opt not to point out that most of my recent fighting took place in the context of an abusive relationship that left me hospitalized and comatose. Instead, I say, almost idly, “If the captain’s going to be that much of a dick, maybe you should quit. I like that you do track, though. All that running is why your thigh muscles are so toned.”

The second the words are out of my mouth, I wish I could take them back. I clamp my teeth together over my lip ring and brace myself for the rebuke, but his response is a laugh and the hushed words, “Shut up, man, I’m at work. The last thing I need is to be sitting here, thinking about you thinking about my thighs.”

He’s flirting. It’s been happening ever since I left rehab, always in rushed, quiet tones and half-sentences full of intent, like he’s too afraid to speak clearly enough for anyone but me to hear. But I’m not an idiot, and I know not to push him, so I say, “Yeah, well, I think you’d be bored if you didn’t have some sort of extracurricular. So, if you quit track, you should join something else, instead.” I pause, but he seems to realize there’s more to say, so he remains silent. After a minute, I add, “My mom says I should join a club or something. You know, at school? I think I might do it. That, or get a job, just so I’ve got… something to do with my hands.”

That’s the real problem. This—just sitting in my room, or strumming aimlessly on my guitar, or hanging out doing nothing—is driving me batshit. I’m too restless for a life like this.

“It sounds like a good idea. Just make sure you don’t take on too much at once, the way you tend to—” He stops abruptly, and I can hear someone talking to him in the background on his end. To them, he says, “Yeah, sorry. One second.” To me, he says, “Sorry, my break’s over. I’ll see you tomorrow at school, okay?”

“Yep. See you then,” I say before ending the call and dropping my phone back on the nightstand. I wonder if my mom has left yet—the basement is soundproofed so that Dad doesn’t have to put up with me playing guitar until odd hours of the morning, which means I can’t hear any footsteps above me. I dig my iPod out of the nightstand drawer, plug in my earbuds, and try my best to sleep.

It doesn’t work. I zone out, I think, but I’m conscious enough to keep rolling onto my side to check the time on my phone. Eleven o’clock. Quarter after one. Three twenty-five. Four fifteen. Five thirty. Six after six. Close enough. I tumble off my bed and onto the floor, still groggy even as I make my way through the same morning workout I’ve done every day since I was fourteen: a little bit of stretching, fifty push-ups, a hundred crunches, fifty chin-ups on one of those stupid bars you can hook above your door frame. After all that, I’m feeling vaguely more awake, or at least more aware of my body, so I shuffle out to the bathroom to take a shower. The pulse of the hot water doesn’t do anything to wake me up, so I turn it to cold and finish as quickly as I can. By the time I step back out, my skin is pink from the chill. I dig my cache of hair products out from under the sink and set to work. Heat protecting spray, blow-dry. More heat protecting spray, flat iron. A dab of wax rubbed between my palms and combed into my hair, then careful arrangement; everything on the sides pushed forward, towards my face, everything on top gets arranged into a mess of spikes, a half-assed fauxhawk. To finish, a decent twenty-second blast of the strongest hold hairspray money can buy. Satisfied, I head back to my room and exchange my towel for the same pair of jeans I “slept” in, a fresh black v-neck, and a pair of mis-matched socks—okay, one black sock makes sense, but why the fuck do I even own a purple striped sock? Who am I, the Joker? Whatever. I grab my notebooks off the desk, stuff my phone in my pocket, and head upstairs.

Dad is gone already, presumably headed to work, and we’re out of coffee, so clearly this is going to be a great day. But I still get to replace 81 days sober with 82 days sober on my board, so I count it as a win. I cram my feet into my boots—seriously, what the fuck did I do with my laces?—put on my sunglasses, and head for the Testarossa. It is only by speeding, rolling through a couple of stop signs, and the grace of God that I manage to make it downtown, into the Daily Grind, Lakewood’s only coffee shop, for two of the largest cups of plain black coffee they will sell me, and into a space in the LHS parking lot as the warning bell is ringing. Swearing extensively and creatively under my breath, I shoulder my backpack, grab my coffee—one of which is already half-finished—and follow the mass of people down to the auditorium.

Huh. Did we have an auditorium last year? Is this new? Should I have paid attention more while I was a student here, or bothered to show up for the second semester? I can only assume the answer to all of those questions is “probably.” Most of the seats are already occupied, especially towards the back. I polish off the last of my first cup, toss it into a trashcan near the door, and trudge up to the front, where a bunch of student council members are pseudo-cheerfully directing us stragglers into the remaining seats in the front row.

“Take a seat right here, please!” one of them orders me, in what I can only assume is his best commander-in-chief voice.

I squint at him through the near-black lens of my aviators and say, before I can think better of it, “Eat a dick, dude. Don’t tell me what to do.”

It’s sort of a joke. The statement itself—minus the “eat a dick, dude” preface—is a running gag between my parents and I, a jab tossed back and forth with exaggerated petulance, the response to literally almost any request. Garen, put your boots in the hall closet, not in front of the door, please. Don’t tell me what to do! Dad, can you pick up more milk the next time you’re at the store? Don’t tell me what to do! Garen, pass me that pen. Don’t tell me what to do! Mom, you should come over for dinner, we’re having lasagna. Don’t tell me what to do! It’s not funny to anyone except the three of us, and perhaps I should have considered that before saying it to a stranger.

A hand clamps down on my shoulder, and I glance back to see Vice-Principal Jacobs smiling at me a little too broadly as she says, “Congratulations, Mr. Anderson. You’ve just earned yourself Lakewood High’s first detention of the new school year.”

“What, seriously?” I say. “I’m getting a detention because I told some random not to tell me what to do?”

“No, Garen, you’re getting a detention because you told your student council president to ‘eat a dick.’ Not exactly appropriate language for a school assembly, is it?” she asks.

I have to admit, “No, but I am a little impressed that you just quoted me on it. I think you’ve just earned yourself Lakewood High’s first ‘teachers totally shouldn’t say that in front of their students’ award. Which, hey, maybe calls for a high five?”

She ignores my raised hand. “I’m so lucky that expulsion and re-admittance hasn’t dimmed your dazzling sense of humor and complete inability to grasp appropriate interpersonal relations. Really, I’ve missed this. Now, sunglasses off and sit down. You can pick up your detention slip in my office after school today.”

I roll my eyes one last time before I take off my sunglasses and sink into a seat one over from the one the student council tool ordered me into. Before I can even stuff the sunglasses into the front pocket of my backpack, my phone buzzes in my pocket. A text from Travis: Seriously? Detention already? If you get expelled again, your dad is going to be so pissed he’ll try to give my mom full custody of you in the divorce. I twist around in my seat, scan the room, and there—three rows back, smirking at me from an aisle seat next to Corey Copicetti. The skin around his left eye is still the sickly yellow shade of a fading bruise, from getting punched by his track captain. Sparing a brief glance around to make sure I’m not about to earn a second detention before first period even starts, I flash him my middle finger before sinking back into my seat.

When the assembly starts a few minutes later, I’m unsurprised to discover that it’s more of the same thing as every other “new school year” lecture. Welcome to our newly constructed auditorium, isn’t it so shiny and nice? This is going to be a very exciting year, try to branch out and make new friends, be all you can be, blah blah blah. Pick up your class schedules, locker combinations, and homeroom information at the tables outside after this is over. The freshman and sophomore class trips will be combined this year into one trip to Washington, D.C.; the juniors will be heading to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (seriously?) over spring break; the senior class trip will be to Boston, Massachusetts, over February break. All seniors will be required to attend at least two college counseling sessions this fall semester to help them through the admissions process, but we’ll make up for that awfulness by letting you all have lunch outside or off-campus on Fridays. Now, please welcome some of your fellow classmates to bore the shit out of you with useless information about extracurricular activities.

I try to listen to the clubs and activities speeches, I really do. I am ridiculously attentive to the sports teams, and to the student council, even though the president spends the whole talk just sneering down at me. By the time we get to Chess Club and Badminton Society, though, I’m done. Luckily, I discover that I can make myself much more comfortable by slouching down in my seat and just propping the heels of my boots up on the edge of the stage. Shouldn’t it be further away than that? This must be some sort of fire hazard. A few people in my row must be bored to shit, too, because I glance sideways and notice that half the people in the front row are copying my posture. The announcement of the final club presentation, however, catches my attention. Principal Hammond beckons some Mormon-looking chick up on stage and says, “Please welcome Mary-Alice, president of our newly formed SAD Club!”

Sad club? S.A.D.? Is that like, the emo kids finally got some funding? I pull my phone out of my pocket to send a mocking text to Ben, but Mary-Alice is now saying, “Hi, everybody. I’m here representing um, S.A.D.D. That’s ‘Students Against Destructive Decisions.’ We’re a new group this year, and we’re a um, an anti-drug and alcohol group on campus? We’re trying to support students who choose to live a clean and healthy lifestyle. And we’re going to do some cool programs this year—later, around prom time, we’re going to do a mock car crash to teach everybody about the dangers of drinking and driving. We’ve hired some great guest speakers who are going to do some presentations later this semester, about the consequences of drugs and addiction and stuff—”

“Why bother hiring anybody when we could just ask Anderson?” calls a voice from behind me, followed immediately by an exaggerated sniff, clearly someone’s impression of doing a bump of cocaine. I twist around so suddenly that my back actually cracks, but I doubt anyone hears it, because people are too busy laughing. They’re laughing, and oohing, and clapping vaguely, the way eighth grade boys do after someone makes a ‘your mom’ joke. It’s not a joke. It’s not funny, but everybody is staring at me and grinning, like I’m the asshole for looking around to see who said it, instead of laughing along with the rest of them.

And then, out of the corner of my eye, I see movement a few rows back. Travis is craning back in his seat to seize the t-shirt of some guy a row behind him and three seats over. Even over the continued chuckling, I can hear Travis say, “Say something like that again, and I will beat the shit out of you, Jack. I’m serious.”

“Everyone, be quiet,” Principal Hammond barks. People fall silent, but Travis hasn’t let go of the guy—Jack? Track captain Jack? No wonder he wants to quit the team—and I haven’t turned around. The principal clears his throat. Reluctantly, Travis releases Jack’s t-shirt, though he remains turned around to glare at the guy even after he has returned to his seat. Still burning with shame, I turn back to the stage once more. Mary-Alice is watching me with sad, apologetic eyes. I close mine so I won’t have to see that.

When the assembly is dismissed ten minutes later, I am the first person standing. I swing my backpack onto my shoulder, slip my sunglasses back on so that I don’t have to make eye contact with anyone, and head back up the aisle towards the doors. Travis makes a grab for my arm as I pass him, but I shrug away from his touch and make my way back out into the lobby. There are half a dozen tables set up, each manned by a member of the office staff; I walk up to the A-C table and say to the smiling, middle-aged lady behind it, “Hi. Anderson?”

“Anderson… Anderson…” She thumbs through a box of file folders, then looks expectantly up at me. “Garen?” I nod, and she hands me a manila folder, smiling broadly. “Have a great first day!”

“Thanks,” I say dully. The odds of that happening seem very slim. I wander a few steps away and flip my folder open to peruse the documents inside—I’m in homeroom one-twelve, which I don’t recall being anywhere near where I’ll find my assigned locker, three-eighty-nine.

My schedule is a shit-show, mainly because, as Vice-Principal Jacobs called my dad this summer to explain, LHS has a concrete policy of never allowing a student to repeat a class that he or she has previously been registered for. It makes sense to refuse to allow me to repeat the classes I’ve passed already—Genetics, Calculus, Senior English, French V, Musical Theory—but it also makes me unable to take any of the classes I registered to take during last Spring semester, the classes I never even set foot in before leaving for New York again. With all of those—Chemistry, World Music, Statistics, Economics, AP French, and Political Thought—eliminated as well, the administration has been clueless as to how to drag my senior year out in new classes. At first, their solution must have been to bump me up a level; I’m taking AP English and AP Government & Politics, but from there, it gets random. There’s a film and literature course, a trial law course, intro psych, and, at the bottom of my schedule, a line that reads “Freshman Survey of Musical History: PA.” They can’t honestly be thinking of sticking me in a class with freshmen, can they? It’s going to be weird enough taking a bunch of electives that I never elected; the last thing I want is to take some basic level course with a bunch of thirteen-year-olds.

“Hey,” Travis says, appearing in front of me and offering me a forced smile that indicates he hasn’t yet forgotten what happened during the assembly. “Taking any good classes this semester?”

I pluck his schedule from his hands, scan it, then hand it back to him. It’s a little difficult to force down the tiny spark of happiness I feel as I say, “Looks like we’re in two of the same classes this semester. Guess that’s what happens when I let administration assign my courses—they stick me in AP English and trial law with the rest of the losers.”

“I didn’t realize you were interested in taking AP courses,” he says, now taking my schedule and looking over it.

I shrug. “I’m not. But the school wants every senior to take an English course, and I’ve already passed the regular senior English assignment. Guess they had to have me take that one. Hey, can you figure out why the hell they stuck me in some freshman music class? Look, it’s right at the bottom.”

Travis frowns down at the paper, but when his eyes land on the last line of text, the corners of his mouth twitch up into a smile. My heart stutters. When he looks back up at me, however, he schools his expression into one of mild confusion and says, “Hmm. I have no idea what that is.”

“Liar,” I say, jabbing him in the stomach. “I saw that look on your face, come on. What is it? Are you just laughing at me? Are you laughing because it’s going to look like a cartoon, me stuffed into some miniature desk next to a bunch of children?”

“G, they’re freshmen, not kindergartners. There are no ‘miniature desks’ in this school. And you’ll see what it is later—for now, just shut up and go to homeroom,” he says, passing back my schedule and heading upstairs to the main level of the school. Still frowning, I trail after him.

Most of the morning passes without event. My first class turns out to be AP Government, which seems to be boring as hell, followed by introduction to psychology. Mr. Esteves, my trial law teacher, lets us sit wherever we want, and I reluctantly allow myself to be dragged into the front row, where Travis wants to sit. My last class before lunch is the film and literature course, which actually seems kind of fun. The teacher, Ms. Markland, is objectively kind of MILF-y, and she explains the class itself to us; for the first three days of a week, we’ll do in-depth study of different readings, and for the last two days of the week, we’ll watch and discuss clips from film adaptations of the readings, or other things from within the same genre. She mentions the possibility of a foreign film unit later in the semester, then asks if anyone speaks another language. There’s a resounding lack of response until I awkwardly flick my hand upward. She jerks her chin at me and says, “Garen. What do you speak?”

“French,” I say, and I like bragging, so after a second, I add, “fluently.”

“Oh, that’s awesome. Where did you learn?” she asks eagerly.

“At uh, my last school. Patton Military Academy, up in New York. And I spent a summer in France between my sophomore and junior years.”

“So that was, what, last year?”

I blink at her, trying to figure out if she’s asking me this just as an attempt to embarrass me in front of the class. That seems to be the general consensus, because a few people are already kind of smirking at me. But Ms. Markland seems legitimately clueless. Does she really not know? She’s still waiting for a response, so I say, slowly and carefully, “No, the year before that. This is my second go at senior year, I was expelled last spring, missed the second half of the year.”

“Oh,” she says again, blinking back at me. “Sorry, I didn’t realize.”

After that, she launches right back into her enthused discussion of some French psychological drama that literally no one in the class has ever heard of. I slouch down in my seat a little, frowning at my open but still blank notebook. I hadn’t realized that there was anyone left in this town who didn’t know what kind of trainwreck I had become; I had assumed that everyone was just waiting for their opportunity to make a comment like that Jack moron did during the assembly.

When the bell rings, dismissing us for lunch, I don’t bother to go to my locker or the cafeteria. This whole ‘seniors can eat wherever they want’ thing is presenting me with the perfect opportunity to head out the front doors and sprawl out on the lawn across the street, where a few people are already hanging out, eating sandwiches. Instead of considering whether or not I should be eating, I fish my mildly crumpled pack of cigarettes out of my backpack and light one. I can feel a few sets of eyes on me, but it doesn’t matter—I’m eighteen and no longer technically on school property, so it’s not like it matters. Unsure if I should even bother, I slip my phone out of my pocket and send a quick text to Travis: lunch? am across street from school if you wanna join. I slide my phone back into my pocket without waiting for a reply. Either he’ll come or he won’t, there’s no point getting my hopes up.

“Um. Hi. Do you have a few minutes to spare for the drama club?”

Ugh. My immediate instinct is to say no, I don’t, but it’s fairly obvious that I’m not doing anything other than lying on the ground and smoking a cigarette. I raise a hand to shield my face from the sun and squint up at the intruders. Standing above me are three nervous-looking kids, two boys and a girl. One of the guys is hanging back slightly, offering me what’s probably supposed to look like a smile, but comes across more as a sneer. The girl has elected to focus on carefully braiding her long, dark hair over one shoulder, rather than actually meeting my eyes. Only the other boy, the youngest-looking of the group, is speaking directly to me.

I close my eyes and let my hand drop again. “Go for it, kid.”

“Okay, awesome!” the kid practically chirps. Good god, of course this kid is in the drama club. Guys like us always are. “So, my name is Nate, Nate Holliday, and I’m the publicity secretary for the drama club’s executive board. This is Joss Pryce, and that’s Gabe Alberti. We’re going around and reminding people that auditions for the school play are this weekend. It’s really sudden, I know, but performances start in the last week of November, so we only have about three months. You can participate even if you don’t want to be in the play. We need a lot of stage crew and set painters and stuff, so people who either don’t want to or can’t sing—”

“I sing just fine,” I interrupt, trying not to be offended. It’s not like I expect everyone to look at me and think, well, he’s clearly going to be a rockstar, except for how I actually do expect that.

Any offense I have taken drains away, however, when Nate says, in a somewhat hushed voice, “I know. I saw you perform at a coffee shop downtown, last year. You’re really, really talented.”

“I am,” I agree. None of them speak, so I sigh. “Fine. What play are you doing?”

“Grease,” Joss says, speaking for the first time. Her voice is sharper than I expected it to be.

“An adaptation of Grease, actually,” Nate amends. “We actually um, we had complaints from people when we wanted to perform it last year, because people said that it’s outdated and sexist and stuff. Which, I guess, is kind of the point. But people were angry that we wanted to do a play that depicts women as um… frigid, sexless bitches who would then change everything about themselves just to please a man. So, we couldn’t do it last year. But this summer, some of us got together, and we rewrote it to include a gender reversal of all the characters. You know, like… like Danny Zuko is Danielle, and the badasses with the cool cars are the Pink Ladies. And Sandy Olsen is now Andy, and at the bonfire, he’s with the football team instead of the cheerleaders, and he’s the one who has to learn to like, be cool at the end, or whatever.”

I’m not a theater fag, never have been, but I’ve at least seen the movie. Everyone knows what Grease is about. That’s why I can’t help but prop myself up on my elbows so that I can stare incredulously up at Nate. “Dude, what are you, fifteen?” A nervous nod. “Okay, listen, someday, someone is going to explain to you where babies come from, but it probably shouldn’t be some queer on a sidewalk outside a high school. There are after-school specials about that sort of thing. So for now, let it suffice to say that you better have a damn good explanation for how your male Rizzo is going to think he’s knocked up.”

Nate is starting to look a little pissed now, with his hip cocked to the side and his arms crossed over the front of his weird, designer-looking vest. “I told you, we rewrote it. Now that Rizzo’s a guy, he’s going to think that he got Nikki—that’s Kenickie, in the original version—pregnant, and he’s going to be worried that all of his golden-boy buddies will think he’s an irresponsible moron for knocking up a girl who they all think is kind of slutty. We changed a lot of the play. That’s the point of an adaptation. It’s not like we just typed it all up in Microsoft Word and did ‘find and replace’ on all the names to change the genders. That would be stupid.”

“The whole thing sounds stupid,” I say, before I can stop myself.

A dark red flush is creeping up Nate’s neck now, and Gabe is still glaring at the ground like he’d rather be anywhere in the world than here, talking to me. Or someone like me. Nate mutters, “If you’re not interested, you could’ve just said so. You don’t need to be mean to people just because you’re unhappy all the time.”

I blink at him. What the actual fuck, I haven’t been berated by a fifteen-year-old since I was one, three and a half years ago. And it’s not that I’m unhappy… I’m just not happy either, per se. Without my meaning or wanting them to, some of the things Doc told me during our last session rise up in the back of my mind. You say that you want to live a normal life, but it’s not normal for a high school senior to go to classes, therapy, and outpatient drug counseling, and do nothing else. You need a hobby—not your music—something that will get you out of your head for a while. Sometimes, it’s like that bitch goes out of her way to have the universe tell me what to do. I sigh and hold out my hand for one of the fliers that Nate is clutching. “What time are the auditions?”

“Ten to four, this Saturday. Tomorrow, I guess,” says Nate, then, all in a rush, “It’s a three-part audition for every person— you’ll need to do a song, a reading, and a dance. The song is your choice, so bring whatever accompaniment you might need, and the reading should be a soliloquy, but if you can’t find one you like, we have some standard ones on hand for people to use. The dance is the same for everybody, and it gets taught at the beginning of the day, so make sure you’re not late.”

“I have a, um… prior engagement. I wouldn’t be able to be there until eleven o’clock,” I say. I wonder if Doc would let me skip out on the stupid “progress meeting” she wants to have with me and my dad at ten.. Probably not, she’s such a stickler for participation. Like I can get an “A for effort” in fighting an addiction.

Joss is the one to respond. “If you don’t care enough to be there on-time, then don’t bother coming at all. We only want people who understand the value of commitment.”

“I liked you better when you were pretending not to notice me,” I say. I will not be out-bitched by some sixteen-year-old girl. Then, to Nate, “That prior engagement is an appointment with the psychiatrist from my rehabilitation center. I get that you guys want people who are going to be committed, but right now, the most important commitment I have is to staying clean and sober. If that doesn’t work for you guys, then fine, I won’t audition. But showing up at ten o’clock to learn a dance is not an option for me.”

Joss looks somewhat remorseful for her comment, but she doesn’t apologize to me. Gabe appears mildly disgusted, as I’d figured he would—my dislike for him is instant and intense. Nate’s golden brown eyes are as wide as teacup saucers, but he’s fairly quick with a recovery. He clears his throat and says, “That’s fine. Eleven o’clock is fine. If you miss the dance instruction, I can just, I’ll teach it to you after. While everyone else is starting their auditions or something. I’d be happy to work with you.”

I bet you would be. I smile blandly at him, but before I can bother to offer my thanks, Travis appears at my foot and nudges the sole of my boot with the toe of his—what, flip-flops, really? I have no idea how this kid was ever in the closet to anyone who actually bothered to look at him. But in all fairness, between the shoes, the dark gray and white raglan shirt, and that gorgeous, perpetually untidy blond hair, he’s the picture-perfect image of the golden-boy jock that most of the people in this town want him to be. He grins at me, all straight white teeth and nose crinkling under the light dusting of freckles across his summer-tanned skin.

I ache for him.

“Hi,” I say.

“Hi,” he echoes, then, noticing my reluctant companions, he extends his hand to Gabe, the nearest one, and says, “What’s up? I’m Travis.”

“Hey. Gabe. Uh, we’re handing out fliers, trying to get people to come out for auditions for the school play. We’re doing an adaptation of Grease, if you’re interested,” Gabe says. His vitriol must be reserved for drug addicts or super-seniors. He hands Travis one of the fliers, then adds, “This is Nate, and that’s Joss. They’re in drama, too.”

Nate immediately dissolves into another speech about the audition process, but Joss remains silent. She continues to twirl the end of her braid between her fingertips, but unlike her refusal to meet my eyes earlier, she can’t seem to look away from Travis’ face. It only takes him a minute or two to notice, and then he smiles politely at her. She bites her lip, and I hope to God I’m imagining a flush rise in his cheeks. When Nate finally pauses to take a breath, Travis cuts in, “That sounds like it’ll be a really great play. I don’t think I have enough time this semester to try out for a part or anything, but you mentioned stage crew? I might be able to help with that, instead. Are you trying out?” he adds, turning his focus back to me.

I shrug. “Apparently. Young Nate here heard me sing at the Grind last year, and he made the grave mistake of telling me I’m talented. My ego kind of took over at that point.”

“You’re obliged to participate,” Travis agrees. Then, with a wry smile, he says to Nate, “So, which hateful songs about me did you get a chance to hear?”

“Um. I saw him perform in June, so…” Nate trails off with a spastic half-shrug, and I cringe. June. In other words, he saw me a few days before I went into rehab, when I was emaciated, double-pierced, high out of my mind, absolutely shit-faced, and running on nothing but adrenaline and cocaine for my third day without sleep. I’m surprised he had any positive impression of me at all, but it’s not like I actually remember that performance.

Presumably sensing my discomfort, Travis reaches out a hand towards me and, when I accept it, hauls me to my feet. He plucks the cigarette from my fingers, stubs it out against the bottom of his flip-flop, and says, “Alright, well, we’re going to head back in. Thanks, though, for the info. Good luck with your play.”

“Thank you,” Nate says, smiling broadly. “Bye, Garen. I hope to see you at auditions tomorrow.”

I nod, but I’m having trouble focusing right now; Travis still hasn’t let go of my hand. He pulls me towards the cross-walk, and I let myself be towed back across the street to school. Once we’ve moved inside the front doors, I tighten my fingers briefly around his, just to remind him that he’s still touching me, in case he hadn’t realized and wants to stop, or whatever. I wouldn’t blame him, I mean. But Travis just squeezes back for a half-second and most definitely does not let go of my hand. The entire way back to our lockers, I can’t stop myself from sneaking almost constant glances at his face, and he can’t stop himself from reddening a little, even as he continues to stare pointedly ahead. We reach my locker first, and he bumps his shoulder against mine before untangling his fingers and saying, still looking down the hall, “See you in English.”

It’s stupidly confusing, but by now, that’s par for the course with Travis, so I just go with it. English passes without much event, other than the teacher making us sit alphabetically, so I’m of course in the front corner, and then assigning a shitload of reading even though it’s our first day. My last class of the day is the as-yet-to-be-deciphered “Freshman Survey of Musical History: PA,” which turns out to be in my old Musical Theory classroom downstairs. It also turns out to be with my old Musical Theory teacher. He greets me with a wide smile and a warm handshake. “Hey, Garen! It’s great to see you again.”

“Hey, Jeff,” I say cautiously. There are a few other people in the room, but they’re definitely all barely teenagers. “Um… so, I was assigned this class by administration, and as much as I’d love to have you as a teacher again… the fuck am I doing in a class full of nothing but freshmen?”

Jeff brays out his awful, donkey-like laugh and claps me on the shoulder. “Kid, you’re crazy.” Yes, well, that’s exactly what I pay my psychiatrist a lot of money to say a lot more delicately. “Can I see your schedule?”

The schedule is already sort of crumpled and torn—I’m so bad at organization, maybe I should work on that. But Jeff is unfazed by this, and simply jabs his finger at the line of text where this class is listed. “See that part right there, the PA?” I nod. “Most schools would just call that a TA, a teacher’s assistant. But I guess the admins here want me to feel special because I wasted thousands of dollars getting my doctorate, so they’re calling it a professor’s assistant. Students here take six classes a semester, and since this is your second senior year, they had to scramble to find twelve extra classes they could stick you in. Since you can’t jump back down any levels, they’re probably going to put you in a bunch of stupid electives next semester, but I made an appeal to the principal and requested that they give you a class credit for helping me out with teaching one of my ninth grade classes. Kind of like an internship, I suppose. I hope that’s okay.”

“It’s more than okay,” I say quickly, but my conscience won’t let me rest if I don’t at least warn him. Quietly, reluctantly, I say, “I might suck at this, though. You know me, what I’m like. And you probably know what I’ve done, how I spent my summer, what I am now.”

His brow furrows, and he says, “I know that you’re in recovery, if that’s what you mean. It’s not exactly a secret, either in this town or amongst the faculty members. We all know that after you got expelled, you were going through some family stuff, and that you ended up in the hospital. I know you got addicted to cocaine, and to booze, and to pills, but I also know you’re working on it, yeah? And I know you’re crazy talented, and it would be stupid to let that go to waste just ‘cause you had a bad year. I didn’t turn you away when you showed up to my class last year because you set the Home Ec classroom on fire, so I can’t exactly turn you away now just because you’re dealing with some issues.”

“I’m kind of fucked up,” I admit.

Jeff laughs, ruffles my hair, and says, “Kid, I figured that out the day I met you. But can you name one rockstar who isn’t?”

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