liquid acid

10: abreaction

On our way to Ryan's house, I went over a million possibilities of how I was going to tell everyone everything. I was so tangled up in my mind, that when we arrived, I still had no clue what I was going to say or how I was going to say it.

Elias was waiting outside of the garage door when we arrived. He typically dressed similar to the way I did, barring the leather jacket. He was standing in the driveway, a cigarette pinched between his fingers, and a hood pulled over his head. His hair was longer than mine, hanging loosely around his head, never quite brushed out all the way. Part of his lip was still swollen, and he still had a painfully obvious black eye. When he saw me, he quickly looked away, the usual malice and disdain that always seemed to linger in his eyes was gone. His reaction to seeing me was more embarrassing for me than it was for him. Honestly, it just reinforced everything that I'd been stressing over on the way there.

It wasn't until we headed inside, past the garage and into the house, that he walked up to me. He pulled me aside as the others were gathering in the living room. Unable to make direct eye contact, he said, "Ryan told me what happened. Would you ever forgive me?"

I hesitated, before saying, "No. But at least you feel guilty for the shit you pulled."

"Look, man, I really am sorry."

"Fine, sure. Don't expect me to just forgive you because of one fucking apology, though. You've always been a dickwad for no fucking reason, pulling all sorts of bullshit just because you felt like it. It's about time you get over yourself and drop this stupid act."

Elias didn't say anything else to me after that. He stepped away and joined Ryan on the couch, and I headed in the same direction. I took my seat beside Alaya and went over again in my head what I wanted to say as we collectively sat in this tense silence. When I decided I had taken too long to come up with what to say, I swallowed, and forced myself to speak.

"I've known Cillian since we were both in middle school, and he didn't even know what happened," I started. "I guess I'm just really good at keeping secrets."

My dad had died when I was in elementary school, leaving just me and my mother and my sister living on our own. My mom had become jaded after his death, losing herself in alcohol and sometimes even forgetting that she had children. She did just enough to keep us alive and in school, but not enough to keep things in order around the house. She was entirely emotionally absent, and the only time she ever got involved with the conflicts between me and my sister was when she was frustrated at how loud we were being. She would tell me to leave my sister alone and told her to be more quiet. Then we were left to our own devices once again.

Even after she graduated high school, my sister still lived with us. She was in and out of the house often, seeing shitty people and doing shitty things. When my mom wasn't home, she got more daring. More often than not, while intoxicated, she would try something new to torment me. I would describe her actions as a result of morbid curiosity, the kind children get when they look at small animals and insects, the kinds of questions that guide them to step on anthills and rip the legs off of grasshoppers. You could say she held a smoldering coil to my spine just to see what would happen. You could say she chased me around the house with a knife because she was bored.

In sixth grade, I had a crush on a girl in my class named Rachel. It was obvious to everyone in my class that I did, and the kids who used to be my friends encouraged me to confess to her. I didn't know how I was going to do it. I didn't know the first thing about actual relationships. When I decided to write a love letter, and threw away every single draft of the stupid poems I'd come up with, I wasn't aware that my sister had been digging them out of the recycling and reading them herself.

I don't know exactly what drove her to do this, and I really don't care to learn the reason. She was drunk that night, having been out with some friends. Mom was asleep when she came home, stumbling through the front door and throwing up in the kitchen sink. Every time I think back to this night, I wished I hadn't been awake, and then I remember it wouldn't have made a difference. She walked into my room, thinking it was her own, and sat down next to me on my bed. When she realized it wasn't her room, she made awkward self-deprecating jokes and went on about how much more "perfect" I was compared to her. And then she asked about Rachel. She told me that there was a "certain way" guys were supposed to confess to a girl they liked, and she offered to show me how.

I remember every single thing she did to me, but no memory was vivid like that one was. Each time I thought of this night, I could almost feel her cold hands again, the stench of her breath, alcohol and the smell of vomit mixed together, and my inability to do anything to make her stop.

This wasn't the last time something like that happened, and she continued her torments all throughout my high school years. It wasn't until I graduated and my mom's death that I could get away from her. In the will, she got all of mom's liquid assets, and I got the house and everything inside. I couldn't stay there, though, not without risking her coming back for whatever reason. I took what little mattered to me and I went to university just so I could get a place to stay with what little money I had. I'd been patiently awaiting the day she'd die.

What happened with Rachel was just a byproduct of my sister's torment. She managed to torment her through me. I could hardly process what happened, and since she was older, I tried to believe that she was telling the truth. Surely she knew better than I did, right? She'd been with so many people. But of course that wasn't how it worked. I regretted the things I did and said to Rachel, I regretted the way I acted towards everyone else as a result. If anything, everyone ostracizing me was just what I deserved.

I'm not sure how many times I broke down while I was explaining all of this to my friends, but it didn't really matter. It was enough that they listened, which was more than I could ask for and the last thing I ever expected. More than that, it was relieving to get everything out, everything that had been sitting and clinging to the inside of my mind like decaying filth.

When I was done talking, I wanted to never speak again. I leaned against Alaya and just sat with her comforting touch. Never in my life would I have predicted that I would be in the situation I was right then. It all had to come together by a number of coincidences, and I was lucky that the coincidences led me here. That was the first time I ever believed that.

I spent the rest of the night with my friends after that, which felt better than anything an acid trip could've given me.