The Same Lie

This is a hard thing. All I have now are hard things. Nothing is soft anymore, nothing is easy. Some things are easy to start, but nothing is easy the whole way through anymore.

They are staring at me like I am the garbage in rain gutters. But there’s something else too. Pity. I might be a poor little pup in those rain gutters. I think I’d rather be the garbage.

“I need help.”

“With what?”

“You know what.”

“No, I don’t. We don’t.”

“Fuck you. I’m coming to you, trusting you.”

“Then you can tell us.”

The carpet under my feet is green. More brown than green now. More threadbare than it was. It used to be a mossy green. A jungle floor green. I would lay on it for hours creating a forest of stories I could get lost in. I got older, the carpet started fading and people told me to stop laying on the floor. I did, but not sure I ever stopped making stories.

“I need help with my…”

“Yes?”

“Fuck. I need help with my drinking.”

There I said it. Admitted it to them out loud. That’s what they wanted, wasn’t it? They wanted to hear me beg for help and say for them that I had a problem.

“Your big secret.”

“Not so fucking secret.”

I bit back a laugh. That would not help. It was not a secret. But until I said it out loud I could pretend that it was.

“But you admit it.”

“Yes, please, help. I need help.”

“I know. Your mother and I have helped you a lot.”

The couch feels hard against my back. Course fabric itches at my bare legs. My shorts rode up. My face is hot. Shame maybe? Embarrassment? I wasn’t sure I could be embarrassed any more after all the things I done. Dropped out of college because of a boy I thought I was gonna marry. Lost my gas station job cause I showed up drunk. First DUI. Second DUI. Rehab. Rehab again. Keep hoping that it will stick and it never does.

“Last time I promise.”

“You said that the last time.”

She looks at me with a teary face. Eyes red and puffy from crying. She got old. Looks at me like the pup in the gutter. Or maybe the garbage. I can’t tell.

He stands and paces. He stayed lean, she had not. Eats like I drink I guess. Maybe for the same reasons. Somedays I wasn’t even sure what my reasons were anymore. I started cause I wanted to be cool. Wanted to fit in like everyone does, right? It was soft, the drinking at first. A few sips at a friend’s house in high school, giggling when we refilled her father’s liquor bottles with water. We said only once. Just this one time to see what it feels like. We did it more times, so many times the liquor bottle was more water than vodka. Then more at prom. I don’t remember prom. There’s photos but I don’t recognize myself in any of them. Then it was every weekend, parties at friends’ houses, parties at the college boy houses. Parties at houses owned by people I didn’t know.

“I don’t believe you.”

He stares at me with so much sadness and pity. I know I am the pup in the gutter. I would rather be the garbage. People throw garbage away, a pup they will try and save again and again. A throw pillow feels hard on my back. I move it. A poorly cross-stitched “Live, Laugh, Love” grins at me. She was really into cross stitching. Tried to get me to do it. I managed to get “I love dic” and half a “k” before she noticed and said maybe I should go do something outside instead.

“I promise. It will be the last time. It almost stuck. Remember?”

I hated doing this. I was begging. This was below me. Last time did not almost stick. I was out for almost a week then ran into an old classmate at the grocery store. They suggested we get drinks and catch up. I did not want to catch up but bought a bottle of wine at the grocery store and a bottle of vodka at the liquor store on the way home.

“You made it a week out of rehab. You need to be better than that.”

She looks at me again. Teary eyes, double chin. He grips the back of the chair. They were good parents. They did nothing wrong and still, I turned out like this. Sometimes I think I must be a great disappointment to them. To be so unlike my brother. Me, the older child, a dog in the ditch. Maybe it was the brother who drove her to be this way they might think. He was a straight-A student, extracurriculars every semester. More popular, better looking they might think. Flew through college, hired before the ink on his diploma was dry. Found a beautiful wife, a beautiful house, a beautiful son on the way. Maybe they think she just cracked. Too long in the shadow of her younger sibling.

It would be so easy to blame him.

“I will do better.”

Tears flow freely down her cheeks now; she shakes her head and her face wobbles. I looked like her once. We still have the same hair, at least the same color. Flaming red. Lucky younger brother escaped the torment of carrot top and got his brown normal hair. Hers is still as bright as it was when she was young. Mine is stringy, unwashed. Dull. Maybe one time we looked alike, but as I shrunk, she grew. I like to think that I am the reason.

“I don’t know if that is good enough. Your mother and I we… We want to… We will always be here for you but you need to help yourself.”

All I've ever done is help myself. To the liquor bottles sitting in his office cabinet he thought was well locked. To the boys who said they loved me then stopped the next day. To the bars and drunken men who would buy me drinks if I flirted enough. To the men in the bathrooms of the bars who would moan in pleasure when I helped myself to them. To the bottles on the cheap liquor store shelves that no one ever noticed went missing. To friend’s vodkas and stranger’s drinks.

Maybe I needed to stop helping myself.

“I will. I will, I promise I will.”

He stops pacing and sits again. Takes her hand in his, looks at me, looks down. Looks at her. Sighs. The couch itches against my back. It’s the too thin shirt I’m wearing. My bra shows through. It is unwashed but was the only unstained one I found on my floor. They should be proud. I wore a clean-ish bra for them.

He looks at me again. Eyes dry. We both know he is about to lie. The same lie he has said before.

“This is the last time.”