With eyes lined with tears, Mom brushed a knuckle against her nose and sniffled. “This is me loving her, Micah. I’ll never stop loving her. But I can’t keep putting myself out there expecting she’ll get better. Expectations are just premeditated resentments, and I’ve run my course with them.”
I was in this entirely on my own. That knowledge paralyzed me, cementing my voice against my throat. I watched Mom get into her car and drive away, like a daydream I couldn’t wake from.
With great effort, I managed to shake my arms back to life and move. Each step to my apartment was like treading over glass, and if anyone was a witness to me falling apart, I didn’t have it in me to care.
Ada shot up from the couch when I came into the apartment, her voice small when she whispered, “I’m sorry.”
Her bottom lip had a fussy cold sore, dark baggy circles turning her once vibrant blue eyes dull and sunken. Her misery inside of them was deep, her shoulders rounded forward as she wrapped her scarily thin arms around herself.
She’d shrunken into a little girl again, lost and alone. It ripped at my fragile heart, knowing it’d never stop bleeding for her. I licked my dry lips and lifted my hand to her. “C’mon, let’s get you cleaned up.”
Ada took it, her trembling palm cold and clammy, as I walked her to the bathroom. While I got a bath going for her, I half listened to her babbled nonsense as she rocked on the toilet.
“Okay, it’s ready for you. I’m gonna get you some clothes,” I said, closing the door on the way to Ada’s room.
She’d taken the smaller room of the two on purpose. I always knew Ada’s spirit was bigger than Knoxville, and I’d spent my entire life preparing for the day she’d leave. When Ada began to fall apart, I relied on my faith that she would go on to do the things she was destined to do and began to pack up her room. Her belongings were kept safe inside rubber bins, away from any harm. Wiping my face, I quickly made up her bed and grabbed a clean T-shirt.
“You ready?” I asked on the other side of the door. Ada weakly responded she was, and I braced myself as I stepped inside.
Ada’s forehead rested on her knees, and I was grateful that she couldn’t see my jaw dropping in horror. She’d lost so much weight the knobs in her spine were visible, her back marked up with bruises.
I gritted down the scream rearing in the back of my throat and grabbed a washcloth from under the sink. Ada didn’t move when I kneeled on the floor next to her or when I began to wash her back.
The person I had been trying so hard to get back didn’t exist anymore; I didn’t try to stop the burn in my eyes or the tears that rolled down my cheeks. Ada was quiet the entire time, her eyes remaining closed as I wiped the makeup off her face and washed her hair.
“I set up your bed for you,” I said to the door when Ada wanted to be done with her bath.
“Don’t want to sleep in that bed,” Ada said while she got dressed.
I combed my finger through my hair and gripped at the strands at the base of my neck. My patience tapped out. “Okay, fine, if you want the couch, you can have the couch. I’ll get a blanket for you.”
I didn’t give her the opportunity to say anything back, yanking the door open and heading to the living room to set up the couch for her. Ada had left the bathroom and ended up in my bedroom, sprawled out on her stomach, her hands tucked under her chin.
“I wish she didn’t hate me,” Ada whispered, her sleepy words slippery on her tongue. “I’d give anything for her not to hate me anymore.”
“Shh, she doesn’t hate you,” I said, keeping my tone soothing, kicking off my shoes and wet T-shirt. I changed into a tank top and crawled into bed next to her, resting a hand between her shoulders, counting her breaths. “Oh, Bubbie, I wish I knew how to flip the switch in your mind that makes you do this. I miss you so much. Just tell me what it is, and I’ll do whatever it takes to help you get free.”
It fell on deaf ears. Ada was already asleep, softly snoring into the pillow. I lay there, too exhausted to keep my own eyes open. If I woke up and she was still here, it’d be a miracle. I prayed she would be, but I knew deep down she’d be long gone when I woke up.
NIK
Most of my interactions with Micah to this point had been pretty simple and required very little clothing. If we ate together, it was mostly to gain fuel for another round of sex. Now we were standing together at the entrance line of Astral Motion, nearly touching shoulders with people who were way too fucking high at a quarter to noon.
In front of us, two girls passed pills to each other, chugging them with water bottles that didn’t look like they were filled with water at all. My stomach lurched. The last time I’d come to this festival was three months before I OD’d. I’d tagged along with a crew of people I barely knew and spent the entire weekend too high to even remember any of the set lists.
I swallowed down the urge to turn around and get the fuck out of here. Seeing it didn’t mean that I wanted to be a part of it, and if I wanted to get out of the cycle I was already in, then I’d have to suck it up and do this.
Micah didn’t notice my internal breakdown, too caught up bitching with Dakota about getting the tickets to pull up on the phone to notice I was having a nervous breakdown. It was easy to distract myself with his mesh tank top that he’d been given by one of Dakota’s friends, his sharp cheekbones dashed in glitter that made his eyes look as blue as the clear sky we stood under.
The ladies tried to get me to dress up too, but I put a hard pass on that, refusing to draw any attention. Today, I wanted to be as invisible as possible and let Micah be the one that drew people’s eyes. Several women and men checked him out in the line, trying flirty smiles at him, but he didn’t even look their way.
“Okay, just forward the email to me and I’ll pull it up,” Micah said, tilting his head my way and smirking at me.
“This happens every year, I swear,” one of Dakota’s friends said. She had a line of jewels stuck on her face, spreading out over her temples, her eyes dazzled in glitter. “Thank god Micah comes or else we would never get in.” She and her friend had pre-gamed before coming, and the glassy, bloodshot eyes, coupled with the goofy smile, let me know they probably did more than just booze.
“Yeah, Dakota should buy him a fruit basket,” I said distractedly, trying hard to tune out the suffocating noise of multiple stages going on at once and the roar of crowds.
“Is this your first time coming to Astral Motion?”
I turned toward the voice next to me, another one of the strangers in the group. I looked out into the mass of people on the other side, swaying to the music, holding up their drinks.
The line to the entrance started closing in fast, and my pulse kicked against my breastbone so hard my ears roared. If I answered with the truth, then it could open up a shitload of more questions that I didn’t want to answer. It wasn’t like I had a bunch of practice at this, since I mostly surrounded myself with recovering addicts like me.
I thought about lying to these women straight up. But then I may as well go back to my life of careful routines and having everything planned out.
“No, but it’s been a long time,” I said.
What I didn’t tell them was that this was my first time coming here sober. I prepped for another string of questions, but the ladies just hummed in answer and turned back to talking about something I didn’t know anything about.
“Nik,” Micah called, waving me over, Dakota’s phone in his hand. He nodded to the other side. “I’ve got your ticket scanned.”
We were barely two steps in before a bored woman holding a scanner asked for our IDs. The group revealed theirs without a second thought, offering their wrists for neon wristbands for alcohol.
Every bead of sweat rolling down my body felt like sharp nails clawing at my back as I watched groups of people herd like sheep to get a wristband. There was an eagerness in their eyes I didn’t feel. The last thing I wanted to be was the outlier, to draw more attention to the riot inside of my head.
I looked away when the band wrapped around my wrist, the waxy paper itchy and too tight. There was no going back.
