“No. I . . . I don’t know. You disappea?—”
“Ask the question you really wanna ask, Mike.” His mouth opens and snaps shut. “Go on. Fucking ask me.” I shove him just as he had me, his back thudding into the wall.
His face flushes red. “Fuck me for worrying I’d find you with a needle in your arm, Cillian!”
Michael’s words should have been the thing that snapped my reality back into full focus, but they aren’t. It’s the sound of the floorboards creaking behind me.
“Toni...” Michael’s face falls, the shift from anger to dread jarring. “I didn’t—I’m sorry.”
“It’s ok,” Toni says. I can’t bring myself to look at her. “I’ll give y’all some space.”
As soon as I know she’s far enough up the stairs, all the fight drains from me in a rush. I brace myself against the wall with one hand. “Fuck.”
“Cillian, I . . .”
I shake my head. Without a word, I slink back down into the kitchen, wanting whatever was left of this conversation to take place as far away from her as was possible.
The clock on the microwave reads 5 am.
Guilt pummels me. I should’ve called or at least texted someone. But I’d wanted to narrow my world to Toni.
I sit in the same chair I had last night, my elbows on my knees, eyes on the floor. Michael leans against the newel post.
All I see are his sneakers as he says, “If I’d realized she was right there, Cillian, I wouldn’t—” He sighs heavily. “I don’t know what I would’ve done, actually. I was so...am so...Fuck.” His voice cracks as he slumps to the stairs, his pose mirroring mine.
I look up at him as he says, “I’m sorry. I was...scared.” He rubs his hands together nervously.
No matter how old you get, seeing your older siblingafraid will always be unsettling. More so when you know you’re the cause of that fear.
“I won’t lie to you and say I don’t want to.” The gnawing, hungry ache for release undermined every comfort Toni provided, or tried to, since we walked in that door.
The voice insisting,Just one. Just a bit. A moment to breathe. A moment of peace.
“God,” I say on a heavy breath, “I want to. But I am fighting it, Michael.”
“I know. I know you are.” His eyes remain focused on the terracotta tiles. “I shouldn’t have said that about Mom.”
I shrug. What he’d said stung, but he hadn’t been entirely unjustified. I had lied. For years. To him, to our parents, to myself. Lies that I convinced myself I was telling to protect them, to not burden them with how bad things really were. That kind of thing leaves wounds, ones that, even after all these years, were bound to reopen sometimes.
“You been over there? To see them?” I ask, voice sounding hollow.
“For a bit last night.” He massages the bridge of his nose. “Going back in the—Well, I guess it’s already morning,” he says, looking at the clock. “I told mom and dad I’d be over around 9.”
“You can stay here if you want.” He looked like he hadn’t slept.
“You sure? With Toni?—”
“It’s not like we’re gonna fuck in the stairwell or something,” I cut him off, my tone a bit more biting than I intend.
“Ha. Ha.” Michael deadpans. “I’m only saying I don’t want to cause more issues than I already have.”
“You’re assuming?—”
“Cillian, you wouldn’t have reacted like that if she already knew about...everything.”
He doesn’t use the words addict, or addiction, or overdose, but I feel them all the same.
Recovery is a winding thing. It’s a journey that doesn’t have a destination, not really. Some days, I don’t feel shame around them; they’re a part of me, but they don’t define me. Other days, they feel just as damning as all the rest of my many mistakes. The weight of them is heavy around my neck, dragging me down.
