GIN AND JUICE pt 17

You shifted in the oversized armchair, the leather like butter underneath your fingers. It was supposed to be comfortable, supposed to lure you into a false sense of security while the psychologist across from you picked at your inner demons. The big comfy chair, the trinkets all over her bookshelves, the pale blue on the walls, everything in that office was designed to put the patient at ease. Or at least that’s how the average person would have felt here.

Instead, you felt smothered, like the chair was going to open in the creases and swallow you whole. The cushions were too deep and you sank too far into the seat. The plastic action figures and plushes that littered her office fixed their eyes on you, like all the eyes from the outside world that you were afraid of. Like all the eyes you were trying your fucking hardest to cope with.

This was your fourth session and they just wouldn’t stop looking at you. You knew it was by design. Dr. Michaels was a social anxiety specialist. She believed in coping strategies and positive self-talk and immersion therapy. To cope with people looking at you, there had to be people looking at you. She just happened to supplement with a lot of pairs of glued-on googly eyes. It made you have to work extra hard to focus on what she was saying.

I can do this. I can do this. I can do this.

“So…” Dr. Michaels tapped her pen against her yellow legal pad with your name written in black Sharpie across the top. She studied you for what seemed like the four-hundredth time with her soft green eyes, “tell me about Shawn.”

“I’ve told you about Shawn,” your knee bounced up and down while your eyes scanned the room for the quickest available exit. You’d told her about his football accomplishments, his family, how you met him, keeping your relationship a secret, the lying, the pressure, that night in your dorm room when it felt like an anvil was pressing your back into the floor….”He’s why I’m here.”

“I know you’ve told me the events…the actions…how you got from point A to point B,” she brought her pen to her lip and rested the end on her bottom teeth, her head cocked to the side, “but you rarely talk about your feelings.” You shifted, the leather rubbing together, making your discomfort at her impending examination audible. She put her notepad aside and leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees.

“How does Shawn make you feel?”

“He…” you sank further into the chair, pulling your knees up to your chest, “he makes me feel everything.” Wrapping your arms around your legs, you pressed your face into your thighs, curling into the tightest ball you could muster, and closed your eyes to focus on the memories that came unbidden.

Waking up under his arm, pressed against his chest and surrounded by the smell of gin.

Giggling lies at him to make sure he forgot you.

Dragging him up the stairs to his bedroom with all those people watching.

Shouting his name just as his fist connected with Brian’s jaw.

Feeling his breath against your face the first time he made a home inside your body.

Hearing his armor shatter, that hollow shell of human-shaped metal that you’d clung to until you’d broken it apart.

The mornings in his bed.

The nights in yours.

The hours in the library.

The precious minutes in the morning sunrise.

“Hope and happiness and passion and fear and anger and overwhelming sadness,” you listed just a few of the things you’d felt in the few months that you’d known him, the fleeting feelings that came and went with the hours you’d spent together. “But, most of all, I feel love. I love him so much that it makes all the other feelings—the ones that trap me in this body—melt away.” You opened your eyes and stared at your clasped hands, fingers picking at the dry cuticles. Looking up and shaking your head against the wave of emotion building in your throat, you locked eyes with her and took a deep, steadying breath.

“He makes me feel alive.” You pressed a hand to your chest and rubbed a small circle near the place where you sometimes thought you still felt him tethered, reaching into your chest with his hook and line. She smiled at your answer, jotting down a note and signaling you to keep going.

“I had been so numb for so long,” you cleared your throat, cracking away at the safe inside that stored all of your feelings away from the world, “that when Shawn came into my life it was like waking up from a deep sleep.” Shifting for the fiftieth time in fifteen minutes, you exhaled in a rush, letting your shoulders drop and your hands rest, lithe next to your thighs. You focused on Dr. Michaels and let the rest of the eyes in the room swirl and melt into each other.

I can do this. I can do this. I can do this.

“You’d think his eyes would be like the others. That when I found out who he was everything in my body would reject knowing him, reject letting him into my life. But,” you paused, letting a smile surface at the corner of your mouth, “when he looked at me that night, violently vomiting into the bathtub, with such overwhelming fear in his eyes, I knew that part of him was just like me. Both of us were prisoners.

“I thought for a long time that I could learn to be like him, to protect myself with some hollow shell that the outside world could look at but not touch. But the closer we got to each other…” you got up out of the chair and took what seemed like your first breath in minutes, pacing a worn trail into the bland beige rug beneath your feet. Dr. Michaels sat back and brought her hand to her mouth, hiding a satisfied smirk. “…the more I tried to share in his secret, the more he cracked, and I knew he wanted more than I could give him.”

Her head shot up, catching you off guard, she raised her pen and tapped her temple twice, your sign to re-evaluate.

“Sorry, more than I was willing to give him,” you stopped, swiping at the tears finally breaking through the dam, “but, I was so afraid of it. All the people, all the words, all the eyes.” Dr. Michaels handed you a tissue from a half-empty box on her desk. She waited patiently, scratching a couple of words in the margins of her notepad.

“So when the article came out and the reporters asked questions, when I saw the light in his eyes dim and heard the lies he had to tell, it was easier to end it than to be afraid.” Slouching against the arm of the chair, you sniffled, avoiding Dr. Michaels’ eyes. There was still more, and you knew she was waiting for it.

“I thought I could go back to the way it was before, that after my panic attack I could just go back to being numb,” you rolled your eyes at yourself, “but it hurts every fucking minute. I wish I could take it all back.”

“There!” Dr. Michaels stood up, gesturing as if you’d discovered some buried treasure instead of baring your soul to her. “This pain you’re feeling, the regret—wishing you could take it all back—that is what we have to work with.” She bent over her notepad again, furiously scribbling notes, “I know we were working on a stronger self-concept, feeling better about yourself and positive self-talk, and I think you did well earlier evaluating and rephrasing. I’d like to continue that and I’d like you to visualize what it would be like if you could take it all back. Write it down, act it out. Work through what it would have felt like to not allow your negative associations to get the best of you. Can you do that for me?”

You nodded your head, all out of words after the deluge that had come out of your mouth. She handed you a piece of paper with your session summary and homework on it. Taking it from her, you checked the clock on the wall, surprised that your time was already up, and crinkled the bridge of your nose in confusion.

“Yes, you talked through the whole hour,” Dr. Michaels beamed, your progress visible on her face, “Working those moments through, the ones that have caused you anxiety, or could potentially aggravate it, are important in your overall mental health care plan. Shawn is a trigger for you and I want to expose you to that mental space as much as possible.The goal is not to be comfortable all the time. The goal is to manage the discomfort in a healthy and functional way, okay?”

More nodding. She waited expectantly, cocking her head to the side as if she didn’t understand the simple act of head nodding as assent. You thought back to a previous session, verbalization is key to forming social bonds…

“Okay.”

**********

“Listen, up!” Coach Bradford called over the dim roar of voices across the locker room.

Two weeks had passed since the Heisman presentation. The players were used to a pre-travel pep talk from Coach, especially before a big game. Practice had been good today, everyone was gelling really well. There was an unmistakable buzz in the air. Shawn was more focused than he’d been in years. He’d had interviews with press outlets, fielded questions about his ‘concussion scare,’ his Heisman win, what that might mean for the game, his future, the draft…it had all gone well. No hiccups, no bumps, no bruises. Everything felt so much clearer now. There wasn’t this sense of floating through the haze of his own life anymore, like he’d felt before her when he’d been living for his next binge.

He’d been feeling good.

But right now, he felt like he might throw up.

“I know y’all are expecting a big rah-rah speech from me, and don’t think I’m not going to give you one, but right now I need you put your fucking serious faces on and listen,” Coach looked over at Shawn and paused like he had the first fifty-seven times Shawn had asked him about doing this. Shawn nodded his final assent.

“Shawn,” he waved him to the front, “you’re up, son.”

The sea of 6-foot muscled bodies parted for him. His skin crawled as if the sixty pairs of eyes were watching him walk the green mile to his death. When he made it to the front of the crowd, he turned and looked at all of them. Zubin and Mike had pushed to the front, determined to be there for their boy, no matter what he had to say. He suspected they knew, or at least had an idea, about what was going on even though they’d been very quiet about his extended absences at the house. They, more than anyone, deserved an explanation after the night at the hospital. But if he was being honest, they all deserved an explanation. They had all been there for him, supported him, for two years, and he had asked them to trust him even when he didn’t trust himself. It was a betrayal and he hated it. He cleared his throat.

“Hey guys,” Shawn pressed his fingernails into his palm to keep himself grounded. He smiled at them, desperately trying to recall the armor he used to hide in but he came up empty. There was no other choice for him now, he had to be vulnerable. He had to tell the truth. God, grant me the serenity. He inhaled and exhaled a measured breath.

“First and foremost, I want to thank everyone for everything you’ve done for me,” he locked eyes with as many of them as possible. “I wouldn’t have even been in New York, let alone accepting a Heisman Trophy, if it hadn’t been for every member of this team and your unflinching support.” He paused, steeling himself.

“I know almost all of you have taken hits for me,” he glanced at Brian, “or from me. Some of you have lied through your teeth or turned the other cheek when maybe you shouldn’t have. We’ve all been through some shit,” he chuckled a little at that, drawing an anxious laugh from around the locker room, “and I don’t want to go through this shit alone.” The chuckling stopped. An eerie silence crept over the room, 100 boys held their breath and waited while Shawn, their leader, closed his eyes. He felt her again against his chest, just like he had before his Heisman speech, and matched her phantom breath. Inhale for inhale, exhale for exhale.

“I’m an alcoholic.”

It was a blur after that. The story poured out of him. Some of them were shocked, some were angry. Some, namely Zubin and Mike, but a few more that surprised him like Geoff, hung their heads in quiet understanding. He’d hidden in plain sight for so long he had never stopped to think who might have had an inkling. He couldn’t blame them for staying quiet. So much had always been on the line. A play, a touchdown, a win, a championship. If he’d been in their place, he would have kept his fucking mouth shut too.

He’d told this story so many times—to his parents, his psychologist, Coach Bradford, his AA group—but none of those stories had ever felt this personal. He’d been forced into all of those situations, made to spill his guts by some outside force. But this he’d decided to do himself. He needed their support, both on the field and off, and to deserve it, he had to tell them the truth. When he’d asked if he could address the team, Coach Bradford had been hesitant, but Shawn had been firm. He wanted them to know.

“…it’s a lot to take in,” he paused, taking a moment to let the mood in the room diffuse. He could feel them looking around, deciding who was going to exhale first. There was movement in the crowd and every head swivelled to stare.

Brian Craigen made his way to the front of the room. Shawn put his hands up in a defensive position, not wanting any more drama or violence to stain the locker room or taint his recovery. The tension in the room threatened to crackle and ignite the heavy air.

“I come in peace, bro,” Craigen said, holding out his hand. Shawn released his shoulders, pulled taut to his earlobes, and exhaled, stretching out his arm and pulling Brian in for a colloquial back-slapping man hug. A whoosh rippled across the watching crowd.

“My dad just got his three year sober chip last week,” Brian scrubbed the back of his neck, “so I get it.” Shawn’s eyes widened and he nodded in understanding, pulling him in for another hug, whispering, “thanks, man.”

When Shawn looked up again, Zubin and Mike had come up, waiting for their turn to pay homage in support. He headbutted both of them, like the idiots they all were, and laughed. A real laugh, deep and aching in his belly. A line formed behind them and each member of his team made sure he knew they had his back, and he in turn, silently promised to have theirs.

I’m not going to go through this shit alone.

After Coach Bradford gave a half-teary speech about brotherhood and the men they all had the potential to be showing themselves today, he released the team to gather their luggage before boarding the team bus. The game was a three hour drive away, practically a home game, but they still had press and practice on site before the championship to travel for. Shawn packed up everything he’d need, all his gear plus his superstitious special socks, and folded it all into his bag.

There was just one thing left to do.

He walked out of the locker room and stopped at the main football office. Sitting out front was a slotted box for outgoing mail. He slid the worried envelope out of his pocket and stared at it. He’d written the letter a week ago and since thought a million times about not sending it. There were two stamps on the front just in case, even though he was positive it would only need one. It had to make it in time. He’d run out of time to think about it. Now or never, Mendes.

He slid the end of the envelope into the slot, took a deep breath, and let it go.

**********

You bobbed your head along with the radio on the way home from your session. Manage the discomfort…ugh. Dr. Michaels made it seem so easy. Like discomfort was something that everyone should want to feel. But it’s uncomfortable! No one likes that! You exhaled in a rush and shook your head free of the negative thoughts.

She’d asked you to think through what it would be like if you could take that day back, the day that felt like D-Day now in the frigid battle with your anxiety. Letting Shawn go had felt like the hardest thing you could ever do, but you realized that it was actually the easiest way out. The hardest thing would have been fighting through it, making it work, making yourself uncomfortable. Talking to Dr. Michaels had opened your mind to all the ways that your anxiety worked against you, a terrorist inside your own body. Now that you saw it, the hard part was changing it.

Thinking back to that day, like you often did in moments of extreme self-loathing, you hunted for a turning point. Something you could have done, a way to turn it around. So, I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t? he’d said. He was right. You’d made up your mind long before he showed up to your dorm what you were going to do. There wasn’t anything he could have done, could have said to make you change your mind. I’m too broken to make you happy. It was the truth you’d known the entire time you were with him.

Except, he had been happy.

And you were trying to piece yourself back together.

You pulled into your driveway, ready to spend the rest of the day curled up on the couch watching pre-game festivities until the National Championship tonight. Seeing Shawn on TV had become a recent addiction, unable to bring yourself to contact him again after your callous message when you knew he was hurting. Pulling the door open, you stooped to pick up the mail. On top was a letter addressed to you in a faint chicken scratch you recognized. All of the other mail fell to the floor.

The envelope was battered, like it had been delivered over oceans instead of just a few miles. You could see remnants of his grass-stained fingerprints on the corners and down the middle, a seam evident where he’d kept it folded in his pocket. Suddenly, the need to rip it open and see what was inside was insatiable. You tore savagely at the fold and several sheets of notebook paper fell out. Picking them up with shaking hands, you sat down on the entryway tile and touched the words as you read, hearing his voice so clearly in your head.

Hi,

I know you might not want this. I know you might crumple it up and burn it along with all the memories we made in the fall. You have every right. But I need you to know what happened after. I can’t do this thing that I’m about to do without you knowing.

You might have heard that we’re playing in the National Championship. It’s the biggest stage I’ve ever been on. So many eyes and so many questions have been put on me that it’s hard to breathe sometimes. It’s the kind of thing that used to make me disappear into a gin bottle. Get so plastered that I couldn’t remember my own name, let alone the last time someone asked me how I coped with the pressure of winning the Heisman. But I haven’t had a drink in four weeks.

I know you know that I was in the hospital. I know you know I was drinking. I was there overnight, puking my fucking guts out. My parents came. Can you believe Coach called my fucking parents?! I don’t know maybe it’s better they were there. They told me my liver is failing. It wasn’t a surprise, but I pretty much stopped listening at that point. I let my mother deal with all the details…the programs…the psych….all of it. I was so numb.

The numbness lasted until I saw that Zubin had texted you and I read your response. It was like the light had gone out of you, like my stupidity that night had taken the one thing I thought you could never lose, the thing I’d basked in for months. It felt like a fucking gut punch.

But it woke me up. For awhile, I told myself you didn’t love me. That maybe you never had. Maybe it was all an illusion. But I know what I felt…what I still feel. And that’s what I needed to get through. Sometimes I wake up and think I still feel your dip in my mattress, your hand on my chest, and it sucks the air from my lungs, but it’s what pushes me to get out of bed and go to AA in the morning because I know that I can feel something other than the numbing haze of alcohol. I could never stop loving you for giving me that, even if you never want to see me again.

I’ve been going to AA for four weeks. Twice a day. I’ve seen a sports psychologist. They’re giving me coping strategies. When I want to drink (and I want to drink more than I’m willing to admit to you), they told me to think about a vivid feeling. Not the dark or the cold, unfeeling depth of liquor, but something I could latch on to and wrap myself up in. I tried thinking of things from when I was a kid, before I could drink at all, but those memories were so tainted with my parents’ expectations that they just intensified the need.

Honestly, the only thing that helped was thinking of you. The quiet moments. The mornings alone in my bed, the two of us just breathing while the lights from outside danced on your skin. The night I won the Heisman, to get through my speech, I closed my eyes and you were there with me. Pressed against my chest. Maybe I should have been thinking of my future or what it all meant…but all I could see, all I could feel, was your hand against my chest, flexing and relaxing, caught up in your dreams.

I wanted to text you so bad that day, to share that win with someone who wouldn’t just check another box on my way to the NFL Draft. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t act like nothing had happened or presume that you wanted anything to do with me. That’s why I decided to write you a letter. I don’t want to make you feel like you have to respond or that I want something from you. That day in your dorm, I felt like I didn’t have a choice in what was happening, that you were going to shut me out no matter what I wanted, and if that’s still what you need then I’m not going to push you. I just want you know—need—you to know, that if you ever didn’t want to do that anymore….if you wanted to try again….I’m here. I’ll wait. I’d wait forever if you asked.

Sometimes, when I think about you, I feel a pull between my ribs and wonder if you’re thinking about me at the exact same time. I know that probably sounds crazy, but I felt it acutely when we were together. It’s starting to fade and it scares me, but it makes me think that maybe we’re both getting better somehow. That maybe when we can stand on our own, we can come back together. That you still love me, but you’re learning to love yourself. I think I am…and it’s because of you.

I had to lose you to find myself. I hope you do too.

I love you so much,

  Shawn

P.S. Because I’m impulsive (I’ll make a joke about impulsivity and alcoholism when I can make it a day without a meeting), you’ll find a ticket to the game with this letter. Again, you don’t have to use it. You can give it to Caroline. You can burn it. ****, you can even sell it for cash. I just want you to have it. I’ll try not to hope too hard that you’re there, even though I’m totally going to fail.

The ticket fell into your lap when you unfolded the last piece of paper. A big, shiny piece of heavy cardstock. Tears that pooled at your jaw fell in full drops and splashed onto it. He still feels the connection.

Your body moved with quick efficiency off the floor and into the living room. Mom was already on the couch with a big bowl of popcorn watching ESPN. She opened her mouth to tell you something but stopped when she saw you pointing and staring wide at the TV, Shawn’s face smiling wide as he walked into the stadium dressed in a perfectly tailored blue suit.

“Mom,” your voice and finger shook slightly, betraying the cartwheels your heart was performing inside your chest, “how quickly can you drive me there?”

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