Thank Me Later
- Apr 26, 2019
- 5 min read
by Samantha O’Hara
Desperate, I am clawing towards forgiving myself. Meetings are starting to run together, the same faces, even the occasional celebrities are all too familiar, the feeling of having seen them before, a sick version of déjà vu. This meeting is for female creatives in Brooklyn.
Usually it is one of my favorites. Tuesdays and Thursdays. Church rec room but no religion. Mild snacks and juices. Today, I am dreading my chance to share….
I have gotten used to going out without drinking. I am still fun. I am still Jess who can have a good time. My sister is getting married. Her bridal shower is tame, at a tea shop in Soho. The tables are lined in white lace, linen napkins, and champagne flutes. The girls are all thin, the chatter about their jobs in marketing is deafening. When I got sober, I gained 20 pounds and lost a boyfriend. I still am not sure whether it was my drinking or my sobriety that drove him into the arms of my sister. She said, “I’m sorry.” I said, “I forgive you.” And I meant it, but only for my recovery.
My sponsor asked if I wanted her to come with me for support. She was motherly for only thirty years old. She was a potter with a studio in Red Hook. I told her it was alright; my sister would probably be pissed at having to rearrange her table settings. It is her day. One of my sister’s friends has so graciously nominated herself to say a toast to my sister in my place. It is only fair. No one wants to acknowledge that my sister’s fiancé is my ex-boyfriend, and no one wants to see a grown woman make a toast with a water glass.
My assigned seat is next to my sister. “I’m so thankful that you’re here. Really, it means so much to me.”
“Of course.” I am good at playing earnest with her. When she gets up to mingle with her guests, I find myself alone. My flute sits in front of me still full, so elegant, an invitation. I knead my napkin in my lap, my heartbeat full in my chest. I don’t bother to socialize. I text my sponsor: “Going well! At least it’s almost over.”
I get up to go to the bathroom when I am stopped by our stepmother, Chelsea. She is a lean woman with perfect nails and has always struck me as a disingenuous fixture in our family.
“It’s so good to see you, Jess. You know, I’m sure this is difficult for you, my poor girl, but your sister is so, so happy. It’s just so good to see her settle down. I hope the next time we get together is for you. That dress fits your figure so…flatteringly, by the way, I love it.”
“Thanks, Chelsea. So good to see you. I just have to go to the bathroom.” The bathroom is furnished with plush pink couches and an attendant serving glasses of champagne. I tip her five dollars and bring two glasses into the stall with me. I hear Chelsea calling me a poor girl over and over again. So flattering, my dress is so flattering, my figure. The weight of me feels overwhelming. My phone buzzes, my sponsor: “So glad to hear that. Don’t forget to forgive yourself. You are worthy!” I take the glasses down in two sips each.
Later, a bump in the bathroom from a stranger, and immediately after, he is inside of me. When he finishes — of course I haven’t — the sound of him re-doing his belt buckle rings in my ears long after he has stumbled out of the women’s room stall. Sitting on the toilet, I know I am drifting in and out of sleep. When I come to, I pull my wet underwear back over my knees, an effort that takes three tries to get exactly right. I lean against the wall, grateful no one can see me wiping my mouth with a ball of rigid toilet paper. I unlock the door, splash cold water on my face, mascara smudging itself around my eyes. I can’t care. Outside of the bathroom, it is just a college dive, which disorients me. I thought I was at a cocktail bar.
Either the guy I just let fuck me has left or I don’t recognize him in the dark. I meander to the door, eyes so heavy.
The cold air pinches my skin. I turn the corner and a loud car horn follows me. I am walking down the middle of Spring Street.
I don’t remember getting my coat back or getting home. I wake up in my building’s hallway. Keys in hand. There is dry vomit on the floor next to me, and I scan my clothes to make sure I didn’t get any on them, the dress from my sister’s shower, the bright pink color shouting at me.
I move to stand up and immediately end up on the floor again. I repeat the process, hands grasping at the walls for balance. I slip the keys into my slot and let myself in again.
I call into work sick but spend the day cleaning last night’s sickness, then lying in bed and ignoring text messages from my sponsor: “I think we should go to a meeting.” Things I already know. I grab the extra fat at my stomach and roll it in my grip. The beer belly without the beer. I hear nothing from my sister about my leaving her shower early. I wish I could tell her that I left to go cry in a bar bathroom. That I left and I wish she wasn’t getting married. That I left and I wish my body didn’t have to betray me in every way. But she won’t ask and I won’t tell her.
I run myself a shower, scalding hot. I sit in the steam circulating around my bathroom. Hating myself and relapsing, everything over and over again. It is so tiring, pretending to be okay. Of coming off the high of using and into the low of knowing it will never make anything right again. Days will go by and weddings will happen and I will still be in some bathroom, trying to make myself clean in any way I can. I press my forehead to the cool tile wall. None of it was worth it. I just wanted to be good again, to be Jess again….
In the meeting the next day, the room shifts around me; it is my turn. “Hi, I’m Jess. I’m an alcoholic. And an addict.”
“Hi, Jess.”
“I wanted to say that I am thankful for my rock bottom, and I’m especially thankful for the relapses after. Today, I’m two days sober.”
Samantha O’Hara is a writer and book publicist based in Brooklyn.
