because it was the worst idea possible.
Before leaving Colorado, I worked and drank and taken trucker speed and studied for finals until I was worn to a nub. As soon as I got back East, I came down with laryngitis and bronchitis. I spent a week in bed at Jamesâs parentsâ house, worrying I would die, then praying I would. His mother brought me to her doctor and paid for the visit and the antibioticsâ$80, a princely sum I had not budgeted for.
After I recovered, I had found an apartment close to my fellow hangers-on from Simonâs Rock, a two-bedroom over a doctorâs office. The doctorâs neighbors had taken him to court to force him to paint the dilapidated old building and won. He had painted it eleven different bright, clashing colors. He specialized in pain management, as did I. It was perfect.
I found a roommate, a girl a year behind me, a girl I had never liked, a girl I had openly mocked. We flipped a coin for the bigger room. She won. I encountered Riley and did nothing. I encountered Ben White and did nothing.
I got a job at a pizza place two miles away (a long, cold walk in Massachusetts in January), and I worked at every opportunity. Even at $4.25 an hour, I quickly saved up the $80 I owed and sent it back to Jamesâs parents. They returned my check with a note, thanking me for paying them back but saying it wouldnât be necessaryâI could consider the antibiotics a gift for my approaching eighteenth birthday.
I bought six four-liter jugs of Carlo Rossi at eight bucks a bottle and spent the rest of the money on beer. I kept the jugs at the foot of my mattress as I diligently worked my way through them. My puppies, I called them. It was comforting to hear them clink musically when I rolled over in my bed. When I awoke with night terrors, I had only to reach my feet down and touch the cool, glassy surfaces of the bottles to feel better.
An ex-classmate picked me up while I was walking to work later that winter. She chattered about the latest gossip among our friends and then turned her attention on me.
âYou seem to be doing better this year,â she said encouragingly.
I lived in a room the size of a bathroom, a poster of a mushroom cloud rising over Bikini Atoll after the testing of the atomic bomb hanging over my bed. I existed on rice and beans. I washed my body, my hair, and my dishes with tiny bars of soap I stole from the restaurant where I worked. I cut my hair with a razor blade. I obsessed about Riley, and though we didnât speak, I tracked all the developments in her lifeâher library job, her new tortoiseshell catâs eye glasses, her life with her boyfriend, the decline of her tiny green hatchback. She had shown up at the end of my eighteenth birthday party, driven me home, fucked me, then left to go home to her boyfriend. I lost it, crying uncontrollably for a long time. When I finally pulled myself together, I heard my roommate sniffling in her roomâI had cried so hard that it made her cry. If I was doingbetter, I was pretty sure âbetterâ for me was still pretty far below normal for anyone else.
âA bunch of us were worried you were going to kill yourself last year,â she said. âYou were just so nihilistic. The only reason we decided you wouldnât was that you had said suicide was pointless and stupid.â
I laughed out loud, surprising both of us. But it struck me as funny: my nihilism was the only thing that had saved me from myself.
I got a better job at a deli, working sixty hours a week or more. I got hammered every night and drank all day long on my day off. One Sunday, we ran dry, and I made screwdrivers with rubbing alcohol. I was on time or early to work each morning, but the first few hours were brutal.
âYou es crazy,â Ernesto, one of the Latino cooks, said to me one morning as I lugged a huge plastic container of raw chicken wings onto the countertop to be prepped before
Before leaving Colorado, I worked and drank and taken trucker speed and studied for finals until I was worn to a nub. As soon as I got back East, I came down with laryngitis and bronchitis. I spent a week in bed at Jamesâs parentsâ house, worrying I would die, then praying I would. His mother brought me to her doctor and paid for the visit and the antibioticsâ$80, a princely sum I had not budgeted for.
After I recovered, I had found an apartment close to my fellow hangers-on from Simonâs Rock, a two-bedroom over a doctorâs office. The doctorâs neighbors had taken him to court to force him to paint the dilapidated old building and won. He had painted it eleven different bright, clashing colors. He specialized in pain management, as did I. It was perfect.
I found a roommate, a girl a year behind me, a girl I had never liked, a girl I had openly mocked. We flipped a coin for the bigger room. She won. I encountered Riley and did nothing. I encountered Ben White and did nothing.
I got a job at a pizza place two miles away (a long, cold walk in Massachusetts in January), and I worked at every opportunity. Even at $4.25 an hour, I quickly saved up the $80 I owed and sent it back to Jamesâs parents. They returned my check with a note, thanking me for paying them back but saying it wouldnât be necessaryâI could consider the antibiotics a gift for my approaching eighteenth birthday.
I bought six four-liter jugs of Carlo Rossi at eight bucks a bottle and spent the rest of the money on beer. I kept the jugs at the foot of my mattress as I diligently worked my way through them. My puppies, I called them. It was comforting to hear them clink musically when I rolled over in my bed. When I awoke with night terrors, I had only to reach my feet down and touch the cool, glassy surfaces of the bottles to feel better.
An ex-classmate picked me up while I was walking to work later that winter. She chattered about the latest gossip among our friends and then turned her attention on me.
âYou seem to be doing better this year,â she said encouragingly.
I lived in a room the size of a bathroom, a poster of a mushroom cloud rising over Bikini Atoll after the testing of the atomic bomb hanging over my bed. I existed on rice and beans. I washed my body, my hair, and my dishes with tiny bars of soap I stole from the restaurant where I worked. I cut my hair with a razor blade. I obsessed about Riley, and though we didnât speak, I tracked all the developments in her lifeâher library job, her new tortoiseshell catâs eye glasses, her life with her boyfriend, the decline of her tiny green hatchback. She had shown up at the end of my eighteenth birthday party, driven me home, fucked me, then left to go home to her boyfriend. I lost it, crying uncontrollably for a long time. When I finally pulled myself together, I heard my roommate sniffling in her roomâI had cried so hard that it made her cry. If I was doingbetter, I was pretty sure âbetterâ for me was still pretty far below normal for anyone else.
âA bunch of us were worried you were going to kill yourself last year,â she said. âYou were just so nihilistic. The only reason we decided you wouldnât was that you had said suicide was pointless and stupid.â
I laughed out loud, surprising both of us. But it struck me as funny: my nihilism was the only thing that had saved me from myself.
I got a better job at a deli, working sixty hours a week or more. I got hammered every night and drank all day long on my day off. One Sunday, we ran dry, and I made screwdrivers with rubbing alcohol. I was on time or early to work each morning, but the first few hours were brutal.
âYou es crazy,â Ernesto, one of the Latino cooks, said to me one morning as I lugged a huge plastic container of raw chicken wings onto the countertop to be prepped before
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