Chapter 24 - I Was Broken.

When I think of the word ‘toxic’ I picture big neon-yellow barrels covered with hazardous waste symbols and leaking green goop.

Which is exactly how I felt by the time I reached the end of my toxic relationship. I was just like that barrel of radioactive sludge. I was so damaged, so run down, so broken that it felt as if anyone who came into contact with me would be contaminated. I came away wondering if there was anything in me worth saving.

The psychologists explain it all away with the term, ‘cognitive dissonance’. That’s a fancy way to say that living with a narcissist makes you fucking crazy. Literally. Because no human brain can bear the constant anxiety of living between the conflicting messages you are subjected to on a daily basis. The promises of love juxtaposed with the put downs and emotional undermining. The sheer psychological discomfort caused by simultaneously trying to reconcile their demands that you love them while they are incapable of loving you in return. It’s unbearable. It turns you into a barrel of toxic goo. 

Cognitive dissonance is what keeps you clinging to a narcissistic partner even when you know he is completely incapable of ever loving you. You are torn between believing what you want to believe about someone and accepting what you know to be the horrible truth. In your heart you know they are cold and cruel and maybe even sadistic. You’ve experienced the way they intentionally exploit your vulnerabilities and poke at your trigger points. By the time you reach the Discard Phase of the relationship, the love is almost completely gone and all that’s left, your primary form of interaction, is pure maliciousness. And yet you still don’t want to forget the good times that drew you in at the beginning. That’s cognitive dissonance.

But nobody can live like that for long. Your mind starts to rebel, consciously or unconsciously. The anxiety levels are too high to maintain. You descend into depression. Your body follows soon after, physically manifesting the inner turmoil you’re feeling. You get sick. You can’t sleep. You feel like you’re falling apart.

You become as toxic as the relationship.

The only cure, the only way to heal, is to finally accept the truth. Nothing the narcissist told you was ever true. They never really loved you. Their promises were always empty. The only thing real about them is the abuse they’re willing to heap on you when you no longer give them the obedience or adulation they desire. You have to let it all go. 

When you finally get to that point where the cognitive dissonance is too much to bear, when you finally break, that’s when you can begin to heal. 

That’s when you decide to take the barrel of toxic sludge that was your relationship to the dump and start all over again.

Despite how certain I must have sounded when I threw Daphne and Brian out, inside I was still reeling long after their visit. They’d forced me to look at a lot of things I’d been trying to avoid, my health issues being foremost of all. So, since I had nothing better to do, I spent the rest of the night pacing around the apartment and worrying.

By around ten or so I had worked myself up to the point of near panic. I was convinced my unrelenting summer cold had a much more sinister cause. However, it was far too late to do anything about it that night, so all I could do was freak out in private. Eventually I gave up and resorted to Ethan’s bottle of Jose Cuervo for consolation. 

Of course, getting drunk only made matters worse. The depression that had momentarily ebbed while I was being distracted in Buffalo resurged with a vengeance. I found myself wandering around the small space like a caged beast, pontificating to the walls, and arguing with my own mind.

It didn’t help that I was alone - feeling lonelier than ever after the brief contact with my former best friend - and vaguely resentful that Ethan wasn’t around to reassure me. I felt abandoned again. Left behind while he was out having fun with his music friends. Why did he have to run off the minute we got home? Couldn’t he have spent one more night with me? 

Jose Cuervo didn’t offer any answers.

Around eleven, I broke down and called Ethan, leaving a message on his cell phone. I tried to make it sound casual and not nagging, just saying that I missed him already and hoped he’d try to make it home tonight even if it was late. I knew I probably sounded pathetic, but by that point I’d already hung up so it was too late to delete the message.

Out of a sense of desperation, and a need to do SOMETHING to distract myself, I took my sketchpad off the shelf where it had been gathering dust for the past several weeks. I guess part of me just wanted to see how bad my hand had deteriorated and whether or not I could still draw anything at all. I scratched away at the paper for a half hour or so, getting more and more frustrated the longer I struggled to get my muscles to obey. 

My inability to make my hand work just added to my sense of powerlessness. In my head, that little voice of self-doubt kept saying increasingly negative things, telling me I was useless, that I’d never be an artist, that I’d always failed at everything I’d tried and it was futile to even bother. Eventually I got so angry at myself that I started to tear out the pages of the sketchpad, shredding all my pitiful and failed attempts to create something, as well as the drawings I’d done earlier in the year that were actually okay. But I was so distraught that I no longer cared; if I couldn’t be an artist any longer, I wanted it all destroyed.

That viciously negative voice in my head was probably the cruelest bully I’d ever met, and that’s saying a lot coming from the boy who’d spent pretty much his whole high school career as the target for every bully St. James had. But once I began to listen to those destructive whispers, it seemed like there was no way to block them out again. They just kept getting louder and louder, coming up with more ways to tear me down, and then circling around to where they’d started again. It was like a compulsion; these thoughts of sadness, anxiety, shame, regret, and self-abnegation kept circling around in my brain as if they were stuck on an endless repeat, and the audio system they were playing on didn’t have any off switch. And I knew that I was just making it worse by giving in to them, but I couldn’t stop myself. 

I didn’t know how to stop being sad. 

I had no idea how late it was when my private pity party was finally interrupted by the sounds of noisy laughter coming up through the stairwell. I was far too drunk by that point to even stand up, let alone go figure out what the hell all the noise was about. I didn’t have to wait long, though, because the commotion came to me. 

With a bang that reverberated throughout the building, the front door flew open and two bodies came crashing into the apartment. The individuals involved were obviously laughing too hard to have been hurt by the impact. If anything, they seemed to find the fact that they’d almost fallen on their asses extremely funny and the laughter escalated even more than before. As drunk as I was, I could still tell that these two were drunker, the alcohol fumes wafting off the new arrivals penetrating even my dimmed senses. But it wasn’t until the shorter of the two flipped the switch to turn on the lights - which I hadn’t turned on earlier because moping is always more effective in the dark - that I was finally able to see who had just stumbled into my apartment. 

“Shhhh!” Ethan, my boyfriend, warned in a drunken stage whisper. “Don’ wanna wake the ole ball ‘n chain.”

“He could always join us,” responded the man Ethan had pinned up against the wall as soon as Ethan let him up from the messy, wet kiss he’d been the recipient of. “I’ve been wanting to get into that hot little ass from the first day you introduced us, Eth.”

“Fuck you, Roar. I told you, you’ve gotta wait till I’m done wiv him,” Ethan laughed as he went back to devouring his friend’s lips.

I’m not sure if they didn’t see me where I was huddled in a miserable ball on the end of the couch - were they too drunk to notice or did they just not care? - but they continued to make out right there in the open doorway for the next five minutes or so while I watched in paralyzed astonishment. It wasn’t until Ethan started pawing at Rory’s pants, his drunken fingers fumbling at the fly, that I remembered I could move. I let out a little whimper and got to my feet, the almost empty bottle of Cuervo clattering to the floor and knocking loudly against the edge of the coffee table in the process. The commotion had apparently alerted Ethan to my presence, but except for a pause while he looked over his shoulder to see what had caused the noise, he didn’t let up in his attempts to remove Rory’s clothes. 

“Ethan? What the hell?” I demanded when I finally remembered I could speak too.

Both Ethan and Rory just laughed at me and went right back to their inebriated groping at each other. A white-hot bolt of anger finally penetrated my depression enough to get me moving. I marched over to stand behind where they were writhing along the wall, slowly edging their way closer and closer to the bed, their lips never separating for longer than it took to move to the next bit of bare skin.

“Stop it, Ethan. This isn’t funny,” I complained. 

That earned me another roar of laughter from both men. “On the contrary, Babe. I find it hilar . . . Hillary . . . *hahaha* . . . Hilarious,” he giggled his way through the words. 

It was about then that Ethan finally managed to undo Rory’s zipper. Both drunkards cheered as Rory shimmied his hips, allowing the jeans to slither to the floor. Ethan swacked his quarry’s now-bare rear with a cackle of glee and pushed Rory further into the room in the direction of the bed. Rory was more than happy to take Ethan’s suggestion, almost tripping over me as he lumbered past. Ethan followed, sauntering slowly by, taking the time to rub it in with a gloating fleer aimed in my direction, before turning his back on me and ostentatiously stripping off his shirt. 

I let out a groan of complaint mixed with pain. “Why are you doing this, Ethan?” I asked, honestly confused by his actions. This blatant disregard for my feelings and his seemingly intentional display of infidelity, coming as it did after our wonderful weekend together, made no sense. “Are you mad at me or something? Why are you acting like this? Have I done something to piss you off?” I shouted my questions at his back as he deliberately began to remove his own pants and then crawl up the mattress to join Rory. 

“You know what you did, Justin,” he snarled without even looking back at me. 

That lost me. “I seriously don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, Ethan,” I insisted, grabbing hold of his shoulder to try and pull him back off the bed and away from Rory. 

“Get your slutty hands off me, you filthy, fucking whore,” he shrieked, knocking my hand off his shoulder, and turning around so he could scream his words directly into my face. “You think you can betray me and then just shrug it off like nothing happened? Always pretending to be so innocent. Well, fuck you, Justin. If you still want Kinney so bad, after everything I’ve given you, you can fucking have him. Just go already. Go! Get the hell out! GO!” 

Ethan bellowed out the final few words, his arm pointing inexorably towards the still open door, his face becoming a mottled purple in his rage. Meanwhile, Rory was just lying there in the bed, an amused little smirk on his thin face, like this was all some entertaining show put on for his benefit. I just stood there, confused, hurt, guilty, and ashamed. I couldn’t comprehend what was happening. What had I done to merit this fresh attack? Did Ethan know about Daphne and Brian coming over here? How? And, even so, what did I do that was so wrong? I fucking threw them out; why would Ethan be so over-the-top upset about that? Why was he doing this to me?

“Ethan, please, don’t do this,” I begged. “Please, just talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong. Whatever I did, I’m sorry. I’ll fix it. I’ll do better. Please.”

Ethan paused and looked at me for a few seconds. I felt like his eyes were boring into my soul. But whatever he was looking for, apparently he didn’t find it. 

A nasty sneer slowly bloomed across his face, transforming the man who could be so charming and genial into a contemptuous monster. “You’re pathetic. You know that right? Always nagging and whining and sniveling. But you never do anything about it. You just lay around and fucking complain. Don’t you have any self-respect?” 

Apparently I didn’t, because Ethan’s words drove me to tears yet again. He laughed at that. From where he was lounging, naked, on my bed, Rory laughed too. 

“Look at you,” Ethan continued. “I used to think you were so pretty. Yeah, right. You’re a fucking mess. Completely useless. I don’t know why I wasted my time on you. You’re not even good in bed; fucking frigid little bitch.” 

Rory apparently found this pronouncement hilarious, laughing so hard he was rolling around on the bed. Ethan turned to address his next remarks to his waiting paramour; I just stood there in my shame, while they discussed me as if I wasn’t even there. 

“You’d think Kinney’s slut would would do more than just lay there during sex. Maybe he’s giving it away to everyone else and just doesn’t have time for me, huh?” 

Rory licked his lips and leered up at me as if that prospect excited him.

Ethan looked back at me and frowned. “Is that it? Is that why you invited him into MY FUCKING APARTMENT the minute my back was turned? Is it? You want everyone else BUT me? Fucking WHORE.” The last word was said with so much contempt I physically flinched, but Ethan wasn’t done. “You can get it up for everyone BUT me? Is that it?” I was shaking my head, no, and trying to back away from him, but he reached out and grabbed my arm, towing me closer to the bed with a vicious tug. “A slut like you could probably get it up for even Rory here, huh? Couldn’t you? Well, go on already. Why don’t you show us all what a huge fucking whore you really are!”

I struggled, trying to free myself from Ethan’s pincher-like grip, but he was stronger than he looked. At the same time, Rory, who seemed to think fucking me in front of my angry boyfriend was a great idea, had risen to his knees and started to grab for me from the other direction. With Ethan pushing me from behind and Rory pulling me down from the front, I lost my balance and toppled onto the bed. Rory pounced, pinning my shoulders to the mattress and swooping down for a kiss. I wasn’t having it though. I resisted. I guess I was lucky that both Ethan and Rory were even more drunk than I was, because they didn’t put up much of a fight as I twisted and squirmed away, eventually moving far enough that I fell off the edge of the bed, landing on my ass in a heap. Both the other men broke out into howls of merriment.

“Why are you doing this, Ethan?” I asked again as I crawled to my feet. “Why? Do you enjoy hurting me like this?” Ethan scoffed and just kept chortling away. “I can’t keep doing this, Ethan. I can’t. Please. I don’t want to go on like this. You’re fucking killing me.”

Ethan merely turned his back on me, apparently unconcerned by my pleas for help, more interested in getting back to his ‘date’. “If you’re not gonna join us, then get the fuck out already,” he ordered.

So I left.

For the second time in less than a month I found myself wandering around the city in the middle of the night without knowing where I was going. I’d run out of the apartment without anything, barely pausing to grab my phone and put on my shoes even. Luckily it was a warm night, so I hadn’t needed a jacket, and I wasn’t being rained on this time, so hopefully I wouldn’t end up with pneumonia or anything. 

My mind was still reeling from the confrontation with Ethan. I was too overwhelmed to really think; I was only feeling. My whole body was like one gigantic raw nerve. Everything hurt. My body and my soul and my thoughts and my emotions were all throbbing with pain. It was blinding. I literally couldn’t see anything around me as I stumbled along. All I could see, no matter where I looked, were the images of Ethan and Rory together in my bed. All I could hear were Ethan’s mocking words. Everything else was obscured by that torment. 

I suppose that, after Ethan’s accusations, I should have controlled my steps and walked somewhere that wouldn’t exacerbate the situation, but my feet, as always, carried me to the place I was most familiar with. The place that I’d always felt most at home. The place where I’d found acceptance in the past. I wasn’t even surprised when I finally looked up from my misery and found myself on Liberty Avenue. 

It was late. All the bars were already emptying out and there were few people still on the streets. Which was good, I supposed, because I really didn’t want anyone seeing me in my deplorable condition. As I was passing a storefront I made the mistake of looking at the window, which acted like a mirror, reflecting my image back at me - my shape partially distorted by the warp of the glass - giving evidence of exactly how wretched I’d become. I stopped and stared at my counterpart image, horror-stricken by what I was seeing. 

Was that really me staring back from that ugly mirror? 

Maybe it wasn’t the mirror that was ugly. Maybe the ugliness was welling up from inside me. I felt ugly inside, so it made sense that my internal hideousness was reflected on the outside. Was that face staring back at me the real me? 

I saw the wan face, the hollowed out cheeks, the dark circles under the puffy, red eyes. I’d lost weight - probably more than the fifteen pounds that Daphne had noted - and my clothes were baggy and wrinkled. My shaggy, untrimmed hair didn’t help. I noticed that I had a huge zit on my cheek, probably caused by all the stress. That person staring back at me from the ugly mirror was revolting. Was that really me?

I tried smiling, hoping that the effort would ameliorate the unpleasant picture I was making, but the fake smile was dull and unconvincing even to me. I looked at least ten years older than I was, which I suppose made sense because I felt old. Old and useless. Pathetic, as Ethan had put it. Maybe he was right. Maybe I was old and ugly and useless and pathetic.

I shifted my weight, uncomfortable with that thought, moving slightly to the right so that the image in the ugly mirror was cut in half by the vertical support bar separating two panes of glass. The reflection looking back at me was broken. Broken. Just like me. I was broken.

I don’t know how long I stood there, starting at my brokeness through the lens of that ugly mirror. It was long enough, though, to have garnered some attention. My reverie was finally interrupted by a voice coming from just off to my left, the owner of the voice having come near without my even noticing. 

“Hey there, Sweetie. Why so glum?” intoned the tall drag queen who had sidled up beside me. “A pretty thing like you shouldn’t be so sad.” I snorted derisively at the insincere compliment but didn’t bother answering. “Come on, Honey. No need to be so gloomy. Not when Moanique has something right here that’ll cheer you up in no time.” She opened her palm to reveal a small plastic packet full of some unknown white powder. “I promise, this’ll make you forget ALL your troubles, Sugar.”

Forget all my troubles? That idea was incredibly appealing. I was so tired of being sad. It seemed like ages since I’d been truly happy. Forgetting, even if just for a short time, would be a fucking blessing. 

Or, even better, maybe if I took enough of whatever this person was offering, I could forget my troubles permanently. Forever. Be done with ALL of this shit. Just end it all and never have to deal with the crap my life had become. What was the point, anyway? Was it time to simply give in? Give up? Just stop fighting and let it all go? I was so tired; you have no idea how tempting the idea of a permanent end to all my pain seemed right at that moment.

Then I remembered that I hadn’t grabbed my wallet when I ran out of the apartment and, even if I had, I didn’t have any money. Ethan had all my money. Of course, that thought didn’t help with my depression. If anything, I wanted the release of those drugs she was waving at me even more. Everything seemed so hard. So impossible. I just couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t keep going like I was and I was too exhausted and weak to fight it. Oblivion would be so welcome. But I didn’t even have that option, it seemed.

“Sorry, I’m tapped out,” I told my new drug dealer friend with a shrug.

“No problem, Sweetie. I’m sure we can work something out,” Moanique replied with a simpering smile. “I’d be happy to work out a trade.” She moved even closer, her big hands reaching out and one long, red-lacquered fingernail trailing down my chest suggestively. “Or, if you prefer, I could take it out IN trade.” She ended this proposition by placing that wandering hand over my crotch and giving a little squeeze to seal the deal.

And, for a full minute, or maybe longer, I actually considered that offer. 

Why not? What was stopping me? Ethan had thrown me out - he was probably still busy fucking Rory - he obviously didn’t care what the fuck I did. He’d already accused me of being a whore, so I might as well prove him right. I didn’t have anywhere else to go and no resources. The thought of letting this skanky queen fuck me in exchange for the drugs that could make it all go away seemed like a good deal, actually. 

For those few minutes, I felt like I’d do pretty much anything to ease the pain I was feeling. 

I glanced up at my ugly mirror image again and saw nothing to deter me. I figured nothing could be worse than this. Look at what I’d become. Look at what I’d already let happen to myself. I had nothing left. I was completely empty inside. I was all used up and there was nothing left of the person I’d once been. Nothing there that anyone could ever love. I had already fallen so low that I might as well accept this stranger’s offer of annihilation. Did I really have anything to live for anymore anyway?

Right then, for those few moments, I admitted to myself that I just wanted to die.

But the thought only lasted a few seconds. Almost as quickly as it came, I recoiled from it. I’d scared myself. What was I thinking?

I finally raised my head and looked around myself, desperate to find some other answer. I realized I was right across the street from Babylon. I could see guys trickling out of the club in ones and twos, just like any other night. I’d been there, in that same place, so many times before. It was the place where everything had started. Right there, under that streetlight, was where I’d been standing the night I first met Brian. I guess everything had come around full circle. I was back where I’d started. Only now, I barely recognized the boy who had taken that brave first step out of his comfort zone so many years ago.  

Those were better times. I had been so bold and strong and adventurous. I wanted to be THAT Justin again - the boy who was so confident, so gutsy, so alive - not the frightened, sad lump of uselessness I saw in the ugly mirror. I wanted to end the pain, but I was reminded that I didn’t want to end it permanently. I wanted ME back. 

And as I watched the stragglers leaving Babylon, I was heartened to see a familiar figure amid the group. 

Just like that first night, our eyes met and I felt the same instant pull. He smiled at me as he ambled slowly across the street, coming to stand next to me, in front of the mirror window. Of course, his beauty outshone my despondence and our combined reflection was a much prettier picture. I looked less repellant just because he was standing next to me. Maybe I wasn’t irredeemably damaged after all.

Brian gave the drug dealer drag queen who’d been waiting next to me the once over and then ordered her to, “fuck off.”

Moanique instantly obeyed.

“You okay, Sunshine?”

“No. No, I’m not okay,” I answered truthfully. “But I want to be.” 

I started walking again, only this time I had an actual destination in mind. Brian fell into step beside me without saying a word. We walked together like that for several blocks. We didn’t talk; we didn’t need to. I liked having his strong, silent support, though. It was comforting without being suffocating. 

Mercy Clinic, the downtown extension of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, wasn’t that far away, just on the other side of the highway. It only took us about twenty minutes to walk there from Babylon. Brian followed silently behind as I went in through the big Emergency Room doors and walked up to the receiving desk, waiting to speak to the triage nurse who greeted me.  

“I think . . . I think I need some help. Can you please help me,” I pleaded.