there’s a difference between coping and defense mechanisms too, and she’s gotten her wires crossed trying to protect herself from the trauma rather than deal with it. five stages of grief, five stages of emotional bullshit she has to wade through like quicksand. likes to think she’s reached the acceptance stage but she hasn’t. not with a bottle of malt liquor in her hand every night. she’ll get there.
the way he says foster care reminds her of that night at seattle’s police station ( before i bury your ass so deep in the foster care system, you’ll never get out ) and she almost says something, almost unburies that hatchet just out of spite. but it’s not worth it.
if the roles were reversed, would she not have acted the same ?
“ think i ate some of that. either the label was wrong or smooth peanut butter goes crunchy after it expires. ”
talking about food makes the nausea worse. the cigarette held between index and middle finger trembles and so do her hands. she’s staring down at the bottle and contemplating whether to pussy out when the bile pitches into her throat without warning. body twists in a lean, booze and stomach acid and whatever was left over from her last meal spilling out onto the concrete.
that’s the thing about acceptance. you don’t get there all at once, like a train rolling into the station ; it’s a long, uneven road, fissured and cracked and often uphill. it’s slow. sometimes you fall, or take a wrong turn and have to backpedal. sometimes you don’t move forward at all but freeze in a kind of limbo, a paralysis that clutches at your heart and holds on.
she’ll get there when she gets there. this is the same kid who cold - cocked him in the gut and woke up from a coma because the doctors said she wouldn’t. he has faith.
her face pinches into that telltale grimace and he flicks away his cigarette, drops into a crouch at her side. doesn’t reach out uninvited — he knows better than that — but he finally takes the bottle away. pours out what’s left ( a couple of pulls, if that ) and sets it down. jaw tight. throat thick as wet cement.
he can smell the reek of malt liquor ; the sour aroma of bile and thin sweat. it’s familiar. he hates that it’s familiar.
‘ ––––––– i got you. ’
this is the easy part, before the bed - spins and the skull - splitting headache and the way her stomach will heave and pitch and churn like the ocean during a storm. it gets worse before the skies clear. every time.