I nodded, and my mom opened and then closed her mouth, like she changed her mind about what she was going to say. “We’ll be right downstairs,” she finally said. “We’re not going anywhere.”
They left, and I sunk down beneath my covers again, lying on my side and tucking the blanket tightly up under my chin, the same way I had when I was a child and woke from a bad dream, telling myself if I just closed my eyes and rocked back and forth, I would eventually lull myself back to sleep. Escape was all I could think about, and the only escape route I had was the ability to fall into unconsciousness. But just like last night, after my shower, my mind spun with too many thoughts to let me drift off. I tossed and turned, my body aching, until I remembered a trick that I used to use when the phentermine I took at the height of my eating disorder made it impossible for me to sleep.
As quietly as I could, not wanting my parents to hear me and come back upstairs, I slipped out of bed and opened my door, sneaking across the hallway to the bathroom, where I rummaged around in the medicine cabinet until I found the clear bottle full of tiny pink pills I needed. A standard dose of antihistamines always made me drowsy; a double dose would give me the relief I so desperately needed now. I took two pills, swallowing them down with a few handfuls of water from the sink, again making sure to avoid looking in the mirror. I stared at the bottle a bit longer, wondering what might happen if I took three, then four, or even the entire contents. That would give me a way out of having to deal with any of this. It would make this entire nightmare go away.
No, I thought, screwing the cap back on and returning the bottle to the cabinet. I can’t do that to my parents. No matter how much it hurts, no matter how unbearable my feelings might be, I can’t just give up like that. I won’t.
Within minutes after returning to bed, I felt the comfortable buzz of impending sleep roaming around in my head. The allergy meds had numbed out my thoughts, quieting them down enough that my eyes stayed closed, and my heart stopped racing.
It was almost dark outside when I woke up, with my mouth so dry, my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. I blinked, trying to get my eyes to focus on the digital clock next to my bed. It was a few minutes past eight—I’d slept almost ten hours—and I saw that my mom had removed the tray of untouched tea and toast from earlier and replaced it with a bowl of cut-up fruit and two bottles of water. I knew I couldn’t eat, but I did drink down both bottles in just a few minutes, knowing that the antihistamines I’d taken had dehydrated me even more than the tequila from the night before.
I forced myself to swing my legs over the side of the bed; I still felt woozy and bruised, so I took several deep breaths in through my nose, blowing them out of my mouth, trying to restore a proper level of oxygen to my brain. It was a trick I shared with my clients who struggled to catch their breath after a particularly intense workout. “Press one nostril closed, and then take in three quick, hard sniffs of air through the other, like you’re snorting some kind of drug. Then slowly blow the air out your mouth, as controlled as you can manage.” This instruction always garnered me strange looks, but when they complied, my clients always felt better. “Your brain functions best when it gets lots of oxygen,” I’d tell them. “That’s why exercise strengthens your mind, as well as your body. Oxygen rinses it clean.”
I almost laughed as I thought about this now, guessing there was nothing in the world that would ever make me feel clean again. I stood up, planning to go back across the hall and take another hot shower, but as soon as I opened the door, I found my mom waiting for me.
“Hey, sweetie,” she said, reaching out to brush my hair out of my face. “How are you feeling? I came in to check on you a few hours ago and you were totally passed out.”
I nodded, knowing I couldn’t tell her about the pills I’d taken. “I need to take a shower,” I said. “I feel disgusting.”
She winced, upset, I was sure, picturing what Tyler had done to me to make me feel that way. I took another step, but she rested a hand on my shoulder, stopping me. “Honey, wait,” she said. “Daniel is here.”
“What?” I said, practically hissing the word. “Jesus, Mom. Did you call him? Did you tell him what happened?” My heartbeat, which had been calm just seconds ago, ramped up again, banging around behind my rib cage. I’d forced myself not to think about Daniel since I’d come home from the party; I’d been too overwhelmed by everything else. I didn’t know how to fit him into the messy, imbalanced equation of it all.
“No, of course not,” she said hurriedly. “I wouldn’t do that. He just showed up about an hour ago. He said you two had argued, and he felt horrible about it. He just wants to talk.”
“I can’t see him,” I said, the tears already returning to my eyes. “Not like this. Mom, please. Make him leave.”
“Oh, honey,” she said, pulling me into her arms, where I stood stiff as a board, afraid of what might happen if I let myself succumb to the comfort in her touch, worried I might lose control and never get it back. “Daniel loves you. He needs to know what Tyler did.”
A thought struck me, and I yanked back, glaring at her. “Have you told anyone else? Did you tell Liz?”
A dark, fractured look passed over my mother’s face. “No,” she said. Her voice was strangled. “I haven’t. But I want to. She needs to know. So does Jason. They need to know what their son did.”
“What have you and Dad been doing all day?” I crossed my arms over my chest, preparing myself to hear the worst: that they’d gone against my wishes and called the police.
“Nothing,” she said, and her chin trembled. “We’ve just been sitting together, waiting for you to wake up. Your dad is going out of his mind. He’s so angry. I don’t know what he’ll do if Tyler shows up here again.”
“He can’t do anything,” I said. “He knows that, right? He’ll just make it worse.” Part of me felt better knowing my dad wanted to hurt Tyler for hurting me, but I also couldn’t stand the idea of the man who’d raised me answering one violent act with another. I hated what Tyler had done, but beating him up wasn’t going to solve a thing.
“Yes, he knows,” my mom said. She was about to say more, but then we both turned our heads, hearing my name spoken from the bottom of the stairs.
“Amber?” Daniel called out.
“Mom, please,” I said, and she grabbed my hand, squeezing it tightly.
“You need to tell him,” she said. “He deserves to hear the truth.”