Page 278 of Tell Me I'm Enough

“Isn’t that the smart thing to do?”

“It’s exhausting.”

I rub the back of my neck. “I don’t mind being tired.”

“Except you do,” he says. “Which is why you drink.”

I roll my eyes. “You’re really connecting the dots here well.”

“When you drink,” he continues, “you don’t have to anticipate problems. You don’t have to fix anything. You don’t have to be ‘responsible’ anymore.”

I stare at him.

“You get to be the fun one,” he adds.

I laugh quietly. “Iamthe fun one.”

“That’s my point.”

I don’t like this.

He studies me for a moment. “Do you ever drink when you’renotusing it to escape?”

I open my mouth, and then close it again.

He nods slightly. “That’s what I thought.”

I shift in my seat, a little irritated now. “You’re acting like I’m some walking case study right now.”

“I’m just trying to help you understand yourself.”

“I understand myself.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Then why do you continue to repeat the same cycle?”

I scoff. “What cycle?”

“You get close to someone, you feel something real, panicking, numbing it with drinking and pretending nothing happened.”

I freeze.

“That’s not—”

“Your mom died,” he says gently. “Your dad checked out or was never around to begin with. You stepped up with your brothers. You learned that attachment equals responsibility and responsibility equals pressure.”

I swallow.

“So when something feels permanent,” he keeps on, “you look for the exit now, which usually looks like self-destruction.”

“That’s not fair,” I say, and this time my voice isn’t defensive—it’s just tight.

“What part isn’t fair?”

“You’re making it sound like I can’t handle anything serious.”