Page 34 of The Lies We Play

I don't know if he ever said it.

I’ll write it down anyway, later, when I am alone. I will write it down in the same notebook as the other fragments, the page in the locked drawer in my bedroom.

“I want the complete Florence file on my desk tomorrow by five,” I say.

Everett’s expression hardens for half a breath. Anyone else might miss it.

I don't.

“Of course,” he says.

He will not send it.

Or he will send a version that serves him.

The meeting continues around me. Numbers. Grants. Youth arts partnerships. Preservation commitments. Ethical stewardship. Each phrase crosses the table dressed in clean clothes, with blood beneath the cuffs.

Nothing gets signed.

That is new enough for them to notice.

Their attention is on me each time a document passes me and remains untouched. My pen rests beside my folder, useless and perfectly placed. Everett’s gaze drops to it twice. Margaret’s once. My stepmother’s attorney, who has no reason to be present except that he is always present when someone wants a knife in the room without admitting to a weapon, writes something on his legal pad.

Let him.

I have been treated like the fragile one in this family long enough.

Today, I can be fragile and inconvenient.

When the meeting adjourns, chairs glide back. Phones appear. Folders close. The room fills with the soft sounds of powerful people preparing to leave without ever having arrived anywhere honest.

Everett starts toward me.

Margaret beats him to it.

“You seem tired,” she says.

The thing about my family is that they have a vocabulary for sending me away again, and tired is the front door of it. Tiredness leads to concern, which leads to: We just want what’s best for you.

Listen, I have been clean for ten years. Ten fucking years. No painkillers. No drink. Not even the codeine they keep offering after dental work, because the road back to the man they say I was is not a road I will walk willingly, even if the man they say I was is a man I am no longer sure existed.

I sweep it off and almost smile. “It was a long meeting after a long day at work.”

Her smile is small. “You’ve made remarkable progress,” she says, ignoring what I just said. “Everyone is proud of how far you’ve come.”

Progress.

There is that word again. So civilized. I slide my folder under my arm and stand.

“I'm not a quarterly report, Margaret.”

Her smile disappears, but only for a second. Then it returns, corrected. Sometimes I believe her job is to babysit me and make sure I’m content.

“No one suggested you were, Halston.”

They imply. They document. They recommend. They place a hand on your shoulder and call it support while steering you away from the door.

I leave before Everett can intercept me.