Page 48 of All the Way to the River
“It’s okay, my love,” I said. “It’s over. We got through it. We’re here now.”
She sighed, curled tighter into my arms. “But why would I do that, though?” she asked. “Why would I be such an asshole like that? Why would anybody choose drugs when they could have this ?”
“I don’t know, man, you tell me,” I said. “Maybe it’s because you’re a big dummy?”
“I’m such a big dummy!” she said, laughing through her tears. “God, I’m the fucking worst .”
“You might not be the worst . At least you didn’t try to murder me. Did I mention that I tried to murder you?”
“You tried to murder me?” She laughed again, then coughed. “Are you serious?”
“Totally serious. Back in the summer. You were so out of control that I couldn’t stand it for another day, so I decided to kill you.”
“Dude, no way! That’s badass! How were you gonna do it?”
“I was planning to dose you with a ton of sleeping pills and morphine and then cover your whole body with fentanyl patches.”
“Jesus Christ , baby!”
“Are you mad at me?”
“No way, dude. That’s fucking awesome! That’s amazing! I’m so proud of you!”
Now we were both laughing.
“Wait—why are you proud of me?”
“Because you found your darkness, dude! Remember the first day I met you, and all I could see was all that light pouring out of you? It didn’t make any sense to me, that you were so bright and shiny.
I remember thinking, ‘This chick’s gotta have a ton of darkness hidden somewhere deep down inside her, if she has all that light!
’ Like, real darkness. Like, to balance all that sunshine?
You know what I mean? Because nobody is just one thing.
I always wondered where you hid all your darkness, babe.
I’m so proud of you, that you discovered it! ”
“Well, you really bring it forth in me.”
“Rock on,” Rayya said, and she gave me a fist to bump—very gingerly.
We were quiet for a while after that, and then I said, “Babe, I don’t want to make this into a big production if you don’t want to talk about it … but Stacey said you were confused about where I went and what happened over the summer?”
“All I remember is that your love was there, and then suddenly it wasn’t.”
“Do you really want to know what happened?”
“Of course I do.”
“I don’t want to shame you, but it got pretty bad. And there might be some things that I need to get off my chest—things that it wouldn’t be right for us to ignore. You hurt me very badly, Rayya. We might need to talk about it.”
Rayya reached over and turned on the light, then gingerly rolled over onto her side so we were facing each other.
“Tell me,” she said. “Tell me everything I did.”
There she was.
There was my Rayya, back again.
Of all the versions of Rayya Elias who ever existed (and I feel like I knew them all), this was the version who was the most beautiful to me.
The Rayya who could look someone in the eye and say without any defenses, “Tell me everything I did”—and really mean it.
The one who could take a broadside hit without flinching.
The one who always wanted to know the deepest and gnarliest truth, even if it was about her.
God, she was brave.
So I told her.
I told her about how abusive and degrading she had become.
How she’d lied to me. How she’d taken money from me to buy drugs, and put me at risk by keeping huge amounts of cocaine in the house and the car.
How she’d pushed me away and insulted me whenever I tried to challenge her on any of this.
How she’d used her cancer as a tool of manipulation and control.
How she’d told other people I had abandoned her because I couldn’t handle her cancer.
Worst of all, how she’d told me that she wished we had never gotten together in the first place, because my “emotional bullshit” was too much to deal with.
She listened to all of it, and when I was done, she just nodded and said, “Yeah, that tracks.”
I saw no guilt in her eyes at that moment. Just acceptance.
She said, “That’s what I’m like when I’m a drug addict, Liz. That’s who I become. I bet it was a real shit show.”
“I’m afraid it was,” I said.
She went on: “If we had time, babe, if we had more years to be together, we would have a lot of work to do around this to make it right. I’d have to go back to the rooms and start all over again at step one.
I’d have to get a sponsor, start counting days, the whole deal.
We’d have to go to therapy, talk it all out, find ways to repair whatever got broken.
We’d have to start from the beginning with each other.
It would be a big process to earn back trust, but I know we could do it.
I wouldn’t even care what we ended up being in each other’s lives going forward—friends, lovers, whatever.
I wouldn’t even care what the label is. I just love you, and I know we could make it right and find a way to keep loving each other.
But baby, here’s the reality: We don’t have that kind of time.
We’re running out of road here. So I have to ask you, from the bottom of my heart—will you just forgive me? ”
What else was going to save us that night but forgiveness?
And maybe forgiveness isn’t even the right word here, because it implies a hierarchy of morality—a patronizing, a bestowing . As if I, who once plotted to murder Rayya, would have the right to bestow forgiveness upon her or anyone!
Good, bad, right, wrong: Do we even have time for this kind of language—any of us?
I mean, aren’t we all running out of road here?
That’s what I was thinking when Rayya asked me for forgiveness.
But that’s a lot to explain to someone who was starting to look very weary.
So I just said, “Of course I forgive you. Will you forgive me?”
“Of course.”
Then we fell asleep with the light still on, holding hands like children.