“I’m reinventing myself too,” he said. “Everything in my life is better. The art’s going well. Everyone said I wouldn’t be able to create good work now that I’m sober, but it’s just a different process. It still works. Everything’s good, but there are some issues I need to work through. Stresses.”
I glared at him. Sorry about your stresses, asshole. I also have stresses. Get to the point.
“So, part of getting sober is taking real and concrete steps to change your life. There are these twelve steps that are part of my rehab program. Step four is to take a ‘searching and fearless moral inventory’ of yourself, and I’ve been doing that, you know? As you progress through the program and take this inventory, one of the things you do is go back to the people in your life that you’ve hurt and talk with them, and try to make amends.”
I put my hands over my eyes. “Simon, I can’t.”
“Please, just hear me out. I need your help with this.”
When I looked up, he had his fingers steepled in front of him, pressed together like he was praying.
“The thing is,” he said, “I’m really haunted by a lot of things. I’m haunted by you, and I don’t want to be. I’d like to spend time with you now that I’m sober, so we have better memories. I’d like to talk to you, and apologize, and show you that I’m not that person I was when I was with you.”
I shook my head. “I can’t. I just… I want to help you, but it’s not possible.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m in a relationship with someone else now. A really intense relationship.”
“I don’t want to get back together with you or anything. I won’t make unwanted advances. I just want to talk through what happened in our relationship, and try to come to a place of peace.”
“I don’t want to do that,” I cried. “It took me a long time to get over you. Years of sadness and loneliness and wondering what the hell was wrong with me, that things went so bad. I’m in a different place now and I don’t want to revisit what we went through. I want to forget it. I want to forget you!”
“But I need your help! Every day—” His voice rose and broke off. He rubbed his forehead, this man who was so different from the strung out Simon I used to know. “Every day is a struggle,” he said in a quiet, tortured voice. “I’m trying to become a better person. Every day, I’m trying to get better.”
“Why do you need me for that?” I could feel myself softening toward him, even when I didn’t want to. Drugs had been his life. I couldn’t imagine how hard it had been to get off them, and stay off them this long.
“Really…the change has to come from yourself,” I said. “I don’t see what I can offer you.”
“No one knows me like you. I loved you. We were together for ten years.”
But we weren’t together for ten years. We were together maybe a third of that time before everything went haywire. I could still remember the sickening slide, watching him lose his shit little by little, day by day, until he was a completely different person. I wasn’t there for him then. I’d done nothing to stop him from disintegrating.
And now…if I did nothing to help him…what if he slid into that hell again?
“What exactly do you want from me?” I asked.
“I would like us to be friends.” He knotted his fingers together. I could see the ever-present paint flecks under his nails. “Can you come over for dinner sometimes?”
“No, I can’t.”
“Can we meet somewhere for lunch then?”
I sighed, shaking my head. “I’m in a relationship with someone. He wouldn’t like it.”
“It would just be friendly. A time to talk. Or I can come here. I think a friendship between us would keep me honest. It would remind me…” He paused and bit his lip. “It would remind me how easily I can hurt someone. How deeply I’ll hurt everyone if I fuck up and fall back into the drugs again.”
He was honestly, truly desperate. I could see that. I was beginning to feel a little desperate myself. “I can’t be your sober coach. I don’t know anything about drugs or rehab or sobriety. I can’t be responsible for helping you stay sober.”
“You don’t have to be. I’m responsible for staying sober,” he said forcefully, “just as I was responsible for my actions, and for the way my actions hurt you. Now I’m responsible for making things right. You were such a huge part of my life. I don’t want to hurt you by taking you back to those times, but I don’t know if I can get better without your support and forgiveness. I know that sounds selfish. I just want…” He unlaced his fingers and threw out his hands. “God, I want to move on.”