Элисон Скотч - The Theory of Opposites

The only way that I was getting home, readers, was with my guts, by rising and rewriting my master universe plan. By getting the hell up and moving forward. There literally wasn’t any other way. My tears began again now, quick, hot, heavy. Washing some of the crusted blood away, stinging the open wounds that the blood left behind.

I matted my face with my dirty shirt, and I realized, just like Vanessa had urged me to since we were eighteen, and just like Ollie and I had discussed when I made shadow bunnies on the wall, and just like Theo had wordlessly pushed me into conviction — that “meant to be” could add up to a lot of things. There’s always more than one path, and to think otherwise is what resigns you to fate.

When Vanessa and I embarked on this book, we did so to disprove my father, to prove that not everything happened for a reason, that control and choice and human spirit mattered. What ended up happening along our journey is that I no longer felt the need to disprove him of anything. My dad is a Ph.D., and he is lauded the world over. I will never be as revered as he is; I will never have the physics or the mathematical equations to demonstrate all the ways that he is wrong. But what I know is this: I know what happened up there on that mountain. I know what happened over the past few months of my life. And these are the lessons we hope you take away from this book, readers. Not that my dad must be wrong, but that there are so many other ways to be right. That night on the mountain finally gave me clarity, finally set me free: not to be William, but simply, to be me.

No one really can have any idea if it’s luck or happenstance or timing or fate or the universe or just smart choices that grant you a good life, a happy one. All we can do is decide to own our choices no matter what, to honor them and ourselves as best we can. That whatever is within our control (and there is plenty that is not) is ours. Mine. Responsibility. Conviction. These are the lessons I’ve learned, that I took down with me from that mountain.

This sounds simple, and this might not even be a great revelation. And yet, for many of us, it comes down to this: that the best way not to be lost is to be your own map.

I inched my way forward that morning. Like that goddamn turtle I said I thought it might be nice to be for a day. Or a lifetime. I inched down the path, back to the fork, and then, inch by inch, down the right path. It took me eleven hours to make it to Nicky. On TV, when you see it, they show me in fast-forward, my movements accelerated, because it’s too painful to show my suffering in real time.

But was it suffering, actually? Only in the moment. When I eased around the last turn on the map, and I saw Nicky sunning his cheeks in the late rays of the afternoon light, sleeping under the Dare You! banner, waiting for me with the faith that he knew that I would make it, it didn’t feel like suffering it all.

It felt like guts.

It felt like choices matter.

It felt like even if I’d scrambled up the wrong path, that it wasn’t like I couldn’t scramble back down and find my way again.

“LIVE FREE OR DIE, NICKY!” I shouted.

And he startled awake, and then grinned the most delicious grin, and I weaved my way over like the wounded warrior that I sort of was, and he pulled me into a bear hug on the ground, and then we both laughed until we cried.

“I talked to my dad last night. On my solo,” he said, when we both found time to breathe. “He told me it was okay to let go.”

“Funny,” I said back. “I kind of heard the same message.”

Live free or die. I was finally ready. I finally got it.

I finally got what’s next.

I sleep for what feels like a thousand hours after we’re delivered back to the hotel. Medical has wrapped my ankle and stitched my eye, and other than some purple welts that won’t subside for weeks — medals of honor, I suppose — I’m mostly okay. When I finally come to, I tug the shades back and wince from the sunshine and then allow my eyes to adjust, and then absorb the beauty of day, of the Seattle harbor, of its jewel tones, of all life’s possibility. It’s all there, right in front of me.

My stomach lurches, and I locate my toilet kit, scrambling for something to soothe that which still ails me.

I sift through the pouch, through the nail clippers, and lip balm and my deodorant, past a loose Xanax that I didn’t realize I still had, a few Q-tips that need to be tossed. I find the test on the very bottom, which is exactly where I thought it belonged. I’d forgotten, until right now, this very moment, that I’d bought a second one that morning at Duane Reade, in case my nerves got the best of me, and I needed a second test for back-up.

What had they called EPT way back when, a lifetime ago on BabyCenter.com? Essentially a Piece of Trash. Of course the first test proved unreliable. But then I wonder if maybe that wasn’t the universe talking too, though I’m smarter than that now: to put my trust in the universe. But if I’d seen the plus sign, the double-line, a few weeks back, I’d never have gone on Dare You! I’d never have really mustered the guts. I’d never have forged the road not taken.

I steady my breath, and I try to ignore my inner voice that is still whispering about doubts and maternal instincts and how I’ve done everything wrong. No . I gulp the air in, and I push it out, and take the hard turn left when I have always turned right. As simply as that, everything can be different.

And just as I have for eight other months, I sit on the toilet with my underwear around my ankles, and I wait.

It doesn’t even take the two minutes. The second pink line is there as quickly as the first.

My father would call this fate, but I know better now.

I am wise enough now to merely call this life.

I ask the Town Car to stop at my father’s apartment on the way home from the airport. Nicky waits in the lobby while I take a swift trip upstairs. My dad answers the door in his bathrobe, with wild hair and skin that’s too pale and pasty. He looks sad and spent and surprised that his doorbell has rung so unexpectedly.

“Oh. William,” he says when he swings the door open. “I don’t have time. I’m getting ready for Piers Morgan.”

And I say: “This won’t take long. I’m on my way home.”

“Okay then. What is it?”

“I went on the show. I’m doing the book. You can choose to never speak to me again, but I hope that you will.”

And he looks very, very angry, like an old man version of a Chucky doll or something, for just a brief moment, and then he waves a hand and relaxes his face and says: “ Que sera, sera .”

“ Que sera, sera ?”

“Whatever will be will be.”

And I say: “You really believe that crap, don’t you?”

And he says: “Everybody has to believe in something.”

And I say, before walking away: “Everybody does.”

We hold a viewing party at Raina’s for my episode of Dare You! in early September. It’s also a goodbye party for Ollie because he’s headed to the clink for three months, which was part of his plea settlement. Though it isn’t really the clink , or at least that’s what Raina has assured us.

“It’s basically like where Martha Stewart served her time, but for guys. Like, where the insider traders go. Think of it as a spa for morally ambiguous men,” she told us when the judge issued his ruling. “I mean, look. There has to be accountability for what you did, Ollie. Even if you didn’t mean to.”

Ollie hovered his hands over his heart.

“I get it,” he said. “And they agreed I can lead their yoga program. So it might be sort of cool. Future clients.” Raina rolled her eyes, but Ollie dropped his palms to his waist and said, “I’m kidding. No one wants to end up like dad, so it’s time to start being responsible.” And then he squeezed my hand because he knew I’d get it, too.