Jade Sharma - Problems

“Maya, I have to go.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m reading.”

“You mean the old-timey way, with the paper and the binding and stuff?”

“Yes, Maya, with my magnifying glass because of my old, fucked-up eyes, in my wheelchair, with my catheter bag.”

“Aww, thanks, I needed that. Your body used to function, and now it’s all fucked-up. Anyway, back to my life. Can you tell me what I can do to get Peter back and then find another dude and then dump him?”

“Go away for a few days, that might work.”

“What if when he’s alone he realizes he likes being alone better than being with me?”

“If there’s any chance of him staying with you, I’m telling you, leaving for a week or two is the best way to get him back.”

“So, you don’t think crying, threatening suicide, and throwing a nonstop tantrum is the way to go?”

“As cute as you look blubbering with spit and tears all over your face, I would say not this time.”

“It usually works when I want him to buy something and we’re in public.”

“I gotta go, Maya, seriously.”

“You sure you don’t want me to come over? I’ll give you a BJ.”

“I wish. Not right now. I need to get out from under this pile of papers. I keep waiting for the elves to do it.”

“So basically my amazing blow jobs don’t top the amount of crazy bitch you have to put up with.”

“Maya, you’re not a crazy bitch.”

“God, Ogden, you actually sound sincere when you say that. But then again, you’re so fucking nuts, compared to you, I am probably sane.”

“Thanks, Maya. Any time I need to feel a little more shitty about myself, I know who to call.”

“No problem! Love you! Bye!”

I didn’t leave for a week like Ogden suggested. I didn’t cry and threaten suicide. I went on OkCupid and started dating. I made out with a dork outside a bar. I did coke in a bathroom with a man who allegedly worked in finance but actually worked at a movie theater and had a fake, ambiguously European accent. I never liked coke, but it was something. I learned the world was full of dudes I had absolutely nothing to say to. Peter wasn’t special, but at least we could have a conversation. Once we had kids, everything would be about raising the kids, and then we would be too old to fuck anyway. I waited patiently for the first day off he would have in a week.

I crawled out of bed and found Peter on the sofa watching television, dipping French fries into a mix of rooster sauce and mayo. Peter loved mayo. Gross.

“Peter, what the fuck is going on? Please tell me.”

He turned off the television. “I’ve been looking at apartments, and I found one.”

“You found what? An apartment?”

I could already feel the metaphorical luggage of Peter’s leaving weighing me down, fucking up my back, turning me into one of those sad, shitty people who hunch over, don’t look up, and walk around with their plastic bags full of weird things.

He hadn’t caught me cheating. I hadn’t done dope since we got back from Vermont except for that one time, and Peter had no clue. I bought a bundle before we left, ten bags, but since I had gone through withdrawal during the trip, I realized the hard part was over, and I didn’t want to go back to doing it every day, figuring out how to get the money and the whole hassle. I put the eight bags between the mattresses. When I didn’t have a supply, I was desperate, but as long as I had those eight bags, I wasn’t using because I didn’t have any; I could use whenever I wanted. It was a choice. When I was fiending, I would look at them. I would think about ripping them open and doing it, but then I would think about how I knew exactly how it would feel, and then I didn’t have to do it. It felt like more of a high not to get high. I thought AA and NA were bullshit because they were all about things having power over you, but one of the things you learn when you starve yourself is that your mind can actually power off your body’s biological need to survive. If I could deny my body what it needed, then there was no doubt I could stop using. I could beat it. I wouldn’t let it take any space or time in my real life. Drugs were for fun or true moments of crisis.

This was a true moment of crisis. In my mind, I had already ripped opened two bags and snorted them as fast as possible and was leaning back, closing my eyes, waiting for that wall of soothing numbness to hit. I stared at Peter. His mouth was moving, and he was saying words like, “friends,” “love,” “sorry,” “hopeful,” “wishing,” and more words that sounded kind, but I knew if I actually listened to him the words would feel like glass shards slowly tearing my skin. Yeah, Peter. Sure, I’ll play along. This is all reasonable . I nodded. “Oh yeah, that makes sense,” I said, because I was in opposite world, where nothing made sense. Peter leaving me? He was the dude who didn’t leave. Who promised over and over he wouldn’t leave. What the fuck?

Yeah, I’m the girl who lost the boy after she stopped using drugs and ended her extramarital affair.

“You know I stopped using.”

“I’m so proud of you, but that doesn’t change anything,” he said, rubbing my shoulder.

Proud of me? I wanted to take the ashtray and bash his face with it. It would have been better if he had said, “Here is all the money I have. You can have it because what I’m doing is fucked-up. It’s assumed because I married you that I wouldn’t say out of the blue that I’m leaving you, since that’s what marriage is. Since I have no words to offer, I will give a bunch of money.” That was the least he could do. But words were all he had. Stupid dumb words that didn’t mean shit to me.

“I’ll be right back,” I said. I got the bags and The Bell Jar (a little on the nose but whatever) from the bedroom and went back to the living room. I did the two bags off the coffee table in front of him because what the fuck was the difference?

He kept talking in that nice way of his about how he had tried and how it was nobody’s fault. He sighed and said, “We can stop pretending.” What the hell did that mean? He had been pretending? He had tears in his eyes. He was serious.

“What do you mean, pretending?”

“Didn’t it feel like we were going through the motions?”

“No, I love you, and you’re leaving me for no reason.”

He stared directly at me with tears running down his face, and said, “Fuck you. This is what you wanted.”

What the fuck was he talking about? I wondered, after I slowly came to from binge watching Don’t Trust the B- - in Apartment 23 and doing all the dope I had. I had completely lost my tolerance and kept nodding out. I would jerk awake and find myself bent over, my head almost touching the floor. It sounded like Peter was dragging shit across the bedroom floor.

This is what you wanted . Oh. What I said to Amy on the phone. “I wish Peter would just leave already. I treat him like shit.” He must have overheard me when I was smoking outside. My stupid mouth saying stupid things. Had I meant it? Was this exactly what I wanted? I snorted another bag. No more being scared that the biggest thrills left for me were buying things at Crate & Barrel. I was free. Anything and nothing could happen.

In the future everyone will ask me, “Why did your marriage end? What did you do?”

Peter and I walked over to Elizabeth’s. She sold me five bars of Xanax and gave me a hug. She was strung out. Her apartment told the story. All the lights were off, and there was a candle, and her laptop was playing a show with no laugh track. I wanted to stay, but Peter was outside waiting.

I’d never learned how to get dumped. I didn’t know how to not take it personally.