Blackout_ Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget - Sarah Hepola

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order. I had lost so many things that fall in New York. Sunglasses. Hats, scarves, gloves. I could have outfitted an orphanage with the items I left behind in taxicabs. But what amazed me was how many things I did not lose, even when my eyes had receded back into my skull. I never lost my cell phone. I never lost my keys. I once woke up with the refrigerator door flapping open but my good pearl earrings placed neatly beside the sink, their tricky backs slipped back onto their stems. Part of this was simple survival. You could not be a woman alone in the world without some part of you remaining vigilant. I was a woman who tripped over sidewalks and walked into walls, but I was also a woman who, at the end of the evening, held on to her valuables like they were a dinosaur egg. How did my purse get in my room? This new evidence was forcing me to reevaluate the story I’d already settled on. I suppose I might have dropped the purse off on my way to the guy’s hotel room. But a side trip like that was a serious break in the action that didn’t track with a drunk’s impulsive style. The more likely scenario is that I went upstairs first, decided my room was entirely too quiet, and then headed back to the bar for company, leaving my purse behind. A woman locking up her diamond ring before she leaps into the sea. I called the front desk. “You’re never going to believe this,” I told Johnson. “My purse is in my room.” “I told you this would work out,” he said. “And you were right.” I changed into my pajamas and curled into a fetal position under the covers. An empty bed had never been so divine. Maybe I should have been relieved, but I had the haunted shivers of a woman who felt the bullet whiz past her face. Now that my crisis was resolved, I could start beating myself up for the ways I had failed. All that I could have lost. This was a familiar crouch—staring at the ceiling at 3 am, lashing myself. Such a wretched place to be. Alone in the dark, with your own misery. The phone rang. “I found a leather jacket in the bar,” Johnson said. “Do you think it’s yours?” And here comes the part of the story I wish I didn’t remember. JOHNSON STANDS IN my doorway. He’s so tall. He must be six two. My leather jacket is draped over his arm like a fresh towel. I stand there with my hand on the door and wonder how much to tip him. “Can I come in?” he asks, and there is not an ounce of me that wants him inside my room, but he was so helpful to me earlier, and I can’t scheme quickly enough to rebuff him. I step back from the door and give him entry. I’m still thinking about the tip. Would five euros be enough? Would a hundred? He closes the door and walks to my bed. It’s not far from the entryway, but each step breaches a great chasm. “You broke my heart when you cried earlier tonight,” he says, sitting down on the mattress. He’s only a few feet from me, and I remain with my back pressed against the wall. “I know, I’m sorry about that,” I say, and I think: Who is manning the desk right now? Are we going to get in trouble? He leans forward on the bed, resting his elbows on his knees. “I was thinking, a beautiful woman
like you should not be crying,” he says, and puts out his hand for me to take. I’m not sure what to do, but I walk over to him, as if on autopilot, and let my hand hang limply against his fingertips. “You are very beautiful,” he says. I blink and breathe deeply through my nostrils. Fucking Christ. It is a compliment that makes me want to wither away. I have spent years chasing after compliments, with the ridiculous hope that every man in the universe would find me beautiful. And now a man arrives at 3:30 am to tell me I have succeeded in my pathetic, girlish hopes and dreams, and I want to crush him. I want to scream. “Thanks,” I say. “I saw you Saturday night when you came in,” he says. I stare at the floor, wondering how to get my hand back. I’m not sure what makes me angrier: that he will not leave, or that I will not ask him to. For the millionth time, I’m enraged by a man’s inability to read my mind. Look at how I’m standing here. Can’t you see how revolting I find you? “I’m glad I could take care of you,” he says, and he brings my hand to his lips. “Johnson, I’m really tired,” I say. “It’s been a really long day.” I want him to leave so badly my stomach aches. I think: If tell him to go, he’ll probably stand up politely and walk out of the room without saying more than a few words. So why don’t I? Do I feel I owe him something? That I can’t turn him away? That he’ll be mad at me? What do I feel? He pulls me toward him, and we kiss. The kiss is neither bad nor good. I consider it a necessary penance. I can’t explain it. How little I care. Zapping back to my life in the middle of sex with a stranger seems to have raised the bar on what I can and cannot allow. All I keep thinking is: This doesn’t matter. All I keep thinking is: It will be easier this way. He tugs me toward the bed, and my body moves before my brain tells it differently. I let him run his hands along me, and he strokes my hair. He kisses my nose, now wet with tears he does not ask about. He moves his large, rough hands over the steep slope of my fleshy sides, up along my breast, nudging down my top and gently sucking on my nipple. And the confounding part is how good this feels. It shouldn’t feel this way. My skin should be all bugs and slithering worms. But the truth is I like being held. I like not being alone anymore. None of this makes sense in my mind, because I don’t want to be here, but I can’t seem to leave. I don’t understand it. What accumulation of grief and loneliness could bring me to this place, where I could surrender myself to the hands of a stranger? Who is this person in the hotel room? And I don’t mean Johnson. I mean me. We lie in the bed, and he strokes my face, my body. I can feel him hard against me, but he never asks for more. At 4 am, I push Johnson out the door. I climb into my bed and cry. Huge howling sobs, and I feel a small amount of comfort knowing the story exists only in my memory bank and that I do not need to deposit it in anyone else’s. This whole episode can stay a secret. REAL DRUNKS WAIT and watch for the moment they hit bottom. Your face is forever hurtling toward a brick wall, but you hope that you can smash against it and still walk away. That you will be scared but not destroyed. It’s a gamble. How many chances do you want to take? How many near misses are
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Begin Reading Table of Contents New
Page 5 and 6:
PRELUDE
Page 7 and 8:
The guy isn’t bad-looking. Slight
Page 9 and 10:
WOMEN WHO DRINK I was 33, and lying
Page 11 and 12:
she did not get—but I’ve never
Page 13 and 14:
In my 20s, friends called with that
Page 15 and 16:
I discussed roofies with Aaron Whit
Page 17 and 18: a while, a columnist would come alo
Page 19 and 20: ONE
Page 21 and 22: when no one was looking, and I woul
Page 23 and 24: steps, not talking. As much as my f
Page 25 and 26: Our home was on a major artery thro
Page 27 and 28: She’d transformed, like Olivia Ne
Page 29 and 30: I threw up seven times. Hunched ove
Page 31 and 32: STARVED One of the curious aspects
Page 33 and 34: more successful her eating disorder
Page 35 and 36: orrowed. She couldn’t miss the si
Page 37 and 38: To make it more confounding, Miles
Page 39 and 40: efused to be won. I drank cup after
Page 41 and 42: DRESSING IN MEN’S CLOTHES I start
Page 43 and 44: coffee. But that seemed like a very
Page 45 and 46: you to imperil our amazing friendsh
Page 47 and 48: I FINALLY GOT a boyfriend near the
Page 49 and 50: FOUR
Page 51 and 52: The production guy passed my desk a
Page 53 and 54: drank myself to the place where I w
Page 55 and 56: ehind me, and told him I was moving
Page 57 and 58: my Harp as soon I walked in the doo
Page 59 and 60: FIVE
Page 61 and 62: “Your key, mademoiselle,” said
Page 63 and 64: My friend Meredith lived in an apar
Page 65 and 66: “This was fun,” I said. He was
Page 67: OF COURSE. OF course I’d gone to
Page 71 and 72: SIX
Page 73 and 74: When the bottle was drained, I’d
Page 75 and 76: But no, really, I had it this time.
Page 77 and 78: off a gargantuan diamond. I thought
Page 79 and 80: INTERLUDE
Page 81 and 82: ain, which allowed his body to deve
Page 83 and 84: SEVEN
Page 85 and 86: But his once-sallow cheeks were ros
Page 87 and 88: announcing their baby. Nobody wants
Page 89 and 90: want to remain silent and unknowabl
Page 91 and 92: Bubba curled up alongside me when I
Page 93 and 94: EIGHT
Page 95 and 96: for me? My friends didn’t necessa
Page 97 and 98: ecause otherwise you have to go int
Page 99 and 100: said, and she was right. The next w
Page 101 and 102: fill-in-the-blank letter of apology
Page 103 and 104: NINE
Page 105 and 106: the tastes of a frat boy, or a grum
Page 107 and 108: Mine was a recipe for unhappiness.
Page 109 and 110: He tugged too hard, then I tugged t
Page 111 and 112: SEX My first date in sobriety was w
Page 113 and 114: 30s to stare down a personal profil
Page 115 and 116: and said, “Look, I dressed up for
Page 117 and 118: “I’m thinking: Well, that was f
Page 119 and 120:
he’s impotent or not, I don’t k
Page 121 and 122:
ELEVEN
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the scorn of strangers. They skip t
Page 125 and 126:
Addiction was the inverse of honest
Page 127 and 128:
I worshipped alcohol, and it consum
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THIS IS THE PLACE A few months befo
Page 131 and 132:
Anna and I have had 20 years of the
Page 133 and 134:
saying in midsentence. My dad loses
Page 135 and 136:
from here, I told myself. There wil
Page 137 and 138:
ABOUT THE AUTHOR SARAH HEPOLA’S w
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Contents COVER TITLE PAGE WELCOME D
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Blackout_ Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget - Sarah Hepola

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