“You had one lie to keep straight. Come on, man. I know you’ve had to tell worse lies to the ladies you slept with when you were smashed.”
My voice was judgmental and rude, but I couldn’t stop myself. He wasn’t thinking at all. Erik hadn’t even tried to keep the story straight. It was my life he was messing up now, and I didn’t like that he seemed so nonchalant about my life. I had taken him in as a favor so he wouldn’t have to spend the holiday alone. I couldn’t believe he had forgotten the one story he was supposed to remember.
“I said I was sorry.”
“Really, is this what you’re like all the time? Don’t put any effort in at all and then apologize? Why not actually put an effort out there?”
“What are you talking about? It was an accident. I said I was sorry.”
“And at treatment? You didn’t even start going to groups regularly until a couple of days ago. Before that when you could be bothered to go to group, you sat quietly and hardly participated.”
“How do you know how much I went to group? You got scared and hid from me on the other unit. Plus, you’re not in my groups, so what do you know?”
“I need to go deal with my mother. This was clearly a bad idea. I’ll have my parents take you back tomorrow,” I said and stormed away.
About halfway down the hall, I started to cry. I didn’t mean to be so horrible to him. I had expected his visit to go so well, and instead, it was a disaster. My mother and father were going to be crazy angry with me. Erik probably thought I was a psycho girl. And now, I felt like I was about to have a panic attack.
I hated when things didn’t go as I planned. It was like I put every bit of effort into something and in one swift motion, it was all wiped out. Even before I had a drinking problem, I always had a problem with being in control.
Hiding it was what I normally did. I could mask my controlling personality by being excessively nice to patients. There was something about being at work that I could adjust better to. But when things got out of control, like they did on the night Brianna had her seizure, then I felt like I couldn’t contain myself.
Slowly, I opened the door to my parents’ bedroom and faced the inevitable. My parents were good people. They had put up with a lot over the years, and they did handle things very well. My biggest issue was that I just hated to disappoint them. The look in my father’s eyes was the worst when I did something that he thought was wrong.
“Cassidy, is that boy a patient from your work?” my father asked me.
There was no way I could lie to him. For some reason, lying about the story originally seemed perfectly okay, but lying when I had been found out was not all right. I had to just tell him the truth – there was no other option.
“Yes.”
“Cassidy!” my mother exclaimed.
“Mom, he doesn’t have any family and only one friend back home. I felt bad for him. He’s been in the hospital for a while and no one has visited him.”
“Where is home? California, in a fancy house? Those are the only people who can afford to be at your work. I can’t believe you lied to us. You lied right to my face, Cassidy.”
“I know, Mom. I really didn’t want him to have to spend Christmas a
lone.”
It was the truth. I hated when anyone had to spend their Christmas at our facility. The dark gloomy holiday wasn’t good for the spirit when you were locked up in a hospital.
“Are you sleeping with this boy?” my mother asked, and my father covered his ears and turned around.
“No! I’m not sleeping with him. He’s a friend. His mother died a long time ago; he needed someplace to go for Christmas. That was it.”
“Cassidy Conrad, you better be telling me the truth,” my father said, even though he still had his hands over his ears.
“Yes, Daddy, it’s the truth. He didn’t have anywhere to go. If it makes you feel better, he told me this was the best Christmas he’s had in years.”
The statement made both my mother and father calm down. Our evening had been incredibly boring. We had simply eaten dinner and watched a movie – which Erik had fallen asleep during.
“He really must not get out much.” My father laughed.
“I don’t have a present for him,” my mother replied.
That was my mother: Even though she was angry with me about lying, she still wanted to make sure she had a present for the strange man who I had brought home to eat our food and sleep on our couch. She was such a good person, and at moments like that, I had to hope that I would someday be as good of a woman as she was.
“He doesn’t need a present, Mom,” I said as I breathed a sigh of relief that the worst of the conversation was over.