Thread: ugh

RE The Galloways Shirts ---------------------- Today had been one of those difficult days. It was late July in New York City, which meant that temperatures that were already in the 90s rose ever higher. The whole city seemed to vibrate with heat there were too many people crammed into too small of a space and it seemed like even the buildings were sweating. This meant that long-sleeved shirts werent really an option, not if you didnt want to pass out on the subway because it felt like every part of you was screaming for air. So today Elliot had to wear one of the short-sleeved golf shirts to work instead of one of the button up ones. It wasnt that he really cared about covering up his arms, the scars and healing injection sites were what they were and the fact that they were all healing and slowly fading filled him with a sense of pride. It was like proof that he wasnt who he used to be and he didnt mind that being out in the open. However, it was obvious that the person he used to be hadnt really been the greatest guy, and that kind of thing made some people uncomfortable. Elliot could be showing some middle-aged professor from the Religious Studies department how to play the PowerPoint presentation on her laptop on the new projectors and her eyes would keep sliding down to the purple marks on his inner left elbow and the longer scars down his inner forearm. And it was like he could hear her wondering how long ago he had last used and why his scars were so long, even though she was nodding and asking reasonable questions about using the remote controls. Eventually, she would notice that he had noticed where her eyes were sitting and then she would feel really uncomfortable because if you were all enlightened and liberal and politically correct you werent supposed to notice that the tech support guy used to have a habit. And if you did you really werent supposed to stare. Elliot hated making people uncomfortable. But 100 degrees when it was barely noon meant things were only going to get worse. After balancing the dangers of heat exhaustion with how much he hated making people uncomfortable, Elliot went with the golf shirt. Besides, if he kind of held his arm just so against his side it almost looked natural plus you could barely see anything. Up until his last call of the day it worked beautifully, nobody was staring at him and he could make jokes with the people he helped out because he liked making jokes, and not because they felt really uncomfortable. His last call of the day was this professor in the Law department who was spitting mad when he called. The computer in his office had done something, he shouted, and he had lost three hours of valuable work and someone had better get their ass up there to fix it. Elliot didnt really mind the shouting and swearing it was really hot outside and he figured everybody felt like shit. Besides, shouting and swearing was basically his older brothers favourite way of communicating so dealing with that wasnt really weird for him. What was weird that the calm way Elliot reacted to things only seemed to make the Law professor angrier. He had done what he could, but the only thing that seemed to be recoverable were a few garbled paragraphs on a word document and it seemed that wasnt really good enough. Elliot even showed the guy what he could do to make sure this kind of thing didnt happen again and agreed with him every time he said computers were shitty. He didnt react when the guy, who was getting progressively red in the face, told Elliot that he was an idiot for not being able to make the computer do what he wanted it to do. In fact, he kind of agreed because he was probably pretty stupid compared to this guy. The law professor had a PhD and all, and he knew you had to be pretty smart to earn one of those. Anyway, it didnt really matter what this guy thought because Elliot knew that the things people thought werent always the things that were true. The only thing that did hurt was when the law professor told him to get out of his office, and tell those idiots down at tech support to send someone competent next time and not some stupid stoner junkie. Elliot didnt have a problem with admitting that he was an addict. He was an addict, and he knew now that didnt mean he was a lot of other things because addicts werent this group of people that were all the same. But it hurt all the same because when someone called you a junkie when you werent expecting it, it felt like a sucker punch to the stomach. It really sucked because you couldnt blame anyone but yourself Well you could, but that would be lying and Elliot wasnt really big on lying. You couldnt hold out a defense like it wasnt your fault that you made your decisions, you just had to admit that you fucked up and that was the end of it. Some law professor with a corner office didnt care that you were clean and sober for almost two years, or that you promised not to do it again because it made your family feel broken. What he cared about was that you hadnt done the job he wanted you to do, and because he thought you werent as good and smart as he was that meant it was okay to use the word junkie to hurt you. His therapist would have talked it out with him and helped bring Elliot to these conclusions, but it was Thursday and he wouldnt be going to therapy until Tuesday. So instead Elliot felt his head begin to buzz with shame as he clocked out and headed home feeling like everyone on the subway was staring at his arm. It was when he caught himself scratching at the old injection sites, allowing his nails to dig in while he thought about the release that came with breaking skin with something cold and metal that Elliot realized he needed to reach out even if it wasnt Tuesday. Hands shaking with something that felt like anticipation and fear at the way he had so easily slipped back to that mindset, he would first text his older sister. Because he didnt tell her what had happened or how he was feeling she replied she would be home late. Even though he knew when he had to reach out he was still uncomfortable asking his siblings to drop everything for him. Not that was what he asked, but thats what they did when he said he needed them. However, he knew today was Ashleys day off and his older brother would definitely be home. Elliot asked Ashley if he would come to the gym with him as he was letting himself into the apartment, and he was grateful that his brother pretended that he didnt see him shaking and instead complained about the heat and did his best to look begrudging when he agreed to go. Elliot wore a tank top to the gym because he knew that no one cared what his arms looked like there. When he had first been looking for ways to cope with not only his cravings but also his compulsive need to self-harm, exercise had called to him almost immediately. It was good because it made your muscles ache in a good way, and if you were doing it right you had to concentrate and that didnt make it easy for other thoughts to come in. And then he had found the best gym on the planet. It was three blocks from Ashleys place and there was this faded sign above the door that said Mikeys Place. The gym itself was a well lit basement room filled with really old exercise equipment and run by this old Italian guy who smoked three packs of cigarettes a day and could still tie Elliot into a pretzel if he wanted to. The first time Elliot was there Mikey had explained with a thick accent only made worse from all of the smokes that Mikey wasnt even really his name, but new signs cost a lot of money and no one could say his name anyway. He also told him that he had things like medicine balls, pommel horses and heavy ropes tied to the walls because treadmills were machines, and machines always were breaking. When Mikey had first laid eyes on the state of Elliots arms he had done nothing but nod sagely and clap him on the back so hard he almost lost his footing. You a good man who cut that stuff out now, The gigantic hulk of an Italian senior citizen had explained, And instead Im gonna make you real strong. So then if somebody come see you with a needle you punch them in the face. The best part was he had been true to his word, and Elliot found himself putting on muscle in a way that made him feel less like a junkie and more like an athlete. Mikey would greet them as they walked down the stairs, taking some time to berate Ashley for not coming in for over two weeks before setting them on the kind of workout that would pull the stress right out of Elliot. His older redheaded brother complained the entire time because he really hated putting that much effort into anything at 6 P.M. on one of the hottest days of the year, but Elliot knew that he secretly liked how much he had toned up because it meant so many more people were interested in him when he went out. His head felt clearer after, the buzzing of shame was almost entirely gone as he slowly walked back to the apartment with Ashley, gym bags slung over their shoulders. The dark-hared young man was willing to talk about his day then, and he asked his brother not to tell their older sister about it. After all, Georgia was still working towards tenure and tearing apart a professor from the law department would probably work against her. Later, when they watched the news before going to bed, Elliot was pleased to hear that the weather guy expected it to be cooler tomorrow. That probably meant that he could get away with a button up shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, and that if nothing else was a reason to smile.