14⎜The Bench

I walked on the gray sidewalk, alongside a large body of water that was often used by Stanford’s rowing teams. It was unclear to me whether or not the expanse of liquid was manmade or natural, but it was still nice, either way. There were trees everywhere, and the grass was a vibrant green. This was a part of the campus that I hadn’t really visited frequently, but I still liked it. On one of my first days of exploration I had found this place, and now was probably only my second or third time coming back.

           My eyes darted over to a vacant bench, and on a mixture of a whim and a desire to take in my surroundings, I went over to it, and sat down. I dropped my backpack on the ground by my feet, and took out my phone and a set of ear buds. For a moment, I didn’t do anything with the technological devices within my hands, but merely gazed at the water, and how still it was. With a content sigh, I connected the two gadgets together, placing a single earphone inside my ear. I didn’t press play, though, for I found the passing sound of laughter and chatter and everything else around me so much more interesting than any pop song about a broken heart or a girl could ever be.

           Silence couldn’t be heard, for there were too many other noises juxtaposed within the atmosphere. Somehow, though, I was able to nullify all the other sounds, being left with a clear head to think. I had learned how to do that over this past summer, mainly—muting out everything. Up until this summer, I had never been in a situation where I needed to turn to quietness, for the humdrum life that I lead full of commotion was fine by me. And then I went to rehab, and everything changed.

           The thing about addictions was that just admitting you had a problem, didn’t really cure anything. Sure, it was a great start, but just because you expressed that you have an issue, didn’t make the said issue magically go away. I learned this tough lesson after telling my parents about my drug problem. They immediately reacted, cancelling the trip to the Caribbean (well, my plane ticket, at least—they still went), and sent me to rehab instead of a nice villa on a tropical island.

           And so, I was dumped in rehab for the summer, and it was kind of like camp, only instead of staying in cabins in the woods with other “campers,” I got my own barely air-conditioned room with white décor and a small window. Since I wasn’t really the biggest nature person on earth, it was probably a good thing that I got an inside room instead of a cabin. I did a lot of thinking in that room, and that was really all I had, for it was stripped of all personality, leaving me to only ponder what was inside my mind.

           My parents had visited me a couple of times during the summer. They didn’t really like seeing their “perfect” son in such a drably depressing place, so didn’t make a habit of coming. My dad had brought me a football on one of their trips, hoping that seeing the ball would trigger something inside of me into thinking that I had made a mistake, and that I couldn’t actually give up football. The only thing that the object had triggered was memories serving as evidence as to why I had quit in the first place.

           We were allowed to hang up posters in the rooms, and use our own nonwhite bedding if we wanted to, but I didn’t. There was something cleansing that I liked about the white. It was like a fresh start, and I found something pretty meaningful about that. Then again, the room was so bright, and yet at the same time dull, that even my navy suitcases that had my clothes in them stood out as vivacious in the small room.

           When I first arrived, my phone had been taken away. I didn’t really mind, because at that point, I had already cut off all communication with anyone from high school, anyways. They treated me differently after my breakup with Liz, and when my drug problem went public through rumors and facts, my friends were so much more distant. I wasn’t a valiant hero anymore who had lead the football team to two consecutive state championships, but rather just another face in the crowd who had made mistakes. My mistakes, however, had cost me years of friendship that ultimately went down the drain in a matter of days.

           My best friend for the majority of my life, Alex Campbell, had basically stopped communicating with me entirely after he found out about the drugs. He was my closest friend, but told me through a serious of awkward and jagged conversations that he didn’t want to be friends with a stoner. His words stung, but I couldn’t blame him. He stopped talking to our other two friends, also, who happened to have the same issue as me, though didn’t intend on stopping. They were perfectly fine continuing to screw their lives up, while I happened to have no desire to continue doing so. I wasn’t happy with the person I had become, and knew that rehab was the first step to changing that.  

           In rehab, I had met a lot of different people. Some were older than me, others younger. Anyone ranging from a drug-addicted athlete superstar like myself, to a pain-killer-reliant McDonalds worker could be found in sight. I didn’t really make any friends, but as they often said on competition reality shows, I didn’t go to make friends—I went to win; or in my case, get out as soon as possible with the lack of a need to smoke marijuana on a daily basis. Applying the game show metaphor, I definitely won.

           There were a fair amount of teens there, and considering the capped age was eighteen, I was on the end of the spectrum. I had met a lot of people, all of whom were dealing with difficulties under the same genre as mine. But just because two songs happened to be filed under the category of “pop” didn’t mean that they held any relation to one another. That applied to the teens at rehab, too. We were all so different, yet clumped together by the common thread of addiction.

           One of things that happened a lot in rehab was sharing our stories. We would be in groups of ten or so, and sit in a circle—sometimes on the ground, other times in these unconformable chairs—and then be told to tell our stories. Personally, I found it to be the most painful experience out of all the things I was exposed to over the summer. I had to tell complete strangers about my life, my drug addiction, and why I had turned to drugs in the first place. Then again, the strangers had to tell me the same thing, so it must’ve been as hard for them as it was for me. I didn’t like listening to other people’s stories, though, because at the end of the day, I was self-centered and didn’t see how hearing about some girl from Maine who had developed the nasty habit of popping too many pills could help me. It couldn’t, really.

           There were a few times in these circles when it was as if the stories just escalated, and got increasingly worse. Someone would start out with a simple story about smoking two joints. Another person would go on to tell about pharmaceutical drugs and how they had ruined their life. The next would say they had an addiction to weed. Hard drugs like cocaine and crack usually arose next, and it was like an unspoken competition for who had the worst problem. But in fact, it wasn’t a contest at all—it was someone else’s reality.

           In comparison to so many of the other teens, my problem had been miniscule. I had an addiction to weed, but so what? Susie from Vermont had been snorting lines of cocaine since she was thirteen, and was only now—four years later—dealing with it. Brad from Boston had gotten his stomach pumped five times due to alcoholism. Mimi from a suburb of Connecticut was a class-A crack addict. Equated to so many of these other kids, weed seemed like nothing, when in reality, it was most definitely something.

           What most people didn’t realize was that you couldn’t just turn off an addiction. I was addicted to the feeling I got when being high, and once I had felt that, I tried to capture it in any way I could. I felt like I was worthy for once in my life, and that I wasn’t Eric Wilson. Being able to take that pressure away from me was nice, but it was only temporary, while the consequences lasted longer.

           I talked to a therapist a lot over the summer. Dr. Clarke. It just an hour of me expressing myself verbally, while he listened and understood. There was no judgment in his tone, and he was one of the easiest people to talk to. He helped me a lot, and was probably the one person that made the biggest impact on me during my stay. There was just something about being able to talk to someone in complete confidence about what was going through my mind that I liked. If my parents had forced me into seeing a psychologist, I probably would’ve resented the doctor, but because I wasn’t exactly forced, I had been able to have a relatively good association with Dr. Clarke.

           We talked about everything. Some days I ranted about the drugs, peer pressure, and the main reason I had landed myself a spot in rehab instead of in the Caribbean, while other days I talked about football, and why I had left it. Dr. Clarke was an ex-baseball player, so he understood what was involved when leaving behind a sport. He taught me a few things that helped with some of what I was going through, and told me in one of our last sessions, that if I ever needed, I could call him.

           In rehab, there were a few other athletes, some dealing with the same problem as me, while others had issues of their own. One guy was into steroids, while another preferred the natural high that continuously running gave to him. I couldn’t exactly hide that I had a sports history, because just from my exterior, I had muscles that weren’t just from laying around on a couch eating potato chips. Towards the beginning, a few of the guys approached me, assuming that I was “one of them.” I wasn’t there to bond, though, and they soon realized that, making sure to stay the hell away from me.

           The majority of my days were spent staring at a blank wall, replaying moments within my head from the months before everything had gone south. I had tried to forget about everything, but couldn’t, for all I had were my memories to occupy me. While my phone had been taken away, I was allowed to have an iPod, as long as it didn’t have the capability to access Internet. I had gotten a taste of what jail was like, only I was allowed to wear my boat shoes and seersucker shorts, and could leave at the end of two months.

           My mom had sent me my old iPod Shuffle that I didn’t even remember having in the mail. She wrote in the letter attached that all the songs on my computer were on it. It was nice of her to do, but when I first received it, I didn’t understand how I could possibly want to listen to the likeness of Adele and Justin Bieber (Yes, I had the Biebs in my iTunes library, and had actually paid for his music. He was a good artist, and yes, I was positive that I liked girls). All I really listened to was pop, because I was just that mainstream, but over the summer, the same songs that I knew well didn’t seem to comfort me in any way at first.

           Sometimes I just plugged in my headphones, lay on my white bed, and stared up at the white ceiling, refusing to skip even a single song. I would just listen to my music for hours on end, because there wasn’t really that much to do. Sure, there were activities, but I wasn’t into it. I just wanted to come with an addiction to drugs, and leave without one—which I eventually ended up doing.

           It was a tough two months, and while I wasn’t necessarily homesick, because I couldn’t even fathom returning to a place where everyone knew me—the old me, I was more ready to move on. I wanted to go to Stanford more than anything, and that was really my main motivation to make it through everything. The entire summer would finally pay off if I could go to Stanford completely clean. And I did. I made it, and it was probably one of the most significant accomplishments of my life.

           Suddenly, my thinking was cut short as a girl approached me. She had a clunky camera in her hands—like, the type that still used rolls of film—and her hair was cropped short. There was something about her that made me believe that she was older than me. She just looked more mature and comfortable with whom she was. After a few moments of just staring at me, she finally asked if she could take a picture of me for a film thesis paper she was working on about the students of Stanford. I nodded in response, allowing her to do as she pleased.

           The girl stood back, and told me to not pose, but to just remain how I was before she came over. I did just that, continuing to look at the water as I sat on the bench, only more distracted than I had been minutes before. Her camera flashed a few times, and she kept pressing buttons and standing in various places, capturing me. When she was finally done, she asked if she could have my name and learn a little bit about me. At that, I shook my head, still not saying a word.

           She accepted my answer, thanking me for letting her take her pictures, and then walked away. I was alone once again, but more observant of what was around me, instead of being transfixed with the past. There was a breeze that felt light, and had a cooling effect on my skin, in addition to causing the leaves of the trees to rattle. People in the distance were in the midst of throwing around a Frisbee, and jabbing away. The water remained untouched, sitting as still as it had the last time I had taken it in.

           Lately, I hadn’t really been able to get much thinking (or sleeping) done in my dorm room. After the sushi incident, Noa and Seth had miraculously made up, and decided that the best way to explore this newfound middle ground was to, uh, explore each other, one could say. My bed happened to be a little less than ten feet away from Seth’s, which proved quite problematic when the two were together. The majority of the time I had just taken long walks around campus or extended my workout routine if I knew Noa was coming over.

           Since Seth and Noa happened to be together constantly, and Noa’s room wasn’t an ideal meeting place because “Princess Kay was […annoying]” (Noa’s words, not mine), I spent a lot of time out of the dorm, resulting in a dearth of sleep. I had been so tired over these past few days, and one night I had even resorted to sleeping in the hall. It was a tough situation to be in, but at least Seth and Noa were happy, and I had to give the guy props for being able to get some—well, more than some.

           As for me, school had really been the one thing on my mind. I liked being able to push my thoughts aside and focus on a paper or project. It was what I was here—at Stanford—to do. Sometimes the classes were dull and monotonous, but at the end of the day, I was happy. This was my dream school from an academics perspective, and while I wasn’t entirely sure what I planned to major in, I was fine just absorbing all the miscellaneous knowledge that I could.

           I had talked to Scott about two days ago. He mentioned that Houston told him about asking me to join their frat, and that he (Scott) thought I would really like it. I didn’t give him a definitive answer, for I still hadn’t internally figured out what I wanted to do. Before leaving and trying persuade me one last time to accept the invitation into the brotherhood of sorts, Scott told me that there was going to be a party on Friday night, and that since I ditched the last frat-held event, I should really pay my dues and come. Obviously, I said that I would try to make it, despite my aversion to parties and everything. Scott promised that it would be nothing like the barbeque or dinner, but rather a completely different animal in and of itself. Yay.

           “Eric Wilson,” interrupted a girl I knew fully well from the tone of her rainy voice. My head snapped up in order to look at her as I shook my thoughts away. It struck me as quite the odd coincidence that we both were here, but I didn’t mention it.

           “Ari Pomegranate,” I returned. She dropped down next to me on the bench, observing me mutely for a moment as I did the same to her. Tears were streaming down her face, but only a sparse few. She appeared to be her normal calm, despite the indication that she had been crying recently, or still was in the midst of allowing water to pass through her tear ducts. I didn’t ask if she was okay, because that wasn’t the question that needed to be asked. Instead, I said nothing, continuing to stare at her beautiful face marred by small droplets of H2O that made my heart sink a bit inside, knowing that something had caused their unfortunate presence. Seeing pretty girls cry happened to be a weakness of mine, and something that I wasn’t entirely qualified to handle.

           “You’re not listening to anything, but you have headphones in,” Ari commented, pulling on my white cords, so that the devices inside my ears came out. I wasn’t sure how she knew that I wasn’t listening to music, but she did.

           “I’m listening to everything around me,” I told her.

           “And thinking?”

           “And thinking.”

           “Here,” she said, handing me one of her own earphones and popping it into my ear, “this is good thinking music.” She pressed play on the mechanism that was in her hand, and then those sad tones that she had played for me at the barbecue traveled into my eardrums. Despite the evident sorrow in the music, she was right. It was good thinking music.

           Sitting on the bench as I allowed Ari’s cumbersome music to float into my ears didn’t feel nearly as weird as I probably should have. For some reason, it just felt natural and good. I liked it.

           “Who sings this?” I asked, the melodious words melding together within my brain, for they all sounded the same. I wasn’t sure what genre of music it was, but I knew that it most certainly wasn’t pop, and I didn’t mind.

           “Does it matter?” Ari returned with a countering question.

           I shook my head slowly, answering with a thoughtful, “Not really,” for she was right. It didn’t matter who sung the song.

           “Have you been recruited to go to the party on Friday?” she sighed, the droplets of water still streaming down her face. I couldn’t take it anymore, and though I was more than sure that I would be pushing a boundary, she had just stuck something in my ear without permission, so I was pretty sure that my actions would be okay. As delicately as I could, I used a single finger to wipe away the accumulated tears on Ari’s face, and she let me, not objecting in the slightest.

           When I pulled away, I purposely didn’t look at her, but rather the water before me that didn’t seem as sad as the water found on her face. “Yeah,” I said evenly in response to what she had asked, “Scott basically guilt me into going.”

           “I’m glad that I wasn’t the only one,” she breathed a laugh. Even though I had just cleared the canvas of her cheeks of all signs of crying, I noticed that more tears had surfaced almost instantly. I didn’t try to erase them this time, though. “So, are you going?”

           “I think so,” I shrugged. “What about you?”

           “Yeah, I’ll probably go…or Kay will force me to go and handcuff our wrists together so that I don’t leave this time,” she joked, still being able to produce a soft smile, even with the active tears.

           I didn’t say anything after that, but I didn’t need to. The two of us just sat on the bench in a comfortable peace that wasn’t awkward or dense by any means. Ari’s music gently played, and was mixed in with the sounds of everything else occurring around our little bubble on the bench. It wasn’t quite silence, but that was fine by me.