Work Text:
The trouble with drugs—or alcohol if you’re old school—is that they can only but erase your memories of being a pathetic, needy little child. The person onto whose arms you had cried, into whose lap you tried to climb—their memories remain very much intact. Probably in much too sharp resolution too, empathy makes people more observant.
The trouble with trauma is that never completely deflates. It’s a tightly tied balloon, keeps air with utmost loyalty. You may grow bigger like a healed muscle; you can grow tenfold the size of that balloon. But that won’t change the fact that it is still in you and that it will eventually crash into your freshly grown skin. And then it will feel like all that’s inside you is that balloon again.
The trouble with Max Wolfe is that he realised both those thoughtful and somewhat poetic points a tad bit too late. Blame the uppers.
Waking up on his teacher’s couch, unpleasantly sober, Max knew that the consequences of his actions were sitting by his side, ready to be faced. It felt unfair that they were there at all. His meandering through life, from one pleasure to another, hardly should qualify as a conscious decision-making process. He surely should not be held accountable, especially not by his barely-there-anyway conscience. But then again, all the Wolfe family lawyers will have their hands busy with divorce proceedings, no time to build defence for the poor pup Maxie.
He forced himself to sit up. The dawn was breaking. The pale morning light was cold yet soft. It reminded him of Audrey’s hair. She acted out when her mother fucked up. Quite spectacularly too, completely abandoning for a few delicious hours the Audrey she had crafted herself to be. Then there was regret, denial, and quick retreat, but little to no consequences. Not for her, not for him. That is not until his dad fucked up, so Max got fucked and quite theatrically told Audrey and Aki off. You don’t do it for each other anymore. You just want to do me. Nauseously, he realised Audrey and Aki weren’t the only couple that now only had him in common.
He remembered being five and seeing his fathers for the first time. The social worker showed him their wedding photograph from the 90s. He liked how colourful their clothes were, how many people were cheering around them. His donation clothes were washed out, the other kids didn’t cheer for him, just tease him about being so small. He wanted to be between the two men, holding both of their big, sturdy hands, and not feel small. He wanted the men to swing him as they walked in that park together, swing him up, up, up into the air as if there were no limit to how high he could get.
Two years later, as he was fussing about wearing the small tuxedo that itched when he moved, Max screamed in his pitched voice at Gideon. He didn’t understand why Dad and Pops insisted on this second wedding in a stuffy city hall, when they already had a fun and colourful one in the park. But Gideon just calmly helped Max put his shirt on and said that they had to go so that no one could ever break them apart. We are a family, Max. You, me, and Pops. Let’s make sure everyone knows that.
Max never suspected that the break would come from the inside.
The back of his throat was burning. He didn’t like this crippling feeling crushing him from all sides. He wanted to feel whiny again. He wanted to indulge in self-pity and snarl. Anything to feel like a kid again. And not this young adult, expected to deal with his parents’ split in a mature, considered fashion. Fashion. Pops couldn’t even see past clothes and hair.
At that moment Max just wanted to wail. But that would have woken up Rafa. And Max had enough of his pity. So instead of screaming or crying, he just stood up, folded the sheets and walked out of his apartment.
Waiting for the elevator, he turned on his phone. His dads had texted him numerous times, but not on the family group chat. And there were texts from angry Audrey and confused Aki. Max couldn’t think of anything witty or sincere to say, so he just turned his phone off.
On the day his dads came to take him home, he had stood in the boy’s restroom for hours, staring at his own face, making sure his eyes glimmered brightly enough, his smile stretched wide enough. He was given back once, he had to try harder this time. He had to be a cheerful little boy.
The trouble with trauma is that sometimes you get lucky, and you are given unconditional love and support and you start to believe happiness is something more than a role you play to gamble at stability. You start to believe you’re free to explore and experiment, grow and go out, because you have a safe haven to go back to. The trouble with trauma is that it likes to repeat itself.