Finding It

as hot as I could stand it.

I kept chanting, You’re fine. Nothing happened. You’re fine. You’re fine. You’re always fine.

And I was fine … until I wasn’t.

Until the warm water hit my face, and a sob wrenched from my lungs. Until my legs gave out, and my knees slammed into the tile. Until I could no longer pretend that this epic failure was the trip of a lifetime and was going to miraculously show me whatever path my life was supposed to take. That it was going to fix me.

If I couldn’t manage to be happy here in this gorgeous, exotic city, how could there be any hope for the rest of my life? I had everything I could want, but it never stopped—the ache, the emptiness. Nothing ever satisfied it.

I sat on the shower floor and pulled my knees up to my chest. I leaned my head on my knees and let the water pelt my back.

I hated myself for the weakness, for my inability to just deal, but there comes a point when you’re so far down in the pit that there is no light at the end of the tunnel, not a pinprick or a soft glow. There is black and more black pressing into you, choking out the world. And asking how you got there and why you can’t get out is a pointless exercise because you’re too deep to do anything about it.

I knew other people had it worse. I knew that. I knew that what happened when I was twelve could have been a lot worse.

I just wished that I knew why I couldn’t fucking let it go. Every time I thought I had, life tripped me and shoved my face into the muck of my past, and taught me just how far I was from being over it.

Maybe I should just book a flight back to the States. I could visit Bliss in Philly, build up my resolve, and just go home. What was the use in fighting it?

Whatever I’d thought I was going to do here—the adventure and the living that I’d been looking for—wasn’t happening. If anything, I was more confused and more lost than before. I’d been trying to outrun my issues, racing from bar to bar and city to city, but after a while the differences in location didn’t matter. Because I was the same in every city. Inadequate.

It was stupid, but in my head this trip had become the indicator for the rest of my life. I’d thought it would jumpstart something, that it would give me the momentum to move forward. I had pinned every hope, every doubt on this trip, intending it to fulfill the former and dash the latter. Unfortunately, it was doing the opposite.

Maybe it was time to cut my losses.

The permanent knot in my stomach loosened slightly.

The water battered my back, and I took each tiny blow, willing the water to take some of me with it. Slowly, slowly the tension melted out of my muscles, my lungs lost that aching feeling, and the sting of emotion at the back of my throat receded.

Life was easier when you stopped caring, when you stopped expecting things to get better.

Feeling more in control, I dragged myself off the shower floor. I shut off the water, and reached for a towel.

Then I scrubbed.

At my hair. My face. My skin. I scrubbed myself dry while all my hopes for this trip, for life, twisted down the drain.

I left my hair wet and wavy, and collected my things from where someone had placed them neatly at the foot of the bed. I balled up my wet swimsuit in the T-shirt I’d been wearing and did the walk of shame wearing the wrinkled shift dress I’d worn yesterday before the baths.

It was possibly the shamiest walk of shame in the history of all shaming.

But at least it was short.

I exited the nice boutique hotel to find myself on a familiar block. I was across the street and just a few buildings down from my hostel.

“Jesus …”

I jogged across the street, and pushed open the door to the hostel. I reached in my bag for my phone to see what time it was. I didn’t actually use the phone to call anyone. It was more of an emergency kind of thing. And it had all my music. I was still fishing around in the bottom of my bag when I entered the dormitory with my bed to see Jenny, John, and Tau packing up their things.

I gave up my search for my phone.

Tau saw me first and nudged Jenny.

“Kelsey! Where did you go last night, you little minx?”

I opened my mouth to tell her where I’d been, that I’d been just across the street, but then pulled my lips closed. I threw on my most convincing smile and said, “Oh, you know me.”

There was no point in telling people. Been there. Done that. Fucked things up even worse. Besides … there was nothing to tell. Nothing happened. And it’s not as if we were really friends anyway. They were little more than cardboard cutouts to me. Superficial people to be with and be seen with. And I was the same to them.

“Oh my God,” Jenny said. “I freaking love you. Was it the army guy? I bet he was fantastic. Come out with us and tell me everything.”

I moved toward my bed to put down my things. I’d not found my phone yet, but I was fairly certain it couldn’t be much later than noon.

“You’re going out now? It’s so early.”

Jenny shrugged. “We’ve got to check out in, like, ten minutes, but our train doesn’t leave until tonight. So, we figured a little day drinking was in order. You know, to end our Budapest weekend in style. Come with us!”

I worried my bottom lip between my teeth, unsure how to get out of this.

“I don’t know if I’m up to day drinking, honestly.”

“So come for the company,” John said.

I didn’t think I was up to the company either.

The hesitance must have shown on my face because Jenny picked up her backpack and handed it to Tau. “You guys go check us out,” she said. “I’ll be right there.”

John waved on his way out, and Tau nodded. Then Jenny turned on me.

“Okay, what’s up? I know post-coitus glow, and you don’t have it. So where were you really last night?”

I plopped down on the bottom bunk bed that I was currently calling home. The mattress was so thin that I could feel the wooden slats below it.

“Nothing. Just …” I sighed. “I’ve just had a bad week is all. Last night just continued my slump.”

“It’s probably just mental. Maybe you need a change. New atmosphere. You could start fresh.”

That’s all I’d been doing. Starting fresh. But I was learning that the stench of the past tended to cling despite changing locations.

“I don’t think that will help. I think I’m going to go home.”

“Are you serious?”

I threaded my fingers together in my lap and ran my thumb across my palm.

“Yeah.” I nodded and said more firmly, “Yeah, I am.”

She ducked underneath my bunk and sat down beside me, the bed groaning. “You can’t. Not yet. If you go home now, when you’re unhappy, that’s the only way you’ll remember this trip. Go home on a good note at least.”

I brushed my thumb across my palm again, scraping lightly with the nail of my thumb.

“You’re not wrong.”

“Of course I’m not. I get being homesick. And the culture shock can come a bit out of nowhere and bite you in the ass. But you’re going to want to look back on this trip fondly. As a good thing … right?”

“Right.” I nodded. Jenny’s advice sounded a lot like what I would have told myself. That is, if I weren’t so mixed up and broken down. It was stupid to try to pin all my hopes on this trip. I was expecting too much. Too much pressure.

I still thought going home was the best choice, but I was pretty sure I could handle one last hooray.

“Thanks, Jenny.”

She smiled, and lifted one shoulder in a shrug.