Ryan had fought that statement for three long months. Partying harder. Drinking more. Doing coke. Although he was damn sight more aware of where his drink and coke came from. And then, on Valentine’s Day, 2018, Ryan conceded that the doctor was right. And he stopped. Did the AA thing, still went to meetings now and then, but mostly, he’d poured himself into the work at the newsroom, into classes, especially the Honors College seminars and functions. And when things got bleak, he’d come back up here, and sit in the waiting room until Erica Clarke could see him.
It had been a long time since he’d come up here, nearly two years, Ryan thought. Until he’d come up here to see how J.J. was doing last week.
A week? Not even that long, he thought, as he waited for the nurse to announce him. He shook his head.
“What was that for?” Dr. Clarke asked, as she gestured him toward a seat.
“I was just realizing that it’s only been a few days since J.J. tried to kill himself. It feels like a month. Maybe more.”
“You’re looking a bit stretched thin,” Dr. Clarke said gently. “Tell me. But first? You’re doing OK? Still clean? Still sober?”
“Yes,” Ryan said. “And I’m not even tempted to go back to that. But I worry that I’ve just substituted something else.”
“Sex,” Dr. Clarke said. “You asked about sex addiction.”
Ryan nodded. He looked around the office. There was a child’s drawing framed on one wall low down, near a child-sized chair. He smiled. He wondered who had drawn it, perhaps Dr. Clarke had children? He knew nothing about the woman, except what he learned from the conversations that happened in this room.
“I’m not doing it to form a loving relationship, or even to connect, really. I can’t even say I’m enjoying it,” Ryan said slowly. “It’s like I can’t stop. Like I’m hungry all the time, and no matter how much I get, I’m not any less hungry. You know I have my son now?” he asked.
When Dr. Clarke nodded, he continued, “Mrs. Washington and I were talking about something yesterday morning. She said I needed to be very intentional about letting Rafael develop an attachment to me because he was at the age where he needed to learn to attach or he would never be able to form meaningful relationships later on. And that if I did allow that, I needed to be committed to not breaking that attachment later on, or it would be equally devastating.”
“Mrs. Washington is a wise woman,” Dr. Clarke said. “How old is your son? Two? Three?”
“He’ll be three in November,” Ryan said. “He’s so warm-hearted. He likes everyone. There is no fear. I am so amazed by him. But I wonder. Did I not have those attachments when I was that age? Is that what’s missing now?”
Dr. Clarke steepled her hands in front of her mouth, a habit she had, Ryan had observed in the past. Usually, it meant she was trying to control her own emotions. Something he’d just said had upset the woman.
“What is your earliest memory, Ryan?” she asked quietly.
Ryan considered that. “I must have been 10? I remember coming down the courthouse steps with the Matthews, and Mom took my hand, and then Dad took the other, and we went to the car together like that. I say 10 because it must have been the day the adoption was finalized.”
“Ten? You don’t remember anything before age 10?”
Some of Dr. Clarke’s dismay — horror? — leaked into that question. Ryan tipped his head while he considered the woman across from him, probably the person he most trusted in the world. More even than his adoptive parents.
“Why? Is that bad?”
“Unusual,” Dr. Clarke said at last. “I don’t know that I’ve ever known anyone that old.”
Ryan shrugged. “Probably for the better, I’d guess,” he said quietly. He knew some of the specifics. There were broken bones he didn’t remember getting. Scars that looked like he’d been beaten with a belt. His right shoulder and arm had scars like maybe they were done with a knife? It was why he’d gotten the tattoo to cover them — to stop the questions. Another set of scars on his stomach looked like cigarette burns. It was clear he’d been abused. Children Services had come to him in the hospital and found him a new home with the Matthews. He thought there might have been some foster homes before them, but if so, they too were lost memories.
“I was reading Teresa’s journal today,” Ryan said. And then had to explain why he had Rafael and why Teresa was missing. “And I realized how much I compartmentalize things. I just box them up and set them aside to deal with later.
“Now I wonder how many of those boxes I just erased completely.”
Dr. Clarke nodded as if she were pleased with Ryan’s analysis, which made Ryan want to wiggle like a puppy, not that he’d ever had a puppy. He wondered if Rafael would want a puppy someday. Focus, he told himself.
“Yes. Do you think you’ve erased boxes since you were adopted? You had some pretty wild years there.”
Ryan snorted. Pretty wild years were an understatement for the years he’d been in Portland’s party scene. “I don’t think I erased any boxes,” he said. “Although there are some blackouts where I woke up in a stranger’s bed and had no idea how I got there, that sort of thing. But that’s different.”
Clarke nodded. “What else happened today?” she asked.
Ryan smiled, surprised. “How did you know something had?”
Clarke just waited.
Then Ryan updated her about the Provost waiting for him before his Honors seminar.
Clarke nodded. “Why did you stay in Portland when your parents moved?”
Well,
