Hidden, 1987
1987. It was there hidden in the darkness I felt invisible. My grandmother’s car pulled up in the driveway. I yanked the window blinds and hid inside the closet. Buried within the fabric of dresses and blouses, I sank, curled into a fetal position among my shoes. My heart wound up; a mainspring setting off alarms through my veins with a raucous torque.
It had been two hours since I ditched class and went off with my boyfriend to get high in the backseat of his beater Chevy Impala at the usual spot by the golf course. My ears thudded with the drum of my heartbeat. It takes time for cocaine to wear off, which was the worst, that horrible, shaky comedown. I felt minuscule, like Alice in Wonderland, after she drinks the potion to shrink herself to the size of an insect.
My grandma’s keys jangled at the door. I wasn’t supposed to be home from school, and also wasn’t supposed to be doing coke, or seeing my stupid asshole druggie boyfriend, or hiding in the damn closet. I knew drug testing would show it. My probation officer would give me a lecture. Court dates, routine testing, a signature paper for teachers to initial. But I’m good at forgery. I sat there, scrunched down in the closet, clutching my head in an attempt to quiet all the noise.
It was a month ago, maybe, I can’t remember, I was arrested as runaway, handcuffed to the police station bench. The cops dropped me off…
