Toothpaste.

This morning, I woke up thinking that I was in London for a minute. I sometimes have this flashback fever dream where I’m in a twin-sized bed in my old dorm room at Victoria college, sick with the flu and delirious, clutching a giant quart of spicy chili ramen from Wagamama’s in my greedy, mittened, fists. I dream that I’m binge watching television alone, blanketed by the haze of a hangover and 100mg of Amitryptaline. That’s the happiest I’ve ever been.

When I realize that I’m actually cocooned in three blankets, a scarf wrapped around my feet, and my down overcoat splayed haphazardly on top of the whole mess, I want to die. My heater is broken. It is winter, which means that it’s approximately 13 degrees in New York, which means that it actually feels like it’s negative 37 degrees. I spend a few minutes wondering who would find me if I froze to death in my apartment, until I settle on the answer, “Probably Netflix, after they’ve realized that I haven’t watched an episode of Law & Order SVU in a few days.” I set a timer on my phone to go off in five minutes, a little less than the amount of time I’ll need to mentally prepare myself to brush my teeth; the actual amount of time being: forever.

I squeeze a tiny, baby-sized amount of toothpaste onto the bristles of my Sonicare. My hair is already up in a bun, tied squarely on the top of my head. I brace myself against the bathroom sink, waiting. Left bottom molars first, a quick sweep across my central and lateral incisors, right back molars. Top left molars second, and then I gag. I spit out my toothpaste, suck in a few deep breaths through my mouth, gag again. I hold my nose so that I can’t taste the peppermint. I pretend it’s a mouthful of a Starbucks holiday drink instead. Nothing works. I vomit a tiny splash into the sink, rinse, and re-brush my top and bottom teeth. I spit again, try to swish some water around, and repeat. It’s like my body is actively rebelling against any action, thought, or process that might make me smile more.

I used to think it was weird, that I puked every time I brushed my teeth. I thought I was allergic to toothpaste or something. I thought maybe I had ulcers. I thought I was having prolonged morning sickness, a la Kate Middleton, due to my propensity to eat tater tots at five in the morning, or whatever. Every conversation I had with a medical professional went exactly how you would imagine:  

Me: “Ummmm…so, I’ve been doing this really weird thing lately? Like, not on purpose?  I think I might be allergic to toothpaste or something, because I throw up every time I try to brush my teeth.”

Doctor: “Here are some pamphlets with more information about eating disorders.”

The conversations I had with my mom were even worse.

Me: “So, I kind of threw up this morning while I was brushing my teeth.”

Mom: “Oh my god, you’re definitely pregnant, you’re grounded, forever.”

I eventually accepted my fate: that no one I could tell would ever think that it was anything other than bulimia, or that I was somehow permanently with-child. Those seemed like more realistic options for a girl my age, at least compared to something like being allergic to Colgate. So I stopped seeking medical advice on the subject. I puked every morning post-dental hygiene routine, and I completely stopped worrying about it. I knew what to do. Hair up, tiniest amount of toothpaste possible, breathe in and out through my mouth, vanilla-flavored mouthwash to seal the deal. On the good days, I only gagged or dry-heaved, my stomach muscles contracting while I flung cool water in my mouth to try to make it stop. I’ve been told that after awhile, human beings can adapt to almost anything.

And then, something unexpected happened. Sophomore year of college, it started happening less and less. Eventually, it stopped happening at all. I convinced myself that I had found the miracle brand of toothpaste (Crest Cavity Protection, flavored “Regular Paste”), and moved on. I gained weight. Not a lot, but enough that the girls in my sorority stopped poking my ribcage and giggling that I should eat a sandwich. I didn’t mind. I went from a size 0 to a size 4, and never looked back. I threw away all of my old dresses and pants and got new ones. I ate pizzas and Chinese takeout and cookies and macaroni and cheese. I was fine, as long as I could keep my stomach down in the morning.

It happened periodically a few times over the next few years, but never on days when I felt happy and content and loved. I lived in Texas, and then Spain, and then the UK, and finally, New York. I was away from my family for the first time on an exciting, new, adventure. I had boyfriends and friends and new coworkers. I had a job that I loved, and a writing group that I trusted. Things were mostly pretty okay.

This summer, when it came back in full-swing, I noticed that it was worse on mornings after I had stayed awake too late, fighting with my ex-boyfriend and drinking whiskey after we hung up the phone to forget about it. I’m just a lazy, stupid drunk, I thought. I should probably take care of my body better.

A few months went by, and I gradually began to spend more and more time on my own, reading books and writing essays, even though it felt like being in solitary confinement. Every millisecond that passed when I wasn’t surrounded by friends or loved ones made me feel like I wanted to crawl out of my skin. The moment I met up with a buddy for a beer, or a dude for a date, I immediately relaxed. It felt like being freezing cold, and then stepping into the nicest, warmest bubble bath in the world. It felt like I was alone on a life raft in the middle of the ocean, casting a rope out repeatedly, only feeling remotely normal when a tugboat passed by.

One night, when I was so deep into a Tumblr void that I couldn’t possibly remember whose page I had started out on, I stumbled upon Twitter comedian Rob Delaney’s feed. And it was funny. It was dark, sometimes, too, and there was a lot of stuff on there about Robin Williams’ recent death; compassionate stuff, stuff that made you think about your relationships with the people in the world around you, and I got completely sucked up in reading all of his stories. I bought his book immediately, because hey, I had a Barnes & Noble gift card and nothing to lose. It was 4am on a Tuesday. I stayed up til 7, reading it, until I came across a chapter where Delaney described what it was like to have severe, suicidal depression.

If I were a cartoon, my jaw would have hit the floor. When Rob Delaney was depressed, he threw up when he brushed his teeth, too. There was a whole fucking chapter on it, 9 beautiful, wonderful, totally gross, graphic pages about how completely and utterly not-alone I was. For a brief, magical instant, I was elated. Finally! Someone cool and talented has the same weird thing going on! Someone who is living proof that you can be both funny and witty and abnormally sad, all at the same time! And then I was immediately swept up in thinking about my own reasons for hating to brush my stupid teeth.

The first stretch of time was when I was 15, after my very first boyfriend got kidnapped in the middle of the night and taken to one of those wilderness rehab programs in Provo, Utah. I also developed severe insomnia, and completely stopped sleeping, except for twenty-minute micro-naps that my body would force upon me so that my brain wouldn’t completely shut down. I lived like Tyler Durden for almost 9 months, which feels like a lot longer than it actually is when you’re wide awake for a full 24 hours each day. I started fight clubs in every city across America, aka, I watched Bridget Jones’ Diary about 400 times and woke up in History class without remembering how I got there.

It got bad again when I was 17, involved in a super unhealthy relationship with a guy who once hit me over the head with a dissecting tool in the middle of anatomy class--one of his less-horrible offenses, actually. My response, at the time, was to stand on top of a lunch table in the cafeteria next period and scream obscenities at him. I, having a mild case of Stockholm Syndrome, and him, being a total sociopathic misogynist, went to prom together a few weeks after that. It was stupid.

And now, here it was again. Maybe it was because the guy I was seeing for a few months broke it off with me to get back together with his ex-girlfriend. Maybe it was because, at the end of August, I got full-on hit by a semi –truck that ran a red light while I was crossing the street. Maybe it was because my ex-boyfriend told me that he had started sleeping with the girl who played lead opposite of him in a summer production of Odessa by the Sea while I thought we were still dating.  Maybe it was because my dog died. Maybe it was because my grandmother had a stroke. Maybe it was because I was broke and drinking too much. Maybe it was just because I was sad.

I went to the doctor a few weeks ago, and had a complete physical: blood work and urine tests, an EKG, and an impressively strong blood pressure cuff that squeezed my arm until it turned purple.

“Completely healthy,” my doctor grinned, showing too many teeth. “You’re the right weight for the right height, and your blood work looks perfect. You don’t need a follow-up appointment at all.”

I shouldn’t have been, but I felt disappointed. I was secretly praying for a dark mark to appear on the corner of one of the diagnostic reports, alerting some tech in a lab somewhere to how lonely and exhausted I felt. My doctor would see the inky stain slurring my EKG results and exclaim, “Oh my! We’ve never see anyone this miserable before! Your heart must be super, totally broken. Let’s fix you right away.”

I’d be rushed off in an ambulance to a room full of puppies and all of my friends. There would be pizza and root beer floats and those Daim candies from Ikea that my grandmother used to sneak to me when I was small. Stacks of Harry Potter books and copies of Star Wars on VHS would be displayed on a giant bookshelf in the center of the room. Me & Julio Down By the Schoolyard by Paul Simon would be playing on an endless, magical loop. We would roast marshmallows, and someone would have remembered to bring my Timberwolf sweatshirt, the one I stole from my friend Ulyses, who stole it from his Eagle Scout leader. We would have a big party until I stopped being sad. That’s what I wanted. That isn’t what happened.

What happened, it turned out, is that I wrote this instead. Because we all do weird, horrible shit to ourselves when we’re feeling off-kilter. Because we’re all weird, horrible, beautiful people who deserve to exist in a room full of puppies and s ’mores if that’s what we want. Because I don’t ever want anyone to feel as alone as I did for years, having this bizarre superpower that ruined my mornings and put me off breakfast. Because it turned out that it wasn’t an allergy, or a virus, or an eating disorder at all.

It turns out that all I have to do is honor the agreement that I made with myself to wake up every morning and brush my teeth, even if I’d rather be anywhere besides my freezing, cold bed. Even if I hate New York in the winter. Even if I don’t have spicy noodle soup from Wagamama’s. Even if I’m nowhere near London at all. 

Hearthrobinson.

Billy Robinson will never break your heart. He’s a sweet kid. Lanky and boyish, with light eyes and long fingers. He has the world’s smallest puppy, and his mom thinks I’m cool. His car is always a mess. He keeps his wiry Harry Potter glasses in the corner, on the dashboard. He keeps his guitar case and a week’s worth of trash in the back. He used to use his ex-girlfriend’s old Beatles mug as an ashtray in the cup holder.

“Because she sucks,” he explained, but I saw those old photos of the two of them, smiling in superhero costumes, calling each other things like, “happy,” and “family.” He’s never been able to fool me.

He picks me up at my apartment on Daughtry, and we drive out to the Waco dam at midnight. We sing songs to keep ourselves awake, and we keep an eye out for fireflies. With him, I never sleep. We stay up all night ‘til sunrise, watching our friends fall in love. We drink Shiner Bock because it’s Texas, and we drink tequila because we’re lonely. One day, he tells me he loves me, and we kiss outside the bar. I’m a vampire in my blue dress, and he’s a zombie in his button-up. He plays Everlong by the Foo Fighters on guitar and in my head, I stay here forever in this dinky little town, wrapped up in the moonlight over the Brazos and the lights from the Alico building downtown.

***

I leave town in May. He helps me pack up my car, and we say goodbye. When I get back to Los Angeles, I smoke his brand of cigarettes for weeks because I miss him. He doesn’t text me again because his phone is always dead, but that’s okay. I knew that going into it.

When I move to New York, I listen to the mix tape he made me every single time I ride the subway. White Hinterland by Icarus. Walking on a Dream by Empire of the Sun. Fade into You by Mazzy Star. Something in the Air by Tom Petty. No One’s Gonna Love You by Band of Horses. Young Folks by Peter Bjorn & John. I listen to it underground for months until I have to go back to Texas to graduate college.

***

We arrive at Hemmingway’s Watering Hole and the lights are out. The bar is closed. Eric knocks four times and the door swings open and everyone’s inside; Billy & Renny & Chris & Benn and everyone I love. A dozen arms grab me and pull me in close; they already have shots waiting on the bar.

“To Whitney,” they say, and we drink. Billy’s in the corner, playing Alison by Elvis Costello on guitar. He asks me to take a walk around the block, and then he asks me to marry him. I could do that, I think. I could stay here forever. I could leave my job at Letterman, and we could eat grilled cheese sandwiches and listen to music on I-35.

“Have you ever heard about what crabs do when you put them in a barrel?” he asks me. I shake my head no.

 “Individually, they could easily escape. They could squeeze their little pinchers into the sides and pull themselves out. But then, the other crabs grab onto their legs and pull them back in. The group mentality is more important than the individual's freedom.”

He pauses, takes a sip of his beer, tucks my hair behind my ears.

“Darling,” he says, “That’s what Waco is like.”

***

The next time I find myself in the South, I don’t expect to see anyone. But like magic, Chris picks me up and we drive over to Renny’s. Renny opens the door, and they’re there, somehow: Eric and Billy with Lone Stars in their hands, squeezing me into the buttons on the fronts of their shirts. We ask Billy’s little brother to take a picture of the five of us, grinning like idiots.

“Smile on three,” he says, and Billy gently moves my head so that I’m looking right at him.

1…he tilts my chin up to look at him.

2…he closes his eyes.

3…we’re both home again, his lips on my mouth, and we’re both seeing stars.

The camera goes off. Everyone says, “Ewwwwwww.”

We climb in the car to go get more beer, and we scream out the lyrics to Cannibal Queen by Miniature Tigers. We hold hands in the back seat and sing the line from I Just Do by Dear & the Headlights that we both love. We drink more tequila and put on Katy Perry. We finish our Lone Stars, and we’re all over each other on the balcony. Our friends go inside. I’m stuck to him like glue, like I never even left.

“You don’t have a boyfriend, do you?” he asks, and I shake my head no.

We stay up all night talking. All of us. Eric tells us that his new girlfriend lives in Canada. Chris tells a story about his mom. Renny’s inside entertaining her co-workers. Billy makes us laugh with his stories from work.

“I think I’m gonna be a really great father,” he says, sober for a minute. And then Eric says something, and we’re back laughing again.

At two in the morning we run out of cigarettes, and Chris’s car gets towed from the parking lot.

“I’ll go,” I say, because I’m the least fucked up.

Eric and I get in the car and we drive. I pick up a pack of Marlboro Menthols and they only cost five dollars. I put Billy’s change in my purse.

We get back home, and Chris is beside himself. We start into the house, and he stops me before I go inside. We sit down on the stairs, and I smoke Billy’s cigarettes. Chris plays some depressing music on his iPhone and tells me that he’s broke, and he can’t pay for the tow, and that after I left to go to the store, Billy hooked up with a stranger, that he’s passed out in bed now.

I pull Chris up by his hands. I tell him that neither of us are allowed to start crying. I put on Love Fool by the Cardigans and we don’t know all the words, but we dance in the moonlight, scream the ones that we know.

When the music stops, we pick up his car and drive back to his house and I pack up my things and we head to the airport. I don’t see Billy again because he’s unconscious. I tell Renny that I’ll come visit soon.  I take pictures of Eric sleeping on the couch in Chris’s bright purple Dio shirt. I say goodbye to Texas and I drink one more Lone Star. I sleep on the plane the whole way back to New York.

***

I text Billy in the morning, “Thanks for saying goodbye.” His change is still in my wallet.

He doesn’t answer for awhile, but when he does, he says, “I really hate myself.”

I don’t need to ask why, but I do anyway. He tells me he’s sorry. He tells me he’s really dumb. He tells me that sometimes, when he reads my writing, I don’t use his name but he knows it’s about him. He says he can always tell. He says he knows for sure. I tell him it’s okay, and I mean it. I tell him I still think he’s cool.

I climb back into bed and I close my eyes and I tell myself again:

Billy Robinson will never break your heart. You’re never in town long enough to let him.