Find You in the Dark

aghast at the lack of love he received from the people who were supposed to give it to him unconditionally. Clay laughed, a hurt and humorless sound, almost a snarl. “Oh they cared about the fact that I was strung out...but only when it affected them. You know, like if I was supposed to go to some function with them, but was too wasted to make an appearance. Then they'd get pissed. But, other than that, their solution was to get me out of their hair. I guess in their minds if they weren't seeing it, it wasn't happening.”
    “God Clay, that's horrible.” I couldn't help myself. I thought of my own parents and knew that if I was in a dark place like that, they would do everything in their power to help me. I felt a new appreciation for my mom and dad and all they did for me.
    “Yeah, well they won't be winning parents of the year anytime soon.” He squeezed my hands and pulled my arms away from him, putting space between us once again.
    “Well, I took this girl back to my apartment. Lacey.” Oh no, here came the jealousy again. I tamped it down with effort. “Lacey ran with my group of friends and was as drugged out as I was. We had just done lines of coke at a club in downtown Miami and we wanted to be...well alone.” He looked over at me, as if gauging my reaction. I simply nodded, encouraging him to continue.
    “We had sex, did some more coke and broke open the bottle of gin I had stored in my kitchen. I have no idea what happened, but the next thing I knew I was freaking out.” Clay took another deep breath, running his hands through his dark curls over and over again.
    “I remember smashing the mirror in my bathroom. And Lacey was just sitting there in her underwear, on my couch doing lines as I'm tearing the apartment apart. Then the hurricane in my head just stopped. Next thing I knew I had a piece of glass in my hand from the mirror and I was cutting my arm. Then my chest. Then my wrists.” He turned his hands over and showed me two deep scars, one on each wrist.
    “Lacey must have come into the bathroom and seen all the blood. I heard her start screaming, but I was way past caring. The next thing I remember was waking up in a hospital room, my hands strapped to a bed and my parents looking at me with absolute disgust. You see, my little issue ruined their dinner party. Was quite an embarrassment for them.”
    I was shaking by the time he finished. Whatever I thought was going on with Clay, this was the farthest thing from it. This guy had been to hell and back.
    Clay opened the drawer at his bedside table and pulled out a bottle of pills, tossing them to me. I caught them and read the label. Lithium. I shook the bottle. “You take these?” I asked. Clay nodded. “I was hospitalized in Miami General's psych unit for ninety days. After that, my parents shipped me up here to stay with my mom's sister, Ruby. I hadn't had much to do with her over the years. She's not close with my mom anymore, particularly after she came out and got together with her girlfriend Lisa. But she is the complete opposite of my parents. She actually gave a shit and offered her home to me. She and Lisa are the closest things to parents that I've ever had.”
    I was relieved to hear that at least someone had cared about him.
    “When I was in the hospital, the legion of psychiatrists diagnosed me with bi-polar disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder. They prescribed me lithium for the bi-polar. It's supposed to help with the...swings. But therapy is supposed to be the only thing that helps with my other problems. ” Clay sneered, obviously unconvinced this is what he needed. I ignored that minefield and opted to focus on the other part of his statement.
    “The swings?” I had no idea what he was talking about. Bi-polar disorder? Borderline Personality Disorder? “Yeah, my manic swings. I go through major extremes in my mood. You know, happy one minute, depressed and suicidal the next. I suffer from rapid cycling. My mood swings are severe and hard to control and come on really close together. But a lot of that also has to do with the Borderline issue. The chemical imbalance in my brain is one thing, but the crazy behavior extremes are something else entirely. Which is why I turned to drugs, according to my shrink. I wanted some sort of control over what I was feeling all the time. That's also why I cut. It's so strange to know the textbook explanation of why I'm doing things while having no control over doing