The Definition of Fate

Chapter 26

Show me
the most damaged
parts of your soul,
and I will show you
how it still shines like gold.

- Nikita Gill

"What happened?" I ask Josh, breathless.

In the years after our breakup, I spent hours wondering where Josh was, how he was, what he was doing. I hoped he was happy, and when I found him at the camp he started, I was convinced that the last four years had treated him kindly.

Josh takes a deep breath and looks down at his hands, a muscle in his jaw clenching. "What did Ellie tell you?"

I scan through my memories of our conversation. "She mentioned that you had a few tough years, but then things got better. What happened, Josh?"

"Ellie doesn't know everything that happened because she was still a kid, but after you left, I fell apart too." Josh heaves a sigh. "My version of falling apart was just a lot more...destructive."

An image of Josh sitting on the ski hill and downing a bottle of whiskey returns to me, and the way he dropped off the face of the earth after his first bad breakup. He stopped eating, stopped studying, and fell into a pit of depression.

"What happened?"
"I fell apart, Rach. I...I drank. A lot. I'm really lucky that alcoholism doesn't run in my family or I don't know if I'd even be here right now. I was always drunk and I stopped going to classes or doing homework. I...I don't know how much of this you want to hear."

I already see the direction this is heading. "I want to know everything." Josh's tortured eyes jump to mine as if he knows this is going to hurt me.

"I was really self-destructive, Rach. I drank a lot and I...I slept around. I thought the alcohol and the sex would numb the pain I felt, and it did as long as I stayed drunk. Every time I'd start to get sober, I was hit with the emptiness of my life and the guilt I felt for hurting you, so I just kept falling deeper into this spiral of self-destruction."

My heart aches--for Josh and myself. I hate that he wasted his time and affection on girls who never cared about him. I feel guilty for not being there to pull him out of this cycle, that my absence was what initiated all of it.

"Josh, I'm so sorry-"
"Stop, Rach. Don't apologize. It was my choice." His voice grows sharp and he straightens his back. "I should have dealt with my guilt and tried to change, but I didn't. I hated myself. I thought I was worthless and good for nothing more than drinking and sleeping around and losing myself in my own pain."

"What changed?"

"I almost got kicked out of Regent. My grades were so bad they threatened to kick me out if I didn't get my act together, and I knew that if I didn't change something quick, I would have to ask Dad to bribe them into keeping me there. I realized I was living up to his expectations for me and that wasn't who I wanted to be. That wasn't who you thought I was, Rach. I changed. I graduated from Regent. My GPA sucked, but I made it."
"And that's when your parents decided to get divorced?" I say, drawing the timeline in my head.

"Yeah. That's when I put it all behind me and became who Mom and Ellie needed me to be. I didn't really have a choice."

"Of course you did," I say, no longer able to resist comforting Josh. I reach across the table and take his hand in mine. "You could have lost yourself and let yourself go, but you didn't. You came back. And you didn't just become the person they needed you to be--you became the person you always could have been. You became the person I saw, the person I fell for all those years ago."