There is a hallway. An elevator. A street. A car. Nodding off in my sunglasses in the middle of the night, in a blurry daze at the public ferry terminal with all the other people on their way to a hangover, going home with their dresses slightly rumpled, walking barefoot with their heels in their hands.
I type “freedom pill” into my phone.
I wait for the boat. I am made out of waiting.
Maybe I am not in the elevator alone. Maybe Jordan the junior real estate agent gets there just in time, just before the doors close, and we go down to the ground together.
The only life Tami knows is one of wanting something and getting it.
Freedom: It says something about clinical trials. Something about researchers wanting to find a way to help people live without shame. Rape and abuse victims. PTSD. Cult deprogramming. Drug addicts and alcoholics. Victims. Survivors. People who need real help.
The night is cool. Maybe it sobers me up a little. Maybe I’m thinking a little more clearly.
I have never asked myself what I want.
Freedom: Trials stopped when people showed signs of not wanting to distinguish between right and wrong. Not that they lost the ability, but that they didn’t care.
What do I want?
Tami said, “How does it feel to be so loved?”
Maybe he says, “I live a couple blocks from here.” Maybe I tell him to stop talking.
Freedom: A small percentage showed signs of personality disorders. Grandiose delusions. Psychosis. Violence. Extreme behavior.
I don’t want to be the middle path.
Maybe as he touches me I fly away. Into my memories, the past all swirling and lost. I write my own history. I piece together the boyfriend I had because it seemed appropriate, the friends I let drift away until I only had Lily, how everyone else eventually faded to acquaintances, to blurry, anonymous classmates I’d see at school, who’d occasionally invite me to the parties everyone got invited to.
High school was the time when everyone became filler.
Freedom: There is a fine line between guilt and shame, and the drug could not tell the difference.
Those friends are the images that come up when you search “generic high school students.” They are nothing but filler.
Everyone is filler. The guy taking off my clothes is filler.
How does it feel to be loved?
I am the one who is always in control.
I imagine I am Tami. I imagine I am Ivy Avila. My body moves and suddenly I become more than filler.
How does it feel?
Freedom: Conclusion: There is no cure for shame.
My body knows exactly what to do. I am made out of instinct. I am not tamed.
Maybe there is no elevator, no car, no ferry. Maybe I fly all the way home. Maybe my body is made for sky.
Maybe I want to be wild. Maybe I want to feel something, anything.
Wrinkled dresses. Wrinkled sheets. Sleeping men. Women, barefoot, carrying shoes.
Me, alone, all the way home.