Ugly.

Emerson understood. He knew there are a thousand different ways to be crazy. His family were the loud, f**ked-up kind. Trailer trash, he called himself, like it was a fact. His mom was an addict—still is, I guess. She dipped in and out of rehab and twelve-step programs for years, but always came undone in the end. She took off for good with some ass**le when he was eighteen, leaving him with two younger siblings to raise. I guess compared to that, my family problems were a luxury, but Emerson never saw it like that.

The way he put it, hurt is hurt, pain is pain, and crazy is crazy. Doesn’t matter if someone’s getting drunk off cheap tequila or expensive wines, or out sleeping with druggie ass**les or douchebag lawyers to fill the emptiness inside. It’s all the same. And the damage they leave behind is just as bad.

It’s one of the reasons I fell in love with him four years ago. I finally felt like someone could see the hurt inside me, could help me make peace with it. Before him, I wondered if I was doomed to turn out just like my family: pretending everything was fine even as we killed ourselves with hurt and denial. Emerson taught me, it was OK to be damaged: to take that hurt, and feel it, and make it drive you, to never wind up like them.

So what the hell are you doing now? An accusing voice cuts through my thoughts. Look at you, biting your lip, and taking your pills, and acting like you can stand to even look at these people?

You’re just like them.

The thought shocks me bolt upright in my seat. I look around the table in horror. It can’t be true! I’m nothing like Carina and Dad, I swore it to myself, years ago. Just because I’m trying to keep all this bullshit away from my life with Daniel, it doesn’t mean I’m faking my way through a life of denial like them.

But the whisper in the back of my mind lingers. I sit quietly through the rest of dinner, caught up in my own thoughts. I always figured that shutting out my tragic past was the only way to build a new future. Just put everything behind me, and move on. But now I wonder if doing that makes me just as big a hypocrite as the others: hiding my pain away and faking like everything’s OK when I’m coming apart inside.

Dear God, don’t make me turn out like them.

I barely say a word for the rest of the night, until we’re gathered in the foyer collecting my purse and jacket.

“Thanks for hosting, Carina,” Daniel says, as he helps me into my jacket. “It was delicious, wasn’t it Juliet?” He nudges me, so I manage a polite nod.

“Yes. Thanks.”

“Cook like that more, and maybe you’ll keep this one.” My Dad chortles. He pats down his jacket and pants, and then finally comes up with his keys.

“You’re not driving!” My voice is loud and accusing, but I lost count of how much he’s drunk hours ago.

“I’m fine.” He waves me away, but then stumbles, unbalanced.

“You’re not—“ I start to argue, but luckily, Carina interrupts us.

“Just stay here, dad. We’ve got plenty of room. And then we can get lunch in the city tomorrow, maybe look at some antique stores.”

Dad sways for a moment, and then nods. “Now that I think about it, perhaps a lie-down would be a good idea…”

I let out the sigh of relief I didn’t even notice I was holding in. Usually, he puts up a fight. When I was younger, I’d do whatever I could to keep him from getting behind the wheel: pick-pocketing his keys and hiding them places he’d never find him. The day I got my driver’s license, I swore I’d never have to get in a car with him again.

Daniel finally finishes his round of polite goodbyes and we head back outside to the car. I slide into the passenger seat and tip my head back. I’ve never been so glad to be done with an evening.

“That was nice,” Daniel starts the engine and backs out of the drive.

I look over to check he’s joking, but he’s not. “You can’t be serious,” I say in disbelief.

“Aw, come on. Carina seems nice. And your dad is a great guy, really interesting.”

I stare at him. I can’t even find the words. My whole body aches with tension, like I’ve just run a marathon, and I feel so emotionally exhausted I could curl up in a ball and sleep for a week. My Dad spent the whole night drinking, and making cruel comments about Carina, while she babbled on about destination weddings and landscaping like it means a damn thing. All I could do all night is remember every other shitty, dysfunctional family dinner we’d ever had. If it hadn’t been for my hateful anti-anxiety meds, I would have had a total meltdown and stopped breathing.

But Daniel thought that was a good time?

“We should do this more often.” he adds. He looks over and catches my horrified expression. “Oh, babe. I know you’ve had your issues, but that’s all in the past now. You should make the effort, it’ll be worth it. You only have one family,” he adds, like that justifies anything.

I clench my fists and turn away. I stare out of the window as the dark city and neon lights speed past, but I don’t see any of them. Instead, I watch my future with Daniel stretching out ahead of me, just the way I planned. Moving in together, getting jobs, maybe even getting married. It’s always been a reassuring vision: a safe, normal life far away from all the tragedy and f**ked-up mess in my past. But now, for the first time, I see it in a different light.

Dozens, maybe hundreds of evenings like this one: sat around with my family because I’m too scared and stubborn to tell Daniel why not. Years of pretending like it doesn’t cut me up inside to watch my dad keep drinking his way through life, like mom was nothing but a temporary stop along the way. Christmases, birthdays, holidays. And what if we have kids, and my dad wants to come play doting grandpa to them too? Daniel will welcome him in, all of them, because that’s what family does in his world.