“We’ll clean this up tomorrow,” I said, but he didn’t answer.

HE WAS angry. For a long time. He was selfish and rude and essentially a fucking asshole who I wanted to punch in the face. He said things he didn’t mean. He told us to go to hell, that he never wanted to see us again. That he hated us. He hated us so goddamn much. He didn’t mean it, he said after. He never did. He was sorry, sorry, sorry.

He refused to go to rehab. He said that wasn’t for him. He could do it on his own.

I reminded him he wasn’t on his own.

He glared at me for that but nodded slowly.

Later, he whispered in my ear that if I just believed in him, he knew he could do it.

Detox was something I would never wish on anyone. The less said about that, the better. He didn’t go cold turkey—we’d been warned against that—but he wasn’t given the amount he’d taken before, wasn’t given anything but the Klonopin, and then it was only half doses. But there were night sweats and vomiting and more time spent in the bathtub. The panic attacks were swift and vicious, almost coming without warning and lasting what felt like hours. His eyes would be wide and blank, skin slick and trembling, and he’d be gasping for air, face turning red, then purple, and there was nothing we could do but hold on until it passed. There were times I wished his lack of oxygen would cause him to pass out. He never did.

He was supposed to be taking some summer courses. We’d emailed his advisor about a medical emergency. She’d responded immediately, letting me know there were situations that we needed to discuss about Tyson’s standing at Dartmouth. Otter was there during the days, and I was there at night, given that I’d already agreed to teach some summer classes and couldn’t get out of it. We switched back and forth, and it was draining and tiring, and my colleagues asked me if I was okay, my students eyed me warily, but I pushed through it because I had to. We had to. There was no other option. And we’d already decided that if it didn’t work, if he was getting worse, we’d force him to go where he needed to go.

But it too passed.

He came out on the other side weak and shaking, eyes sunken and skin tinged yellow. He forced some soup down on a Saturday, hands trembling, but when he looked up at me, his gaze was clear, and he grumbled that he wasn’t going to drown in the soup bowl and that I could leave him alone for a little bit. God, why did I have to be so annoying?