Chapter 5

Melanie Levin grew up quickly. On paper, her youth had the potential to be idyllic. The first of two daughters to a well-off Jewish couple, she lived in a large house on Long Island, and had the attention of a doting mother. Until she was 7, when said mother began to battle a drug addiction. Rapidly, mom changed, becoming distant, confusing, low energy. Her first trip to rehab was when Mel was 8. Mel’s memories of those first few days are distant but vivid. She can recall not understanding why, suddenly, she and her sister were coming home to a stranger, and why the mac and cheese tasted different.

Sarah wasn’t her first babysitter. Mel was used to being with a strange adult for a night. But this wasn’t the same. She was used to the stranger’s presence being transient, living on the assurance that tomorrow, things would return to normal. Sarah, however, was there every day. After only a matter of days, Mel began to question her sense of safety. Of course, she’d been told to expect a change, but in her sheltered life until then, the concept of a change that could shake the foundations of her world hadn’t existed to her.

Her father worked long hours as a tax attorney, and his wife’s addiction only drove him to double down on that commitment to work. On her more forgiving days, Mel looks back on that choice and realizes he only wanted to give his daughters the best while being able to afford their mother’s rehab. On other days, she resents his absence in her life when she most needed a parent.

Her mother did return eventually, but not the same as she had once been. Mom was high often, and largely unaware of her surroundings. She’d end up going back to rehab multiple times. Like many children who lack much parental presence, Mel was raised by two entities in her life: her friends and the internet.

Both, by their nature, exposed her to elements of the world that her parents, in an ideal situation, might have kept her sheltered from. Though she took on the responsibility of helping her sister prepare for school, she took less care of herself. Instead, she took opportunities for instant gratification when she could. It was friends that made her feel safe, like the world was predictable and had traceable rules. It was from a friend at 11 years old that she first learned the truth about her mother.

“Sounds like a junkie,” said a boy in her class after she explained the odd change in behavior.

“What’s a junkie?”

“You know. A drug addict. She takes stuff to make her feel good but it messes up her brain and she can’t stop.”

“Why not?”

“My grandpa is a junkie,” the boy said, not answering. Though she didn’t understand, there was honesty in his tone. Every adult seemed tense when talking to her about her mother, as if keeping something back. She could always sense it. This boy told her things she couldn’t handle about her life, in ways her father and caretakers wouldn’t.

The boy also taught her about the internet, where she could read more. No, she wasn’t able to make sense of the phrase “chemical dependency,” but then, it struck her as an honest truth. Whatever it was, it wasn’t a message tailored to serve adult anxieties. At that age, she learned who to trust, and that there were places she could turn to fill the gaps her family had left. It was one thing that grounded her when her life felt like an erratic drift.

She latched onto what little she could. She took a liking to HGTV when she was alone. Growing up in the suburbs meant that the presence of large homes was one reliable truth. She became fascinated by interior design, and her father sometimes let her select furniture to buy or choose a wallpaper. It wasn’t as though he spent much time in those rooms anyway. Being able to alter her physical space gave Mel a small sense of control of her life. She has a distinct memory of her Bat Mitzvah gift being permission to choose a new color for the living room. With her first such decision, she chose a forest green. Once the room was finished, she sat in it for hours, just being in the presence of walls surrounding her, built by her own decision. She’d made this color happen. She felt safe and strong.

Her sister, as well, became an anchor. Mel took on a motherly role, preparing meals when possible, waking her up for school, encouraging her to do homework. But it was hard to do when she herself rarely managed those tasks. She was hardly a role model, much like her own mother, spending much of her time partying, drinking, and smoking pot - all the things she’d dread for her sister to do. She often disliked herself for her own behavior but found herself unable to stop. It was only in these moments that she found the power to forgive her mother, while still blaming mom for laying the groundwork of her painful youth.

But nothing was enough to pull her from dark corners of the internet, where she found porn, then sex forums, then the 24-year-old man who took her virginity when she was 14. At the time, she viewed it as proof she was beyond what other adults could offer her. The men she met on the internet saw her as an adult. They affirmed her flailing sense of self. She slept with many of them. She looks back on that time understanding, and resenting, that she was a vulnerable teenager and he took advantage of her. Even though she doesn’t trust men, she still longs for the warmth that comes from being with one. Not that she’s ever had a lasting relationship with one. Meaningless sex? Plenty.

The pressure of her father, her teachers, and her guidance counselors did little to inspire her to earn good grades. She passed most classes, but was frequently told she was wasting her potential. “Potential.” What did that word mean? It reminded her of phrases like “going away for a while” or “still loves you but isn’t healthy.” Words that self-important adults threw around to avoid having to say what they meant. Meetings went from friendly to tense to defeated over time. Her teachers had no more commitment to her than her mother, and they all insisted that the measure of her as a person came from the numbers she pumped out during tests.