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By now, it had started to blizzard, so I asked the next person I saw to take a picture of me. This is it:

I found Benjamin at the bar in the main lodge where I had a margarita and a bite to eat. Feeling warmed up from my adventure, I asked if we could take a few runs together.

Benjamin was very concerned about me, and knowing what I knew, I felt he had every right to be. I gave him the breakdown, which was wildly amusing, especially since the outcome was so positive.

Once we were back on the chairlift to go to the top of the mountain, Benjamin went radio silent.

“What’s your story?” I asked, as I saw his fists close and eyes shut. “Uh-oh.”

“Please don’t speak until we’re off the lift,” he told me.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said. “What’s the problem now?”

“I’m scared of heights, Chelsea. I’ll be fine once we’re off the lift.”

“Why would someone who’s scared of heights go skiing?”

“I like to face my fears, Chelsea. Please… stop… talking.”

“No problem.”

We had just gotten on the lift and had at least twenty minutes to go before we got to the top. Having had a long history with myself, I knew if I had found a bud in one pocket, there would be a lighter in another pocket, and you know what? I was right. I took the little map I had grabbed earlier, ripped it in half, and rolled myself a joint. Benjamin didn’t say a word until we got close to the top, which he must have sensed, because he opened one eye to confirm our location. I’m not exaggerating when I say that he was violently shaking by the time we were getting ready to disembark.

Once we were off and skiing he was a completely different person, and he was actually a really good skier. But that didn’t matter. It was over for me.

That night at dinner, he suggested we go helicopter-skiing the next day. For those of you who don’t know what that is, heli-skiing is where they take you in a helicopter and drop you at the highest point of the mountain, and then you ski down. I nearly spit out my wine.

“Benjamin,” I said, as delicately as possible, “I have to be honest with you. I don’t have enough drugs to go heli-skiing with you.”

“It’s important to face your fears,” he informed me.

“Yes, I’m sure that’s true. But isn’t it pointless if your fear never subsides?”

“I suppose you have a point, although I won’t stop trying.”

“That’s admirable,” I told him gently. “But it seems like the only two things you and I do well together are dance and fuck. So let’s just do that.”

That was the last time I saw Benjamin, but I will never forget that day as one of the best of my life. After everything that happened, I didn’t cry, I didn’t get scared, and I was confident even in my darkest moments that I was a grown woman who would get myself out of a bind without very much help. I had no idea one could ski over a pool, and I had no idea I could actually dance.

This is the thank-you note I sent Benjamin a week later:

Dear Benjamin,

Thank you for taking me skiing in MONTANA. But more importantly, thank you for giving me rhythm. I haven’t stopped dancing since I met you, and people are loving it.

XX, Chelsea

I still have never been to Yellowstone National Park. I may never go.

CHAPTER 11

TRAPPED IN BEL AIR

I woke up on a Sunday morning in my bed and felt something sharp in my underwear. When I put my hand down there to see what it was, I found my Invisalign.

It was Emmy weekend. The previous night I had gone out with three of my girlfriends to one of the Emmy parties that are thrown every year.

I had left the party around midnight and came home to my house, which was empty because my lesbian was off gallivanting with her new lover (also a lesbian).

After I danced alone in front of the mirror in my bedroom for close to forty-five minutes, I decided to go through all my old photo albums, and I found some very insightful pictures.

At around 1:30, I felt my Xanax kicking in, and like any responsible adult I got into bed. Then I heard my driveway gate open, heard a car in my driveway, and saw the beams of light eking through my window shades. It was exactly the way I’ve always seen my life ending—being murdered and raped in my own home—after dancing alone.

This is proof that I did indeed graduate from high school and that my brother Glen was the founder of Al Qaeda.

Proof that I was in fact bat-mitzvahed…

… and proof that I did actually break my arm. If you look closely in the left corner, you can see the cast.

At two, I was already grabbing life by the balls, or at least by the ball.

Proof that I had some serious problems very early on. Age eight.

This is it, I thought. This is the end. I pulled down my eyeshades and willed myself to go to sleep. If I’m going to get raped and killed, I was intent on sleeping through it.

The next morning when I woke up alive, I ran through the sequence of events trying to figure out why my Invisalign was in my underwear. I deduced that I hadn’t in fact tried to go down on myself but had put my mouthpiece in my underwear as a protective shield/bite plate against whoever was going to attack me.

Every Sunday morning I play tennis at ten, so I had no time to ruminate—it was onward and upward. I sauntered downstairs and fed both dogs. I didn’t notice any foul play until I walked outside to my driveway and saw that my car was missing.

Aha! I knew I wasn’t crazy. Someone had actually broken through my security gate and stolen my car. I would have to call the police after tennis and file a report. I reasoned that the lease was up on my Bentley, so the responsibility of finding the perpetrators might not even be on my shoulders. I walked down the driveway and across the street to play tennis on my neighbor’s court.

When I returned from tennis, I noticed that my friend Shmitney’s Mercedes SUV was in my driveway behind where my car would normally be. I hadn’t noticed earlier, because I must have been more focused on the fact that my driveway had been vandalized. I realized that she must have left her car at my house the night before when she came over to get ready with me. My driver, Billy, had picked us up from the house and taken us to the party. Shmitney’s SUV was blocking the only other two modes of transportation available: Lesbian Shelly’s Mercedes, and her Harley-Davidson.

I called Shmitney, wondering how I was supposed to get out of my house if she was blocking the only car left in my driveway and my Bentley had been stolen. She didn’t answer her phone, which she never does. Instead, she will text you back while you’re in the middle of leaving her a voice mail, and tell you that she’s in a business meeting or in therapy and will call you in an hour.

When she did call me an hour later, we reviewed the night’s events, and then she asked me why I had left the party so early.

“Because no one at the party was dancing,” I told her.

“So, where did you go?” she asked, laughing.