More Stories About Getting #indeep

All day today to celebrate the release of In Deep, authors and friends are sharing their own stories about getting in over their heads, and you can too! Join the Twitter convo at #indeep, but while you’re here check out what Delilah Dawson and Christa Desir have to say.

Delilah Dawson is the author of Servants of the Storm (releasing in April 2015):

So my parents did a terrible thing to me in the 80s, a thing psychologists urged them to do: they told me I was perfect. Seriously. I was told that I was the most special, amazing, talented, intelligent person in the entire world. And because I received this message every day, I made perfect grades and never did anything wrong and never, ever took any risks that might expose me as the non-perfect person I was. I had great self esteem, but I was terrified to fail, much less to disappoint my parents. Which meant that at 18, I was on the road to Valedictorian, had won many awards, had a great job, and had never engaged in a single risky behavior.

When I went to Toulouse, France with a student exchange program, I was the best French speaker from my school. And yet I was utterly surprised that the other American kids wanted nothing to do with me for the week of touring before we met our host families. They invited me to sneak out once, and I turned them down and told them they were going to get in trouble, and that was it. It was painful, realizing that being The Best Person Ever Who, By the Way, Could Speak French meant that I was ostracized. So when I was handed over to my host family, I realized that this was my chance to be someone else, someone I had never been. They didn’t know I was a goody-goody teacher’s pet. They only knew my age and that I didn’t like tuna fish. And the first time my host student invited me to sneak out… I did.

Her boyfriend’s name was Fabrice, and when he and his friend Gael pulled up on their motor scooters and urged us to hop on, I did. Without a helmet. Without mentioning the many dangers of speeding through French traffic on the back of a motor scooter with my arms wrapped around a boy I’d never met. Back then, we had no cell phones, no Facebook. No way for me to know who these boys were or even their last names. But I went anyway, my heart beating in my ears with my first taste of risk.

And it was amazing. Eating pizza at a sidewalk cafe with a strange boy’s arm around my shoulders. Getting into another friend’s carved-out van and speeding across the Spanish-French frontier, shouting lyrics to a French song I’d never heard. Then we unloaded in a field in the middle of nowhere, and they started a bonfire and brought out the alcohol. And I reasoned that it was legal to drink in France and that my host student would take care of me, so for the first time, I drank whatever they gave me. And I got drunk. Very, very drunk.

At this point, the story could take a dark turn. There was a moment where I looked up at the unfamiliar skies and thought, “These strange boys could kill me and throw me in the field, and no one would ever find me.” But instead, they turned on Led Zeppelin and Nirvana and asked me to finally explain the lyrics, since I was so talented with French and English. For the first time in my life, I felt popular and fun and like other kids wanted me around. I wasn’t perfect, I wasn’t the straight A girl. I was just having a great time explaining Stairway to Heaven to hot French boys.

The next morning, I woke up in my host family bed with my first hangover and the feeling that taking risks– the right risks at the right time– might be a good thing.

As a writer, I started out writing heroes who only made the safe decision, and I let fate and circumstance propel them through their stories. Then I realized that the most interesting stories start when the main character impulsively takes a risk or follows their heart into strange and unfamiliar territory. In Servants of the Storm, my Southern Gothic Horror out August 5, Dovey is in a medicated haze after Hurricane Josephine destroyed her life and killed her best friend, Carly. But when she sees Carly alive in a coffee shop, she starts spitting out her pills, knowing that she would rather be true to herself and find her best friend than do what she’s told and keep taking her medication. What she finds is… a lot scarier than cute French boys on motor scooters. But it’s that one decision that reveals what’s truly there and changes her world forever.

Christa Desir is an amazing activist, plus the author of Fault Line, and Bleed Like Me, which releases in October:

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been drawn to smart people. There is nothing that rings my bell more than intelligence. Big brains are the frosting to everything. I love being around thoughtful, eloquent, well-read, brilliant people. So it should come as no surprise that I developed crushes frequently on my college professors. 

The last semester of college, I spent abroad, studying in London. My theatre professor there had my number by the end of the first class. I was well-versed in dramatic literature and the two of us got into a big discussion over Measure For Measure. By the third class, pretty much everyone else stopped participating. My prof would foist challenges out to me about obscure Shakespearean plays and I would parry back. Because for fun, I’d read the entire canon. I guess it was less obvious to me what was going on than it was to the other students, because a few weeks into class, I was surprised when I got a call at my flat. My professor. Asking me to lunch. When I hung up the phone, my roommate, also enrolled in theatre with me, raised an eyebrow and grinned. Not at all surprised.

The thing is, I wanted to go to lunch. Because my prof had a big brain and it was all very flattering how he thought I had a big brain too. How he thought that I was worth having lunch with. And the hand on my thigh, and the sitting too close, and the rest of what happened afterwards, I thought it was just me being sophisticated. Or me pursuing fun. Or me crossing lines that I had no business crossing.

Until we reached the night of the student/faculty dinner about two months later. Me in a slinky black dress showing up with my gay roommate, the two of us already 3 martinis in, and my theatre professor standing across the room next to his wife.

I didn’t know about her, of course. Engaging in an already dodgy ethical relationship was one thing, but getting involved with a married man made me want to crawl out of my skin. Of all the identity crises I ever had, I was not interested in ever being the “other woman.” I did love and do love women far too much. But my ignorance is hardly an excuse. I never asked him about his relationship status. I didn’t think to. I got in too deep because I wanted to be liked, I wanted someone older and smarter to think I was worth it.

And the moment I saw her, his arm curled casually around her waist, his eyes dropping to my legs in my way-too-short dress, I realized I wasn’t worth anything to him.

So whenever I think about when people are “in deep”, I almost always equate this with a loss of self. With a time in one’s life when we’ve let go of who we are and given ourselves over to another person or another thing that leaves us compromised and without an identity. And I think of all the factors that get us there, what we want, what it buys us, what we’re willing to do. And I’m grateful that for the most part, I’m solid enough in who I am now that if I ever end up “in deep” again, it will be with both eyes open as to the possible consequences.