Great.
“Can you hurry?”
My sister scurries out of the bathroom, returning with a book in her hand. One I’m intimately familiar with. “What the hell is this?” She waves the journal Dr. Schmidt gave to me, the other hand resting on her hip.
“What if Gavin walked in here and found this shit instead of me, huh?”
“It’s homework,” I slur.
“Homework? This thing is filled with letters to another man.”
“Dr. Schmidt told me to write to him,” I drawl, trying not to gag. “I keep it locked up.”
“You keep it locked? Well, how’d I get my hands on it then?”
“I was writing to him this morning, and I forgot, and because you’re too nosy to—to give me any fucking prrrivacyy.”
She flips through, reading letter after letter, her eyes narrowing in my direction. “Are you in love with him?” There’s no accusation in her tone. This is pure fear. She’s afraid I’m going to lose my family. Ruin my life. Well, welcome to the club, Sis. So am I. I don’t need her concern.
“I miss him…stop reading that, please. No one else is supposed to read it!”
The book slams shut, and my sister slaps it down on the counter. She stares at me for a moment before her features begin to soften. “You need help.”
“I’m getting help.”
Her tears make me feel even more like shit than I already do. I’m beginning to sober up, and shame is quickly setting in.
“I don’t think it’s working.”
Rolling away from the toilet, I rest my head against the wall, looking up at her forlorn face. “You think I don’t know this?” I stammer.
Tears line my sister’s cheeks as she moves to sit beside me.
“Babe, families take care of each other. Gavin loves you so much. We all do. You’ve got to wipe your eyes and realize we aren’t the enemy.”
“I’m not her,” I confess. “I’m not the one who left.” I look over to my sister. “And I don’t think I ever will be.”
“Fine. You’re someone else. I love you anyway, and I’ll always have your back, but I’m not going to stand by and watch you continue to fuck up. You can have all the time you need, but this”—she holds up the pint of vodka—“this isn’t the way you’re going out.”
She stands up and starts a shower. “Your son’s going to be home soon, and I’m pretty sure your husband is ready to throttle you. Get your ass in this shower, and I’ll make you look presentable.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I love you, Katy,” she says as she pulls a clean towel off my shelf. “But it’s time to try and get back up, okay? Even if you only make it to your knees. And if you get knocked back down, I’ll be there.”
“Promise?” I ask.
“Promise.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Gavin
I park outside our lifeless house and peer through the big bay window as memories of our first months here fuel the ache.
I’ve lost my patience, and that’s the one thing I need in abundance. She deserves it, not only because of what she’s suffered; but because of who she is, or was, what we were, and what I know we can still have. Every day I fight my own selfish needs to see that hers are met, but I feel like each time I step into our house I’m falling into darkness without a sign of light in sight. The struggle to remind myself it’s temporary is a daily battle.
Eight months. It’s been eight months since I’ve made love to my wife. I’ve been fixated on that fact for days. My resolve is fraying with my every botched attempt to close the space.
While intimacy isn’t everything, it played a large part in our relationship. But the woman I love sits inside our house battling demons she refuses to admit exist and doesn’t seem to care at all about it, so I can’t afford to either.
Daily, the same questions plague me—what more can I do? Who in the hell do I need to be to get through to her?
I’ll wait. And I’ll keep waiting until she makes her way back to me.
Anger prevents me from opening my door on this night.
She’s put me in unfamiliar territory, and the hardest part for me to swallow is that I didn’t even realize she had a drinking problem.
I’m losing her.
Gripping the wheel, I do my best to muster the strength to face her. I’m tired of the anger, the hidden resentment, but I’m not sure who’s harboring what anymore. I snubbed her last night and heard her crying when I’d come back calm enough to talk. Instead of offering her arms I knew she would refuse, I sat outside our bedroom door listening until she went silent. The fact that she was breaking down was encouraging, the fact that she would never let me bear witness to it had me shedding tears right along with her.
I love Katy, and I know no matter what happens, I always will, but for the first time since she came home, I don’t want to be here, and that scares me.
Pity party over, I pull into the garage and step inside the living room with enough determination to see my promise to her through. It’s what I see that stops me in my tracks.
Katy is standing in the middle of the living room, her too-thin frame clad in a sexy nightgown that used to hug her subtle curves. Her hair is fixed, and her makeup is done. She looks absolutely fucking beautiful, and if it weren’t for the look on her face, I would take consolation in the fact I know the effort she made is for me. I watch her for a few seconds as she flips back and forth between Fox and CNN.
“Katy?”
“They’re liars. All of them are fucking liars. No one knows the truth.”
“Tell me the truth,” I urge as tension rolls off of her in waves.
I get the same silent answer I’ve grown used to and feel the distance between us more than ever.
“Call the Today Show,” she whispers, her voice unrecognizable to me.
“What?”
“Tell them I’ll do it.”
The idea is ridiculous, and I step into her line of sight to ax it. “Katy—”
“I know exactly what I’m asking, Gavin,” she says as her eyes flit to mine. She’s seething. In the years I’ve known her, I’ve never seen her so angry.
“I need this,” she tells me. “I need this, and I’m asking you for this. You want to know what I need from you? I need this. Please.”
My response is instant.
“Okay.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Briggs
Left.
Right.
Left.
Starting out slow, I pick at the heavy bag in front of me with taped wrists instead of gloves, knowing how much damage I could do but needing the pain to feel relief. I’ve become a masochist of sorts, reveling in the burn. “After Rain” by Dermot Kennedy sounds through my earbuds on repeat. I never thought I’d be the type of guy to have a song that reminds me of a woman, but as it turns out, I’m just that fucking guy. If there was ever a song that represented how I feel—about me, about her— it’s this one.
It’s days like today when I have to force myself to breathe, when I see her face so clearly I feel like I can reach out and touch it. Her voice echoes out my name, and I’d give anything to answer, anything to let her know I’m still forcing these breaths out only for her. Last night I let the anger win and purposely picked a fight with a guy twice my size. With every crack of my whiskey-fueled knuckles, I felt a sick satisfaction. But even the rush of adrenaline I’ve been craving wasn’t enough to stifle the emptiness that followed when I brought him to his knees. Empty. Hollow. Hurt. I’m a born fighter, and even with all my training, I can’t defeat the one thing weighing me down. I miss her. I need her. I need her. I need her. And she’s not mine.
Warming up, I slowly tick off a lick for every day I spent with her in that bunker, until the song picks up, the violin sounds, and heavy drums kick in. Pain streams through me inside and out as I match the building rhythm double-time with my throws. Though my fists scream for relief, I know I’ll refuse them until my chest stops constricting the way it does every time I think of her. The irony of it is that I finally get it—I understand why she had to leave me with my heart in my hands the way she did. When you find this feeling, you have to do anything you can to keep it.