Chapter 6
chapter six
Present Day
How desperate would I have to be to do it? The building was so close, all I had to do was walk across the street and open the doors. It was that fucking simple, yet the idea had me trembling where I stood.
People passed by me on the sidewalk, dozens of faces obstructing my view of the restaurant until it was just flashes. Flashes of a life I’d taken for granted mixed with the annoyed expressions of complete strangers as I took up space where I didn’t belong.
I wasn’t drunk enough to seriously consider walking over there, but it was a thought.
It dug deep in the back of my mind, making a home where it didn’t belong—just like me.
It burrowed between the memories I had of it as a whole.
Memories I’d tried so hard to forget, only to fail and remember over and over again, only further reminding me of what I’d never get to have again.
Instead, I started the walk back to the bar I liked–Driftwood Jack’s. It wasn’t usually very busy, so there were never many people, and there was always a lone table for me to sit at. Except for the times when someone from the very past I was running from showed up and took a seat beside me.
Jack had become the only familiar face I truly appreciated.
The moment I walked into the bar, he pulled out a bottle of vodka and laid it on the counter.
It made me smile—a small tug at my lips I hadn’t felt in ages.
It made me wonder if a person could forget how to.
If their muscles could atrophy, causing a constant frown.
I wondered, as I wrapped my hand around the bottle, if that was going to happen to me.
The first drink always burned. The second burned slightly less. By the fourth, it was hardly a tickle down my throat—a warm tingle I welcomed because at least then I knew I could feel something.
It was odd. I didn’t want to feel anything, but I was terrified of feeling nothing. When would the day come when I was numb to it all? It seemed like I was already over halfway there.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as I felt a presence crowding me. I snapped my head up, instinctually moving to the side a bit, getting as far away from whoever it was as possible. Some things—some trauma responses—never changed, it seemed.
Jack stood there, tilting his head and looking down at me. “Are you okay?”
I had to swallow and clear my throat, breaking up tiny mounds of unease that’d built up in it for far too long. When was the last time I had spoken? Probably when I saw Callum. “Sure.”
“That sounds convincing.”
Shrugging, I picked up the bottle of vodka. “As convincing as you want it to be.”
“Not very.” Jack slid into the seat in front of me. “I feel like I see a lot of you, yet I know nothing about you. Most of my regulars at least talk to me.”
Can a man not just come to the bar for shelter, warmth, and alcohol? “Don’t consider me a regular, then. Problem solved. And don’t you have, like, a job to do or something other than bother a paying customer?”
“I own the place. I can do what I want. Can I ask you a personal question?”
“Depends on the question.”
“Do you have a home? Like, are you homeless right now?”
The question made me laugh. “Jesus, dude, who raised you? ‘Cause they did a poor fuckin’ job.”
He groaned, putting his face into his hands. “No, no. I’m sorry. It’s just that you come here every day, stay until close, and bring the same backpack, but you keep it hidden under the table, and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen you at the subway, but you weren’t getting on a bus.”
So much for blending in and acting like a ghost passing through the city. I never expected to really be noticed. I thought I’d done a good job at that, but if someone like Jack or Callum had noticed me… Maybe I wasn’t doing as good of a job as I thought.
Looking away, I set aside the bottle and my pride. “Caught me. I’m homeless. What, do you want me to leave your bar now?”
“Ew. I know you don’t know me, but it kinda hurts that you’d think I’m that heartless. No, I don’t want you to leave my bar, but I do have some space in the back if you need somewhere to rest at night.”
That didn’t make it any better. “I’m not lookin’ for a handout, and I’m not lookin’ to owe anyone anything.”
Jack slid down in his seat, his eyebrows scrunched together. “You wouldn’t owe me anything except money for the booze you drink. It’s just an offer. Anyone Callum knows is trustworthy in my book.”
Right. He knew Callum somehow, which made everything just that much worse. To someone else in Callum’s life, I was just some guy he knew. How shitty was that? I’d demoted myself from his boyfriend—the love of his life—to just someone he knew, yet it hurt like hell to realize.
It hurt enough to make me take another swig of vodka straight from the bottle. At least it warmed my chest, giving my heart a bit of heat to live off instead of the cold I’d been feeding it.
Shaking my head to try and rid the way my vision was swimming, I pushed the bottle again, doing my best to shun it for long enough to talk about this. To talk about him. “How do you know ‘im?”
“Slow down, bud. You’re already starting to slur your words.” Jack laughed, but it wasn’t all that funny. “We actually met because of our grandparents. Remember when his grandpa had that really bad fall a few years back?”
Fingertips that weren’t mine closed over the edges of the very heart I was trying to light on fire with the vodka running through my veins.
Where the lighter was, I wasn’t sure, but I knew I was getting close anyway.
Close to combusting. Exploding. Burning to a crisp in one final act of disgrace.
“No. Uh, we weren’t talkin’ then. Is his grandpa okay? ”
His mouth opened, then closed, a visible effort to find the right words.
“Oh. Shit. Well, he recovered just fine from the fall.” He wasn’t telling me the truth.
Or maybe he was, but only part of it. I could tell that much.
“We met at the hospital. My grandma died, and his grandpa was in pretty bad shape. Their rooms were right in front of each other, and we both went into the hallway to cry. Callum was mortified at first, but I asked why he was there. When he said “grandpa,” I said “grandma,” and we both just…cried together. It was a weird beginning to our friendship, but I think we’re both a bit weird, so it worked out. ”
It was taking far too long for me to process damn near any of the words he was saying.
Most of it made sense, but some of it just sounded like a bunch of noises that didn’t mean anything in my head.
They were getting jumbled up in my mind.
Like the English dictionary I was supposed to have ingrained into my brain wasn’t working.
Jack had been there during a time I should’ve been. He’d probably been there for countless times I should’ve been and would never be able to. What a painful way to think about it.
Callum’s grandpa meant the entire world to him. If something happened to him, I didn’t know just how easy it would be for Callum to come back from it. If he ever did.
It should’ve been me. I should’ve been the one comforting him. I’d lost my chance, though. I’d lost a hundred chances, if not thousands. Maybe this was the punishment I was meant to receive for years of not being enough. Maybe Jack was meant to be my replacement.
Maybe.
Maybe.
Fucking maybe.
There were too many maybes and not enough definitelys. I was lost in them all, unsure of which road to take. Which path to go down. There weren’t enough decisions to make choices between because they’d been ripped from me, and it was my fault. Mine.
I pressed my teeth down onto my tongue, physically biting it to keep from saying something utterly stupid and uncalled for.
I wanted to be mean. I wanted to deflect.
There were so many things I wanted to say, and I didn’t.
I didn’t because it wasn’t my place anymore.
“Callum is a good guy. I hope y’all stay friends for a long time. ”
“How do you know him? I assume you’ve known each other for a long time.”
At that, I grabbed the bottle, no longer strong enough to stave off the need to be numb. When I tipped it back, nothing came out. Not even a single drop. I pulled the bottle away, inspecting it curiously. “Fuck,” I whispered. “Can I get another bottle?”
Jack’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Uh, I don’t know, man. You usually only get the one, and that gets you pretty hammered.”
“Payin’ customer, ‘member?”
“Dude, you’re getting hella southern on me right now. And slurring your words pretty hard. I don’t think that’s a good idea, and I have to take care of my bar. That includes the people in it.”
Narrowing my eyes at him, I grabbed my bag from under the table and scrounged around in it. “I got the money.”
He put his hands up. “I don’t doubt that. I just don’t need you passing out in my bar, okay?”
“Fine. I’ll drink it somewhere else. Just gimme one.”
Sighing, Jack stood from his seat and took the money I was handing out to him. “I’m going to regret this, aren’t I? But you’re an adult. If you want to ruin your liver…that’s on you.”
“Exactly.”
“Okay, whatever. Hold on.”
I watched through blurry, wobbly vision as Jack went behind the bar counter and grabbed my favorite. I didn’t know why I’d latched onto vodka and decided it was my drink of choice. It was the first thing I ever drank, though it was mixed with a lot of orange juice.
Used to, I always mixed it. I couldn’t stand the taste by itself. Over time, I poured more vodka than mixer until, one day, I stopped mixing it and started drinking it straight. It was cheaper than anything else, and I knew I could handle it. Vodka was my second love.
Callum was my first.
When Jack handed me the bottle, I took it and slowly stood from the table. I was a bit wobbly, but it was nothing I couldn’t handle. I’d been worse off before. Throwing my backpack over my shoulder, I held up the bottle and shook it toward Jack. “Thanks.”
He shook his head. “Don’t thank me for enabling you, country boy. I don’t want that on my conscience. But please think about what I said earlier, okay?”
“I won’t.” I went to leave but stopped, turning back around. “Also, Callum and I did know each other a long time. Not no more, though.”
I started my way to the front doors, feeling my body pull itself sideways as I continued to lose my balance little by little. “Not no more,” I whispered.
I whispered it because there was no one else around to hear me say it. Truly, honestly, I was alone.
And I couldn’t really say I cared anymore.
So I trudged through the snow on uneven feet, slipping a few times here and there as I kept drinking and drinking and drinking, barely leaving any time in between sips. I didn’t know how close or how far away the subway was—my only shelter as of late.
At some point, I had to move over to the side so I could catch myself on the walls of random buildings as I walked. The world was moving too quickly, and it was getting so much harder to breathe.
The setting sun looked like it was reflecting off the fallen snow.
It blinded me. I tried to squint, but it was like my body didn’t know how to anymore.
My heart was pounding in my ears as people passed by me, looking at me with disgust on their faces.
Disgust and judgment. Their eyebrows were furrowed, their lips were curled up, and their noses were scrunched.
They looked at me like I was some rodent scattering across the sidewalk.
I’m sorry. I wanted to say. I’m sorry I look like this. I’m sorry I’m like this. I can’t stop.
I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t stop walking, even though my breaths were louder and faster than the heartbeat in my ears. My fingers wrapped around a light post, the metal frigid against my skin. Why was I holding onto a light post?
My legs gave out as I leaned forward, resting my entire body weight on the sturdy figure.
Oh, that’s why. I couldn’t feel most of my limbs anymore.
It was like all the signals to keep my brain functioning had died.
Or maybe it was in overdrive, trying to keep me awake and alert.
Fuck, my stomach hurt. Really bad. And where the fuck was my vodka?
I tried to look around for it, but every turn of my head caused a wave of nausea from how disorienting everything looked.
After leaning against the light pole for what felt like a million years, I tried to brace and stand up straight.
The moment I got halfway there, my heartbeat picked up tenfold, and a wash of heat spread across my body.
I suddenly felt weak. Really weak. Like I could hardly hold my head up, and I was fucking sweating, which didn’t make sense with how cold it was outside.
There was snow on the ground, but I was fighting sweat and my eyelids, which kept trying to flutter closed. I shouldn’t close them—I knew that. I knew that if I did that, there was a chance I wouldn’t wake up. How much of that second bottle had I drunk? And how quickly had I drunk it?
I was going to die, wasn’t I?
Right here. Right now. I tried to turn my head, looking to the left. Fire and Ice was right across the street. I was going to die in front of the very restaurant I’d run from years prior. How fucking ironic.
I really should’ve taken Jack up on his offer.