Chapter Eleven
Harrison
The beige apartment walls were closing in. That was the only way Harrison could describe the last four months. They weren't just walls; they were a vice, slowly tightening, crushing the air out of his lungs.
It hadn't started that way. Or at least, he hadn't noticed it at first.
In the beginning—two weeks after he signed the papers, two weeks after he signed his life away—there was the anesthesia. The sex.
It was the only time his brain shut off. It was the only time the crushing guilt of the baby, the divorce, and the shame didn't scream at him.
He remembered a Tuesday night, barely fourteen days into his exile. They were in the living room. The TV was blaring some game show, casting a flickering blue light over the cheap, scratchy carpet.
Emily had walked out of the bathroom wearing nothing but one of his dress shirts, open at the front. She knew he was hurting, and she knew the cure. She didn't say a word. She just pushed him off the sofa onto the floor.
He went willingly. He always did.
She straddled him, her skin hot, her eyes wild with that possessive gleam she always had. "Forget them," she had whispered, grinding down on him. "Just feel this."
And he did. He grabbed her hips, bruising the skin, driving into her with a desperation that bordered on violence. It wasn't lovemaking. It was an exorcism. He slammed into her, harder and harder, the friction burning, the carpet seeking to scrub the skin off his back.
"Yes," Emily had moaned, tossing her head back, her hands tangled in his hair. "Harder, Harrison. Make me forget."
He fucked her until his legs shook, until the sweat dripped into his eyes, blinding him. For those ten minutes, on that dirty floor, he wasn't a failure. He was just a body. A machine of sensation.
But the anesthesia always wore off. And the hangover was getting worse.
Month Three: The Career Suicide
The logistics spreadsheet on his monitor hadn't changed in three days. Harrison stared at the cursor blinking in cell G42. Blink. Blink. Blink.
He smelled like peppermint gum and stale bourbon. He had started adding a "splash" to his morning coffee. Then a splash at lunch. Now, a flask in his desk drawer.
"Harrison?"
He looked up. His boss, David, was standing at the door. He looked concerned, which irritated Harrison. He didn't want concern. He wanted punishment.
"Can we chat?"
Harrison followed him into the office. The same office where he had been served the papers. The scene of the crime.
"Your numbers are down, Harrison," David said gently, closing the door. "Way down. The Midwest distribution route is a mess. You missed the vendor meeting yesterday. People are talking. I know you're going through a... a transition. But I need you here."
Harrison looked at David. He looked at the framed photos of David’s family on the desk. A smiling wife. Two kids in soccer uniforms.
Harrison felt a wave of nausea.
"I can't do this," Harrison said, his voice raspy.
"We can work on a plan," David offered. "Maybe some time off?"
"No," Harrison said, standing up. He felt a strange, dark liberation. "I don't want time off. I want out."
"Excuse me?"
"Fire me," Harrison said. "Just cut me loose, David. Give me a severance package if you're feeling generous, or just kick me out. I don't care. But I can't look at another spreadsheet."
David stared at him, shocked. "Harrison, you're the best PM we have. Don't throw this away."
"I already threw everything else away," Harrison laughed, a hollow, dead sound. "Why stop now?"
He walked out of the building an hour later with a box of personal items and a termination letter. He didn't feel free. He felt like he was falling faster.
Month Five: The Bottom of the Bottle
The severance money should have lasted six months. Emily made sure it lasted two.
She was "nesting." That was her word for it.
"The baby can't sleep in a used crib, Harrison," she had argued, unboxing a $800 stroller.
"We don't have income, Emily!" Harrison had shouted, throwing an empty beer can at the wall. "I am unemployed! We are living on fumes!"
"You'll find something," she dismissed him, holding up a tiny cashmere onesie. "You're smart. Stop being so dramatic."
She refused to see the cliff. She was buying a fantasy life for a baby that Harrison still couldn't think about without feeling like he was choking.
So he drank.
He switched from bourbon to cheap whiskey. He drank to tolerate the apartment. He drank to tolerate Emily’s voice. He drank to dim the memory of Sarah’s face, which haunted him every time he closed his eyes.
It was a Tuesday night. It was raining. The apartment felt damp.
Harrison was on his fourth tumbler of whiskey, sitting on the edge of the bed. The room was spinning pleasantly.
Emily came out of the bathroom. Her belly was showing now—a undeniable swell. She was wearing a lace nightgown that struggled to contain her changing shape.
She wanted him. She always wanted him when he was drunk. It made him pliable.
"Come to bed, Harry," she cooed, crawling across the mattress. "You look so tense."
She reached for his belt.
Harrison didn't stop her. He was too tired to stop her. He fell back against the pillows, the alcohol making his limbs heavy.
She climbed on top of him. She kissed his neck, her hands roaming over his chest. "I missed you today," she whispered.
Harrison closed his eyes.
Darkness.
In the darkness, the smell of vanilla candle wax faded. In the darkness, the scratchy sheets became Egyptian cotton.
He wasn't in this apartment. He was back in the house.
The rain on the roof.
The smell of jasmine.
Her touch.
He reached up and grabbed Emily’s hips, but in his mind, they were Sarah’s hips. He pulled her down, burying his face in her neck.
"God," he groaned, the alcohol lowering the barrier between his reality and his subconscious.
He started to move with her. The rhythm was familiar, but his mind was completely disassociated. He was replaying a memory—their anniversary, two years ago. The way Sarah had looked at him with total trust. The way she had arched her back.
He needed her. He needed Sarah so bad it felt like his chest was being ripped open.
The pleasure built, sharp and inevitable. He was close. He was gripping the woman on top of him so hard his fingers dug into her flesh.
He wasn't fucking Emily. He was trying to fuck his way back to his wife.
The climax hit him like a freight train—a release of five months of torture.
He arched his back, throwing his head into the pillow, and the truth ripped out of his throat before he could stop it.
"Sarah!" he cried out, his voice broken and loud in the small room. "Oh god, Sarah... I love you... I love you more than anything."
He shuddered, emptying himself, the echo of the name hanging in the air.
Sarah.
He opened his eyes, panting, a dopey, drunken smile on his face as the aftershocks rolled through him.
Then, the silence hit.
He looked up.
Emily was frozen on top of him. Her hands were still on his chest.
Her face was a mask of absolute horror. The color had drained completely, leaving her gray. Her mouth was slightly open, trembling.
She hadn't just heard a name. She had heard the confession. She had heard the tone—the desperate, aching worship in his voice that he had never, not once, used with her.
Harrison blinked, the alcohol haze clearing just enough for the terror to set in.
"Emily," he rasped, "I..."
She scrambled off him as if he were on fire. She backed away until she hit the dresser, knocking over a bottle of perfume. It shattered, the smell of cheap flowers filling the room.
"You..." she whispered, clutching her stomach. "You were thinking of her."
Harrison pulled the sheet up, covering his shame. He couldn't lie. He didn't have the energy left to lie.
"You're inside me," Emily’s voice rose to a shriek, hysterical and jagged. "You're inside me, with our baby, and you're telling her you love her?"
Harrison turned his head to the wall, closing his eyes again. He wished he hadn't woken up.
"Get out," Emily screamed, throwing a pillow at him. "Get out of the bedroom! Go sleep with your bottle!"
Harrison stood up, swaying slightly. He grabbed his jeans. He walked out of the room, leaving Emily sobbing on the bed.
He went to the living room. He sat on the floor—the same spot where they had fucked two weeks after the divorce.
He picked up the bottle of whiskey. It was almost empty.
He took a swig. It burned, but not as much as the truth.
He loved Sarah. And he was going to die in this apartment, loving her, while another woman raised his child.