Chapter 18
I wake up and turn my head toward the glowing red numbers on the small digital clock beside my bed.
Outside my room, the hallway is still quiet. It hasn’t yet been filled with the shuffle of footsteps and the murmurs of men starting another day they aren’t sure they want to do sober.
The tightness in my chest is a daily reminder of my conscious effort to change.
Thirty long days since the last swallow of whiskey burned its way down my throat in that motel room in Kansas.
Thirty days since I woke up tasting regret, bile, and something so dangerously close to surrender that I finally sought help.
Thirty days without a drink.
Thirty days sober.
Thirty more to go…
The thought sits heavy on my chest as I swing my legs over the side of the bed and plant my feet on the cool tile.
My body feels different from the way it did a month ago.
It’s less swollen and sluggish. The tremor in my hands that haunted me during the first few days here—a shaking so violent I had to grip the edge of the sink just to steady myself—has faded completely.
My eyes don’t look empty when I catch my reflection in the mirror.
The grief is still there, but I’m beginning to recognize myself again.
Physically, I feel stronger. Emotionally, I’m a bundle of exposed nerves.
It wasn’t a surprise. They warned me about this in my first group sessions, when I could barely sit still, my skin felt too tight for my body, and my thoughts were ricocheting inside my skull non-stop.
They told me that alcohol wasn’t just numbing cravings, it was numbing everything.
Once it’s gone, you’re going to feel all of it.
They weren’t wrong. Everything is sharper, from the birds outside my window to the scent of disinfectant in the hallway to the ache in my chest that never leaves.
Thirty days sober means a month of not being able to dull the edges of that emptiness; I have had to live fully aware that Rosie is gone.
I shower, letting the water run hot enough to scald my skin as steam curls around the bathroom and fogs the mirror.
With my hands braced against the tile, I close my eyes and let the water drum over the back of my neck as I think about how thrilled she would be of the number thirty.
She loved milestones and celebrating progress, and probably would’ve baked me a lopsided cake to mark the occasion.
The thought of what I’m missing and making her proud causes my throat to tighten, and I turn off the water before I can spiral.
After breakfast and morning check-in, I head down the hall toward Dr. Patel’s office for our weekly one-on-one appointment.
Sunlight streams through the wide windows that line this side of the building.
Dr. Patel’s office door is slightly ajar when I reach it.
I knock lightly before pushing it open further.
“Come in, Easton.” Her voice is soft but steady.
After stepping inside, I shut the door behind me.
Her office doesn’t feel clinical, not in the way I expected it to when I first got here.
A slightly worn bookshelf runs along one wall.
The other holds a couple of framed prints of abstract blues and greens, and a small plant rests on the windowsill.
I take a seat in one of the chairs near the window as she takes the other. Lacing my fingers together, I twist them anxiously as I brace my forearms on my thighs.
“Thirty days today,” Dr. Patel shares with a small smile.
“Yeah.” I dip my chin.
“How does that feel?”
I draw in a deep breath and exhale it slowly. “Like I climbed halfway up a mountain and just realized there’s another peak before I can reach the summit.”
She tilts her head slightly. “That’s honest.”
“I don’t know whether that’s supposed to be a good or bad thing.”
“It’s real, Easton. And real feelings are what we’re working with.”
I shift in my seat, and my knee bounces before I manage to force it to still.
We’ve spent the last month talking about triggers, routines, and how I used alcohol in a futile attempt to manage my grief after Rosie’s death instead of actually dealing with losing her. Lately, that focus has narrowed, but it still circles back to her.
“To maintain your sobriety outside this center,” Dr. Patel adds, folding her hands in her lap, “you’re going to have to face your grief directly. Not manage it. Not suppress it. Actually face it.”
My jaw tightens. “I am facing it.”
“Are you?”
I open my mouth to argue, but close it just as quickly.
The truth is: I’ve been surviving it, barely enduring it.
I acknowledge it in controlled environments—therapy rooms and group counseling sessions—and am forced to let it consume me late at night when the lights are off, and there’s nowhere left to run. But facing it? No, I’m not.
“That’s what the drinking was for,” she opines gently.
“To avoid the gravity of what you have lost. Now that the alcohol is gone, the grief is going to demand your attention. If you don’t learn how to process it, how to cope with it, the torment will pull you back to what numbed it before.
” Maybe a handful more peaks before that summit…
“We’ve talked a few times about Rosie’s journal and how important it is to you. Can you tell me why?”
I stare at the floor for a moment, my eyes tracing the faint pattern in the carpet before finally answering her. “It sounds silly, but reading her deepest thoughts… It’s like I still have her. Like I can still talk to her.”
“That doesn’t sound silly at all.” I glance up, surprised, as Dr. Patel’s expression softens. “I actually think it might be helpful.”
“Helpful?” I repeat, my brows crinkling in confusion. “How?”
She leans back slightly in her chair. “You’ve described the journal as a lifeline. A way to feel connected to Rosie. That connection doesn’t have to be one-sided.”
“I… I don’t understand.”
“I want you to use it to talk to her. She wrote to you sometimes,” Dr. Patel continues. “You’ve told me there are entries addressed to you. Things she couldn’t or didn’t know how to say out loud.”
I nod slowly, thinking about the pages where she professed her love to me.
“I want you to do the same,” she insists. “Write to her.”
I blink at her blankly. “You want me to… What? Write her a letter and pretend she can read it?”
“Yes and no. I want you to express what you haven’t allowed yourself to say out loud. Grief needs a language. Right now, it’s sitting inside you like a storm with no outlet. Writing to her could give it all somewhere to go.”
“It feels…” I hesitate. “Pathetic.”
“It feels vulnerable,” she corrects gently. “There is a difference.”
I rub a hand over my jaw and ask quietly, “What happens if it makes it worse? What if I open something I can’t handle? Can’t close?”
Dr. Patel meets my hesitant stare with her steady one. “It’s already open, Easton. You’re just trying to hold that door shut with every bit of your strength.”
The imagery hits hard, and we sit in silence for a while.
“I’m not asking you to write something polished or profound,” she adds. “Just be honest. You miss her. You’re angry. You’re lost. Write that. Let her be part of your healing instead of something you’re trying bury or outrun.”
“I’ll try.”
“And that’s all I’m asking.”
Inside my room, the air is still, and my bed is neatly made. I lift the photograph of Rosie as I turn from the bedside table and stare at her beautiful face. “I’m supposed to write to you.”
I pull the journal out of the drawer. The leather cover is worn, the edges softened from use.
After opening it carefully, my fingers brush over her handwriting, noting the ink pressed deeper on certain words when she was emotional.
I slip the pen from the elastic loop on the cover and sit cross-legged on the bed, the journal spread wide in front of me.
I stare at the blank page. My mind is loud, but none of the thoughts come together neatly enough to form sentences. I tap the pen lightly against the paper.
Grief needs a language… Not polished or profound…
“Just honest.”
My hand trembles slightly as I lower the pen to the page.
Dear Rosie,
This feels so ridiculous.
I swallow hard and force myself to keep going.
It’s been thirty days since my last drink. I don’t know whether that would make you proud or worried. Probably a little bit of both.
I pause, staring at the ink beginning to sprawl across the page. It’s not as neat as Rosie’s handwriting, but there is something cathartic about this.
I miss you, dreamer.
The simplicity of those four words blurs my vision.
I miss you in ways that don’t fit into sentences. I miss the sound of your laugh from the kitchen. I miss the way you stole the blankets and then denied it with a straight face. I miss the way you said my name.
My chest aches, and I can feel the tears coming, but I don’t stop.
I miss how you curled into my body when we fell asleep at night. I miss the life we were going to have. The future we dreamed of and the home we were going to fill. The kids we were going to have.
I thought we had time. God, Rosie… I thought we had a lifetime.
A tear runs down my cheek and drops onto the page, smudging the ink.
I’m angry sometimes. Most of the time. I don’t know if I’m allowed to be, but I am. I’m angry at the man who took you from me. At the universe. At myself for not being there to protect you. I would have traded places with you without hesitation. Hell, I still would.
The tears flow freely, so hard I can barely see the words as I scribble them across the page.
The drinking wasn’t about you. I need to be honest—with you and myself—about that. I didn’t want to forget you, but I couldn’t handle the pain. And I think part of me believed that if I destroyed myself enough, maybe I could end up wherever you are.
The admission causes a lump to rise in my throat, and I swallow hard to choke it down.
But I’m still here. I don’t know how to build a life without you in it or even how to wake up every morning and not reach for you. I don’t know how to do that.
I only know how to miss you.
I wipe at my eyes and stare down at the blurry, uneven lines of ink.
I love you. I don’t know who I am without you, but I’m going to try to find out. Not because I want to move on. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get over you, but throwing my life away feels like spitting on the memory of who we were.
I’m scared of what happens after the next thirty days. Terrified of walking out those doors without the structure or the guardrails. But I’m more scared of becoming the man I was in that motel room or the shell of a man I’ve been since I lost you.
I lift the photo from beside me and stare at her radiant face for a moment.
If you can hear me… If any part of you still lingers in this world… Stay with me while I figure this out.
Love Always,
Easton.
My chest is raw and flayed open when I finally lower the pen. I close the journal and press my palm against its cover. The grief isn’t gone, but giving it words makes it hurt a tiny bit less.