Chapter Thirty-Six #2
“I didn’t drink,” I said quickly. “I wanted to. I stood there with it in my hand. I could feel it burning in my throat before it even touched my lips. And I thought about you.”
She didn’t soften.
“I thought about you in that VA hospital room when I couldn’t remember my own name but I remembered yours,” I said, voice breaking now. “I thought about you reading my letters like they were oxygen. I thought about you standing at a grave with my name on it.”
Her breath caught. She did that thing where she clenched her jaw, raising her chin like she was bracing for a hit. My Malibu.
“And I thought if I drink this, I lose you for real.”
My chest felt tight. Too tight.
“I can survive a lot,” I said. “I have survived a lot. But I won’t survive you walking away.”
Her eyes went glassy.
“I’ve loved you since we were seventeen,” I said. “Since you told me I was arrogant and you hated my stupid bike.”
A flicker of something moved in her expression.
“I don’t want to numb you out,” I said. “I don’t want to forget your face just to quiet my head. I don’t want to be a man you have to survive.”
Her fingers tightened on the edge of the door.
“You are the only thing I’ve ever chosen that made me better instead of smaller. I don’t need you to forgive me tonight,” I said. “I don’t need you to say it’s okay.”
My throat burned.
“I just need you to believe that I am fighting for you.”
Her eyes filled. She blinked hard.
“I packed your bag because I won’t go back there again,” she said.
“I know.” I nodded immediately. “And if I ever put you there again, you don’t wait. You leave. You hear me? You leave.”
She recoiled, and I hate myself for it. But it needed said.
“I am not asking you to save me,” I said. “I am asking you not to give up on me while I learn how to save myself.”
The chain on the door rattled softly.
“I choose you,” I said again, but this time it wasn’t a declaration. It was a plea. “I choose you over the noise. I choose you over the bottle. I choose you over the easy way out.”
Her breath trembled.
“I want to deserve you,” I whispered. “I don’t just want to love you. I want to deserve you.”
She stepped into the hallway. “I’m angry,” she said. “I’m hurt.”
“I know.”
“I don’t forgive you.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“I won’t be your rehab.”
“I won’t make you be.”
A beat.
“If you walk away from this again,” she said quietly, “I won’t survive it.”
I reached for her and stopped myself because I wasn’t sure I had that right.
“I am not walking away from you again,” I said, and for the first time there was no shake in it. “You are it for me. You always have been.”
She crossed the space between us. Her hands grabbed my face like she was afraid I’d disappear. The kiss wasn’t gentle. It was furious and terrified and desperate. When she pulled back, her forehead pressed to mine.
“Go,” she whispered. “Go fight for us.”
I nodded, not trusting words. She kissed me again, and then I drove to the meeting with my hands steadier than they had been in a long time.
I sat in a circle of ugly chairs and worse coffee and said my name and my voice didn’t break.
I listened to men and one woman talk about who they were when the bottle held the leash and who they were learning to be now that their hands were empty.
I didn’t feel fixed. But I was going to try. For her. For them. For me.
Outside, the air was cold and honest. I texted her to let her know I was headed back to Atlanta.
Driving to the clubhouse, my leg ached with the vibration of the bike under me.
The lot lights threw long cones on the gravel.
Through the front window I saw Hannah closing up, moving like the personification of a heart that refused to quit.
In the garage, Dalton and Mac argued about a shim that didn’t exist and would have to be made.
Somewhere, Maria and Diego were probably at home tucking Jewel into bed.
I stood by my bike and breathed until the shake in my hands dropped to a hum.
I thought about whiskey. How it lied like a good salesman.
How it told me I could hold fire and not smell like it.
How many times I’d let it make me smaller, just so the voices in my head weren’t quite as loud.
I thought about Holly’s eyes tonight. Not pleading.
Not even hopeful. Just watching to see if I was a man who could hold eye contact with the truth.
She was better than any whiskey. A math problem with only one right answer.
I went inside. Hannah didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. She slid a Tupperware at me and then headed home to August.
In my room, I sat on the edge of the bed and set my phone on the nightstand face-up like a man waiting for orders. I typed, erased, typed again. Settled on the only thing that didn’t taste like a commercial.
Me: I love you, Malibu. Always have. Always will.
The dots came and went.
Malibu: You better. Goodnight, handsome.
I lay back. My phone pinged again.
Malibu: And for the record… I love you too.
I smiled when I set the phone back down.
The ceiling didn’t spin. The ghosts in the corners kept their voices to themselves for once.
I closed my eyes on the image of a door half-open, a chain that would come off when it was supposed to, and a woman with a pen in her hair who had already done the hardest thing and might let me try.
I slept without dreaming.