Chapter Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Eight
“We can still fix this, I know people.”
The hallway smelled like dust and mold. Surprisingly, I didn’t realize this before, when I only cared about him and the illusion of healing.
I stood outside Paul’s closed door, hands in my jacket pockets, silence on the other side.
I rang the old doorbell, once, twice—no answer.
I texted him once, the message as short as possible.
Me:
“I’m here. At your place.”
No reply. No surprise. I wasn’t expecting miracles when I knocked on his door, but I thought maybe he’d have enough of himself left to face this like a grown-up.
When the elevator finally dinged behind me, I didn’t turn around right away, but knew it was him when I heard uneven footsteps and the clink of glass bottles knocking together in a paper bag.
“Alicia. What are you doing here?” His voice was slurred, but not enough to hide the bitterness.
I turned, taking him in: the unshaven jaw, messy hair, shirt half-tucked, eyes bloodshot but still sharp enough to sting where it hurt.
“You know we should talk, out of respect, if you have any,” I said. I’d played out many scenarios on the way here, but not this.
Paul snorted, fumbling with his keys. “No shit.”
The door swung open, and he staggered inside without waiting for me.
I followed warily, closing the door behind me with a soft click.
The apartment was a skeleton of itself: boxes stacked haphazardly, shelves empty, the ghost of a life packed away in a hurry.
The Camus poster was taken down, leaving a dark rectangular shape on the brick wall.
A half-filled suitcase sat open on the sofa, next to a wrinkled button-down and a copy of Bukowski’s Notes of a Dirty Old Man.
Paul dropped the bottles on the kitchenette counter, tearing into one with shaking hands. He poured whisky into a chipped glass, filled it too high, and took a long swallow. He finally glanced at me, as if finally realizing I was there, eyes glassy but calculating.
“Whisky? Right, that’s off limits now.”
I didn’t respond. I scanned the room, absorbing the chaos: the desperation to escape, the unfinished goodbye.
“I’m not here for drinks,” I said quietly.
Paul laughed, a hollow, humorless sound. “Of course you’re not. You’re here to deliver the final blow. Tell me how I’ve ruined your life.”
I stayed by the door, just in case. “That’s completely not it, Paul, and you know it. I came here to have a civil conversation, but it seems I’m inconveniencing you.”
He raised his glass in mock salute. “Cheers to that.”
For a moment, neither of us spoke. The only sound was the buzz of the fridge and the clink as Paul refilled his glass.
Then, without looking at me, he muttered, “I was this close, Alicia. This fucking close to getting out, to fixing everything, and finally being happy. And then you came along, and then this..?”
He gestured vaguely, looked at me, at my stomach, with a mix of fear, desperation, and pure drunkenness. My eyes didn’t waver, but I was on the verge of shaking.
“I didn’t do this to you, Paul. We were both there.”
He laughed again, sharper this time.
“Yeah, I slept with you because I needed to feel something. So you have a nice memory worth keeping, or whatever. And now I get to watch my life go up in smoke.”
I stepped forward, voice as steady as possible. “You think this is just happening to you? You think I planned this? That I wanted to tether myself to a man who lies and calls it poetry? A man who broke my heart and disrespects me now?”
That hit, but not enough to sober him. Paul paced, running a hand through his hair, glass sloshing dangerously.
“We both know what this was,” he snapped. “It wasn’t love. There was never love. It was… loneliness. A mistake. A distraction until I could get back to where I belong. Could have been any other girl, but you just had to come along, so desperate to be saved!”
I kept reminding myself why I was here, so I steadied my hand and tried to control my other ticks he knew about.
“Then why,” I asked, my voice quieter now, almost fragile, “why did you say we were more than just a fling? Why do you still keep texting me? Ask if I’m okay? Why didn’t you just stop?”
For a second, something flickered in his expression, guilt and confusion welded together by whisky. He shrugged, letting out a long breath. “I don’t know. Fucking chemistry.”
He was sitting on the edge of the sofa now, face down, hands in his hair. For a split second, I thought he looked deflated entirely, almost tearful. He looked at me then, eyes soft in a way that made it worse.
“I was usually drunk when I texted you.”
There wouldn’t be any talk today. Paul turned away when he saw my eyes and knocked back the rest of his drink before slamming the glass down harder than necessary. He gestured around the room, at the boxes, the suitcase, the life he was trying to outrun.
“I had a plan,” he muttered. “Portland. Her, the only woman I love and who forgave me. A clean slate. And now…”. He spun to face me, eyes wild. “Now I’m stuck. With this. With you. You’re not even my type.”
That didn’t even sting the way it should have, because I wasn’t here to be his type. I was here because reality doesn’t care about preferences. A beat of silence stretched between us, thick and suffocating. What was I supposed to say to that? And then he decided to twist the dagger even deeper.
“You know…” he said, his voice lowering, almost conspiratorial, like we were sharing some dark joke.
“You were just too deaf in that fucking left ear, or both, to hear me when I told you, when I said it was temporary. That all we had was the meadow to forget everything. It was never going to be love. You must have been out of your mind.”
The words landed like a punch to the ribs, brutal and calculated. My fingers curled into fists inside my jacket pockets.
“I think you’ve said enough for one evening, Paul.”
He ran a hand over his face, as if even he, in his state, couldn’t believe what he’d just said. But he didn’t apologize. Instead, he had an idea.
“Look…” He sighed, suddenly softer, almost pleading. “We can fix this. I know people. You don’t have to carry this… thing. No hospitals. No drama. Just a few pills and… gone. And I’ll be gone, never having to see you again.”
I stared at him, speechless. I was running through different options in my head myself, but the way he said it was horrific. When I finally spoke, I was on the verge of collapsing, and he caught it, but my voice was clear and sharp.
“I came here in the hopes of having a civilized conversation. I had no expectations, but this, you insulting me, completely smashed, is a new low, even for you.” I said, stepping back toward the door.
“I won’t stay to watch you drown in self-pity and treat me like this, an inconvenience to sort out with pills and erase, like a mistake.
Insult, curse, and drink all you want, Paul, or even call me deaf, but never mistake my silence for weakness. ”
Paul’s arm dropped to his side, a new bottle swinging loosely from his fingers. He was utterly broken, but that was no longer my problem. I’d gotten my closure, albeit in a devastating way. I opened the door, pausing just long enough to look at him one last time.
“You don’t have to worry, Paul,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. I was so tired. My body was exhausted, and I was tired of this. No more pretending that this could turn into anything more than it was: a goodbye.
I straightened. “I won’t be the thing that ruins you. You’ve done that just fine on your own.”
And with that, I walked out. No slam this time, just the quiet finality of footsteps fading down the hall.
Despite my “deafness” as he described it, I could hear him behind closed doors, drowning further in alcohol and sobbing uncontrollably and sitting in the wreckage of his escape, surrounded by packed boxes and empty whisky bottles.
For once, there were no words left, just the echo of everything he’d broken.