Chapter 7
Fai
Iknew this drive was going to be uncomfortable. I mean… our last extended interaction was our divorce proceedings. It was inevitable. But, I was hoping we would eventually warm up to each other.
Yet here we were, two hours in, still sitting in uncomfortable silence.
Well… Sarah had a steady playlist of folk music playing, and the crunch of the gravel under the tires offered a steady beat.
While not silent, the words left unspoken hung heavy between us.
Like an anchor holding our ship in place, surrounded by unsteady waters as we waited for an eventual storm.
Both my therapist and Daniel, my sponsor, thought this trip could be good for me.
I had spent hours talking through the logistics with each of them over the last few weeks.
While they were supportive, and grateful I had someone to come with me…
that someone being Sarah had made them apprehensive.
My therapist had given me proper coping mechanisms to deal with any uncomfortable conversations.
He, however, hadn't prepared me for uncomfortable silences.
We still had nine hours ahead of us. I was no stranger to quiet, and I had been known to brood, but I couldn't sit in this particular silence for one more minute.
“Did I tell you there’s no internet or service where we’re going?”
“You did. I brought a few books to pass the time,” she mumbled, her gaze focused out the passenger window on the expansive trees that lined the highway.
Sarah had her knees pulled up, lounging in the passenger seat with a knit blanket draped over her legs and her sneakers kicked off on the floor. She was wearing an old college sweatshirt, the hems of the sleeves fraying at the edges. She was so very… her.
Sarah was beautiful in whatever she wore, but she was most herself when laid back and at ease. In her moments of peace and calm, she blossomed.
It was her calm, her peace that had drawn me to her and kept me always wanting more. My mind, my life, had always been a chaotic mess, never stopping and never ending. It’s why I drank, to numb, to make it stop. To make the world around me—that felt too fast—slow down for a time.
Sarah’s presence in my life was a better drug than anything else. She didn’t numb the world around me, she didn’t slow my racing thoughts that didn’t seem to have any brakes, she didn’t make the chaos disappear. She gave me a safe place to land, to rest and reset before I faced it all again.
She gave me a home away from the madness that was my own mind.
“Why did he move out there? Or did your mom move him out there?” Sarah asked as she turned down the radio.
“I’m not actually sure. I guess I’ll add that to my ever-growing list of questions I have for him.” My hands tightened around the wheel, thinking about all the answers he might hold. “I still can’t quite believe he’s real.”
Her head rolled along the headrest, her gaze shifting to me “Do you think he looks like you?”
I laughed softly. “Is that what you’re most curious about?”
She nodded with a smile, one that hit me straight in the heart. “Come on, don’t you want to know? I mean, you must have lucked out on the gene pool. He’ll be your answer if it was your mom or dad who made it so easy for you to have abs.”
“Maybe I just work out. Ever thought about that?” I challenged with a smirk.
She shrugged. “When I first saw them, duh, of course I thought that. Then I lived with you for fifteen years and watched what you ate and how winded you got when working out. It’s gotta be genetics.”
I rolled my eyes and held back a smile. “You’re just jealous.”
“Obviously,” she agreed. “I mean look at you. Who wouldn’t be?”
I laughed harder. “If I didn’t know you better, I’d think you were hitting on me. But you’re far too honest and way too bad at flirting for that.”
She smiled knowingly, her eyes glowing with humor, and looked me up and down. “We both know attraction was never the issue in our marriage.”
It was meant to be a joke, but it was a reminder of the truth of our situation ramming into my heart with a crash.
For just a moment, I had almost forgotten how bad things had gotten between us, how dark my life had become.
For just a moment, it had been Sarah and me the way we were supposed to be. Together.
“Sorry.” Her voice was quiet. I glanced at her, seeing her gaze full of remorse. It wasn’t her intention to hurt me. I don’t think she could purposefully hurt anyone. She was far too good for this world. “I didn’t mean to… I didn’t mean to make things weird.”
“You didn’t,” I said quickly, not wanting her to think for one more moment that it was her fault. That any of this was her fault. “It’s the truth. Our marriage fell apart because of me.”
Sarah shook her head emphatically, her brows drawn together. “You weren’t the problem. Your drinking was, yes. But you, Fai, as a person didn’t cause this.”
“I made the choice to drink again… and again… and again,” I muttered.
“Yes, there is a level of responsibility every addict bears for their choices that lead them to their vice of choice, and yes, it was your choice to drink again… but that doesn’t mean you meant to cause the repercussions and consequences,” she mused, her gaze turning to the road in front of us as she spoke.
“Everyone who’s lived with an addict has a different experience, but in my lived experience…
you didn’t necessarily choose to drink each time.
It was almost like you fell into it, remembering an old bad habit that would make life easier for just a moment.
Addiction is more complicated than most realize.
They think it’s a choice to fall into it and a choice to step away.
But it’s far more complicated. As with most things in life. ”
“Could you tell? Each time I relapsed?” In those moments I had always believed I was hiding it well, with the particular confidence of someone who was certain they didn't have a problem.
She pondered for a moment, biting her bottom lip as she thought back. It took a considerable amount of effort to keep myself from reaching over and gently pulling her lip free with my thumb.
“I think I did,” she said finally, her brow furrowed as she continued thinking deeply, “but I also think I lied to myself.
Told myself I hadn't noticed the smell of alcohol on your breath, or the glassiness in your eyes when you came home.
I wanted to believe you were okay for just a little longer. "
The remorse settled into my bones the way it always did, heavy and constant. I carried guilt over many things, but the pain I had caused Sarah would always weigh the most.
“I know I’ve said this before, but I’m so sorry.
Truly. It wasn’t fair of me to put you through that time and time again.
You didn’t sign up for it, and I’ll always be grateful that you stuck around as long as you did.
Most would have given up on me far earlier.
” I swallowed my emotion down, not wanting to break down in front of her.
She deserved my strength, not my weakness. “Most did.”
“Goldie stuck around,” Sarah offered reassuringly.
A humorless chuckle fell from my lips. “I think it’s more that I showed up on her doorstep drunk as a skunk, and it was too pitiful to turn me away.”
“When did you do that?”
“Ummm… the day we signed the papers…” I confessed and kept my gaze on the road ahead.
I could see her sit up in my peripheral vision and turn fully towards me in her seat. “Your first day sober was the day we got divorced?”
“Technically it was the next day, because I did drink right after we signed the papers and for about an hour after that,” I explained.
“It was rather pitiful, like I said.” I laughed, trying to make it seem less depressing than it really was.
“I ended up on her doorstep asking her to help me get better. She packed me into her car and drove me to a meeting.”
“I don’t even know what to say,” Sarah muttered under her breath.
“I barely remember those first few days,” I rambled on, not wanting to see her anger or disappointment knowing the timing of it all.
“I even went to the hospital one night. I was hallucinating or some shit. At least, that’s what Goldie told me, and based on the medical bill I wasn’t there for long.
I guess years of alcohol abuse really does something to you when in withdrawals. ”
I spared her a quick, cautionary glance. Sarah was sitting sideways in the passenger seat, her eyes wide with shock, her hands grasped around the armrest like it was a life preserver. “You were in the hospital?”
I nodded, reaching back through the fog of those weeks.
The whole stretch after the divorce was hazy, my mind lost somewhere in the detox.
“After you served me papers, my drinking was the worst it had ever been. I mean… it was rare that I was awake and sober during that time. Hell, I didn’t want to be either most of the time.
I—I just couldn’t cope. Signing the papers was a wake-up call for me, but sobering up turned out to be its own problem.
I puked all over Goldie and her house, and because of all the puking I was dehydrated.
That’s what caused the hospital visit. They pumped me full of fluids and some anti-nausea medication and sent me home. ”
“Shit, Faizal,” Sarah mumbled, sitting back into her chair, her eyes going glossy.
“It sounds a lot worse than it was. Don’t get me wrong, getting sober was hard, but I wasn’t ever in danger or anything like that in the process. It just sucked, which was my own fault,” I explained, downplaying the severity of that night.
She tried to turn away from me, tears in her eyes that she refused to let fall. A habit she’d had for as long as I had known her.
“Hey,” I said softly, bringing my hand up to cradle her cheek, dividing my focus between her and the road. “I’m okay. Just hit seven months sober too. I’m doing good.”