Chapter 20 #2
I felt a blanket land on my body and her cold hands tucking it around me. Just when I thought she was leaving, she sat down on the floor next to the couch, her head leaning against my chest. I felt her soft sobs—the ones she tried to stop.
I had never hated myself more than I did right then. I didn’t want to be the cause of her pain, but I was the sole cause. I was demolishing everything good in her life.
“Why do you keep doing this?” she spoke softly through her tears. “I love you, Fai. I just want you to come back. I miss you. I miss the way you smile, the way you laugh… I miss the way you used to hold me at night. I miss you. Come back to me.”
I wanted to stand up and yell that I was right here. I was right here, but I was drowning and didn’t know how to swim to safety. I didn’t know how to stop. I didn’t even know how to want to stop. I wanted to beg her to save me, to swim me to safety, to sew me up and make me whole again.
But it wasn’t fair.
It wasn’t fair to put it all on her, and I knew that.
I loved Sarah more than I loved myself. Loving her was as essential as breathing; there was simply no way for me to live without loving her entirely.
But our love was killing us both slowly.
I was drowning, dragging her down with me.
But she wasn’t resisting, letting the waves pull her down, refusing to let me go.
Sarah eventually fell asleep on my chest, her breath slowing, fanning over my skin.
I let it wash over me with warmth one more time.
I couldn’t save myself, but I could save her.
I lay there, refusing to fall asleep, knowing it was the last time I would get to spend a night with her.
The last time I would feel her close to me.
The last time I got to call her mine.
The next morning, I downed a finger of whiskey and picked some stupid fight. I couldn’t even remember how it started… but I needed to get her angry.
Sarah was stomping around our kitchen, making coffee, and the anger radiated off her in waves. It was a Saturday, which would give her time before she had to go back to work. She wouldn’t have to put on a brave face to help others pick up the pieces of their lives while her own was crumbling.
“I don’t get it, Fai.” She slammed her mug down on the counter, the hot coffee just barely spilling over the edge. “I am trying so hard here. I’m trying to be patient, I’m trying to give you grace, I’m trying to understand, but you need to try, too.”
She closed her eyes for a moment and took a few steadying breaths.
When she opened them, they were damp with tears ready to fall, but she held them back, knowing they would hurt me.
“I just feel so alone. None of our friends support us anymore. I can’t talk to them about you because they want me to…
” She trailed off and collapsed into the seat across from me.
“As long as we have each other and love each other, I know we’ll be okay. ”
This was the part of the conversation where I would usually say I loved her—where I would promise to try harder, and she would look at me with hope, though that hope grew thinner every time. But this time… this time, I didn’t say anything.
“I love you, Fai.” She reached across the table to take my hand, but I pulled away. “Fai?”
She needed me to speak up, to say anything, but I couldn’t. Wouldn’t. She would never understand, but this was the only way I could think to save her.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled, finally looking up at her.
Her breath hitched, her eyes wide. “You still love me, right?”
I closed my eyes. “I’m sorry,” I repeated.
It was silent—the world stopping around us.
Not that I cared; everything in me was dying.
My heart had no reason to beat, and my lungs had no purpose to breathe.
It was all pointless without her. But she deserved better than the life I had condemned us to.
She shouldn’t need to defend my actions to our…
her friends. She shouldn’t need to worry about me coming home drunk.
She deserved so much better than me.
“You’re lying,” she whispered.
I opened my eyes and shook my head.
“Fai—” She opened her mouth to argue, but I cut her off with the sound of my chair squeaking against the floor as I stood. I wandered into the kitchen, opening the cabinet over the fridge she couldn’t reach and pulling out a bottle of whiskey.
I didn’t even stop for a glass, pulling off the top and drinking straight from the bottle.
“Stop it!” she yelled, moving toward me and pushing against my body to get the bottle.
In all the years we had been together, she had never seen me drink—at least not since I got sober the first time.
She pushed against me as I gulped it down, the alcohol burning my throat as it traveled to my stomach, warming my veins that now felt ice-cold.
“Stop it!” she wailed again, pushing against me, begging me. But I didn’t listen, instead downing every last drop. When it was finally empty, I threw the bottle across the room, the glass shattering against the wall.
Sarah watched in shock, her gaze slowly meeting mine, and she stepped back.
“Faizal.” Her voice was quiet, the word shaking.
“I’m done,” I muttered, turning and walking toward the front door. I grabbed my jacket off the hook by the wall and waited for a heartbeat. Every time we fought, she would stop me from leaving.
This time, she didn’t. She stood frozen in the kitchen, looking at the shattered bottle.
The glass shards were scattered across the floor, some glinting in the sunlight.
My hand rested on the doorknob, and I looked back one more time, knowing that bottle was the end.
The pieces resembled our marriage… my heart… my life.
I left the house, the door closing behind me with a final click. I waited on the front porch for a moment more. I nearly turned back to beg for her forgiveness, clean up the mess, and promise to be better.
But I wouldn’t be better. We both knew it.
I still nearly turned—then I heard the click of the front door lock. I wasn’t welcome. Finally, I left, walking away from the house and down the street. I had no destination in mind, but I knew I couldn’t be at the house anymore.
Sarah didn’t follow me. She didn’t stop me.
I didn’t come back.
Now
“No… tell me you’re lying now,” she pleaded. “Please tell me you’re lying.”
I shook my head. “I started that fight on purpose. I needed a way to get you to leave me—not just leave me, but give up on the idea of us.”
“No,” she muttered again, her hands flying to her mouth.
“I know it was wrong to lie, but I don’t regret it, Sarah.
I don’t. We were dying in that relationship.
You were fighting a one-woman army against a force I had given up on beating years before.
I wanted to get you as far away from me as possible.
I wanted you to be happy. I wanted you to live a long, happy life.
I wanted you to grow old with someone—live a life with someone who wanted to live—and that wasn’t me,” I explained, my mind reeling just thinking back.
There was no denying I was depressed as shit; it was obvious now.
“I know it’s wrong to lie, and you can hate me forever if you need to.
I accepted that you would when I told you I didn’t love you.
I wanted you to hate me because it would mean you would finally let me go. That you would finally be free.”
She turned to me, her eyes blazing. “It wasn’t your place to force my decision! You know I only served those goddamned papers because I thought you didn’t love me?”
“I know; that’s why I did it,” I explained, trying to keep my voice calm but failing miserably.
“You were dying in that marriage, Sarah! I was killing you. You talk about watching the person you love wither in front of you? I saw that! I watched you disappear into our marriage. The difference? I knew it was my fault. I knew it was my own doing, but I didn’t know how to stop it.
It was a never-ending cycle that was pushing us further and further into our graves. ”
“We could have made it work. Look at you—you’re sober now,” she argued, pointing a finger in my face. “We could have been together if you had sucked it up and gotten sober.”
I took a steadying breath, knowing she was angry.
“You know it’s not that easy.” She deflated slightly but still faced me toe-to-toe.
“At the end of the day… I would have never gotten sober if we didn’t get divorced.
If I didn’t lose you. And we would have never gotten divorced if I didn’t lie to you. ”
She stood there, seething. Her hands were balled into fists, her glare trained on me. But her eyes still shed tears, each one trailing softly down her cheek.
“I’m sorry you’re hurt,” I muttered. “But I’m not sorry I lied.”
She exploded, lunging toward me and banging her fists against my chest. “How could you?” she cried. “How could you leave me? Leave us!”
“Sarah, stop,” I urged, but she continued, months—even years—of emotions spilling out at once.
I took her wrists in my hands. She wasn’t hurting me, but the violence wasn’t helping.
She struggled for a moment but then acquiesced, relaxing into my hold.
Her head fell forward, her forehead resting against my chest.
I wrapped my arms around her as she broke into sobs. I held her close, feeling her body shake and holding back my own cries. I had caused this hurt; I knew that. I hoped that someday she would understand why.
“It’s not fair,” she muttered into my chest after her cries had slowed. “Do you know how much it hurt, thinking you didn’t love me anymore?”
She leaned back in my hold, her eyes meeting mine. My hand moved to her cheek, cupping her face in my palm. “I promise you, it didn’t hurt as much as you thinking I didn’t.”
“You really didn’t stop loving me?” she finally asked.
I nodded. “I can’t stop, Sarah. The only way my love for you would stop is if my heart stopped beating.
I’ve loved you from the moment I met you, and I will love you until I die.
I will love you in every lifetime.” I sighed, letting go of her and stepping back. “I shouldn’t be saying this. Not now.”
She laughed lightly and wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “I guess love confessions and running from your maybe-brother-who’s-crazy don’t go hand in hand.”
I shook my head. “While you make an excellent point, I shouldn’t be confessing my love to you when you’re in a relationship.” Sarah’s eyes went wide as I spoke. “I just couldn’t take another moment of you believing it. I’m sorry you found out this way; I really am.”
Sarah took a steadying breath. “On the topic of lies, I should probably confess something to you.”
My head tilted in question, urging her to continue.
“I’m not actually seeing anyone.”
I swear my brain short-circuited for a moment. “You’re not seeing—Say again?”
“I panicked about sharing a bed. I knew it would mess with my head, and I believed at the time you didn’t love me. You wouldn’t cross any boundaries—or try to—if you thought I was taken. So I lied to protect myself.”
I stared at her for a moment. This was the most ridiculous situation I had ever been in: the two of us hiding in the woods with no shoes on, night approaching, confessing all of our secrets to one another. “You’re single?”
She nodded.
“Unclaimed? Boyfriend-less?”
She nodded again and let out a teary laugh. “Yes, Fai. I’m not seeing anyone. I haven’t seen anyone since… well, you.”
“I—”
Crack.
I was cut off by a flash of lightning and the sudden downpour of rain all around us.