Chapter 18 #2
Diane turns it over in her mind for a few seconds, but there isn't much to weigh. She wants to tell Cassidy things about her life. She feels comfortable with her, and unlike the other women she's been involved with, she doesn't feel the need to keep things hidden.
"I started drinking when I was twenty," Diane begins, no shame in her voice, nothing close to it.
"I'd never touched alcohol before, and I remember thinking it was disgusting the first time.
" A short laugh escapes her, brightening her eyes and making Cassidy's heart pick up.
"Then came a hangover so brutal it killed any desire I had to ever touch a beer again.
I had a terrible job, but good coworkers, so when we'd finish for the day we'd head to this dive bar on East Broadway—the only place we could afford—and we'd be there until midnight with half-liter pitchers and shots of something I'd rather not remember. "
Cassidy watches her with an intensity she doesn't try to hide.
"So there was a young, wild Diane?"
"For a few years, yeah." She sets her chopsticks aside and leans back in her chair.
"It became a habit, and before I knew it, I was drinking every day.
I thought I had it under control—in fact, I landed a better job by walking into the interview without having slept, straight off a night of cheap vodka.
I think that's what set everything in motion, because something in my brain decided that as long as I could stay on my feet, drinking wasn't getting in the way of what I wanted. "
"If this was when you were twenty and you've been sober for ten years..."
Cassidy lets the question hang between them, and Diane doesn't need her to finish it to understand what she's asking.
"By the time I got to Whitestone, my life was work, drink, sleep—and yet I felt like I was at the best point in my whole life.
" She makes a gesture with her hands, as if to say yeah, I know, pretty stupid, right?
"I'd gotten the job I'd worked myself to the bone for, I had a decent amount of money in the bank, and I'd started a relationship that felt right. "
Cassidy raises both eyebrows. She'd been prepared for anything from tonight except Diane opening up to her like this. She says nothing—she doesn't want to speak and break the moment.
"A year in, we had our first fight about the drinking, but I was so drunk I passed out on the couch while she kept telling me, over and over, that I was going to end up destroying myself.
" Diane picks up her water bottle as if she's about to take a sip, but she's really somewhere far away in that memory.
"Then I apologized, said the right things, made promises I obviously never kept—but I got better at hiding it. "
"Did it work?" Cassidy asks, and her brother Kenny comes to mind.
"For a while." Diane sighs and presses her lips together in a way Cassidy badly wants to bite.
"Then there were more fights, but this time I was too tired to lie.
So I put my foot down and said this was who I was.
" A shadow of guilt and shame crosses her face.
"And she stayed anyway. She put up with things no one should have to, until she'd had enough, and she left. "
"God, I'm sorry. Is that what pushed you to get help?" Cassidy asks, and moves her glass of wine to the side of the table, as if the gesture were a small show of support.
Diane shakes her head and smiles—a sad one this time.
"That made it worse. I was in a downward spiral for months, but she hadn't completely disappeared from my life." She looks down at her bracelet and touches it with the tip of her finger. "One day I hit rock bottom again, and she found me half passed out on the desk in my office."
Cassidy's eyes go wide, and the quiet murmur she's always felt in her chest finally sharpens into a clear voice.
"Clara," she whispers.
"Clara," Diane confirms, nodding. She wasn't trying to keep it hidden any longer.
"I don't know how she managed it, but she got me out of there without anyone noticing the state I was in.
She dragged me back to her place, made me put in for the vacation time I had saved up, and handled everything so it got approved immediately.
I did two weeks in an intensive detox program, then a few more in a lighter one, and spent the next three months living with her.
She came to every AA meeting with me, found a therapist who specialized in this, and didn't leave my side for a single second.
I owe her my life. Without her, I'd be dead. "
The silence settles over the living room, and Cassidy finds another small piece of the human being sitting across from her—the one who suffers, who really feels things.
The one who comes alive under her hands she already knows pretty well, and now she realizes she wants to keep uncovering more of Diane Carter.
She stands up and, as best she can, climbs into Diane's lap. The edge of the table digs into her back, but she doesn't care, because she needs her body as close to Diane's as possible.
"Thank you for telling me this." She kisses her softly. "I don't know how you do it, but somehow I like you even more now."
Diane feels her heart in her throat. She doesn't let it show. She just narrows her eyes with a trace of suspicion.
"There's something incredibly attractive about the fact that you're not only the ice queen who's going to crack the office floor with her heels someday." She smiles and then catches Cassidy's lower lip between her own. "And I can't wait to find out more about you."
Fear reminds Diane that she's making a mistake—that opening herself up more to Cassidy is walking toward the edge of a cliff with no safety gear.
She hadn't meant to say any of this, but the moment pulled it out of her, and the result is that she feels something she hasn't felt with a woman in years.
She slides a hand to the back of Cassidy's neck and draws her close, because Diane would rather undress her body than keep undressing her soul in front of the woman who has made her feel alive again.