Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Jay shifted in the chair beside Ari’s bed and dropped his hands from his eyes, the overhead lights stabbing into his retinas. Soundgarden droned from the radio that never shut the fuck up. The lights, Cornell’s voice, the beeping—all of it was too much.
The clock on the wall said past eight. That couldn’t be right.
Had he eaten today? He remembered coffee. Maybe. Or had that been yesterday?
Yesterday. Friday. The meeting.
It came in flashes: Riley’s face, the blood. Luke’s arms hauling him back. Lionel’s scotch burning down his throat. David’s grip on his shoulder. The weight of the Macallan bottle. The whole ride home.
David had told him to sleep. He had, mostly. Woke up shaking, mouth like sandpaper, head splitting, and found a bottle from Ari’s old stash. Just enough to stop the shakes. That’s all. Just enough.
He hadn’t really stopped since then.
Time kept doing that thing where it slipped.
Jay forced himself to look at Ari. Same position. Same tubes. He hated the way the nurses looked at him with that careful, professional pity they reserved for families of the lost. Maybe he was better off at home. But not being here felt worse somehow.
Everything felt worse somehow.
Guilt was like that. Tidal.
Don’t visit Ari and he was a bad brother. Visit and he couldn't stop cataloging every moment he should’ve intervened. Reconnect with Ava and he’d dragged her back into the worst of it, hiding things from her already.
He hadn’t even had that much today. He could have a couple more drinks. To take the edge off. Then he’d stop.
His phone buzzed, and his vision took a second to focus.
Ava: I’m coming over tomorrow. We need to talk.
He started to type. Wanted to tell her he was sorry, that the meeting was a massacre, and he hadn’t meant to break his sobriety but the world was too loud and his skin felt too tight and he didn’t know how else to make it stop.
He deleted it.
He thought about Luke’s face. That look. The pity of it.
He couldn’t survive seeing that on Ava—couldn’t survive her figuring out what he’d always been underneath all of it…what he was becoming again, or maybe had never stopped being.
What if she decided it was too much? What if this was the thing that made her leave?
She’d be the one leaving this time.
He couldn’t deal with that. Not now. Not when everything else was already gone.
Jay: ok.
His heart kicked against his ribs. Tomorrow evening. That gave him almost a day.
To sober up. Figure out how to hide the evidence of what he’d done.
He could do that. Stop drinking, take a shower, eat something, sleep it off. By tomorrow evening he’d be fine. She’d never know. It was simple, really. Easy.
Jay pulled the flask from his jacket. Nearly empty. Just one more bottle to sleep on. Just to get through the night. Then he’d stop.
He took one last pull, letting the burn steady him.
“It’ll be fine,” he told Ari. Told himself. “I’ve got it under control.”
He headed for the door, already running through which liquor stores would still be open. Already knowing he wouldn’t stop after tonight. Already knowing tomorrow she’d see him, and there’d be nothing left to hide behind.
But right now, for a few more hours, he could still pretend he had a choice.