49. Nik
Nik
March
“Ash!” I shout, stumbling and throwing myself at her. The beer in my hand sloshes over the side of the cup in the process. Shane’s still sitting in the corner, pretending not to be watching me like a damn hawk.
Annoying bastard.
Everything just boiled over tonight. I’m not really sure what I’m even mad about.
Or maybe I’m not even mad. Am I sad? I don’t fucking know.
My life feels like it’s spiraling out of control.
I don’t trust my husband, and I think I resent him.
To add to that, I feel worthless. I’m the one that’s out of my mind, and I do not like that feeling.
“Hey,” she says, eyeing me nervously. “What are you doing?” She pulls back from me, keeping a hold of my shoulders.
“I’m drinking. Thank God you’re here. Drinking alone is so depressing.” I laugh.
“Why are you drinking alone, again?”
“Because my life sucks, and my husband is fixed, and I’m a fucking mess.” My words are slurred, and I’m vaguely aware of the fact that I don’t think I’m making a lot of sense.
“What?”
“Nothing, don’t worry about it. Let’s do shots.” I move to drag her to the bar, but she digs her heels in to stop me.
“No. Hey, I can’t drink tonight. I have to get back to Maggie, but I think maybe you should call it a night anyway. I can take you home on my way.”
“Nah.” I swat the air. “I’m not done. I just got here!”
“I think maybe you’ve been here longer than you realize, babe. You’re sloshed. Let’s just go home. You can stay at my place if you want.”
Rolling my eyes, I ask, “Did your brother tell you to come get me? He’s on my last nerve tonight.” I turn over my shoulder to shoot him a dirty look.
“I think he’s just worried about you. This”—she gestures at me—“isn’t you.”
“Maybe it’s good for him to be worried. Maybe he should be fucking worried!” I shout before realizing it came out really loud, and everyone is now staring at me. “What? Haven’t you ever seen someone throw a fucking fit before? Here it is!”
Flipping my hair, I storm out of the building.
“Hey, Nik. Wait up!” JT shouts.
I didn’t even realize he was here.
“I’m leaving. You can go back inside. Shane wins,” I say over my shoulder, throwing my hands up.
“I don’t know what that means,” he says, now jogging after me.
He cuts me off, stopping in my path. Stepping back from him, I sigh.
“Hey,” he says, out of breath.
“What?”
I know JT means well, but I’m not in the mood for this shit. I’m tired of everyone asking me about my problems. Maybe I should plaster I don’t fucking know what’s wrong with me on my forehead.
“What’s going on with you?”
“Nothing. Can’t I just have a bad day?” Or a bad week, or maybe a bad life. I don’t know.
“Sure. Care to tell me what’s so bad?”
“No, not really.” I cross my arms over my chest.
“Okay. Well, let me drive you home.”
“I don’t want to go home.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m fucking suffocating there. Everything feels wrong, and I hate it!” Tears well in my eyes as I finally say those words out loud.
“Okay. Alright.” He approaches more cautiously this time.
The tears finally break free, and when I speak again, it comes out as a sob. “I have no clue what happened. I think I’m going crazy!”
He nods, looking around. “Let me take you somewhere. You can’t stay here and drink till you pass out. Shane’s going to have a fucking stroke if you keep this shit up.”
“Fuck him.”
“You don’t mean that.”
And he’s right. I don’t. I wish I did, though. I wish I could just run away. I’m so overwhelmed by all of this. I don’t like how any of it feels, and if I could get out, I would.
“I know.”
“Come on.” He grabs my upper arm, guiding me to his truck.
Once inside, he starts the engine and says, “Look, it’s none of my business, but maybe you should talk to someone. I have no clue what all you’ve been through with him, but I know some of it.”
Shaking my head, I stare out the window. “I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not,” is all he says before driving me home in silence.
I wake, alone in my bed with my head pounding. I way overdid it last night. I don’t know what came over me. I was on my way home from work and the idea of coming back to this apartment made me want to crawl out of my skin. That feeling is consuming me.
I finally got what I wanted, so why does it feel so shitty?
After peeling myself from the mattress, I change out of last night’s clothes and wash my face. I don’t know if Shane stayed here last night, but I’m not ready to face him.
It’s not that I don’t love him. I do. I love him more than anything.
But this is killing me. He’s mentioned therapy to me, but I know what they’re going to say.
They’ll tell me I’m codependent and we’re toxic, and we probably shouldn’t be together.
I don’t want to hear that. So instead, I just keep going through the motions.
The smell of coffee greets me as I open the bedroom door.
“Want some?” Shane asks, holding up a cup with steam rolling off the top of it.
I nod, padding over to sit at the counter.
“Here,” he says, sliding a mug and two Tylenol toward me.
“Thank you.”
He leans back on the counter opposite of me with his hands behind his back and exhales deeply.
“What’s going on? We’ve never been like this.”
“Nothing, I just drank too much last night. I’m fine.”
This conversation can’t happen because I don’t know what will happen if I let it out. My resentment has just continued to fester over the weeks, and I’m not sure we can come back from it. So, I just keep pushing it down and hoping it will go away.
“Don’t do that. Don’t lie to me. I can’t help you if you won’t let me in.”
“I don’t need your fucking help,” I snap because that’s part of the problem.
Isn’t it? I don’t need him to fix me or help me.
“What do you need, then? What the fuck do you need?” he pleads desperately.
“I don’t know.” I wish he would just stop. I wish he’d just let it go.
He scoffs. “You don’t know?” He turns away from me, wiping a hand over his mouth. “Baby, I don’t know what to do here. Please just tell me what to do.”
“I’m just miserable,” I blurt out, and it’s like opening the lid on a pressure cooker.
He turns to face me, staring like I just ripped his heart out and stomped on it. He nods and his nostrils flare.
“I love you, but I don’t know how to trust you. I don’t know how to be okay after everything that’s happened. I don’t even know her name!”
“Who?”
“The girl from the picture!” I shout, slamming my hand on the counter.
That’s not the entirety of the problem, and I know that, but that’s what my brain has latched onto.
“I already told you nothing happened!”
“But I’ll never know for sure! I’ll never know if you even know for sure, Shane!”
“I know,” he says through clenched teeth. And I wish I believed him. I wish I could be as sure as he is.
“How?”
“Because I do! God, why are we doing this again?” he pleads with his hands in front of him and his palms up.
“Because I don’t know! I can’t fucking trust you!” I scream.
That stops him in his tracks. He just stares at me with those sad fucking eyes. That’s making it worse because I don’t want to hurt him, but I don’t think I have a choice.
My feelings will hurt him.
“I’m sorry,” he says calmly, his chin trembling.
“I know. You’ve said that, but I don’t know if I can move on,” I cry.
“So what? What do I do?”
I blink as tears fall from my lashes. My bottom lip trembles as I try to get the words to leave my mouth. I know what I need to say. I know where this is going, but I can’t do it. I love him.
I just can’t fucking do it.
“I don’t know if there’s anything you can do, Shane. I—” My words catch in my throat, like my own body is refusing to let them out because once I say it, it’s going to be real. “I think—too much shit has happened, and I don’t know if we can ever really come back from it.”
“Baby, please.” He looks at me, mirroring my pain.
“I’m sorry.”
He stares at me for a beat, and then his breathes turn ragged as he drops his head. “No. No, we can get past this. Nikki, come on.”
“I can’t. I’m sorry.”
“Why? I don’t understand. I did all of this for us! I fixed myself for us!” he yells, slamming his hand on the counter.
“Yeah, I know and now you’re all better, and that’s wonderful, but we aren’t who we were before, and it’s not working. Can’t you see that it’s not fucking working!”
“So what? You only want me if I’m broken? Nik, do you hear how fucked that sounds?” he yells.
“No, I just—” I shake my head and run my hands through my hair before pulling. Taking a deep breath I continue, “I don’t fucking know. I just know I don’t want this.”
“You mean you don’t want me. What? You want me to be sick and dying? You want me to be miserable? Huh? What the fuck do you want!”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying.”
“Then what are you saying?” he yells.
“I don’t know.”
He turns away rubbing the back of his neck before he lifts his face to the ceiling and exhales.
“I did this for you.” He turns to face me and yells, “I was trying to fucking save us!” He gestures between the two of us.
I look down at my feet. I don’t have the words to express what I’m feeling. I can’t make him understand when I don’t even understand myself.
“I know.” I nod, putting my hands on my hips before gesturing to the door and saying, “I’m sorry, please just go.”
“Go?”
Covering my mouth with my hand so I don’t sob, I nod.
He stares at me like he’s waiting for me to change my mind. His eyes plead for me to take it back, but I don’t. I just turn my head away.
“What the fuck?” He runs a hand over his mouth, tears pooling in his eyes as he mutters, “I’ll never understand why you’re doing this.”
I don’t say anything, and he doesn’t move because I don’t totally understand what I’m doing either. I just know I can’t do this anymore.
We just stare at one another, until finally I yell, “Just get the fuck out!”
Then, my favorite person in the world leaves and doesn’t come back.
A sob finally breaks from my chest, and I dig through a drawer until I find a pack of cigarettes. Climbing into the kitchen sink, I open the window and light one.
“You can’t smoke in the building!” shouts the upstairs neighbor.
“Fuck off, Loretta!”