Chapter 4 #2
“Maybe. But first, you have to get yourself back. You can’t love someone else when you’re this broken. Trust me.” Randy continues with his sage advice.
I know he’s right. But focusing on myself while Rhea is out there, trying to forget me, makes my skin crawl. I fidget and feel the jagged edge of a broken guitar pick. It’s a reminder of what I’m fighting for, a marker for who I want to become.
“What if it’s too late by the time I get out of here?” God, how would I survive in a world where she doesn’t exist?
“Then you’ll have to live with that. But you’ll live with it sober.” Randy’s confidence in my ability to live in that world is lost on me.
We sit in silence for a while longer, watching the sun climb higher over the lake. Birds call to each other across the water, and in the distance, I can hear other people living their lives -laughing, talking, and existing in a world that doesn’t revolve around my pain.
“I used to write songs about her. Back then, when things were good, melodies came to me just by watching her sleep. The happy tunes I hadn’t played with since I was a kid came back. She always has this way of bringing out the best in me.”
“What made you stop writing for her?” He doesn’t hide his curiosity.
I think about his question for a moment. "I got scared. Happiness felt unreal. I waited for her to leave, so I drank more and pushed her away. Self-fulfilling prophecy." I roll my eyes at myself because I sound like an asshole.
"Fear’s a motherfucker. It makes us do all kinds of stupid shit in the name of self-protection." Randy hits the nail on the head.
“I pushed away the best thing that ever happened to me because I was afraid of losing her. How fucked up is that?” I’m an idiot.
"Pretty fucked up. But understandable. Doesn’t make it right, but it makes it human." At least, he thinks it’s human and not my full character.
We head back toward the main buildings. My ribs throb with every step. The ache in my body is nothing next to the raw misery squeezing my chest, but it’s a reminder of how far I’ve crashed. Two weeks ago, I was Gray Garrison, frontman of Case in Point. Now I’m just another broken soul in rehab.
Part of our walk back is silent, as I sift through the wreckage of what I ruined.
“Can I ask you a question?” I don’t know why I ask permission, but maybe it’s because I don’t want to take advantage of the kindness he’s showing me by offering his wisdom.
“Sure, you can always ask.” Randy’s calm and easygoing.
“Do you think she’ll ever forgive me?”
Randy turns to face me. His eyes are kind but honest, and I brace myself for an answer I might not want to hear. “I don’t know. But I know that if you get clean and stay clean, do the work and become the man she deserved all along, then you’ll have given her the best gift you possibly can.”
It’s not the reassurance I was hoping for, but it’s a thread of possibility.
“Even if she doesn’t take me back, she should know that loving me mattered because it changed me?” It feels like a profound epiphany.
“Now you’re getting it.” He smiles.
As I step into the dining hall, my reflection stares back at me from the entrance door’s glass.
Hollow-eyed.
Unshaven.
Wrecked in ways no bruise can show.
I try my best to remember when I began to look so fucking old. A memory--one I’m not proud of--resurfaces.
The hotel bar in Austin glows amber in the dim lighting, all polished wood and leather that costs more per square foot than most people make in a month. I shouldn't be here. I know I shouldn't be here. But my feet carried me down from our room anyway, drawn by something I don't want to name.
One hundred eighty-three days sober.
Six months and two days since I met Rhea in that bathroom at Requiem Records. Six months of waking up clear-headed, of actually remembering every conversation, every kiss, every whispered promise in the dark. Six months of being the man she deserves instead of the disaster I'd been for so long.
But tonight, something cracked.
The show was perfect—a sold out crowd and our best performance of the tour. The kind of night that used to end with me drowning in celebration, using alcohol to somehow make the high last longer. Except it never made anything last. It only made me forget.
I should be upstairs with Rhea right now. She's probably asleep in our bed, her dark hair spread across the pillow, one hand tucked under her cheek the way she always does. She looked so proud of me tonight, standing side stage with that smile that makes my chest ache with how much I love her.
That's the problem, isn't it? Loving her this much terrifies me.
"What can I get you?" The bartender materializes in front of me, a professional smile in place. He doesn't recognize me—or if he does, he's good at hiding it. The late shift at a hotel bar probably means he's seen everything.
I should say "club soda." I should order coffee. I should walk away.
"Whiskey," I hear myself say instead. "Jack Daniel's. Neat."
The words taste wrong in my mouth, like a betrayal of every promise I've made. To my therapist from my last stint in rehab. To Andrew, who's sacrificed so much to keep me alive. To the band, who've watched me nearly destroy everything we built together.
To Rhea, who looks at me like I hung the moon and personally arranged the stars.
The bartender pours two fingers of amber liquid into a crystal tumbler and slides it across the bar. It sits there between us, catching the low light, looking deceptively harmless for something that's ruined so many parts of my life.
I tell myself I'm just going to look at it. Maybe hold the glass, feel the weight of it in my hand, remind myself why I stopped.
But my fingers are already wrapping around the cool crystal.
Just one, the voice in my head whispers. One drink to take the edge off. You've been doing so well. You deserve to relax. It's not like you're going to spiral from one drink.
Except I know better. I've always known better.
The first time I drank, I was fourteen years old, raiding my adoptive father's liquor cabinet because the nightmares about Mom's death were getting worse. That first sip of whiskey burned going down, but it made everything softer. Quieter. Bearable.
It also started a pattern that nearly killed me multiple times over the next sixteen years.
I lift the glass to my lips, and the smell hits me first—that distinctive Jack Daniel's scent that used to mean relief, oblivion, escape. My hand trembles slightly, and I'm not sure if it's from wanting this or from being terrified of wanting it.
Rhea wouldn't leave you over one drink, the voice argues. She's not like that. She loves you. She understands the pressure you're under.
But that's a lie, and I know it. It's not about whether she'd leave me. It's about whether I'm the man I promised her I'd be. The man I promised myself I'd be.
The whiskey touches my tongue.
It's like coming home to a place you swore you'd never return to. The burn, the heat, the way it seems to quiet all the noise in my head for just a moment. One moment of peace in a brain that never stops moving, questioning, or being afraid.
I drain the glass in two swallows.
"Another," I tell the bartender, and I don't even recognize my own voice.
He pours without comment, probably used to watching people make terrible decisions at two in the morning.
This one goes down easier. It always does.
By the time I head back upstairs, I've had four. Not enough to be drunk—I've built up too much tolerance over the years for four drinks to do much—but enough that I can't lie to myself anymore about what this means.
The hotel room is dark when I slip inside, moving as quietly as possible. Rhea is exactly where I pictured her, curled on her side, breathing deep and even. Beautiful and trusting and completely unaware that I just shattered something we can't repair.
I should wake her up. I should tell her what I did. Get ahead of the lie before it has a chance to grow.
Instead, I brush my teeth twice, change into sleeping clothes, and slide into bed beside her. She shifts in her sleep, automatically curling into my side, her hand coming to rest over my heart.
"Love you," she mumbles, mostly asleep.
"Love you too, baby," I whisper back, and the words feel like ashes in my mouth.
She'll find out eventually. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next week, but eventually the truth always surfaces. The drinks will become a regular thing. One will become two, two will become six, six will become however many it takes to stop feeling everything so intensely.
And Rhea, my sweet, patient, endlessly forgiving Rhea, will watch me disappear one drink at a time until I'm nothing but a ghost wearing the face of the man she fell in love with.
But that's future Gray's problem.
Tonight, I just hold her close and try to memorize what it feels like to be the man she believes I am. Because part of me knows, even now, that I'm already losing that man.
The whiskey sits warm in my stomach, and for the first time in six months, the voice in my head finally goes quiet.
I fall asleep thinking that maybe, just maybe, I can control this.
I'm wrong.
I'm always wrong about this.
But I won't admit that for another two and a half years, not until I wake up in that Atlanta alley with no memory of how I got there and Rhea's voicemail telling me she's gone.
I look back at my reflection one last time and notice that for the first time in months, there’s the faintest flicker of hope in my eyes.
The road ahead stretches for ninety days and beyond. If I’m lucky, it will be years of sobriety and a lifetime spent carrying the weight of my choices, no matter where they lead.
Rhea is out there in the world, living her life without me.
Maybe she’s curled up with a book on a sunny porch, laughing with friends, or learning, bit by bit, how to be happy without me.
If getting clean means she never has to fear my self-destruction again, if it lets her move forward free from the shadow of my addiction, then maybe that’s enough.
It has to be because real love means wanting her happiness, even if that happiness unfolds in a world without me.
And for the first time in my adult life, I’m going to try to love her the way she deserves. But what does loving the right way even look like? Is it sacrifice, understanding, or the strength to let her chase happiness on her own terms?