“No you are not! Where are you going?”
I turn and lean back against the car, wishing she wouldn’t make a scene out here on the sidewalk. I groan.“I just need to go to the store.”
Lana stomps her foot like a child, her arms crossed over her chest, with a glare that is shooting bullets. “Okay,” she says. “Fine. Then I have a list of things I need you to bring back. Since you’re going tothe store.”
“Lana…”
“Say it, Christian!” She shoves my chest and my back knocks in the car. “Fucking say it to my face. You’re going to buyalcohol!Don’t treat me like I’m stupid!”
“I never said you were stupid,” I mumble.
“Go, Christian!” With her nostrils flared and her caramel eyes on fire, she steps back from me. “Go then! But I swear to whatever god exists that if you get back here with a bottle or a case ofanything,I am done. You’re out or I’m leaving, I don’t care.”
“Lana,” I scoff. “Stop.”
“No,” she says so quietly that the tone of the two letter word makes me stand straighter. “I refuse to sit around while I watchthe man I love—” She pauses when her voice severely cracks, her shoulders trembling. “I won’t watch you turn into your dad, Christian.”
I run my tongue over my teeth and nod. “Nice one, Lana.”
“Yeah?” She laughs dryly, and she keeps scaring me. My heart is moving too fast and my palms are too sweaty. I feel my bones shaking from the anxiety, and I needsomething. “Okay then.”
She says it like a threat. No—No she spits it out like a bullet, and it shoots directly into my heart.
She’s right. I am turning into my alcoholic father.
Lana turns on her heels and lets herself back into the apartment building. She doesn’t spare me another glance or moment of her time as the door slams behind her.
I groan with my fingers in my hair, pulling at the strand. “Fuck.” I take a deep breath and my fists slam down onto the top of the car. “Fuck!”
My left hand pulls the handle of the door, opening it just a few inches. I picture Lana packing her bags, removing any evidence of herself in that apartment. If I leave, she’s going to pull off the greatest disappearing act of all time, and I’ll be…drunk. Drunk and then dead on our apartment floor, grieving the only woman I’ve ever loved because I couldn’t get a hold of myself.
She’ll be gone because I couldn’t go long enough without a taste of beer or tequila or whiskey orsomething.Because I allowed it to become the most important thing in my life.
“Fuck,” I grumble and slam the car door closed.
Unsteady, I walk to the door and let myself into the building. I take the stairs to the third floor apartment, one at a time, regaining my composure. I turn the knob on our door and it opens. She’s pacing through the apartment, folded clothes gathered in her hands as she goes back and forth between our room and the bags she’s laid out on our couch.
“Lana,” I rasp.
She keeps moving, ignoring me and filling her bags. Rightfully so.
Lana drops a few pairs of jeans into a duffle bag and shuffles backinto our bedroom, and I catch up to her. In our room, my arm wraps around her waist and I hold her to my chest. I bury my face in her neck, and her body heaves against mine, her sobbing muffled.
“Please,” I choke. “Please don’t leave me.”
“I can’t keep doing this, Christian,” she cries as her body gives out. My hold on her is tight enough to keep her up on her feet. “Everyday, you’re fading away from me.”
“I know,” I whisper. “I know, I’m sorry.”
“Except you’re not,” Lana croaks and steadies herself on my shoulders as she turns in my arms. “You say it all the time and we keep coming back to this.”
“I’ll…” I swallow. “I’ll go to the meetings. I’ll stop.”
Lana shakes her head. “No. Go becauseyouwant to go.” She sniffles and wipes her cheek and under her nose with the back of her wrist. “Don’t go because you’re scared of losing me.”
“I’m always gonna be scared of losing you.”
“Prove it,” she whispers. On her toes, she puts her forehead to mine. “But do it for you.”
