“Like a baby.” She rested her head on my shoulder. “What about you?”
“I didn’t sleep very well. Too much sun, I think,” I lied.
“We can just stay in today if you want. Rest up for the trip home and the busy week ahead.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I like the sound of that.”
I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. Deep down, I knew I needed to call things off with Sasha. It was the right move all round. But even though I knew right from wrong, that didn’t make actually doing it any easier. And I was selfish. I liked being with her. Just thinking about breaking things off caused a pain to slash through my chest. I wanted more time with her. So that’s what I decided on. It was our last weekend. I obviously couldn’t break things off while we were halfway across the country. I planned on waiting until we got home.
She looked up at me with her big, green eyes that burned bright. “I’m going to order some breakfast. Want anything?”
“Yeah, just get me whatever.”
She lifted her head from my shoulder and cupped my jaw. “Is everything okay? You seem…sad.”
I loved and hated how she could read me by simply looking into my eyes. I forced a smile. “I’m fine. Just a rough night that Ihaven’t been able to shake yet. Go ahead and order breakfast. I’ll be in soon.”
She leaned in, pressed a soft kiss to my lips, and then stood and walked inside.
I bent forward, resting my elbows on my knees as I hung my head. My eyes closed in anger, yet my chest heaved with sadness. I hated Chloe for making me do this. I hated Sasha for making me fall for her. I hated the universe for dealing me this fucked up hand in life. But most of all, I hated myself. I hated that even when I was happy, I still couldn’t be satisfied because I was always going to have the fucked up past where I was married to her dead sister.
I pushed myself to stand and entered the room. She had just ended the call with room service. She looked up at me with a big smile.
“You’re going to think I’m insane, but I ordered a little bit of everything. I thought that what we didn’t eat now, we could munch on all morning while we hang out and watch TV. What do you think?” she asked, standing and moving toward me.
“Sounds good,” I agreed as I slid my hand into the pockets of my sweatpants.
“I’m going to go change.” She kissed me on the cheek. “Why don’t you find us something to watch?” She turned and walked toward the bedroom.
I took a seat on the couch and grabbed the remote to turn on the TV. I flipped through the channels until I was interrupted by the knock of room service. I let a hotel staff member in, and he wheeled in a cart full of covered dishes. I slipped him some cash and closed the door behind him. The smell of the food washed over me. On a typical day, it would’ve made my mouth water, but that day, it made my stomach roll. I left the food on the cart and went back to the couch.
Sasha came in a moment later, and she lifted the lids on the plates, taking what she wanted. She came to sit beside me. “You not eating?”
“I don’t feel all that great.”
“Maybe you’re coming down with something.” She reached over and placed her hand on my forehead. “You do feel a little warm.”
“I’ll be fine,” I told her, taking her hand from my head and patting it. I didn’t tell her that the heat radiating from my head wasn’t from an illness. It was from anger. My blood pressure was up, and I knew that it wouldn’t go down until I lost it all and was back to drinking myself into a coma every night. A bottle of whiskey was what it took to make me forget the heartbreak I was plagued with. I wondered how much it would take once I pushed her away.
There wasn’t enough whiskey in the world.
THIRTY-FIVE
SASHA
What started out as a nice trip ended terribly. We didn’t do anything on Saturday but stay in our room, watching TV. Roman caught a virus and slept most of the day. We woke early on Sunday to catch our flight home, and he was quiet the whole time. He didn’t look at me. He didn’t touch me—not unless I took his hand to hold, and even then, he had to resist the urge to jerk away.
I was worried that something was up, something more serious than a virus. It felt like he was pulling away, as if, sometime between going to sleep Friday night and waking up Saturday morning, he had decided to end things. But nobody would want to break up with someone when they were on vacation together, so, as anyone would do, he was waiting until we were back home.
The whole way home, I was a nervous wreck, waiting for the bomb to drop. When we got home, he went directly to his office, claiming he had work to do. I knew he was hiding, but I let him because I worried that if I pushed him, he’d react and lash out, causing me more harm than good. So, while he kept himself busy in another room, I did what I needed to do to keep my mind occupied.
I unpacked from our trip and started some laundry. The house was clean since nobody had been home, but I wiped down the counters and swept the floors anyway to have something to do. Monica brought Sophia home around five, and she and I cooked dinner together, but Roman didn’t come out to join us. Sophia had been missing her daddy, but he told her that he had gotten sick on his trip, so she left him alone.
That night, I tucked her into bed, and once she was asleep, I went to check on Roman. I knocked on the bedroom door, but he didn’t answer, so I opened it and stuck my head in. When I saw the room was empty, my eyes moved to the bathroom door, which was closed. I entered the room and closed the door behind me. Approaching the bathroom door, I stopped and listened, hearing the sound of water running in the shower. I stripped down and let myself into the bathroom.
I opened the shower door to find him sitting on the bench. His lids were heavy, and his eyes were bloodshot. He had been drinking—it was easy to see. That’s when I knew without a doubt that he wasn’t sick. Who polished off a bottle of whiskey with the stomach virus?
He hadn’t been drinking since we got together. Maybe a drink here or there with dinner, but gone were the nights of drowning in liquor and stumbling drunk. I saw his bloodshot eyes move around my body, and the corners of his mouth lifted just slightly. I entered the shower and climbed onto his lap, straddling him. He didn’t push me away. Instead, he pulled me closer as he smashed his mouth to mine. The second his tongue urged its way into my mouth, I knew my suspicions were true. I could taste the whiskey on him.
