And then, somewhere around the halfway point, when the bottle is lighter in my hands and my head is swimming, the warmth turns sour.
The shame hits me like a hard fist to the gut, sudden and overwhelming.
You fucking failure. You weak, pathetic piece of shit. You couldn't even make it three weeks. Ivan believed in you. He paid fifteen hundred dollars he saved for years to fix your mess. He told you that you were worth fighting for. And here you are, sitting on a bathroom floor, drinking yourself stupid because you couldn't handle being alone for a few more days. You're disgusting. He'll never love you now. He'll leave you. You don't deserve him.
I look at the bottle in my hand—half empty now, the liquid sloshing against the glass—and I feel sick. Not from the alcohol, though that's starting to turn my stomach. From myself. From what I am. From what I've always been.
He's going to find out. He's going to see what you really are. And he's going to leave. Because you're not worth staying for. You never were. You had everything and you fucked it all up.
The warmth is gone now. There's only cold, seeping into my bones. Cold and shame and a self-hatred so thick I can taste it on my tongue, bitter and choking.
I ruined it. I had one fucking job. Stay sober for a few more weeks until we could figure out the next steps. And I couldn't even do that. I couldn't even manage the bare minimum.
You need to make it stop. The shame, the voices. Face the truth. You've already lost him. You were never meant to be happy. Make it stop. Make it all stop.
The pills.
The thought cuts through the fog in my brain, sharp and clear. The pills in the cabinet. The ones that make everything quiet. The ones that could make everything go away permanently.
I pull myself up using the edge of the sink, my movements clumsy and uncoordinated. The face in the mirror is someone I barely recognize—hollow eyes, gray skin, a drunk wearing my features. A fucking waste of space. Ivan wouldn't be able to look at me now.
The orange bottle is right where I left it hidden. Xanax. The label is worn thin from all the times I've held it, thought about it, put it back.
I don't put it back this time.
I sink down to the floor again, the whiskey bottle on one side, the pill bottle on the other. My hands are shaking so badly I can barely grip the cap.
You broke your promise. Why keep pretending you're going to get better? You know how this ends. You've always known. Ivan deserves better. He's so beautiful.
The cap comes off with a soft click that sounds too loud in the silent bathroom.
I shake the pills out into my palm and try to count them. How many will it take to make it all go away? I have enough.
The bathroom tilts around me, the walls breathing. The whiskey and the shame churn together in my stomach, rising like bile. I look at the pills in my hand, and somewhere far away, I hear a voice that sounds like Ivan begging me to stop.
But he's not here. The voice isn't real.
The only voice that's real is the one in my head.
This is who you are.
This is who you've always been.
This is how it ends.
Chapter 46: Ivan
I wake up in the middle of the night with my heart pounding and a sick feeling in my gut that I can't rationalize away.
Something is terribly wrong.
I can feel it the way you feel a storm coming before the clouds roll in, before the wind picks up, before the first drops of rain fall. It's been building for days now, this sense of dread, getting stronger every time I talk to Jay on the phone.
His voice has been too empty. His laughs have been too forced. His reassurances have been too quick, like he's saying what I need to hear instead of what's actually true.
What if he's falling apart while I'm working overtime and planning birthday parties.
I lie in the dark for twenty more minutes, trying desperately to convince myself I'm overreacting. Jay is fine. He said he's fine. He made it through two weekends already, handled it like an adult. And the project is almost done. Just one more week and I can see him and make sure he's really okay.
