Chapter 30: Jay
Ivan falls asleep around midnight, his breathing going slow and even, his body relaxing completely against mine.
I don't sleep.
I can't.
I lie there in the dark, and I feel it coming. That creeping sense of dread that always shows up when the universe decides it's time to remind me that I don't get to keep good things. The whisper in the back of my head that says this can't last, that I'm going to ruin it somehow, that I don't deserve any of this anyway.
Ivan talked about savings and building a life together.
I can barely get through a day without wanting a drink. Without thinking about the pills in the bathroom cabinet.
He has no fucking idea how bad it is.
The gap between what he's offering and what I can give feels like a canyon. He's been planning for years, preparing for a future that included me even when he didn't know if he'd ever find me. I've been surviving hour to hour, numbing myself just to make it through the night without screaming.
He has a family that loves him, a career he's good at, stability, and health insurance and a future that makes sense. I have a motel room with a drawer where I used to keep pills until I moved them to a hiding place where Ivan wouldn't see them. I still have some. I didn't throw them out when I poured out the whiskey. I told myself it was just in case. Just for emergencies because they're hard to get.
But I know what it really is. It's a safety net. It's my escape route when this all falls apart.
And it will.
My hands are shaking. Carefully, trying not to wake him, I slide out from under Ivan's arm. He stirs, makes a soft sound of protest, his hand reaching for me even in sleep. But he doesn't wake. I stand there for a moment beside the bed, looking down at him in the dim light. He lookspeaceful. Content. Like being here with me is exactly where he wants to be.
He doesn't know how broken I really am. He thinks he knows because I told him about the drinking, about the pills, about the nightmares. But knowing something intellectually and seeing me at my worst are two completely different things.
I walk to the window and sit in the same chair I've sat in hundreds of sleepless nights. The parking lot is quiet at this hour. A few cars scattered around, a flickering streetlight that the motel has been meaning to fix for six months, the neon glow of the Vista Inn sign reflecting off puddles from yesterday's rain. My whole world for the past few years, and it looks exactly as empty as it always has.
I want a goddamn drink.
The craving hits me so hard my stomach clenches, my mouth goes dry. I know exactly where the closest liquor store is. Three blocks away, open twenty-four hours. I could be there and back in fifteen minutes. Ten if I ran. Ivan would never even know. He'd wake up in the morning and I'd be right here, and he'd never have to know.
But he would know. He'd smell it on me when he kissed me.
I grip the arms of the chair and try to breathe. In through my nose, out through my mouth. The way one of the social workers taught me when I was having panic attacks.
This is what he signed up for. This is what he doesn't understand yet because he hasn't lived it. The version of me he sees, the one who holds him and touches him and says the right things and makes him feel safe, that's not the whole picture. That's the best version of me, the one that shows up when I'm trying my hardest.
The whole picture includes nights like this, when the walls close in and the darkness gets so thick I can't see my way through it. When my thoughts won't stop racing and there's a constant, gnawing need for something—anything—to take the edge off.
He said he'd been planning for this for years. Preparing for the day he'd find me.
He sure as fuck wasn't preparing for this.
He was preparing for some better version of me, some version that exists only in his imagination. The good version of me he remembers. And when he realizes that—when he sees what I'm really like day after day, week after week, in all my broken glory—he's going to walk away.
I can't blame him either.
I press my hand against my chest, like I can physically hold myself together, keep all the broken pieces from falling apart.
When he wakes up, I should tell him to go. I should push him away now, before this gets any deeper, before he invests any more of himself in someone who's just going to disappoint him. Before he wastes more money or time or emotion on me. It would be kinder, really. More honest. Let him find someone who can match what he's offering. Someone stable. Someone whole. Someone good and deserving. Someone who isn't sitting in the dark at one in the morning, fighting the urge to walk to a liquor store or swallow a handful of pills just to make his brain shut the fuck up.
"Jay?"
I flinch hard, my body jerking. Ivan's voice is rough with sleep, confused and slightly worried. I hear the bed creak as he sits up, the rustle of sheets.
"What are you doing over there? Why aren't you in bed? Is something wrong?"
