If it weren’t for Aggie and the fact that I’m the only one responsible for keeping her alive, I wouldn’t be able to make it out of bed most days. I haven’t even been able to think about work.
Heartbreak grief is the worst kind of grief, because the knowledge that the person you’re grieving is still alive, just existing without you, is the most unbearable suffering I think one could ever endure. The phantom pain is constant, like I’ve lost a limb, and my mind hasn’t caught up to the fact that Riley isn’t coming home. I find myself looking for his car in the lot when I get home, or wanting to text him to ask what he wants for dinner. But every time, reality comes slamming back into me with a force so sudden and unforgiving that it once again steals the breath right out of my lungs. Sometimes I still hope it won’t give it back.
The anger might be worse. The absolute rage I feel at myself for ruining the best thing that’s ever happened to me, the anger at the way he seems to be able to move on far easier than I can. It burns white hot until I think I might just disintegrate from the inside out…but then I don’t. I just keep existing. It’s a feedback loop of suffering, and I’m not sure how much longer I can survive it.
Tomorrow is my birthday, and we were supposed to be on a plane to Hawaii right now. I managed to make it out of bed and onto the couch today, getting up once or twice to feed Aggie and let her out. I made the mistake of checking Fanboy to see that Riley has deactivated his account. The sense of loss I feel is probably unreasonable, but I wonder how long I’m going to have to slowly lose pieces of him like this. Will he deactivate all of his social media next?
I’ve been refreshing all of his pages obsessively since I noticed his Fanboy is gone, but he hasn’t posted anything other than one photo on Instagram the day after our phoneconversation—his parents’ backyard at sunset with the caption:Just OK. The double meaning wasn’t lost on me, and I would love to know how he’s even remotely okay when I still feel like I’m trapped beneath the waves of my own heartbreak, drowning in grief.
In a moment of misguided optimism, I poured out all of the liquor in the house—a decision I am sorely regretting now, because I really need a fucking drink. I’m debating walking to the store at the corner of my block when my phone pings with a notification.
Riley has posted something.
I glance at the time: 10:01 p.m. Which is right after midnight his time.
My fingers are trembling as I tap the notification bubble, and my heart catches in my throat when I see it. It’s a short video clip of Riley holding a cupcake with a single candle in it. The room is dark, and the music he’s chosen is melancholy, his smile that I love so much nowhere in sight. The flame flickers in slow motion, and the caption reads:Celebrating you.
I watch the video four times, and I don’t even know I’m crying until I taste the tears on my lips.
Before the video can loop a fifth time, I exit the app and walk to the corner store.
I don’t know how long I’ve been lying on the floor next to the couch when Jess finds me.
The spilled scotch has probably seeped into the floorboards by now, but I can’t smell it anymore. Everything hurts. My eyes burn, and my throat is raw from hours of screaming and crying. My knuckles are cracked and bloody from pounding them into the floor. And my chest aches with a pain so acute that I’m surprised every time I’m able to draw a breath.
I don’t even realize Jess is here until she’s right beside me, crouching to my level to gather me into her arms. I’m sobbing again…or did I ever stop? I think I’m saying “I can’t do this” over and over again, but my voice is nearly gone. She must understand me, though, because she squeezes me fiercely and says, right into my ear, “You can, honey. I promise you can. It’s going to be okay.” I only cry harder.
I’ve carried a weight in my chest my entire life that I had almost forgotten was there. I learned the size of it, the feel, and eventually it just became a part of me. Until Riley. Suddenly, the weight was lifted, little fractions at a time, until one day I just felt lighter. But now that he’s gone, the weight is back twice as heavy as before, and I don’t have the strength to carry it on my own anymore.
“You’re not alone, Luke,” Jess assures me, gripping me tighter. I don’t know if I said any of that out loud or if she just knows how to say the right thing at the right time. “So many people love you.”
“No they don’t…they love my body. They love what I can give them.” The thought that the only other people who claim to love me pay a monthly fee to watch me fuck on camera turns my stomach. “The only one who ever loved me is Riley, and he’s gone.”
“I love you too, Luke,” Jess insists. “I know it isn’t the same, but I do. You’ve become such a good friend, and even if you fired me right now, that wouldn’t change. You have more people in your corner than you realize, I promise you do.”
I can’t stop crying, the reality that Riley isn’t mine anymore hitting me all over again. I would have thought that by now it would be easier, but whether it’s the comfort of Jess holding me or the sorrow of starting my fortieth year this way, it seems even more painful somehow.
It could be minutes or hours before I finally calm down enough for Jess to disentangle herself from me and help me up onto the couch before she goes to the kitchen to pour me a glass of water. She makes sure I have at least a few sips and then busies herself cleaning up. She starts in the entryway where Aggie had an accident while I was passed out, and then makes her way back to me, picking up the nearly empty bottle of scotch and treating the spot on the floor where the majority of the bottle’s contents ended up. She doesn’t ask me what I was thinking or tell me that I’m being an idiot, she just silently takes care of me, and I watch in astonishment as she finishes up and leashes Aggie to take her outside.
“Finish your water, and I’ll be right back,” she instructs on her way out the door.
Something about being given a simple command and a task to complete soothes something deep in my soul, and I do as I’m told.
Jess returns a few minutes later and makes herself comfortable on the couch next to me. “Talk to me, honey,” she encourages gently, reaching over to place a hand on mine.
I swallow over the sudden lump in my throat and tell her about Riley’s post.
She nods sympathetically. “I was afraid that might have been hard on you. I figured after I texted you happy birthday and didn’t hear back that you might not have been doing well.” She hesitates for a moment, a range of emotions flickering across her face as she chooses her next words. “I know you’re hurting, and I understand completely. You’ve been through something sopainful and so significant, and there’s nothing worse than your first real heartbreak…but Luke, you can’t keep going like this. You can’t keep hiding away in here and turning to alcohol when it hurts. You have to start taking steps to get better, and you have to stop drinking like this.”
I look away, the truth of her words cutting deep. I know she’s right, but… “I don’t know how,” I admit softly.
Jess squeezes my hand and gives me a sympathetic smile. “That’s okay. But if you want my opinion?” I nod vigorously, wincing when the motion sends a sharp pain lancing through my skull. “I think a great place to start would be getting into therapy. There’s so much going on in that beautiful head of yours, I think it would be really beneficial to have someone who knows what they’re doing help you sort through it.”
The idea of unzipping my heart and showing a complete stranger what’s inside makes my stomach roll. There’s nothing I can think of that I would want to do less.
But Riley’s last words to me echo in my mind:Please get some help…please.
I think about the courage it took Riley to move halfway across the country alone, and I take a deep breath, borrowing some of that courage for myself to nod and say, “Okay.”
