I shove the key in the lock and open the door to the porch. I step onto the pine floor and it creaks a little. “Abbott!”
There’s no answer, but I hear something inside. It sounds like glass clinking. I wonder if he’s doing dishes. That would be weird considering he has a state-of-the-art dishwasher. And Abbott always used to get grounded for not washing dishes when he was a kid. It was the one chore he loathed the most. “Abbott!”
I call his name louder and step into the living room. It’s dark and when I flip the light switch and the fancy overhead light illuminates the room, my blood runs cold. Abbott is sitting in a pair of underwear and nothing else in the middle of the couch. He’s got a beer in his hand and three empties on the coffee table. The remainder of the six pack is on the coffee table in front of him.
“What are you doing?”
“Drinking.”
“I see that,” I reply and for some reason I’m scared to move. He’s off the rails. Fully and completely. “Why?”
“Because why the fuck not?” he snarls. He still hasn’t looked at me. He’s just staring straight ahead at the TV, but it’s not on. “Not drinking didn’t solve anything. I still fucked up. So why not just drink. At least then I’m numb.”
“Numb is a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound,” I tell him. I take one step toward him. For some reason I can’t bring myself to take more. My heart is racing and my palms are sweating because he needs help and I am the one person in the universe who gives the worst help, ever. I’m terrified I will make whatever this is worse. “The numbness will wear off and whatever has you so upset will still be there. It doesn’t solve anything.”
“Nah,” He takes a long pull from the bottle of Corona. “The problem won’t still be here. Because I’m kicking you out.”
“Wh… what?”
Finally, he turns his head and looks right at me. And I wish he didn’t. His jaw is clenched and his blue eyes are cold. He looks like he hates me. “I said, I want you to go. Leave. You can’t live here anymore. Move back in with your parents or get your own place. Or move in with my parents, they say they’re okay with gay now. Let ‘em prove it.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I ask. His drunken rambling is giving me courage though, because maybe this isn’t about me. I walk right over to the couch and stand by the arm of it, looking down at him. “Is this about the fight with Ronan? Talk to me, Abbott.”
“This is about the fact that I’m not enough for you.” He stands up suddenly and hurls the bottle in his hand across the room. It smashes on the wall just above the television, beer raining down everywhere.
“Calm the fuck down!” I shout.
He drops back onto the sofa. “Why did you lie to me?”
“What?” My stomach drops to my ankles.
“I mean, I know why you did it.” He looks up at me with a smile so cold it makes me feel like I’m being eviscerated by an icicle. “You couldn’t say, ‘yeah I’ll move in with you but I’m still looking for something more, so I’m gonna go on this date.’”
“Date?” I swallow. “I wasn’t on a date.”
“Well, you weren’t at work, which is where you told me you were going to be all day,” he snaps at me. “And when I went there after the shittiest disaster of a day, to get comfort from my boyfriend, his family said he was on a fucking date. And oh gee, they really hoped it worked out because he was a cool guy.”
“They really hoped it worked out because they want me to find someone,” I reply without thinking. “And I can’t tell them I’ve already found you. Because you’re the one who needs to reveal our love like it’s some sort of fucking endorsement deal!”
He stands up again and yanks another beer from the carton, but I reach out and rip it from his hand. His stare goes from cold to burning hot with rage. “Don’t fucking take my beer.”
“I wasn’t on a date,” I reply, trying not to let myself get angrier. Truth is, I did lie to him so he has a right to be upset. But not to self-destruct. “I went to church. With Gael, yes. But it wasn’t about him. It was about the church. And he knows about you now. I told him all about us, without revealing your identity of course, but I wanted him to know I was off the market.”
“I’m supposed to believe you went to church? By choice? On purpose?” Abbott scoffs and turns away from me. “Fuck off. Go pack your shit.”
He stumbles a little but makes his way through the living room to the kitchen. I follow, the beer still dangling from my hand. “And what’s this shit about not being good enough for me? And your parents? Why are you bringing up your parents?”
“I want you to leave.”
He walks into the pantry and starts digging through the carefully arranged food in there like a bear, dropping bags of pasta and shoving aside protein powder containers. He grabs a bag of chips I know must be Aspen’s because neither of us eats Spicy Dill Pickle anything let alone chips. He tears it open. I reach to grab it from him again. I would let him eat it but I want to get his attention. I need him to talk to me.
Abbott grabs it back and shoves me, hard. The back of my shoulder clips the corner of the pantry door. I bite back a hiss of obscenities. “Don’t hurt me.”
He lets out a drunken scoff at that. “A little too late, don’t you think? I already hurt you so badly you tried to kill yourself. And every fucking morning I wonder if I’ll mistakenly do it again. But nope. You hurt me this time.”
I can’t believe he just said that. I’m so shocked that when he tries to get out of the tiny room, I almost let him. At the last minute I block his path and when every muscle in his body ripples as they tense, I place a palm squarely on his chest. His heart is hammering like an angry bull trying to leave its pen.
“Abbott. I love you.” I don’t know what else to say. It feels like the only thing that might calm him down. Well, it’s that or slap him and I’m not doing that. And the truth is, even off-the-wagon and melting down in this colossal, self-destructive way, I love him.
