What Grows Dies Here

Other friends might’ve tried to speak to me in muted tones, reasoning with me about making decisions while going through trauma and on a lot of mood stabilizers and booze.

But not these women.

“I’ll get on the phone with a contractor to have the room transformed by day’s end tomorrow,” Zoe announced, already tapping at her cell.

“I’ll shop online for everything you need to furnish the room,” Stella jumped in.

The love I felt for them at that moment was overwhelming, but I wasn’t in a state to be able to articulate it.

I took a long swig from the vodka bottle before pouring the rest all over the clothes. Then I dropped the lighter into the pit.

They caught fire quickly, and I added more as the fabric burned.

As I watched the flames dance, I vowed to myself that this would be the last day I mourned like this. Moped like this. Soon, it would all be erased. All evidence of her. On the outside, at least. So I would act like the woman I used to be.

On the outside, at least.

CHAPTER FOUR

TWO MONTHS LATER

Arms – Christina Perri

It was one minute until midnight.

I was in the bath with a bottle of vodka. It had long grown warm, and the bath was almost cold. But I lingered inside of it, my skin pruned and freezing, my eyes staring at the bathroom tile, unseeing. Except when my gaze flickered to my phone, propped on the table beside my tub. I’d downloaded some app to have the time displayed like a screensaver, each minute flipping like an analog clock.

One more minute, and the day I’d dreaded for months would be upon me.

My due date.

May 21.

It was rather masochist of me to be sitting in a cold bath, half drunk, far too sober, watching the minutes go by, waiting for the second worst day of my life.

But that’s how I rolled these days.

Of course, Stella, Yasmin and Zoe had been a nonstop presence this week. Each of them had offered to stay with me tonight, first gently and then more insistently. I’d refused first gently and then more insistently.

They meant well, of course, each of them. They loved me, wanted to be there to support me. Which made it that much worse. I could not have an audience to this fucking day. I could not use my energy, trying to be the person I was pretending to be around them. The energy it would take to breathe was all I had.

My mother hadn’t offered to come over. She’d called. Sent flowers. And this very expensive bottle of vodka. She’d left a message, promising she’d see me the next day. Her voice had been full of faux cheer, edged with sorrow. With true empathy.

She’d passed through these days. She knew that the last thing I needed was … people. My mother, for the first time in my life, understood me better than anyone else.

He hadn’t called.

I’d expected him to. He hadn’t gone anywhere, hadn’t given me breathing space, hadn’t given me any inkling that he was ready to give up on me. On us. He was fighting, to the death for us, doing everything he could to get me through this time.

He slept outside the gates to my house in his fucking car.

Yet with this day looming like an omen, nothing.

That was good.

I couldn’t handle seeing his face.

But there was no one I needed more.