“Okay.” His eyes open so wide it would be comical if anything were funny right now. “Jesus, Sam. You know I would never hurt you, right? I’m a drunk, but I’m not a mean drunk.”
I bite my lip and shake my head, struggling not to cry. “I can’t believe you did this. I can’t believe you put this on me.”
“I told you, I—”
“I can’t take it, Danny. I can’t take any more!” I suck in a breath and cover my face with my hands, losing the battle against tears.
I sob so hard my entire body shakes and I feel like my jaw is going to snap in half it’s clenched so hard.
“Relax,” Danny says. “Come on, babe, I—”
“I can’t take this,” I babble into my damp hands. “I can’t be responsible for you. I can’t be responsible for me, let alone you. I needed you to be the strong one, Danny. I needed it so bad.”
“I am strong,” he says with a grunt. “It’s okay, Sam. It’s just a little wine.”
“It’s two years of sobriety in the toilet.” I look up to see Danny weaving unsteadily toward me across the carpet, wine bottle still in hand. “I know how hard you’ve worked to stay sober, and you threw it all away the second I failed to be the perfect girl you want me to be.”
Danny scowls. “I know you’re not perfect. I just wanted you to try.”
“I am trying,” I say, laughing through my tears. “I’m trying so hard!”
“Doesn’t seem like it,” he says, lifting his wine bottle. “And if you’re not trying, why should I?”
“Because you’re better than this.” I wave my hand up and down his body as he tips back the bottle for another drink and stumbles. “Because you’re not dealing with the shit I’ve been dealing with.”
“Which is what?” he shouts, his voice loud enough to make me jump. “You still haven’t told me shit. You’ve barely talked to me for months, for fuck’s sake. I thought you were going to break up with me, Samantha. Do you have any idea how horrible that felt? To be thousands of miles away and feel you slipping away from me and not have any fucking way to get you back?”
“I don’t care,” I shout between the sobs gripping my chest. “I don’t care! Get the fuck over it! There are bigger problems in the world than the way you—”
My words end in a startled squeal as Danny hurls the wine bottle across the room. It shatters into two heavy pieces against the wall, and the remaining wine splatters across the white paint before rolling down the wall like blood from a wound.
“Fuck you,” he says, voice shaking with anger as he spins to face me. “There is no bigger problem in my world, because you are my world, you selfish bitch.”
I suck in a shocked breath as I back away from him, stumbling across the room until my feet hit the wall. It feels like he’s slapped me.
Danny has never called me names. Never.
We rarely fight, and when we do, raised voices are the extent of it. We don’t call each other names, we don’t say the words we know will hurt the most. When someone has trusted you enough to hand over every tool you would need to tear them apart, you honor that trust by never getting anywhere near those tools.
But it seems Danny’s decided he’s done playing nice.
“Ever since we were kids, your problems have always been the important problems,” he says, the words emerging in a low, menacing tone that raises the hair on the back of my neck. “Your parents’ divorce, your drama with the new stepmom, your issues with your mom flaking and all the new boyfriends. And I listened and listened and tried to make you feel better.”
A hard smile creaks across his face as he moves slowly toward me. “Meanwhile, my alcoholic piece of shit father died. And I hated him, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t fucking torn up and scared, too. And then my sister’s boyfriend came back from the fucking dead and I had to move to a new country and learn a new language and it felt like forever before I made friends. I was so lonely, and scared our new life was going to fall apart all over again, but you never asked about that.”
He stops in front of me, close enough that I can smell the sour, fermented smell rising from his skin. “Sam’s problems have always been the most important problems.”
He lifts his arms, bracing his hands on the wall on either side of my face. “But for some reason I never thought you were selfish until tonight. Why is that?”
I swallow, fighting the urge to duck under his arm and run. He’s drunk, but he’s still Danny, and I can see that he wants a real answer.