Page 52 of Over You
“Shit.” I spat in the toilet and fell back on my ass. I expected the shakes and the mood swings. I didn’t expect to puke. Coke typically doesn’t make you sick.
Alcohol, however, does.
I pushed away from the toilet and rested my head against the wall.
Georgia tapped on the door. “Are you okay?”
It was a simple question, but it grated my nerves. My temper spiked “Yes. Fuck. Leave me alone.” The words left my lips, and I hurled again.
Detoxing conjured up a pendulum of mood swings that made those roots of self-hatred dig a little deeper. It dredged to the surface the worst version of Spencer Hailstorm, and there was little controlling it. There was rarely a warning.
One minute, I’d be loving; the next minute, my brain would short-circuit. Sparks would fly from my ears, and I’d end up spewing lines that only came from grade-A assholes. I gripped the toilet seat, my stomach churning and my mouth watering with hot spit. That devil on my shoulder tugged at my ear.If she loved you unconditionally, you wouldn’t be bent over a toilet. True love has no stipulations.
She tried the handle. “Why did you lock the door?”
“Because I don’t want you watching me puke. Christ!”
“I’ve seen you puke a hundred times.”
“This is different.”
Watching me hurl from one too many drinks or bad sushi from Mr. Chang’s Buffet Palace was the result of one bad decision. This—this was the result of a million bad decisions. It made me look weak and pathetic, and I didn’t want her to see me that way. I didn’t want her listening either. “Just let me be sick.” I felt another bout of nauseous coming on. “Get away from the door, dammit.” My voice boomed from the walls.
I managed a strangled, “I’m sorry” before I grabbed the porcelain seat again. With every heave, I wanted to down something or snort something just to make it stop. The sicker I felt, the angrier I grew. I blamed Jag. I blamed the label. I blamed my problem on losing the baby. Sure, those were all factors, reasons I sought a high, but this shitshow was no one’s fault but my own.
I flushed again, then back to the cold wall I went. “You’re a fucking loser.” I butted the heel of my palm against my forehead.
I sat in the bathroom until the shakes went away and the sensation that I may pass out subsided. Then I washed my face and brushed my teeth, and I tried my damnedest not to look like a piece of shit when I walked into the hallway.
I’d spent the last five days in hell with tiny glimpses of heaven.
I snagged my wallet from the dresser on my way to the bed where Georgia sat with her book, and I pulled out one of the gum wrappers that had been shoved in there long ago. When I flopped down beside her, she looked up. I dropped the foil to the page of her novel. “I’m not making excuses, but when it gets ugly, just know I don’t mean it.”
She picked up the crumpled piece of foil.For six months, I woke in the middle of the night and whispered I love you to no one, hoping you’d come home.
I pulled more from my wallet and placed them on the bedsheet. “Just read those if I get shitty. Read those, and knowthat’show I feel.”
Her teeth went to work on her lip—a tell-tale sign she was fighting tears. “You kept writing them?”
“Every day.”
Sure, I had paper. I could have kept a diary, but it wouldn’t have been the same. The first time we had a fight over something stupid, she had locked me out of our bedroom. I grabbed the wrapper balled up in my jean pocket and wrote:I’m a dick who doesn’t deserve you. But I’m a dick who’s madly in love with you.I slid it beneath the door, and ever since, it had been our thing.
“Why?” She choked back a sob.
“Because I love you.”
“No. Why did we let ourselves fall apart?” She collapsed to my chest, clutching my shirt.
That was a question I didn’t have an answer to, so I instead of trying to give her an explanation, I pulled her to me and kissed her like she was water and I was the desert.
An hour later, the crumpled sheets had come loose from the corners of the mattress. Rain pelted the roof, creating a dreamer’s lull, and I laid with Georgia on my chest—skin to skin—singing “Us Against the World” while I combed thru her soft hair.
Our eyes locked while she traced a familiar path across my chest. The shakes, the sweats, the hell of detox had left me for the moment, and I soaked up every bit of her—of us. Of the heaven that was once my normal.
I stopped singing. “How long can I stay?” I asked.
“Forever.” Her fingers swept my jaw. “Keep singing.”
