Page 84 of For All It's Worth
Chapter Thirty Four
Charlie
Thiswasstupid.Ridiculousand completely idiotic.
Thumping the bottle of vodka on the counter, I took a seat in one of the chairs at the tiny kitchen table and glared into space.
So we had fought. Our first one as a couple and unlikely to be our last. It wasn’t as if we were going to break up over what was essentially a stupid fight.
We had wanted to keep work and our relationship separate, but blowing up at each other in front of Kristen was hardly keeping it quiet.
I looked at the bottle again. The now-familiar itch was teasing me.
Did I really want to throw away months of sobriety over something so small? To give up Max over an issue that could be easily handled? So he’d asked me to go home and had spoken to me like I was a child. I was hardly acting like an adult by having a temper tantrum and buying booze. Max had been right to push me away. We’d both needed to calm down.
How did I expect to stay sober if something so small was going to trigger a bender? Because it would be a bender. If I took so much as a sip of that vodka, I wouldn’t be stopping until I passed out or the bottle was empty. More than likely, I’d be unconscious after all these months without a drop.
Months and months of hard work would be undone if I gave in right now.
In my head I ran through the exercises I’d been taught in rehab before picking up the bottle and putting it back into the bag.
Instead of berating myself over buying the bottle, I applauded myself for not opening it. For seeing that I was falling into patterns of behavior from before and for having the strength to say no to temptation.
A fight was a normal stressor and I’d fallen back into my usual coping mechanisms. That was fine, but I hadn’t taken a drink andthatwas great.
Andy and Will had gone up to the lake house and I was pet sitting Lucifer, so there was no one here to listen to how much of a big deal this was. Evan would likely answer the phone, but the guy was my therapist and not my sponsor. It wasn’t in his job description to take evening calls from his clients. He’d offered time and time again to be my sponsor but I’d declined every time. I was one hundred percent sure that I didn’t need one because I knew I had people I could call.
I’d made friends at Books & Biscuits. I had my family, for the most part. There was Henry and his sister, Holly, if I needed someone to talk to. Except none of them were Max.
Max was literally the only person that I should be calling. I needed to apologize for not backing off and giving him the space he clearly had wanted. Then I had to show him that I wasn’t just going to fall down at the slightest provocation. I was better than that.
Pulling up Max’s contact on my phone, I started a video call. I needed to see his face and search it for any sign that this was too much for him. That I was too much for him.
If I thought for a second that I was harming him in any way, I’d take a step back. His happiness was more important to me than my own.
The call rang for a few seconds before Max picked up and his wary face came into view. I couldn’t tell where he was, and the background was too dark to discern anything. It maybe looked like he was in his car but I couldn’t see well enough to be sure.
“I’m sorry, Max.”
He looked at me in stunned silence for a second. “Why? I shouted at you. I wouldn’t discuss something with you and I treated you badly. I’ve felt like shit all day!” Max looked like he’d cried at some point. His hair was disheveled like he’d been tugging on the white-blond strands.
He needs a haircut, I thought fondly.
“Me too,” I replied. My heart hurt with how much I wished we were face to face and not using screens.
“But I really think that having the time apart to calm down was a good idea,” he added.
“Maybe it is, but Max, you can’t say that you baby me. We need to be equals. If you are struggling with something, you need to know I’m here to help carry the load. You need to talk to me or this won't work out.” I spoke plainly. It was something that had carried over from the stuff with Henry. Max didn’t open up to me about his feelings a lot. I’d never really noticed it before. He didn’t rely on me emotionally.
“I know, but you have to remember I’ve been on my own for a long time, Charlie. You know what it was like growing up with a mom that medicated herself with booze.” Max’s face was conflicted like he didn’t want to bring up the idea that I had things in common with his mom.
“I know, that night when we fought, you said you didn’t want me to turn into her. Bitter, lonely, and drunk.” Max looked startled that I remembered that conversation from half a year ago.
I shrugged. “It stayed with me this whole time. You have to realize that I’m not her, Max. I won’t give up on you. If you need help, I want to be the one that you turn to.” My voice rose with desperation to be understood. “I want to be there for all the good and the bad stuff that will come at us, but you have to let me. You aren’t alone anymore, Max. Youaremy family. Did you know I said that in the hospital? When I asked for you, they said family only and I told them that you were. As far as I was concerned then, you were my ONLY family, except for maybe Matty.”
Max laughed through tears. “Charlie, you are my family! I just don’t know how to be in one, so you’ll have to teach me. I’ll probably make more mistakes along the way.”
I gave him a smile full of affection. “We all make mistakes. In fact, I made one earlier.” He tried to cut me off. “Not at Books. Something else.” Fuck! This was hard to get out. “So, I’m sorry. I, uh, also need to be honest. I, um…bought a bottle of vodka.”
