Page 95 of Your Biggest Downfall
Ledger went and grabbed the baby as mom began to plate the meal.
“Let’s sit,” she said with a smile plastered on her face.
I wanted to go home. I didn’t want to be here and be scrutinized.
“Fine.” I walked over to the table, grabbing the dishes while Nova kept looking at me skeptically.
If there was one person in this room who would know I wasn’t okay, it was her.
Evie sat with Ledger as Mom doled out the food to each of us. “I’m so happy you’re back.”
How could she do this? How could she play happy-go-lucky mother after ignoring me when I left and not bothering to call me?
“First time you said that,” I said. “But, hey, it was nice to have Aunt Emma at the apartment when I got back from my fucking treatment.”
“Treatment? You want us to walk around and act like you were fucking sick? I refuse. You’re making choices in your life.” Ledger looked at Nova, then back at me. “Impulsive choices that are getting you in trouble and ruining your career.”
“Actually,” Nova interjected, her hand slipping under the table to squeeze my thigh. “Mental health and addiction are as much an illness and a diagnosis as my mother’s cancer.”
My heart sank. She shouldn’t have had to compare my made-up addiction diagnosis to her mother’s cancer, especially not in front of my mother and her husband. What her mom was going through was real and visible, while what I dealt with felt likesomething people dismissed or blamed when someone messed up in the public eye.
“Nova, I?—”
“She’s right.” My mother cut in, nodding. “You’re right, Nova. Ledger, you need to be more sensitive to mental health.”
Their stares felt like a crushing force, and the pressure to be everything for everyone—a good husband to Nova, a supportive son to my fragile mother, a model child for Ledger—was suffocating. Nova believed in me more than I believed in myself, and the thought of letting her down gnawed at me.
Ledger’s expression was tight, his jaw clenched. The desire to prove him wrong was overwhelming. It felt like I was being pulled apart, struggling to meet everyone’s expectations while barely holding onto my own sense of self.
It was all too much.
I pushed back from the table. “I need to... go to the bathroom.”
I turned around and heard my mother jump from her chair. “Austin,” she shouted.
“He needs space,” Nova said to her. “Let him have that.”
The need to escape overpowered everything else. I needed to get away, to find a moment of peace, free from the crushing weight of their expectations.
I walked upstairs, my thoughts a jumbled mess, and pushed open a door, thinking it led to the bathroom. But instead, I found myself in Ledger’s study. The place had this old-school mobster vibe, with a huge wooden desk at the center and walls lined with dark, heavy bookshelves.
But it wasn’t the books or the desk that caught my attention—it was a small drawer, tucked right in the middle of the shelves, out of place in this sea of leather-bound volumes. Something inside me, something I didn’t want to acknowledge, pulled me toward it. My fingers wrapped around the handle, and when Ipulled it open, there it was—a bottle of whiskey, hidden away like a secret.
I stared at the bottle, the amber liquid almost taunting me. It was like the universe had placed it there, just for me. The way the light hit it, the way it seemed to promise an escape from everything swirling in my head—it was magnetic.
My pulse quickened, and all I could think about was how that first sip would feel, the burn as it slid down, numbing everything, even for a moment.
It was too tempting, too easy.
I figured that most of the booze was either destroyed or hidden from me, but this was in Ledger’s personal space. It looked forgotten about.
My head throbbed. I reached for the bottle and curled my fingers around it. Lifting it up, I felt its weight in my hand. I swallowed hard.
I’d been sober for a little over a month, but I still didn’t really believe I was an addict.
“I could have just one sip,” I whispered, twisting the cap open.
My hand trembling slightly, I lifted the bottle to my lips, but I hesitated.
