Page 127 of Fault Lines
It was a challenge. It was a plea.
It was an ultimatum, and we both knew it.
I closed my eyes, listened to the blood rush in my ears, and waited for the rest of my life to catch up with me.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Nate’s “office” was really more of a containment cell—a six-by-four sliver of rented apartment with a desk wedged in so tight you had to shuffle sideways to sit down. It was where he took inventory for the bookstore, answered his grandfather’s emails, did hisactual joband, when he thought I was asleep, nursed coffee until the bottom of the mug shone like a peephole into something darker. Most days he kept the door half-closed, either to hide the mess or because he liked to believe he still had secrets left in the world.
I didn’t mean to snoop. Really, I didn’t. But the morning after our silent standoff, Nate left for the shop early, and I wandered the hall in that post-argument limbo, unwilling to follow, unable to settle. I ended up at the office door, staring at the beat-up wood and the tape residue where he’d once hung an “Employees Only” sign as a joke. The knob was slick with old sweat and Windex. I turned it.
The air inside was musty and sour, the way all men’s spaces get after a while, no matter how much Febreze you throw at them. The tiny window was already rimmed with frost, but a sunbeam still managed to cut across the clutter: teetering piles of book invoices, a half-disassembled printer, a bright orange stress ball slowly molting bits of foam. The walls were papered with old index cards—half recipes, half random phone numbers—with a few angry Post-Its that just read “REMEMBER” inblock caps. It looked like the interior of a brain after too many concussions.
I went for the desk. Not because I expected to find anything, but because it was there, and I was there, and what else do you do with a morning when you can’t face the world? I pulled the main drawer, and it stuck halfway, then jerked open with a thud that set my teeth on edge.
Inside: receipts. So many receipts, all crumpled and yellowed and damp in spots. I dug through them, hoping for a distraction, and instead found a single glass bottle of cheap whiskey—empty but for a smear of caramel at the bottom. Next to it, a twist of brown bag, and beneath that, a second bottle. This one was smaller, labeled “travel size,” as if that made it less sad.
For a second, I just sat there, holding the bottle by the neck, feeling the cold ghost of Nate’s hands on it. I remembered the first time we’d gone out bar hopping, how he’d turned up his nose at the bar’s well bourbon and made a big deal out of ordering something “drinkable.” He’d sipped it slow, savoring the taste, lecturing me about the science of fermentation, and I’d watched the lines at the corners of his mouth soften into something childlike. That was before the phone call from his father. Before the relapse.
I put the bottle down, harder than necessary. The rattle it made was loud in the cramped room. I checked the side drawers, one by one. More receipts, a few old granola bars, a deck of cards with three aces missing, and—toward the back—a slender silver flask, dented and heavy. It was the one he used to take skating, said it “made the cold bearable.” The cap was crusted with residue.
A bitter, soapy feeling crept up my throat. I’d known he was drinking more, but I’d let it slide, telling myself it was just the season, the darkness, the way the world seemed designed to chip away at his edges. Partly my fault for not being able to give himwhat he needed. But this was more than self-medication; this was ritual. A religion of forgetting.
I stood and checked the shelf above the desk—cookbooks, random stacks of paper, a battered city map from the 90s. Behind the books, wedged tight, was a bottle of vodka. Full. I tried to remember the last time Nate had vodka. I couldn’t. Maybe he’d bought it for the illusion of a fresh start, a “reset” drink.
I moved to the closet. A few shirts, two dress jackets, and a pair of jeans so stiff with dust they looked like a crime scene. I felt inside the pockets out of habit, and my fingers closed on another flask. This one was smaller, lighter, and when I unscrewed the cap, the reek of gin hit me. The label on the outside said “WATER.” I almost laughed.
There was a laundry basket on the floor, a mess of shirts and socks and a pair of pants I’d seen him wear just the night before. I pawed through, telling myself I was searching for laundry quarters or a lost pen, but I was really searching for the limits of my own patience.
In the pocket of the pants was a miniature bottle of rum, the kind they sell at airport gift shops. Half gone.
I sat down on the edge of the bed, all the bottles arranged in a sad little parade on the desk. The smell of alcohol was thick now, almost sweet. I wondered how I’d missed it. Maybe I hadn’t; maybe I’d just pretended not to notice. I remembered the last few weeks—how easily he’d snap, the way he’d go silent after one drink, the time he’d yelled at me for burning toast and then apologized so fiercely it made my head spin.
I lined up the bottles, tiny soldiers standing at attention, each one a record of some night he couldn’t get through sober. I felt sick with anger and guilt and the sort of low-grade panic that comes from realizing a problem you thought was under control is actually running the whole show.
The urge to clean up, to dump every bottle down the drain and scrub the place raw, was immediate. But I didn’t. Instead I sat there, hands empty, and tried to map out the history of every lie we’d told each other.
I thought about the night before, the fight, the way Nate’s eyes had gone glassy and mean before softening into apology. I wondered if he remembered any of it, or if it had already faded into the general static of his days.
When I finally stood, I put the bottles back where they were. I didn’t want him to know I’d found them. Not yet.
I closed the office door, gentle, and let the world resume its old, broken orbit.
∞∞∞
Rachel’s apartment always felt like a curated showroom for a life I could never quite afford—couch with exactly four color-coordinated pillows, fresh flowers in a vase that was probably more expensive than my blender, every piece of art hung at the mathematically perfect height. I wondered, sometimes, if she kept it so pristine because the rest of her world was so… not. Tonight, the candles were out, the playlist was heavy on moody indie ballads, and the air smelled faintly of coconut oil and sea salt from a face mask she’d made us wear “for your own damn good, Livi.”
We sat cross-legged on the carpet, two glasses of red between us, the remains of a cheese plate already starting to sweat. Rachel had just finished ranting about a client who “couldn’t tell a marketing funnel from a goddamn saladspinner,” and I was midway through a polite laugh when the front door opened.
Jackson stepped in, arms loaded with grocery bags, his hair still wet from the gym. He paused when he saw me, then grinned. “Evening, ladies.”
Rachel rolled her eyes but got up to help, leaving me on the carpet. “You’re home early. Trying to catch us at something nefarious?”
Jackson shrugged, setting the bags on the kitchen island. “I figured I’d be safer here than at the wine bar where you two were last seen plotting world domination.”
Rachel snorted and started unpacking. I wondered what it would be like to have a relationship so easy, so unambiguous.
After a few minutes of banter and cheese refills, I caught Jackson’s eye. “Hey. Can I talk to you for a sec?”
