Page 9 of Always Right

One question that was in the back of my head every drunken day and sleepless night.

“The night you went to talk to me in my apartment. You said something. I was drunk and everything is a haze, but you said something that hasn’t left me since that day.” She stopped in her tracks, her body turning rigid, her hand on the doorknob.

She didn’t move.

Didn’t breathe.

“I may have been drunk. I may have not been myself, but you said you were pregnant. I remember it clearly.”

She was frozen, her grip around the doorknob tight. The breath was knocked out of my body at the idea that there was a child out there that was mine, my blood, the product of my relationship with Hannah that I didn’t know. Hannah turned around, her lips tilting up into a sad smile before she shook her head.

“You were drunk, Derek,” was her quiet reply. “Who’s to say what else you thought you heard?”

She left then, leaving utter silence and destruction as she slammed the door shut.

***

It was a dark night. Figuratively speaking. New York was always alight, it was the city that never slept after all, but all the lights seemed dimmer. The buildings seemed smaller.

And the thing in my chest that kept beating to her fucking rhythm felt weaker.

I rubbed my hands together as I walked into the AA meeting because I needed it. That night more than any other night. Seeing Hannah, hearing her left me incapacitated with anxiety. With guilt.

I thought I had one weakness—alcohol.

But alcohol was a rookie compared to her.

She held too much power over me, more than she knew. I’d set myself on fire if it made her happy, if it took that sadness and resentment away.

And she didn’t even have to be with me.

I didn’t want her to be if it made her unhappy.

It would make me miserable but if her happiness was elsewhere, I would accept it. I sat on a chair reserved for me, next to Lisa as the group acknowledged me with a single nod and someone else continued talking.

If I had learned something was that facing demons head on was the most draining thing anyone could do. It was a never-ending fight, one that not everyone won.

Lisa offered me a small smile, squeezing my hand and not letting go. She never did.

I listened to advice.

Listened to the stories.

You’d find a million stories like ours, of people trying to free themselves of an addiction holding them down but few would have a happy ending.

Most of them were tragic.

Predictable.

The group looked to me, waiting. I was sure they could see the trouble in my eyes, the darkness that dampened the already dark room, but I didn’t have it in me to speak. Not yet. I just wanted to close my eyes and let sleep pull me under but every time I closed my eyes her words replayed in my head.

“Not today,” I said. They didn’t push and grateful for that, I stood up with Lisa’s arm linked with mine. We walked out together to our apartment complex like we did every Friday, but this time there was no laughter. At least not yet.

Lisa broke the silence first, nudging me with her elbow. “You know...I’m not into girls, but if I was...I would have asked her out. She looked hot.”

I chuckled, shaking my head at her words as she laughed softly next to me.

“How did it go?”

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