Page 74 of Breathing Without You

Emerald

If not it’s okay I’ll be fine.

Winter

It’s fine babe I’ll see you in a little over an hour. Go take your bath.

Emerald

Ok, love you babe.

I sit on the edge of the tub, a towel wrapped around me as I wait for the water to fill up. Adding some vanilla soap to make bubbles while I wipe away the tears that just keep pouring down my face with my other hand. As soon as I think I’m done crying more tears fall without me even realizing it. I feel like there’s a hole in my heart. Is this what true heartache feels like? I hate it, I feel sick to my stomach, I feel broken, and it hasn’t even been a few hours. What will all the other days without him feel like? I don’t know how else to explain how I feel, besides repeating my feelings. I’m devastated my whole world just came crashing down in one day and I hate it. I feel so lost and alone right now and the only person I want to turn to and cry to is the one person who doesn’t want me to turn and cry to them and the only person who doesn’t want me anymore. The one person I need the most and he doesn’t need me.

I slowly stand up. Feeling numb all over, not from sitting but from the heartache. I walk out of my bathroom that’s connected to my room and walk down the hall still in my towel. I go into my refrigerator and grab the bottle of wine I started drinking the other night and take the cork back out. I don’t even bother with a glass as I take a big gulp. I have about half a bottle left after that gulp, that’ll be enough to help me start numbing the painmore before Winter gets here. Right as I’m about to shut the refrigerator door I see a bottle of cherry vodka sitting in the door and decide to take a shot of that, and by shot, I mean taking off the cap and chugging some of it from the bottle.

“Ahh fuck.” I shake my head in disgust as it burns going down. I feel the warmth of the alcohol move through my body and it feels good. I think I just chugged way more than I needed to but that’s okay. It’s just one more thing to help quiet my thoughts and numb the pain.

I head down the hall and into my room and into my bathroom over to the cabinet to grab more of my bath stuff adding warm vanilla sugar soap with bath salts making it extra bubbly. I want the smell to be extra strong on my body to erase any scents I may have left of Creedence on me. I can’t handle smelling him on me and not being able to go near him. I take my pink scrunchie. Fucking stupid pink scrunchie that hurts my heart just looking at it and put my hair up into a messy bun at the top of my head. Then grab my bottle of wine and slowly step into the hot water that sends chills through my freezing cold body. Sitting down into the tub I set the bottle on my tub tray and lay back closing my eyes and let the tears that haven’t stopped falling, keep falling. I didn’t even realize I was still crying. That's how many tears have fallen tonight. In the short time frame of an hour, you think I would have cried out everything by now. But no, these stupid tears just keep coming.

I lay there welcoming the sad sound of silence, as I move my hands around under the hot water finally feeling a little bit of weight lifted off me. Hoping it’ll also help this sick to my stomach feeling that hasn’t stopped yet. I’m sure the alcohol will help get rid of it soon. I already feel a buzz from chugging that delicious, yet disgusting cherry vodka from the refrigerator and I hope this wine just keeps adding to it. I want to be drunk and have no more tears to cry for the rest of the night and hopefullyI’ll be able to get some sleep. Thank god I’m off tomorrow because I’ll be spending tomorrow drunk too. Plus, there’s no way I’d be able to go to work feeling this way, I’d probably cry all over everyone’s food and that wouldn’t be a good thing. Then there’s the chance of seeing Creedence there because that’s where everyone goes to eat all the time, especially him and his friends. Depending how I feel I may take the next day off after that too and spend the day drunk. It may not be the smartest decision I make but apparently, I’m not good at making smart decisions these days. I was just dumped so I’m allowed to spend a few days feeling bad for myself.

I finish off the rest of the wine and feel even more buzzed than I did before, but I need more alcohol. Winter isn’t off work yet either, so I have some time. I stand up in my tub and step out real quick drying a little bit of the water off and wrap a towel around myself then walk out of my room out to the kitchen, grabbing a tall glass so I can drink some more cherry vodka. I don’t give a fuck about mixing wine with vodka all I care about is getting drunk. I fill the glass to the top leaving a little space, so I don’t spill it and carry it back to the bathroom. I hang up my towel and sit back in the tub, draining a little water and adding more hot water to it. I need it hot enough to almost burn me or else it’s too cold because I’m a freeze baby. I hate that I’m cold all the time. I chug back some more cherry vodka, the warmth moving through my body again, warming me up even more. I giggle to myself because I think I might be on the verge of being drunk.

“I can’t believe this is my fucking life right now. All because you had to go and be an idiot and not use your fucking brain, Emerald.” Now that I say it out loud it pisses me off. I’m now pissed off at myself. Creedence was right. I shouldn’t have been trying to force him to do something he wasn’t ready for. Nowbecause of that I ruined my fucking relationship and lost the love of my life.

I finally get out of the bath when my body looks like a prune and I’m drunk. I stumble drying myself off before Winter gets here. She texted me like five minutes ago that she’d be here soon, so I need to get a move on. I sloppily pull on my lace thong and put on a pair of sweatpants because now that I’m out of the bath I’m freezing and then I don’t even bother with a bra I just throw on my hoodie.

“Knock, knock.” I hear Winter yell from the kitchen and I’m suddenly so thankful to not be alone anymore. It’s dangerous to be alone with your thoughts sometimes.

I wipe at my tears and clear my throat since I’m all stuffy and can barely talk from how much I’ve been drinking. “Coming,” I slur a little, walking out of my room and down the hall towards the kitchen.

“Hey, bitch.” Winter smiles trying to lighten the mood.

“Hey, girl.” I wipe away more tears with my hands as I walk over to her to give her a hug.

“Oh babe, come here.” She reaches her arms out to me and wraps them around me, squeezing me tightly in the process. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s–” I take a deep breath trying to calm myself down because now that she’s here I have more tears to cry all of a sudden. “It’s okay,” I slur and hiccup, having a hard time getting those two words out.

“Did you start drinking without me?” she pouts but giggles at the same time.

“I couldn’t help it; I needed something to numb the pain.” I walk over to the refrigerator and pull out two bottles of wine. I may look like an alcoholic to some but most people who know me know I like to stay stocked up on my wine. So, I keep multiple bottles in there at a time.

“What have you been drinking so far?” She gives me a concerned look as I stumble a little when I turn around.

“Some cherry vodka and about half a bottle of wine. I barely ate today.” I hiccup. “I’m probably drunk, maybe,” I snort. Yep, I’m drunk, and I can still feel my heartache, so I know I haven’t been drinking enough. I want to drink until my lips are numb, along with my feelings. I don’t want to feel anymore, at least not tonight. I’m hoping tomorrow I’ll feel a little better.

“Wanna do a shot of cherry vodka?” She smiles reaching for the bottle in my refrigerator. We both love cherry vodka, so I had a feeling she would want to do one once she found out I still had that bottle from last time.

“Hell yeah, I wanna do one.” I grab the bottle from Winter, very clumsily, but I don’t care. I unscrew the lid, throwing it onto the counter, missing and giggling. I’ll get that tomorrow. I take another chug from the bottle and pass it to her.

“I said do a shot, not chug it.” She laughs as she takes the bottle from me.

“Hey, that could’ve been a shot worth, maybe two.” I shrug my shoulders a little and laugh at her.

“Alright, fair enough.” She lifts the bottle to her mouth and chugs some down before placing it back on the counter and shaking her head with disgust, for cherry vodka being our favorite it still grosses us both out when we do plain shots of it. “Fuck that was intense.” She says with one eye closed still trying to get over the taste of it.

“It definitely is intense when you chug it that way, still gross too.” I laugh while taking the bottle and taking another drink, not chugging it this time.

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