Page 73 of One Last Verse

Dialing Roman’s number, I ran out onto the terrace. The cold stones bit my feet. The line clicked.

“Ms. Evans?”

“You need to come over right now. Frank is drunk. He just tried to get on his bike.” I paused to catch my breath and hopped down the stairs, skipping a step.

“Mr. Blade gave me the rest of the week off,” he said carefully.

Behind me, the front door slammed.

“I don’t think you understand. He’s very drunk and he needs a doctor,” I muttered as I walked to my Honda, my keychain clutched in my palm so hard, my skin started to tear. “I really don’t want to call in a domestic disturbance, but I don’t know how to handle him.” My words were turning into sobs.

“I’ll be right there.”

“Thank you.” I breathed out a sigh of relief and fumbled with the key fob to unlock my car. My hand shook.

Frank was closing in on me. “Where the fuck are you going?” His voice was an ugly rasp and didn’t sound like his own.

I spun around and matched his stare. He looked dangerous. And not in a good kind of way. His body swayed like a leaf in the wind, ready to drop to the ground.

“And where the fuck areyougoing and where the fuck have you been all day?” I screamed back. “I needed you! Isabella needed you! What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“You broke my fucking door.” Fuming, he motioned at the garage door. “Then you tried to fucking assault me in my own house!”

I could see the Escalade’s headlights streaming into the foggy yard from under the jammed panel. “Well, why don’t you sue me for that, Frank, huh? Since that’s your best strategy when things don’t go your way.”

“And then you tried to fucking kill me.”

“Are you serious?” I couldn’t believe my ears.

He staggered over.

I rounded the car to stand on the opposite side. I needed to put some distance between us. A barrier.

“You wanted to talk, let’s fucking talk.” His face was ravaged by pain and anger. “What do you want to know? Do you wanna hear about how it feels when you drive into a fucking wall riding a hundred and twenty an hour?”

“I can’t talk to you when you’re like this, and I can’t be with you when you’re like this. You promised me you’d get help!”

“And you’re supposed to be my girlfriend, not my fucking therapist.”

We went on arguing for endless minutes until the rumble of Roman’s car broke us up. He dragged Frank back into the house and called a medic.

I left.

Old, almost forgotten memories of my father flashed in front of me as I steered my Honda down the mountain road. He’d been a sloppy and mute drunk who spent his days glued to the TV with a bottle of whatever he could get his hands on while our mother worked two jobs to support his habit.

But not once during all those fourteen years of living with an alcoholic had I felt the way I felt with Frank tonight. Terrified.

I’d been ignored, but I’d never been yelled at and subjected to the kind of emotional violence he’d put me through.

My hands still shook and my heartbeat was like a damaged vintage tape, pounding, scratching, and getting stuck. I drove without any sense of direction, making random turns and listening to my heavy metal playlist that consisted mainly of classic Slipknot and Avenged Sevenfold. Frank’s angry voice still roared in my head and I wanted his screams purged. I wanted today, with all its disappointments and resentment, erased completely.

The bottom of my right foot burned like hell. Roman had been kind enough to snatch a pair of shoes for me before I left. I couldn’t bring myself to go back into that house. Not after everything that had happened there.

Hours later, I squeezed my car between two SUVs down the street from my mother’s apartment. My mind still raced. I wasn’t sure why, out of all people, I came to see her.

We sat in the kitchen surrounded by the soft rattle of the wall heater. The familiarity of the place soothed my aching soul.

“I don’t know what to tell you.” Still shocked, she shook her head and stared into space as I continued to blow my nose, napkin after napkin. “He needs to want to stop drinking. There’s no point in fighting it otherwise. You can threaten, you can plead, you can try the intervention route, but it’s not something he can just turn off.”

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