Page 79 of Glass Jawed
Lucian
I haven’t touched a drop of alcohol in a week.
Which doesn’t mean I’mokay. If anything, my insides feel like they’re simmering—raw, jittery, frayed around the edges. But for the first time in a year, maybe longer... my mind isclear.
Crystal fucking clear.
It’s strange, really—how sobriety isn’t just about the absence of alcohol. It’s the absence of fog. Of static. Of justifications that used to make it easier to breathe.
And it terrifies me.
Because clarity? Clarity isbrutal.
Clarity leaves no room for excuses, no corners to hide in.
Nobroken-mannarrative to wrap around my mess—my selfishness—and call it retribution.
For the first time in what feels like a year, I’m not floating through the days. Not numbing. Not deflecting. Just... sitting. In the wreckage.
And looking around.
I’ve been doing that a lot this past week while I’ve been off from work. Watching my own life like it belongs to someone else. Like some documentary on bad decisions and emotional cowardice. Starring me. Written by me. Directed by... anger.
And yet, through all of it—through the shattered trust and the self-inflicted ruin—I keep coming back toher.
Not to what happened.
But toher.
To the way she’d hum while brushing her long, dark hair.
To the way her face lit up when she talked about Hindi indie songs she thought I’d hate but secretly saved to my playlist.
To her body angled toward mine in sleep like she forgot where she ended and I began.
To the laugh that slipped out of her when I mispronounced ’golgappa’and tried to argue that I had my own pronunciation rights.
I can’t stop replaying the little things. Not the mind-altering sex. Not the extravagant dates. Just... her.
Theherthat moved through my life like she belonged there. Like she’d alwaysbeenthere.
And the more I sit with it—the more I strip myself bare of all the armor andegoandresentment—I realize I was never pretending with her.
Not since that first date.
Not when I kissed her for the first time and felt my fragmented pieces click into place.
Not when I stared at her across my kitchen and thought,I hope I don’t ruin this.
And somehow I still did.
But that doesn’t erase what it was. Whatshewas. What shestill is.
And the fact that it took losing her to realize it makes me feel like the worst kind of cliché.
But it doesn’t make it untrue.
God!I hope it doesn’t.
