Page 16 of The Ballad of Us
“You’re in love with her.” It’s not hard for Randy to deduce after my description of her.
“Pathetically in love with her. She saved my life, man. Not in some dramatic, pull-me-from-a-burning-building way, but in all the small ways that matter. She made me want to be better.” The admission comes more easily than I expect.
“What happened?” His question is loaded with the weight of three years of my fuck-ups.
The question hangs between us for a long moment.
What happened? Everything and nothing. You know, it’s a thousand small betrayals, broken promises, and hungover mornings when I’d always swear it would be the last time. "I kept choosing the bottle over her, disappointing her, breaking promises I meant to keep. She held on longer than anyone should’ve. I kept giving her reasons to leave until she finally did."
When I was a child, I hid under the dining table while my mom and Richard shouted. Their voices were a storm. But the opening of a bottle always brought quiet. Alcohol promised refuge and a silence I understood.
The night Rhea left flashes through my mind in a succession of blurred images, fractured by my constant intoxication. I piece together the hazy, frightening, sharp pieces of memory that still cut like glass.
Rhea’s suitcase is by the door. The look on her face isn’t angry, just tired. So fucking tired. I was screaming at her to leave, throwing her things like a spoiled child having a tantrum. My brother and bandmates should’ve whooped my ass for treating her that way because her pain-filled green eyes haunt me with every passing second.
Andrew and the guys showed up, probably called by Rhea because she knew I’d lose my shit when she left me. I want to crawl under a rock just thinking about her not being able to leave without the backup of my own brother and band.
The sound of the door closing behind her was so final it might as well have been a gunshot.
“I don’t even remember all of her leaving,” I admit, my voice cracking. Shame threatens, but the truth pushes through. “I was too drunk for the moment that mattered. She walked out, and I was too wasted to properly ask her to stay.”
Randy doesn’t say anything, just lets me sit with the weight of the truth. It’s one thing to know you messed up, but it’s another thing entirely to voice it out loud, hearing your own voice admit the depth of your failures.
“I threw her suitcase across the room. The woman I love is leaving me, and instead of begging her to stay or promising to change, I throw her things. What kind of man does that?” I scoff. I hate who I’ve become.
“An addict.” Randy’s right, but it doesn’t make it any easier to hear.
His words should feel like absolution, but they don’t. They feel like an explanation, not an excuse, and I’m not sure I deserve even that much grace.
“I called her a bitch. When she said she was leaving, when she tried to explain why, I called her a fucking bitch and told her to get out.” Tears well in my blue eyes, and the more I think about how I treated her the last night we shared a life together, the quicker they are to fall.
The admission hangs between us, ugly and unforgivable. I’ve never spoken those words aloud. Here, surrounded by peaceful beauty, I can’t hide from what I did.
I double over as it hits me, gasping for air for a few seconds before I push the words out in an emotional dump on Randy. “She loved me with everything, and I called her a bitch for trying to save herself from me.” My tears come hot and fast.
Randy’s hand lands on my shoulder. He doesn’t placate me or minimize what I’ve done to make me feel better. He just sits with me while I fall apart, offering the kind of silent support I never gave Rhea when she needed it.
“I have to get her back and find a way to make this right.” I don’t want to live any more of this life without her.
“Maybe. But first, you have to get yourself back. You can’t love someone else when you’re this broken. Trust me.” Randy continues with his sage advice.
I know he’s right. But focusing on myself while Rhea is out there, trying to forget me, makes my skin crawl. I fidget and feel the jagged edge of a broken guitar pick. It’s a reminder of what I’m fighting for, a marker for who I want to become.
“What if it’s too late by the time I get out of here?” God, how would I survive in a world where she doesn’t exist?
“Then you’ll have to live with that. But you’ll live with it sober.” Randy’s confidence in my ability to live in that world is lost on me.
We sit in silence for a while longer, watching the sun climb higher over the lake. Birds call to each other across the water, and in the distance, I can hear other people living their lives -laughing, talking, and existing in a world that doesn’t revolve around my pain.
“I used to write songs about her. Back then, when things were good, melodies came to me just by watching her sleep. The happy tunes I hadn’t played with since I was a kid came back. She always has this way of bringing out the best in me.”
“What made you stop writing for her?” He doesn’t hide his curiosity.
I think about his question for a moment. "I got scared. Happiness felt unreal. I waited for her to leave, so I drank more and pushed her away. Self-fulfilling prophecy." I roll my eyes at myself because I sound like an asshole.
"Fear’s a motherfucker. It makes us do all kinds of stupid shit in the name of self-protection." Randy hits the nail on the head.
“I pushed away the best thing that ever happened to me because I was afraid of losing her. How fucked up is that?” I’m an idiot.
