Page 112 of A Love Letter to Whiskey
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am!”
Jamie stood, jaw tight. “You’re not marrying anyone but me.”
I scoffed, and even as the laugh left my lips, his words sent a harsh yet warming zinger straight to my core. I loved hearing him say that, and hated myself for loving it.
“You can’t do this. You can’t walk in here, at the one time I finally have my life together, and make me rip it to shreds.” The tears didn’t slowly build and bubble over, they struck fast, glossing my eyes after one blink and sliding down my cheeks with the second one. “All we do is hurt. All we do is destroy, and one of us is always picking up the pieces, trying to move on or forget or not get our hopes up. It’s sick. We’re toxic.” I was crying harder now, and once again Jamie reached for me, but I backed away. “And now, I risked everything I have to be with you last night, because I literally can’t say no to you.” I shook violently then. “I cheated on a man who didn’t deserve it, on a man who wants to spend his life with me, on a man I love, all because of my inability to let you go.” I cried, tears streaming freely, hot and scarring down my cheeks. “Your love is poisoning me, Jamie!”
He cracked, something between a sob and a groan rumbling in his throat as his face twisted. Jamie crossed the room in three steps, shaking his head and mumbling no before pulling me into him. He held me tight, and I fought against another sob until he bent, his lips pressing into mine. I shoved him back hard.
“Stop it! Stop! You have to go, you have to leave, Jamie.” My breaths were wild, voice too high-pitched.
Jamie stood there, staring at me, willing me with that damn stare of his to change my mind. When I didn’t, he growled, punching a box of pans as he passed it and I jumped with the noise. I didn’t watch him leave, didn’t watch his back move through the door, didn’t see his face when he whispered that he’d always love me, didn’t hear the slam of the door behind him. All I heard was my heart, beating in my ears. All I saw was my hands, hitting the ground, tears falling to land next to them. All I felt was everything — every aching, shitty thing that had ever existed. Guilt, regret, love, lust, desperation, want, need, pain, fear, loss — all of it, all at once, like being caught inside a huge wave that broke just in front of me, swallowing me down into the depths of a dark, cold ocean of feelings I’d avoided for so long.
I don’t know how long I stayed crumpled there on the floor, or how long I cried before my tears dried up along with my voice and I just laid there. My phone rang in the other room, but I didn’t move. I soaked in my regret, in the horrific pain that only comes with a relapse, and I paid my penance.
I’d never hated myself more than in that moment.
• • •
I was still sore from Whiskey the night Brad and I finalized our wedding song.
And three months later, on the date that had been crumpled on an invitation between Jamie’s hands in my apartment, I married Bradley Neil. I wore the white dress, he wore the black tux, we danced and ate cake and I smiled through it all. But it was a dead smile, a smile that never reached the corners of my lips, and I wondered if I’d ever smile again.
I wondered a lot of things.
I wondered if it was Jamie I saw escaping the back of the church when the priest asked him to speak now or forever hold his peace. Was that him, or had I just imagined it?
I wondered if the gaping hole where Jamie’s warm buzz used to exist would ever close, if I’d ever get that part of myself back, or if it’d always belong to him.
I wondered if there would ever be a day, a single day in my entire life, where I would truly shake my addiction.
When I closed my eyes on my wedding night as Brad slipped between my thighs and thought of Jamie instead, I knew I never would. No matter what I said, no matter what I did, my addiction to Whiskey would always live on.
Whether I fed it or not.
SO NOW, WE’RE ALL caught up.
It’s crazy how fast the buzz comes back after you’ve been sober for so long.
I opened my door and felt tipsy just at the sight of him, eyes blurring and legs shaking. It used to take me at least a shot to get to this point, but my tolerance level had been weakened by distance and time, and just seeing him warmed my blood. I gripped the knob tighter, as if that’d help, but it was like trying to chug water after passing the point of no return.
