Page 24 of Retribution

I keep drinking.

My phone begins to vibrate. Pulling it up, I see a number of missed calls and text messages from people offering their condolences.

I shut it off.

I can’t be here right now, in this house, surrounded by… her.

Throwing on my coat over my partially unbuttoned shirt I put my wallet into my pocket, heading out of the house. I leave my car keys and phone at home.

***

There’s a chill in the air as I walk down the block to the nearest bar. The buzz of customers sounds through the opening as I push through the door.

It’s not too late yet, so there is still spaces for me to sit.

I pick a space at the bar, ordering a whiskey on the rocks, telling the guy to keep them coming.

He looks at me for a second before giving me a slight nod.

I knock them back in one. Each shot chipping away, burning what little feeling I have left inside of me.

In the bar, people are generally in groups, chatting away, laughing, without a care in the world.

My mouth turns sour.

Alcohol is an interesting concept. It is used in several ways; to celebrate, to socialize, to wind down. Or the one I’m most familiar with, to numb pain.

I don’t have a good way of dealing with my feelings. Hence, a therapist from the tender age of 12.

I began consuming alcohol around the time when my mother died; she committed suicide, leaving me, my brother Harrison, and my sister Charlotte to be brought up by my Aunt Lucy.

My father?

We parted ways a long time ago.

After he and my mother divorced, he barely kept in contact with us. He sent us gifts on birthdays and Christmas, financially supporting my mother. The bitter truth was, he left her for another woman.

As far as I’m aware, my mother couldn’t deal with the strain of being heartbroken and raising three children, alone.

What my father did to her was unforgivable, and I’ve always resented him for it. Harrison and Charlotte, however, didn’t see it that way.

Once they reached the age of 18, they tried to build a relationship with our father, something I was never be able to do, something I will never do.

Both, Harrison and Charlotte, work for my father’s law firm as prestigious lawyers, under his thumb.

I drink another glass of whiskey.

The nerve of Harrison is eating away at me.

Being in one of the rawest moments of my entire life, reveling in the loss of my wife, he had to be there.

Looking down at my empty glass, that has not yet been refilled, I scowl. Searching for the bartender, I beckon him over and point at my glass.

He shakes his head.

“Look, buddy. I think you’ve had enough for one night.”

I furrow my brows.

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