Elias
February 28th, 2015
I can't remember last night.
I should remember why I can't remember, but I don't.
Everything hurts.
My heart's crashing so hard against my rib cage I wonder if it'll actually shatter this time. Just break my bones into a thousand jagged pieces and put an end to all my bullshit.
Most mornings start like this. My body doesn't understand where it is or why it's here, and then I remember.
I remember every fucking mistake that put me in this position and the panic sets in.
Nine outta ten times I can deal with it. I've gotta couple pills within arms reach that help straighten me out, but I barely have it in me to move my hands this morning.
My legs and arms are so numb, the adrenaline tearing through my veins might be the only thing that's keeping me conscious.
But I wanna let go. To tap out. To forget this morning and this moment as badly as I wanna forget the last nine and a half months, but some things just stick.
Even if you don't want them to.
Pressure builds between my temples and my lungs freeze up to the point where I don't know if I can count on them to remember to keep breathing from one second to the next.
I shut my eyes, push through the panic, and scramble to back track the last eight hours.
Girlfriend, hospital, home.
Girlfriend, hospital, liquor store, home.
Girlfriend, hospital, liquor store, cashier girl, home.
Fuck.
I turn onto my side and stare at Mindy's half of the bed.
Someone else's lipstick's smeared across her pillow. Someone else's lipstick is smeared across my mouth.
Nine months.
I haven't touched another girl in nine months, and now a stranger's perfume's all over my sheets.
Shit.
I gotta wash these. I gotta wash everything, including myself.
I smell like her. Like a mistake, and I can't afford to make any mistakes today.
I'm gonna be a dad in a couple hours.
Today's supposed to be all about my daughter, but I'm starting it off sick to my stomach and soaked in a stranger's perfume.
I kick off the covers and try to figure out how to fix things--if I can fix things.
Blurred light pours in through the windows and spills all over the room. I pull a pillow over my eyes to block out the sunlight.
It burns.
Whiskey whirs around my blood stream and leaves my whole body raw and ragged like I ended up on the losing side of a bar fight.
My right hand's throbbing.
I pull it under the pillow and stare up at four bruised, bloody knuckles hovering in front of my face. The skin's shredded.
I lean back against my sheets and try to remember how that happened, but I can't.
Maybe I don't want to.
I sit up, still cradling my wrist and let my eyes wander down my forearm.
A girl's handwriting is tattooed across my skin in Sharpie.
"Dear Elias or Elliot or whatever your name is,
Sorry to run out on you or whatever but tonight didn't really turn out the way I expected. I wasn't planning on chiefing you but you're the one who passed out next to a college girl so here goes. Look, I get that you're hung up on your ex or whatever, but I'm not a stand in for her. Advice for the future? Don't invite a girl back to your place if you don't plan on at least fucking her. So, yeah thanks for nothing.
-Alexandra
PS: I could've done without the crying session. Call a therapist. You need one. "
Whiskey and leftovers of last night's dinner shoot up the back of my throat and pools in the bottom of my mouth.
More than one image of Alexandra's glitter pink lips pressed against mine pops into my head.
I try picturing her face, but the details are fuzzy.
Small nose, brown-green eyes, short hair.
I tell myself that how she looks isn't important.
But it is--
--'cause apparently not-so-sober me is still in love with who she looks like.
I swallow the truth and stare out at the life Mindy's been trying to make for us in this tiny shoebox we share.
Her side is flawlessly clean, like it always is. What's left of her maternity clothes are folded neatly in a pile on top of her dresser. Her fake French perfumes are neatly lined up in front of her vanity mirror, while three or so of my Axe bottles lie scattered across my half of the floor.
When I left the hospital last night, I promised her I'd clean my side before her and the baby came home, but I can't even give her that now.
Almost everything I own is hanging out of my closet. T-shirts, jeans, and board shorts droop off their hangers and form a trail leading up to the bottom of our bed.
I crawl over to the edge of the mattress to find a pile of clothes and an empty bottle of whiskey lying in the mouth of an open suitcase.
I don't even remember packing.
Last time this happened, I was sober and sleep walking, but Mindy stopped me.
I said a lot of things that night I don't remember.
But Mindy does.
'Cause I tried to leave her.
I've been doing my best to make her forget about that night, but she still feels it.
Stress isn't good for the baby.
Bringing up the past isn't good for the baby.
Thinking about Alex isn't good for the baby.
So I stopped--blocked out my memories with the miracle of medication.
Until now.
I pick my shit off the floor and grab the bottle with my unbruised hand to take it outside to the trash.
I stop dead in the doorway when the world spins off its axis and turns my stomach inside out.
I backtrack, stumble into the bathroom, and drop to the floor right when the dry heaving hits. My knees crunch against at least a hundred jagged pieces of something scattered across the blue tiles.
I rise out of the glass, my stomach still churning, and search for the source.
The bathroom mirror's shattered. The cabinet's hanging off its hinges, broken--twisted to the point where the nails are exposed.
My hand throbs, my heart tightens, and tears come spilling down my face without any fucking warning.
I sink against the wall, shattered glass under my bare feet, shame burning in the back of my throat, and fall apart.
I'm not supposed to do this.
Mindy needs a man to take care of her, not a child. But I feel like a fucking child.
I feel like the life we're living is make believe, that the ring my mom wants me to give her is a prop, that the room Mindy's ex, Darius, painted for my baby girl while I was gone belongs to him--not me.
He's the real thing. A real man. Mindy's tall, dark, determined hero. He swallowed his pride when I couldn't. He was there for Mindy while I was wasting away at Bellevue. He even tried to get me and her into couple counseling at his church.
He fits. He belongs. He's ready.
But I'm scared, small, and too damn hungover to pick myself off the bathroom floor.
My phone buzzes in the bedroom and forces me to my feet. I dunk my head in the sink and wash my face before I answer it.
I look like shit. The broken glass isn't doing me any favors. I didn't used to have dark circles under my eyes like this. I also didn't used to have to shave, but the last couple days my dinky shadow's gotten outta control. I look like the ghost of the guy I was after Lacey died, but worse.
There's no real reason for that. Or maybe there is, but I don't stop to think about it.
I grab a towel off the sink and pat the rest of the water off my face. My eyes are still puffy. Fuck it. I'll wear sunglasses, at least until people start asking questions.
The phone rings another ten times before I actually get to it.
Eighteen missed calls. Half from Mindy, the rest from my mom, plus a couple dozen texts from Darius.
I open the latest one.
Text Message from Darius Jones :
DJ: It's time! Get here ASAP.
I fire back a quick "On my way," before scrambling to find a clean shirt and my keys.
My head's pounding as I stumble out the front door and down towards the street. The air's not too cold to breathe, but cold enough to convince me that March, despite the calendar, still counts as winter in San Francisco.
I pace along the edge of the sidewalk with one busted hand shoved deep in my pocket and the other wrapped around my phone.
After ten minutes of just about freezing my balls off, I wave down a salt and pepper haired cabbie who pulls over and let's me in.
"Where you headed, son?"
"UCSF Medical Center. My girlfriend's having a baby."
He smiles at me proudly through the rear view mirror but I avoid his gaze.
"Congratulations, kid. I'll get you there in no time."
The city races past the windows as he cuts in and out of midday traffic. He asks me a series of questions, only half of which I actually remember to answer. Between my mom's constant texts and the daze of a hangover, my brain's scrambled.
I shut my eyes and try to fade out of the moment, but I can't.
We blaze up and down the hills so fast my stomach threatens to do more than dry heave this time around.
I think about telling the cabbie to ease off the gas, to drive around the block fifteen times, or take the jam-packed back streets just to slow things down, but I don't say anything.
The faster he drives, the faster I realize that all of this is really happening.
I'm gonna be a father.
I'm gonna have a daughter.
I just hope to God I can learn to love this little girl as much as the one I left her for.