Social Neighbor (The Social Series Book 1) (34 page)

“So what do you know?”

“I know about Elle. I mean—I know she died. I know it was an accident, but she didn’t give me the details.”

A look of anguish spread across his features. “She was my youngest. The baby. I was drunk. Of course,” he mumbled, tugging at his already loose tie.

“I know. Why didn’t you tell me that your daughter passed away?”

“Why didn’t you tell Flor that you’re an alcoholic? I expect our reasons for withholding full disclosure are one in the same. Wrong, but one in the same. Fear and shame have a way of lingering.”

“I knew she’d hate me if I told her,” I whispered, feeling the full weight of how she had looked at me. Her gray eyes speared me, her words shredded me, but none of that hurt more than how decisive she was when she’d given me her back and chose to run. She hadn’t even wanted an explanation. That was how little she cared, and it was exactly what I deserved.

“If there’s anything I know about my daughter, it’s that she always cares. She cares too much. That’s why she acts the way she does. She cares more than her heart can stand to.”

“I don’t think so, Martin.”

“Yeah, well, I’m her father and I know so. I’ve been enduring her wrath for years. It would be easier to walk away, to allow her to hate me and to give up on hoping that someday we may have a healthy relationship, but I can’t give up on her. I can’t give up on myself. I turn the other cheek because I know she loves me and I love her and right now, being angry, pointing the finger, it’s the only way she thinks she can deal. I hold out hope that she will come around.”

“She doesn’t hate you. Even Matt said that. She blames herself for what happened to Elle.”

“I know she does and I’ve told her a million times that she was a little girl. She was in pre-k for the love of god! I was to blame, and it’s my burden to carry.”

“She’s stubborn.”

“And
that
may be your only hope for fixing things with her. She’s stubborn. She doesn’t give in easily and her brain may be screaming at her to wash her hands of you but if I know my daughter, her heart will refuse. She’s too stubborn. It’s always been her greatest strength and her biggest fault, that stubborn heart of hers,” he said with a ghost of smile on his lips and a tear shimmering in his tired gray eyes.

“I hope you’re right.” Even as I said it, I knew there was no hope. She was done with me, and I couldn’t blame her in the least. I felt spent and scared and heartbroken. I wondered where she’d run off to and if she was okay.

“Me too, bud. Me too.”

Silence stretched between the two of us and I toyed with the idea of asking Martin for more information. I knew it would hurt him to tell me, it would hurt me to hear it, and it would hurt Flor the same as it has hurt for the last twenty-two years but I had to know…

“What happened to Elle?” I asked with my fingers steepled in front of my face, my elbows bent, the weight of my upper body braced on my knees. I looked as though I was praying and maybe I was. Praying for me, for Martin, for Flor, for an ugly history, an uglier truth and the single parallel between it all—alcoholism.

I said my goodbyes to Martin and slipped out into the night. I was worried about Flor. I had no right to her but I needed to know she was okay. I needed to know that she was safe. Hearing what Martin had to say, I ached for Flor more than I ached for myself.

My God, Flor. My sweet, beautiful, Flor.

I could have called Con to come get me. I could have called Halley. I could have even taken Martin up on his offer to drive me home, but I chose to hail a cab instead.

I had so much to think about. I didn’t want the company of anyone who knew me. I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to explain. I didn’t want sympathetic glances. I didn’t want worried eyes burning holes in me. I wanted solitude. I knew solitude didn’t mean that I would be better off. I’d simply have the peace and quiet I needed so that I could fall apart.

I dragged myself into my penthouse and hated that my nose seemed to seek Flor’s scent of its own volition. She wasn’t here. I knew that but I wanted to draw in that soft and subtly sweet fragrance that clung to her skin and hair and clothes.

True to my self-destructive tendencies, I made my way to my bedroom and brought the pillow she had slept on last night to my face. I buried my nose into the plush material and inhaled deeply and for a moment, a split second, she was here. She was with me but the moment I exhaled, she’d fled from my life once again.

“Fuck!” I screamed into the silence of my space.

I couldn’t wait any longer. I had to know where she went, if she’d arrived safely and that she was okay. I called and called and called but she refused to answer. I didn’t expect her to and the coward in me was glad that she didn’t accept my call. I hadn’t the slightest idea what I could say to make her feel better. I didn’t think there was much I could do or say to remedy the hurt and anger and accusation that was written on her face.

Matt’s text to let me know that she was with him was the only positive thing to happen all night.

Once I knew she was with Matt, I felt some level of relief but it was marginal and did little to soothe me. I knew what would soothe me though. I hated that my impulse was to find a drink and fast. It also frightened me. The threat of relapse never felt so close, so powerful, and so imminent.

My phone buzzed in my pocket and I fished it out.

Flor.

She sent me a text. One simple text.

Flor: I’m fine.

It had been hours since she ran from the party. I noted the time on the screen of my cell phone.

1:32 AM.

If she was fine, then why was she still awake at nearly two o’clock in the morning? Was she as restless as I was? Was she drinking something to calm her nerves and mollify the ache in her chest? Was there an ache in her chest at all?

Me: Please talk to me.

I waited with my phone cradled in my hands, willing her to message me back, but nothing came, and my heart broke a little more with each passing minute.

Any man with a brain in his head knew that that declaration coming from a woman most definitely meant that she was anything but
fine
. I waited an hour then tried calling her but her phone was off again, I assumed. I hung up, unsure of myself and unsure of what I should say, unsure if I had the endurance it would take to not find a drink and drain it, unsure if I had damaged my friendship with Martin, unsure of where things went from here…

One thing was certain, I wanted the burn of alcohol but all I had was the burn of pure, distilled devastation. There was a severe hangover in my future

For three full days I sat in my penthouse going out of my mind. I was locked in a death battle with my personal monster—a monster that had sprung free from the proverbial closet, bared its teeth and set sights on me. I was ready to wave my white flag.

I had always assumed that falling off the wagon would feel a lot different, though assigning a specific adjective for exactly what it would feel like remained elusive. A decent word for the occasion completely escaped me, even now, staring at the crystal tumbler in my hand filled with priceless scotch, aged so long is was nothing short of a miracle that it hadn’t simply evaporated all together.

I’d given thought to what the moment would feel like about as much as I’d thought about drinking, about staying sober, about Tommy, about Martin, about Flor…

And still, I had not a single word for the moment. It felt oddly unceremonious to not assign a word for it. Funny the things that take up the prime real estate of your mind when you’ve lost all care—when you’ve surrendered completely.

The only thing that seemed to fit the occasion was the day of the week. “Tommy,” I whispered his name as though it were a plea. A plea for what? I didn’t know. Forgiveness? Perhaps, but that was something I’d never ask of him or anyone else. Not now. It was a Tuesday, and Tommy had decided to wear a tie of rope on a Tuesday. It seemed like fate that I’d choose to pick up drinking again on the same day of the week that Tommy had chosen to die.

I brought the tumbler to my nose and inhaled the richly alcoholic scent of failure, underscored by subtleties of oak and time gone by.

“The Balvenie, single malt, aged fifty years,” I whispered to myself, leaning back in the plush leather lounge. It was situated in such a way that the reflection in the panoramic windows of my apartment was what my eyes saw, not the view of Manhattan beyond. Just me. A gray figure in a chair with a glass of liquid amber in hand. A shadow. It was fitting because I felt like a shadow of a man—a hollow feeling that I was intent on drowning in the most expensive scotch I could get my hands on. I’d hate myself in the morning, but after a glass of The Balvenie, I wouldn’t actually give a shit.

At least, that’s what I’d hoped.

I brought the tumbler to my lips and ignored the single hot tear rolling down my cheek. That single tear made me feel small and pathetic and vulnerable. I hated that tear. I hated what had put it there. I hated that I hurt so fucking much and there was nothing to fix it.

The chiming coming from my cell phone jarred me. It was so quiet in my home that the tolling of digital bells had rattled me. I set my thirty thousand dollar scotch down on the end table beside my chair, grabbed one crutch, and got up in no major rush to find my phone.

The last thing I wanted right now was someone showing up at my door because I hadn’t responded to their call or text message. If I was going to fall off the wagon, I was going to do it in peace. I didn’t need the shame of getting caught heaped on to my growing list of stress.

I swiped at the screen of my cell phone to answer her call. “Halley.”

“Graham. What are you doing?”

“No need to babysit me, Halley. I’m a big boy. It’s late, why are you calling right now?”

“You have surgery on Friday to remove the fixator. I just wanted to check on you and see if you needed a lift to the hospital on Friday.”

“Trust me, I haven’t forgotten. I can’t wait to get this thing removed, but that’s not why you called, is it?”

“Graham, stop. I just… Flor called me earlier.”

“She did?”

“Yes. She wanted…she wanted to know how you were doing. She sounded worried. I’m worried too. She’s upset.”

“Don’t be worried about me. I’m fine,” I lied. I didn’t know what to think of the news that Flor had called my sister and that she had sounded “worried.”

“Like I haven’t heard that before. Have you spoken to Martin today?”

“Yeah,” I sighed. I had spoken to Martin every day. I hadn’t given it much thought the night our worlds collided but the next day when he called, I worried that perhaps our dynamic had changed over night. I was worried that maybe he’d view me differently. I feared that he’d distance himself from me, but to my surprise, it was the exact opposite. If he were invested in me before, he was really invested in me now.

“How is he?”

“He’s fine.”

“And how are you?”

“Halley, I’m
fine
.”

“You don’t sound fine. You sound like you’re ready to give up.”

“You’re right. I am. I’m tired and pretty much wrecked. I’d like some peace and quiet to feel sorry for myself.”

“I don’t think you should be alone right now.”

“I’m a big boy, Halley. And this big boy just wants to be left alone.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Graham?”

“Yeah?”

“I never told you, but you should know that I don’t blame you for Tommy. I never have. I give you hell because I don’t want to lose you too. I just…I don’t know how to be nice about it because I’m scared.”

“Margaret, I—”

“Graham, promise me I won’t lose you too.”

“You aren’t going to lose me, Halley. Who else would you have to harass?”

“No one. I like harassing you.”

“I know.”

“Good.”

“Bye, Halley.”

The call ended and I launched my phone, my thunderous scream swallowed up the crashing sound the phone made as it splintered against the wall and fell to the floor in a multitude of pieces.

“Fuck! Goddammit!” I screamed to no one. I wanted to destroy everything! I wanted to kick and punch and flail and fuck something up until it was as broken and damaged as I felt.

I hobbled as quickly as I could to The Balvenie and swept my arm across the table it was perched on. I raked my arm across the end table where I’d abandoned my tumbler. They both skittered across the apartment, shattering and sending my addiction slopping out onto the floor at my feet. I kicked my chair and it went screeching across the room.

“Fuck!” My heart pounded away in my chest. Fresh, hot tears spilled from my eyes and I welcomed them. I welcomed the hurt. Fighting that hurt meant drinking The Balvenie in order to drown it.

If avoiding drinking meant I had to embrace that hurt, I’d embrace it now. I’d let it wash over me. I’d pour myself a generous glass of pain and drink it down until it ran dry. I knew that if I did, it would be in my system for a while, I supposed. But at some point, I’d metabolize the poison and it would be gone when the next day dawned. I got drunk on all my hurt, all my pain, all my fear in hopes that I’d metabolize it all, and once it was gone, it would be
gone
. I was tired of fighting.