I exhale like I’ve been holding my breath this whole time. Now it’s just me and him. I’m standing near the kitchen door, he’s sitting at the table. His knuckles are still white from where he’s gripping the bottle so damn hard. I can’t tell if he’s a lot drunk or a little drunk. He seems to be completely lucid and if it weren’t for the half empty bottle, I wouldn’t think he’s drinking at all. His eyes, as hard as they are, seem to take everything in with a frightening amount of clarity.

I walk to the table and sit down across from him, placing my hand palm up, desperate for his touch, for a kind kiss from his lips.

“Talk to me,” I tell him.

He holds my eyes and I can’t read anything in them.

“Please,” I plead. “Lachlan. Brigs told me what happened at practice. I’m so sorry, it wasn’t your –”

“Brigs told you,” he says thickly and that’s when I can hear the alcohol in his voice.

“Yes. He explained. He’s worried.”

He nods, a cruel twist to his lips. “I see.”

“And we were worried about you when you just took off like that.”

He raises his brows, one eye lazy. “Oh really. Why?”

Oh god, how to say this delicately. “Remember the other night at the bar? I didn’t want that to happen again.”

He glares at me so hard I shrink back. “You don’t understand a fucking thing, do you?”

A fist squeezes my heart. “I’m trying,” I say quietly.

“Oh, you’re trying,” he says, getting out of his seat and turning around, placing his hands on his head. He tilts slightly to the left, nearly toppling over but holds steady. Jesus he’s drunk. “You’re trying. Is this how you try?”

It’s like the kitchen fills with quicksand and slowly everything starts to spin toward the center, sinking. I felt helpless, hopeless before, walking on the streets looking for him in vain. But now, having him here, having him safe, the feeling is just as strong.

I don’t know what to say or what to do. It’s like he’s talking about something that happened to someone else, not me.

“Have I done something wrong?” I ask him.

Suddenly he whips around, picking up the bottle and throwing it against the adjacent wall, screaming, “Fuck! Would you fucking listen to yourself?”

The dogs run out from under the table, the glass scattering across the floor. I hear a jackhammer going off somewhere, but realize it’s just my heart in my ears. I watch the Scotch run down the wall, and behind my shock a part of me is glad that he can’t drink the rest of it.

I’m speechless. Frozen. I can only stare at him, wishing this was all a bad dream, wishing he were somebody else. I want the man I love back.

“Nothing to say now, do you?” he yells at me, spit flying out of his mouth, his face red up to his temples. “Bet you had plenty to say to him.”

I shake my head dumbly. “Him?”

“My brother,” he sneers.

My brain stumbles over itself, trying to make sense of him. “Brigs? What about him?”

“Sure, sure,” he says heading to the fridge and yanking the door open. Beer bottles that weren’t there earlier rattle and he grabs one, opening it with an angry twist. “That’s what they always say. Always the lies, the fucking lies,” he slurs. “I thought you were better than that.”

“Lachlan,” I raise my voice. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You think I don’t know the lies he was spreading about me?” He’s slurring so bad I can barely understand him. He sits down and slams half the beer back down his throat.

“Please,” I tell him helplessly. “Just calm down and we can talk about this like rational adults. Just explain to me what you mean.”

He shakes his head angrily, taunting me with a sour smile. “You’re just like all the others. Waiting for someone to fuck up so you can cast them aside, so you can move onto someone fucking else. I know it. I know you and I know him and I never got your fucking love to begin with, from either one of you.”

Is he suggesting what I think he is?

It’s mad if he is. He’s mad.

“You think something happened with…me and your brother?” I ask, almost laughing because it has to be a fucking joke. “Just now?”

“I’ve been waiting here for you for fucking hours!” he says, pounding his fist on the table, making the foam rise to the top of his beer.

“What?” I cry out, my blood boiling. “We went looking for you! You just left!”

“I said, I said, I told you, I was going for a walk.” He shakes his head, repeating himself, “I told you I was going for a walk.”

“You went to the god damn pub, that’s where you fucking went, to drown your sorrows and revel in your anger!”

“You,” he says sharply, eyes like daggers, his finger pointed at me, “you know shit about me, okay? Yeah? You understand that? That you don’t know anything so don’t you fucking sit there on your fucking high horse and judge me.”

“I’m not judging you!” I yell at him. “I’m pointing out the truth. You went to get fucking drunk. Brigs and I –”

“Don’t even say his name,” he says through clenched teeth.

“Brigs,” I say loudly, “and I went looking for you, to stop you.”

His head jerks back like he’s been slapped. “To stop me? Stop me from going to a pub, getting a few fucking beers? Who the fuck are you?”

“Lachlan,” I plead, feeling this is getting out of control.

“No!” he yells, getting to his feet, his chair pushed noisily against the hardwood floor. “No! Who. The. Fuck. Are. You?!”

“I’m someone that loves you!”

He laughs. He actually laughs, head thrown back, and it’s the saddest most bitter sound I’ve ever heard. “Love? You don’t fucking love me.”

Tears are springing to my eyes. I shake my head slowly, that quicksand pulling me under. “Please, please, just listen to yourself. I love you.”

“If you did love me, I’d feel nothing but pity for you.”

“Don’t do this, please let’s not go down this road.”

“I would pity you for loving a sad sack of shit like me. Get some fucking respect, huh?”

“You’re not making sense.”

“I’m making perfect sense. You’re just some stupid girl who came all the way over here because she thought she was falling in love. I bet it hurts to fall out of.”

I can’t breathe. I just can’t. I feel like someone has filled me with water, quickly freezing over, and every organ inside is halted in this one horrible moment.

“You need help,” I manage to say and the words float in the air between us. “You need help, Lachlan. This isn’t you.”

Another vile chuckle. “This is me. Wake the fuck up. I warned you. I warned you what I was like. It’s not my fault you’re a fucking idiot.”

My stomach twists in so much pain that I have to close my eyes. My fists ball at my sides. I try to take a steady breath in, to calm the hurt, but I can’t.

“I knew I shouldn’t have come here,” I whisper to myself.

“No one to blame but yourself, darling.”

My eyes flash open, bile rising up my throat. “How dare you speak to me like that?”

I’m begging, pleading, praying that something in his eyes will change, that he’ll realize what he’s saying, that he’ll realize who he’s yelling at. What I am to him. It happens in the movies. When the drunken hero sees the error of his ways and he sobers up and he snaps out of it, feeling nothing but remorse for the woman he’s wronged. I’d take that if I could get it, if he could just see what he’s doing to me.

But this isn’t a movie. In real life, in this real life, he doesn’t soften. His eyes are still mean, dark, full of so much hate that you can feel it in every inch of your soul.

I should have asked Brigs to stay. I should have been prepared. I should have known it could be this bad, he could be this bad.

But I didn’t. I’m a fucking idiot after all.

“Well?” Lachlan says. “Finally speechless? Nothing else important to add?” He squints at me as he finishes the rest of his beer. “No protest about this beer, huh?”