Page 3 of In Every Lifetime
I fished in my pocket for the one comfort I kept with me, my fingers wrapping around the smooth leather of the case before finding the cool metal of the spout. I pulled out the flask—the one Sarah had monogrammed for me, before she realized it was a problem. Before I was a problem. My fingers traced the smooth indents of the embossing on the leather.
To the man who has never failed to make me smile. Here’s to a lifetime more.
I did fail… eventually.
I took a swig of the whiskey, letting it burn down my throat and coat my mouth in its familiar woody flavor. I had never liked the taste of whiskey, or any alcohol. The addiction didn't come from the flavor. For me, it wasn't even the feeling. It was the numbing, the forgetting, the peace that ignorance gave me, if only for a time.
I wanted to melt into that numbness, let it overcome all of my senses until I felt nothing. It was better than the persistent melancholy I experienced when sober, but I had done my best to stay sober for the meeting. It was the least I could do for Sarah.
"Fai," I heard her voice call out behind me, but I didn't turn around. I couldn't face her. I took off down the street, her soft calls fading to cries, left in the distance behind me.
I wandered the streets. I couldn't drive home anyway. I was a drunk, but I wasn't a complete idiot. I would only let my drinking hurt me going forward. No one else deserved to be caught in the crosshairs of my toxic relationship with the bottle.
The streets around me were familiar, memories having been made on nearly every one. This city had been my home since I turned eighteen and aged out of the foster system. I had wanted to make a home away from the chaos I grew up in, back in Chicago, where I had been abandoned and left to the mercy ofthe system. I hadn't picked Eugene for any particular reason. I just liked the idea of a coast but hated the idea of the sun.
One bus ticket and a duffle bag of all my possessions later, I landed here with all the dreams in the world. Turns out Eugene wasn't on the coast, but I was out of money and somehow needed to survive until my college classes began three weeks later. So Eugene became my home. It was where I found freedom from the system, where I found the love of my life, and where I built the family I had so desperately craved.
And where I burned it all down.
I stopped at a familiar crossroads, one central to my life. If I went left, I would end up at my office, the business I had built from the ground up. If I turned right, it would lead me to the home I had shared with Sarah. If I turned around, I could hit up what had become my usual bar. But if I went straight…if I went straight, maybe things would change.
I let the flask slip from my grasp, plummeting to the wet asphalt. The crash barely audible, but the impact nuclear. I took one step, and then another…
