Page 86 of Drowning Erin

“You want to sleep with her, don’t you?” she demands.

I know I should say no, but the answer seems so obvious—as if she’s asked if I want to continue breathing oxygen—that I don’t say anything at all.

This is apparently not the correct course of action.

Her face sags, waiting for a denial that does not arrive. “Go sleep with her then.”

I’ll admit it. I feel hopeful, like I’ve been offered a chance at parole. Some stupid voice in my head suggests that maybe Gabi sees this the way I do—that she only has two days left in Italy, and we’re not getting along anymore, so how could it really matter?

“You don’t mean that,” I venture.

“You would, wouldn’t you?” she cries. “You’d totally sleep with her right now if you could!” She grabs my backpack and hurls it at me. “Get the fuck out.”

“Gabi—”

“Get out!” she screams. “Get out get out get out get out! I never want to see you again!” She throws a book and barely misses.

I’m about to point out that it’s my apartment we’re in when she picks up a knife. I decide that discussion can wait.

I wander down the street, uncertain at first where to go. And then I realize I’m free. Gabi kicked me out. She said she never wanted to see me again. Which means, for the first time in months, I can do whatever the fuck I want.

I go to the bar where Tatiana awaits. I tell her Gabi kicked me out, and she informs me, tongue piercing flashing in the light, that she has a hotel room to herself. And then her fingers are in my hair and she’s dragging my mouth to hers.

I didn’t realize just how stifled I’ve actually been until this moment. I’m free again. I can go home with anyone I want, I can spend an entire night without listening to someone cry, without having to offer assurances I don’t mean. Tatiana climbs into my lap and I swear, as she does it, that I am never going to be trapped again.

And as soon as I swear it, I hear the unmistakable sound of Gabi, crying like I’ve just broken her heart.

60

Erin

Present

How could it mean so little to him?

And how did I ever convince myself it was otherwise?

I think back to the way he looked at me in the hammock yesterday. The night we danced in his apartment. Everything I thought I saw in his face…could not have been real. Losing him would have been hard enough, but now it feels like he’s taken all of my memories and crushed them underfoot too.

I’ve felt sick like this before. Back in high school, when Sean disappeared and my father’s drinking got worse. My mother cried and wanted me to somehow fix it, when I knew I could not. I fell asleep back then apathetic about whether I woke in the morning. I thought this piece of me was gone, but apparently it was only in hiding.

I cry all afternoon. I cry all night. Harper doesn’t come home, which is for the best, except it makes me wonder if Brendan won’t be going home tonight either. I want to vomit when I consider it.

I miss making dinner with him, having sex with him, sleeping beside him. The next morning I open my eyes and discover I miss waking with him too.

I suspect there won't be a moment of my day—even the moments I didn't normally spend with him—that won't leave me missing something about Brendan. And I have no one I can tell—not Olivia, who’d immediately call Brendan and rip him a new one. Not Harper, who doesn’t come home. Not even Sean, simply because he doesn’t answer or return my call.

When I was with Brendan, I was consumed. He was like a drug, and with him I existed in this hazy space of believing the world was good and everything would work out without a shred of proof. It felt like I needed nothing other than him. And now the drug is gone, as I always knew it would be. I have to look at my life again—at the fact that I’m homeless and on my final warning at work—and admit that maybe I didn’t need anything other than him, but I also didn’t have anything other than him.

And I never really had him either.

* * *

Harper does her best to cheer me up when she finally comes home. She says all the things women say in these situations: you’re better off without him, he’s going to come to his senses. It doesn’t help, though, because neither statement is true.

“Hair of the dog,” she insists, coming into my room and throwing a thong at me.

I look from the thong to her. “I’m completely not following this conversation.”