The bottle of tequila clenched in my fist and the empty bottle of Jack on the coffee table announced I was drunk. And if exhibit A and exhibit B hadn’t been enough proof, the way the room spun was the clincher.

There was a clock on the shelf, I knew that much for sure, but no matter how much I squinted at the glowing green numbers, they refused to come into focus. My eyes strained until my brain ached. Something would bust open if I kept that up.

I slumped against the lounge room wall, the wooden floorboards hard under my ass, but I was so numb I barely noticed. I must have been sitting here for hours. Days maybe? If I could just work out what time it was, maybe I’d know.

I’d made it home from the clinic well after dark, then Rob, my neighbour had wanted to chat when I’d gone over there to get my spare keys. Why did he always want to chat? It was better here, with my Jack and my tequila and nobody talking.

My body coursed with alcohol-induced warmth, my head fuzzy enough I could almost forget why I was drinking. Almost. More tequila would take care of that.

I lifted the bottle in my hand and took a long swig. Didn’t I have a glass? I was sure I’d started this not so little drinking session with a glass. My gaze moved around the living room, to the front door and to the tiny stretch of hallway I could see. Nope. No glass. No idea where that went. I should get up and get another one, but fuck it. Who cared? I was a grown up, I could swig straight out of the bottle if I wanted to.

Yeah, being a grown up and doing whatever I wanted was working out well for me, wasn’t it? Be a grown up, sleep around, catch a sexually transmitted disease that would ruin my life. Yep. Being an adult was awesome. Fuck, I was an idiot.

My ringtone pierced the silence and self-loathing around me. The phone vibrated on the floorboards, the screen flashing up Reese’s name and a photo of her smiling face. It was one I’d taken of her at the zoo. Was that really only a few days ago? It felt like a lifetime. I swallowed the lump in my throat as I watched it ring. The call diverted to my voice mail eventually, just like the other thirty or forty times she’d called since I’d left her.

Guilt swamped me. What an asshole I was, just getting up and leaving her there like that. She was probably still willing to forgive me, because she was that woman. The one who always saw the best in people but let them walk all over her because of it. And now I’d done it to her.

I picked my phone up and flicked through the photos of us at the zoo. Reese, sticking her tongue out as I’d snapped a pic of her in front of the chimpanzee enclosure. A selfie of the two of us, with a koala asleep in a tree behind us. And one where she hadn’t noticed me, too busy staring up at a giraffe as she fed it. She was so incredibly beautiful. I didn’t deserve her, but, God, I wanted her. My whole body cried out to touch her, to have her near me. I just wanted to hold her and bury my face in her sweet smelling hair. But that was why I couldn’t have her. Not anymore. Not after this. She deserved better after all the shit I’d put her through, and all the shit to come in my future. She deserved someone who could give her everything. Someone who could give her a proper, stable life.

A timid knock on the door snapped my head up. My breath got stuck in my lungs, and I held it there, frozen in spot with the bottle of tequila halfway to my lips.

“Low?”

My heart squeezed painfully at the sound of Reese’s voice. I let the breath I was holding out in a whoosh and hoped like hell she couldn’t hear it through the door.

“Low? Please. If you’re in there, let me in.”

I didn’t dare move for fear she’d hear me. Fuck. Not only was I an idiot and an asshole I was also a coward now. Yet another reason to add to the growing list of reasons I needed to leave her alone.

But damn. Her voice was like honey. Sweet and pure and I wanted to drown in it. I wanted to wrap myself around her, feel her silky hair and let her talk in that honey-covered voice until everything felt right again. The ache inside me widened and I took another slug from the bottle as silently as possible in an attempt to fill the void. God, how much longer until I’d pass out? It couldn’t be much longer.

Reese went silent and I tried to imagine what she looked like on the other side of the door. Just knowing she was only a few feet away and not being able to touch her…I dropped my head into my hands as that pain hit me like a punch to the face.

Idiot. Asshole. Coward.

Something jingled in her handbag. What was she doing out there? Then it dawned on me with horror—she still had my keys. She could walk in here at any moment and I’d have to face her. My stomach took another nose dive at the thought of confronting her.

The jingling stopped, and there was a minute of silence. I was just beginning to think she’d left when there were more muffled sounds from outside, and a thin stack of papers slid under the door. A pink square stuck on the front stood out sharply against the more subdued colours of the papers beneath.

A tapping noise came from the door and I lifted my eyes as her soft voice, resigned this time, came again.

“Read it, Low. I mean it, even if you don’t want to hear it. Maybe you’ll believe me if it’s right there in front of your face.”

Her soft footsteps on the floorboards of the hallway dimmed as she walked away, and still, I sat there staring at that bright pink Post-it note. Because of course it was a Post-it note. It was exactly the same as the other eleven billion of them she had at her place.

I let the tequila bottle slip from my fingers, not caring where it landed, and dragged myself up, using the wall for support. I held still, waiting for the spinning room to stop. Don’t pass out yet, jerk. Get to the paper first.

Fuck, I was drunk.

I tried to pull myself together as I stumbled across the living room to the front door, smashing my shin into the coffee table as I went. The pain barely registered, though I was sure it would in the morning. I knelt down and picked up the papers.

It took me a minute to focus on the words, my eyes taking even longer to focus than when I’d tried to read the time. Goddammit, brain, just work for one more minute!

When my eyes finally adjusted, small, neat writing had trailed off the square and onto the papers beneath.

Only the positives, right, Low? Here are three I know for absolute sure. I’m positive you’re my best friend. I’m positive I’m in love with you. And I’m positive I want this. I want us. Always.

Her words knocked the breath out of me and I slumped back on the solid wood, as if I’d been kicked in the gut. I wanted to throw the door open, run down the hallway, and keep going until I found her. I wanted to wrap my arms around her, kiss her amazing mouth, and tell her I loved her. Tell her I should have said it before now, at my grandparents’ place or at the zoo or the restaurant or in the car. I could have told her at any of those times that I was falling in love with her. That I was in love with her.

My fingers curled into a fist and I thumped the door behind me. I couldn’t do that. So instead I stared down at the papers in my hands, leafing through them for so long the words blurred together again.

I couldn’t stay here. It wouldn’t do either of us any good to be this close to each other. I couldn’t go back to working with her, day in and day out. It wouldn’t work. Not for me and not for her.

On unsteady but determined feet, I made my way to my bedroom and pulled a suitcase out from under the bed. My stomach lurched at the movement, but my determination was stronger.

I leant on the wardrobe door for a long moment, willing myself to stay conscious, but the bed called me. God, it would be so much easier to just go lie down and pass out. But if I didn’t leave now, would I have the same resolve in the morning?

I got the wardrobe door open just enough to pull a backpack down from the top shelf and cursed as an old baseball mitt, a belt, and a pile of old tax returns came crashing down around me.

Propping the bags open on my bed, I threw socks and underwear into them. Next went a pile of T-shirts and shorts, and I shoved a few jumpers on top, not knowing how long I’d be gone.

That would have to do. I’d just leave the rest. I wouldn’t need it.

I shouldered my backpack and dragged my suitcase back to the lounge room. I stared at the glossy sheets of paper Reese had left me before grabbing them off the table and stuffing them into the side of my case. I eyed my phone as I added my wallet and spare keys to a pocket of the backpack, grabbing it at the last second. I should leave it, so I wouldn’t give in to the urge to call her. But I wasn’t that strong. I vowed to turn it off instead and let the battery die. That way there’d be plenty of time to talk myself out of any late-night phone calls while it charged up.

I leant on the door for a minute, surveying my comfortable apartment before I let another wave of determination carry me through the doorway. The door closed behind me with a solid thunk, the locks sliding into place automatically. And for the first time in twenty-four hours, I felt the air in my lungs. I felt like I could breathe. With a plan in mind, I could breathe again.