Chapter 27

Sebastian had gone into the Thanksgiving holiday thinking this year would be different. He’d dedicated himself to working on his latest novel and let himself become immersed in the project. The only breaks he took were to eat, sleep, and answer Naomi’s texts, which increased with hilarity as the break wore on.

He had to admit, she was funny when she wasn’t irritating him. Actually, she was funny even then, if he were honest about it. And engaging with her kept him linked to the outside world—a world he typically avoided at all costs around Thanksgiving. But this year, he’d let Naomi into the bubble of his own making, and he felt better for it. At least on Monday and Tuesday of Thanksgiving week.

He’d also managed to make it through Wednesday with only a faint drum of melancholy pulsing in the back of his mind. When he’d gone to bed that night, he’d had high hopes that this year, he wouldn’t let the past suffocate his present. That he was stronger than the demons that lurked beneath his skin, coursing through his veins with blackened spears coated with sadness.

But all of those hopes were dashed when he’d woken up Thursday with no desire to get out of bed. So other than to use the bathroom, he didn’t. He rationalized that he could give himself one day. One day to succumb to the grief that always invaded every cell of his being at this time of year. It would pass. It always did.

Liar.

Okay, so maybe it never passed, but rather lessened into a duller pang that he could at least live with. Though maybe saying he lived was stretching it. He could function, and that was enough. It had to be. And he’d get back to functioning the next day.

But he didn’t.

Darkness pulled him under as swiftly as an undertow. On Friday, he felt like he was drowning. Visions of a horror he wished had been a fantasy instead of a reality he’d experienced firsthand flooded his mind until there wasn’t room for anything else. One can relive a nightmare only so many times before he breaks.

Which is why, on Saturday, Sebastian did what he promised himself every year that he wouldn’t. It was a promise he should’ve known he’d never be able to keep, because what was a promise to himself worth? What was he worth? Once upon a time, in an alternate universe where his life had purpose, Sebastian had a place in the world. He’d satisfied a role—two roles—and he’d never been more humbled than when he’d been given both of them.

But now the roles were gone, and his place was gone, and with those things, his purpose had faded into the hazy fog of an early morning when he’d first gone to confront a future that would never be. Two stones memorialized everything he’d lost. Everything he’d known about himself.

And as he stood in the liquor store paying the clerk for two bottles of their worst-tasting but highest-potency scotch, he realized just how little the current him resembled the past one. Realized how much the old him would hate the current him. But what the fuck did that matter? The old him had been a naive kid who thought fairy tales could really come true. The guy he was now knew better.

When he got home, he stared at the booze, wondering if it was too late to go back and return it. Maybe he could find another way to cope. Maybe he could find a way to heal, even if the resulting scar was jagged. He thought randomly about Naomi. She’d texted a few times, and even called once, but he’d ignored her attempts to contact him since the holiday. He could call her. Reach out and she’d respond, and they’d bicker about stupid things that didn’t matter but that would perhaps tether him to the fleeting thought that maybe, just maybe, his current reality wasn’t a horrible one. That he wasn’t horrible, because if someone like her wanted to talk to someone like him, then there could possibly be something redeemable about who he’d become.

But the devil in the scotch bottle promising oblivion was more appealing. There were no feelings at the bottom of a bottle. Or so Sebastian thought. But when he reached the bottom, he realized there was really no such place. Things could always get worse. Always would get worse, because he was weak and sad and lonely and he deserved to feel all of those things because he’d survived when others hadn’t. And while to some life may be a gift, to him it was a depressing reminder that it wasn’t a gift that was his to give.

And at the thought that he’d failed in every conceivable way, Sebastian opened the second bottle, took a large swig, and overturned every piece of furniture in his house.