This Sweet Escape

by J. Evans

  “Because you’re better than this.” I wave my hand up and down his body as he tips back the bottle for another drink and stumbles. “Because you’re not dealing with the shit I’ve been dealing with.”

  “Which is what?” he shouts, his voice loud enough to make me jump. “You still haven’t told me shit. You’ve barely talked to me for months, for fuck’s sake. I thought you were going to break up with me, Samantha. Do you have any idea how horrible that felt? To be thousands of miles away and feel you slipping away from me and not have any fucking way to get you back?”

  “I don’t care,” I shout between the sobs gripping my chest. “I don’t care! Get the fuck over it! There are bigger problems in the world than the way you—”

  My words end in a startled squeal as Danny hurls the wine bottle across the room. It shatters into two heavy pieces against the wall, and the remaining wine splatters across the white paint before rolling down the wall like blood from a wound.

  “Fuck you,” he says, voice shaking with anger as he spins to face me. “There is no bigger problem in my world, because you are my world, you selfish bitch.”

  I suck in a shocked breath as I back away from him, stumbling across the room until my feet hit the wall. It feels like he’s slapped me. Danny has never called me names. Never. We rarely fight, and when we do, raised voices are the extent of it. We don’t call each other names, we don’t say the words we know will hurt the most. When someone has trusted you enough to hand over every tool you would need to tear them apart, you honor that trust by never getting anywhere near those tools.

  But it seems Danny’s decided he’s done playing nice.

  “Ever since we were kids, your problems have always been the important problems,” he says, the words emerging in a low, menacing tone that raises the hair on the back of my neck. “Your parents’ divorce, your drama with the new stepmom, your issues with your mom flaking and all the new boyfriends. And I listened and listened and tried to make you feel better.”

  A hard smile creaks across his face as he moves slowly toward me. “Meanwhile, my alcoholic piece of shit father died. And I hated him, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t fucking torn up and scared, too. And then my sister’s boyfriend came back from the fucking dead and I had to move to a new country and learn a new language and it felt like forever before I made friends. I was so lonely, and scared our new life was going to fall apart all over again, but you never asked about that.”

  He stops in front of me, close enough that I can smell the sour, fermented smell rising from his skin. “Sam’s problems have always been the most important problems.” He lifts his arms, bracing his hands on the wall on either side of my face. “But for some reason I never thought you were selfish until tonight. Why is that?”

  I swallow, fighting the urge to duck under his arm and run. He’s drunk, but he’s still Danny, and I can see that he wants a real answer. “Because you love me,” I finally whisper.

  He nods, and his eyes begin to shine. “I do. But it’s more than that.” He stares down at me for a long moment, while my heart continues to pound. “I guess deep down I didn’t feel worthy, you know. It was fine for my shit to come second because I was just some ghetto runt who didn’t deserve you.”

  “Danny, I never—”

  “But that girl from your school deserves justice,” he pushes on, words slurring worse than they were before. “She deserves the best of you and you’re giving her shit. It’s more than selfishness, Sam, it’s criminal. Is that you want to be? A criminal?”

  A hysterical laugh burbles up from somewhere inside me. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Right, right,” he drawls, eyes sliding closed as he swallows hard. “You know everything. You always know…” He turns and lurches toward the bed, barely making it to the edge of the mattress before he collapses back onto the rumpled sheets.

  “Sam always knows,” he mutters to the ceiling as his eyes drift close. “And I know…shit.”

  I wait, watching his body for some sign of life. A few seconds later, he pulls in a breath that emerges as a soft snore. He’s passed out. It’s over…for now.

  My knees collapse. I slide down the wall to sit on the carpet, my thoughts racing. Danny’s words hurt, but he’s right. What I’m doing is criminal. I can’t drag him down with me, and that’s what will happen if I stay. He might wake up tomorrow, regret drinking too much, and apologize for the things he said. We might find our footing and be okay for a while, but it will only be a matter of time before we stumble and fall again. Danny’s always been my rock, but apparently he’s only able to be that rock when he’s with someone worthy of his fierce devotion. I’ve tumbled off my pedestal and what used to work for us doesn’t anymore.

  I never asked to be put on a pedestal—God knows I’m not perfect—but for Danny, I will try to climb back up there. I can’t destroy anyone else, especially not the person I love most in the world. I wouldn’t have gone back to L.A. for Deidre’s family or Alec. I wouldn’t have sat in that courtroom to maintain ties with my parents, salvage what’s left of my old life, or try to bring a scrap of justice to an unjust world. I don’t believe in justice anymore, but I believe in Danny.

  So there’s only one choice I can make.

  I gather my things, write Danny the hardest letter I’ve ever written, and all too soon I’m ready to go. I stand at the foot of the bed for a few minutes, watching him sleep, memorizing the way the light from the bathroom plays across his handsome face and his big hands look childlike curled in sleep. Finally, I lean down and kiss his forehead softly.

  “I love you,” I whisper, my heart feeling like it’s crumbling to ash inside my chest. “I’m sorry.”

  I don’t know what I’m apologizing for exactly—dragging him thousands of miles from home only to leave him, or the selfish thirteen year old I was that year I complained about my own problems while his entire world was turned upside down—I only know that I wish so much that things could be different. I wish I could spare him the pain that’s coming, but that pain is the only thing that can convince him I’m still the girl he loves.

  Maybe, after it’s all over, we’ll be able to find our way back to each other, but as I cross the room and let myself out into the sharp winter air, I can’t help feeling like this was the last time I’ll ever see Danny Cooney. The feeling is enough to chill me to the bone long before the rain begins to fall, turning the road to a slick black ribbon as I drive toward Auckland.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Danny

  “I am ashes where once

  I was fire.”

  -Lord Byron

  I wake up in the prison of my rancid body and roll over, lying on my side as the room spins. I have time to scan the room and see that I’m alone, the fire is out, and there’s a wine stain on the wall and a broken bottle on the carpet before my stomach heaves.

  I barely make it to the bathroom and I’m in there for a good thirty minutes, being so violently ill it’s like my digestive system is trying to turn itself inside out. But never in that time do I make any suffering noises. I hold it all in. I don’t deserve even the small relief of moaning and groaning as I lose my soul into the toilet bowl.

  I don’t remember exactly what I said to Sam, but I remember fighting and her looking up at me with tears in her eyes. I remember trying so hard to reach her and failing and getting so frustrated I wanted to hit something. I remember my fingers on her wrist, and feeling like a monster when she pulled away and the skin above her hand was bright red.

  God, what if I hurt her? What if I knocked her around the way my dad used to do when he was drunk?

  I squeeze my eyes shut and dig my fists into my aching eye sockets, hating myself.

  Back when I was a kid and Dad would come stumbling into the house wasted and looking for a reason to throw a punch, I’d back talk on purpose, determined to be the one to take the cuff to the head or the shove into the wall. I knew I was tougher than my sisters and bro
thers. I could take it and come back swinging. The one time Dad hit Ray, my brother slunk around like a whipped dog for a week, and I knew what kind of damage Chuck could do if he hit one of the little ones. Emmie already had developmental delays and speech problems. The poor kid didn’t need to be a shaken baby on top of it.

  Besides, taking a beating made me feel like a hero, like I was tougher than Dad. He might be bigger and stronger and able to knock me flat, but I had the coordination and control. I didn’t lumber around the house slurring words and slamming my fists into shit. I was tight, toned, fast—not weak like him. I was going to grow up and show my dad what a man could do with his body when he treated it right. I was never going to throw my health and life away for a beer belly and a bar tab down at the local dive.

  That’s why I quit cold turkey when I was eighteen. Every time I drank, I drank too much. And I didn’t drink to enjoy the taste or loosen up; I drank to get unconscious. No matter how many times I woke up feeling like shit, I couldn’t get a handle on how much to have the next time. I couldn’t control it, so I quit. I told my real friends I was on the wagon and let my beer weather friends drift away.

  But from my first vodka soda at a Croatian bar when I was sixteen, to my last beer with Bjorn when I was eighteen, I never let Sam see me that way. I never imagined I’d hurt her, but I couldn’t stand for her to see me out of control. The second time I’d gotten wasted, I’d pissed myself sitting in a chair on my friend’s porch. I couldn’t handle the thought of doing something like that in front of Sam. I only wanted her to see the best me, the person I saw reflected in her eyes, the man who could take on the world because one girl believed he could.

  And now I might have hurt her.

  It doesn’t matter that she let me down. It doesn’t matter that I was hurt and a childish part of me wanted to show her what happens when people stop trying to be the heroes of their own lives. I should never have picked up a bottle. I only made things worse. I put her in danger and I fucking hate myself for it.

  I stand on unsteady legs and shuffle to the sink. I brush my teeth and wash my face and think about shaving, but decide I can’t spare the time. I need to get some bread and water in my stomach and get out and look for Sam. It doesn’t matter that I can barely stand upright. I can drag myself down to the main lodge and get some toast. Maybe I’ll get lucky and Sam will be down there having breakfast, waiting for my sorry ass to sober up and come apologize.

  I just hope I don’t have anything worse than what I remember doing to apologize for. If there are any bruises on her, and I know I’m the one who put them there…

  The thought is enough to send me back to the toilet again.

  Finally, I manage to get my stomach to stop revolting long enough to down a glass of water and a few Tums. I brush my teeth again, pull on a fresh shirt, and am on my way out the door to start looking for Sam when I see the paper lying beside the door with my name on it.

  I recognize her handwriting and crouch down, praying it’s just a short note telling me where she went and what time she’ll be back. But then I open the folded paper and begin to read—

  Dear Danny,

  Very first of all, I want you to know that I forgive you. I wasn’t there for you, and you reached for the wrong kind of comfort. I know that’s as much my fault as yours, and I know you’re going to wake up and get back on track to the kind of life you want to live. I also want to say I’m sorry for how selfish I’ve been sometimes. You’re right, I only thought about my own pain, especially the first year after the divorce, and that was wrong. My only defense is that you made loving me seem so easy. I never realized how much work went into that seemingly effortless love.

  I’m sorry for that too.

  “Fuck,” I curse, fighting the stinging sensation pushing at the backs of my eyes.

  I have no idea what I said to her, but it must have been ugly. And a lie. I don’t really think Sam is selfish. Until a few months ago, she was always there when I needed to talk, even if it was three in the morning her time. Surely she has to realize that was the alcohol and the hurt talking last night, not what I really think or feel.

  I turn back to the letter, hoping the second half of it will offer some hope.

  After tonight, I realize you’re right. I’m choosing the wrong road, and if I stayed here, I would be ruining two lives. I refuse to do that to you. I truly love you more than anything else in the world, and to prove it, I’m going back to L.A. to do the right thing.

  All I ask is that you don’t follow me. This is something I should do alone. It’s going to be hard enough without you there in the courtroom watching. I know you’re going to find out what happened sooner or later, but I’d rather you not have to see me testify.

  Know that I love you and that I hope this isn’t the end for us. I want us to find our way back to each other, but it isn’t fair to ask you to pull me out of this dark place. I have to find my way out on my own.

  I’ve booked your flight back to Maui for three days from now. If you want to leave sooner, just catch the bus to the airport and talk to the booking agent. Once again, I’m sorry. I hope you can forgive me.

  All my love forever,

  Sam

  I curse again and throw the letter into the center of the room before wrenching open the door and half falling down the stairs. The world is still tilting unsteadily on its access, but I can’t stop to be sick. I have to catch Sam before she leaves the parking lot. Maybe she only left a few minutes ago. Maybe she’s still checking out or loading her backpack into the trunk.

  I have to catch her; I can’t be too late.

  But when I reach the parking lot, the little red car is gone, and when I trudge up the stairs to the main lodge, the man at the desk says Sam checked out last night.

  “She paid the bill and left a one-hundred dollar credit,” the older man with the pink cheeks and wide smile says cheerfully. “That’s enough for another night at the reduced rate. Would you like to stay with us tonight Mr. Cooney?”

  I shake my head. “No thanks, I have to get to Auckland. My girlfriend said there was a bus?”

  The cheerful man nods vigorously as he pulls a blue schedule from behind the counter. “There is. It leaves from the post office downtown, every morning but Sunday. You’ve missed today, but I can call and get you booked for tomorrow.”

  I bite my lip, fighting the urge to curse. “Is there any way to get there sooner? A cab or something? Or maybe I could rent another car from some place in town?”

  The man’s brows draw together. “A taxi wouldn’t take you all the way to Auckland, but I might be able to book a rental car. Would you like me to make some calls?”

  “Yes, please,” I say, nervously tapping my fingers on the desk.

  “Why don’t you grab a cup of coffee and come back in a few,” Cheerful Man says with a pointed, but cheerful, look at my fingers. “I should know a bit more then.”

  I nod and make my way to the restaurant, where I order toast and coffee to go and try not to look at the table where I ate with Sam the other night, or think about how we made love after. Even then, when we seemed to be getting back in sync, things weren’t the same. I should have known she was dealing with something heavy. And I should have held my shit together last night instead of running away into a bottle like a fucking coward.

  I don’t care what she said, I’m getting my flight destination changed. I’m going to L.A. and I’m going to find her and apologize in person. And then I’m going to stand by her the way I promised I would.

  I return to the front desk and sip my coffee, so preoccupied I don’t realize Cheerful Man is calling for me until he says my name loud enough to make me jump.

  “Mr. Cooney!” I glance up and he motions for me to come behind the desk. “There’s an urgent call for you. Your brother-in-law. I told him to stay on the line and I’d find you instead of putting the call through to the messaging service.”

  Coffee and sack of toast forgotten, I circle around t
he desk, stepping over a pile of coats not visible from the guest side to take the phone. “Thank you,” I say to the clerk before putting the phone to my ear. “Gabe? Is everything okay? Sorry I didn’t call last night, I—”

  “You have to come home, Danny,” Gabe says. I know something is terribly wrong by the time he says the word “home.” Gabe is one of those almost too-slick guys who makes being classy look easy. I’ve never heard him sound so off-center, or so completely miserable. “It’s…bad.”

  The room spins and I sit down hard on the floor behind the desk, knowing I’m going to be sick again if I don’t. “Oh my God. Is it the baby? Did she lose the baby?”

  “No, the baby’s fine. She was born last night. She’s beautiful.” Gabe pulls in a breath, and I suddenly realize he’s crying. “It’s Caitlin. She started bleeding after. There was so much blood.”

  “Shit,” I say, shaking my head. “But she’s okay. She’s alive, she’s going to be okay.”

  Gabe’s silent for a long moment during which every organ in my body threatens to liquefy with fear. “They don’t know. She’s in a coma and they’ve had trouble keeping her stable.”

  I curse and squeeze my eyes shut.

  “They couldn’t get the bleeding to stop so they took her into surgery and did an emergency hysterectomy,” he says, his voice breaking in that shattered way that is so not Gabe. “I was worried how I was going to tell her we can’t have more children. I never thought—”

  He breaks off and all I hear are soft sobs. I need to say something to comfort him, but I don’t know what. I only know that my big sister, the only person who has never let me down, who I love like a mother and a sister and a veteran of the same war I lived through growing up, might be dying and I’m so hung over I don’t know if I’m going to be able to drive a car to the airport to catch a plane.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Gabe continues. “Emmie’s crying in the waiting room and I don’t know how to get through this. I don’t know what to do without her.”