by Karina Halle
They all sing their sweet siren songs to you, hoping you don’t recognize the evil underneath. They are a temptress, promising to alleviate your pain, promising you a soft, warm hug. They promise you the world.
And they deliver. They always keep their promise. Maybe for a moment, maybe for a few hours, they let you be taken by the undertow.
That’s why you keep going back. Because they don’t lie.
And because the next day the guilt has multiplied. You’re an even worse person than you were before, as if that was even possible. As if the hate inside you for yourself could ever deepen.
But it does.
Again and again.
Day in and day out.
And there’s only one way to get through it.
To dull the pain.
Mask the sorrow.
Numb the hate.
You do it to yourself again.
Until it’s the rest of your life.
But I don’t want it to be the rest of my life.
Because there is someone in my life that makes it worth living. That makes me want to be a better man. That makes me want to fight against all the things I’ve given into time and time again.
The irony is, I think I’ve already lost her.
I don’t even have to open my eyes to know she’s not with me.
Her absence hits me harder than the pain inside my head, the sour, rolling swell in my gut. When Kayla isn’t in bed beside me, I feel utterly adrift.
Alone.
Somehow I push aside the self-pity, the loathing and the hate, and try to formulate a plan. My brain is sluggish and keeps re-circuiting into old patterns. It’s painful to re-route it, to concentrate, to figure out what to do to fix this before it’s too late.
If it’s not already too late.
I open my eyes and the sunlight streaming in through the window nearly blinds me. I blink at it, gathering courage, pushing past the sick agony that rushing inside me.
I don’t remember much from yesterday and that’s a problem.
It didn’t use to be a problem. The blackouts. There was something so neat and tidy about them. Whatever happened in the spaces I didn’t remember, never happened. Even if someone told me that I fought someone or said something horrible or vomited all over the bar, or whatever it was, I couldn’t conjure up the memory for the life of me. So it became like make believe and I just pretended that it was some other guy who did all of that because me, me, well I would know exactly what I had done.
But now, I had no idea what I’d done and I could no longer pretend it happened to someone else. Now Kayla was involved and I cared more about her than anything.
I remember practice. I remember…well, I remember before practice. Going to a pub up the street, having two pints of ale. I hadn’t eaten anything that morning except for eggs and in my strange rational, I thought the two beers would be better than nothing.
But that was just an excuse I was making myself. I knew that. I had woken up sick and worried about what Kayla’s decision was going to be. Even though she told me she was going to stay, it wasn’t real until she told someone else other than me. I was so used to people telling me what they thought I wanted to hear and I wanted to see it, to know it.
I wanted to take the edge off. I wanted to not care.
But that’s not how your temptress always works.
She riled me up instead.
She added fuel to a bonfire.
Denny already pissed me off earlier in practice and for whatever reason, I wanted to hurt him. Really hurt him. As if that would make it all better, my anger having some place to go.
So I hurt him. I slammed into him as he came at me, wanting the ball and for that moment I thought, No way mate, you won’t stop me.
And so I stopped him. I barely felt the impact myself.
Alan was pissed. Everyone was. And Brigs, I saw him up in the stands, watching me, and I could feel his disappointed from all the way up there.
I fucked up.
In one of the worst ways possible.
I hurt one of my own which means I hurt my teammate which means I hurt myself.
But that was the point, wasn’t it?
Everything after that was a blur.
I left the stadium and went up the street to the same pub I was at earlier. Drank a pint. Brigs came by, tried to talk to me but he’s the last person I want to hear from sometimes. Sometimes he’s my brother. Sometimes he’s just a reminder that I don’t really belong. That my family isn’t my blood. And that my blood thought I wasn’t worth keeping around.
I remember coming back to the flat but feeling so ashamed of what had happened, so angry, that I couldn’t even stand to be there. I didn’t want Kayla to see me. I couldn’t even talk to her or look her in the eye.
Then my memory blanks out.
What I do remember is the feeling. The putrid, black tar of my heart and soul, where the darkness had gotten in and spread like cancer. I remember anger and rage and paranoia and jealousy and everything else that hurts and cuts and kicks you to the core.
I know all of that must have been directed at her.
I’m beyond praying for miracles. I know she got the brunt of it.
I swallow painfully, my mouth like it’s filled with sawdust, and slowly ease myself out of bed.
I walk unsteadily to the door, the room tilting as I go. I pull open the double doors and peer inside the drawing room. There’s no one there except Lionel and Emily on the couch, on top of the extra comforter I usually keep at the end of the bed.
A flash comes into my mind, a fragment of a memory.
I remember getting up in the middle of the night, taking the blanket to her asleep on the couch and putting it over her.
I remember that.
The memory breaks me.
I have to suck in a long hard breath to keep a sob from escaping.
She wouldn’t even sleep with me last night.
And now she was nowhere to be seen.
I make my way into the hall, the bathroom, the kitchen.
It’s just me and the dogs.
Like it usually is.
Like it probably always will be.
Lionel follows me wherever I go as I look for her, showing me his loyalty. He only loves me because I love him but that’s all that I can get and it’s all that I can take. He’s a constant. He’ll never leave, even when he’s seen me at my worst too many times to count.
Emily is too new. She stays put, watching me warily. She doesn’t know me in and out yet. In many ways she’s like Kayla. Thinking she can trust me, hoping for the best. But this isn’t me at my best, this is me at my worst and what trust she had in me in shattering, slowly. I think Emily will come around, because I rescued her, saved her, because she is, in the end, just a dog.
But Kayla is infinitely more complicated. She’s a beautiful, caring, sexy as hell, multifaceted human being and I know I have hurt her in ways that are probably irreparable. She can’t be taught by conditioning, by rewards. Her loyalty isn’t infinite. She doesn’t provide love unconditionally because I’ve taken her in and offered her kind words. She’s someone I’ll have to spend my whole life trying to win over, to prove myself to, to constantly give my heart and soul to. There are no guarantees with love or life and her love is something I can never take for granted, if I’m even lucky enough to still be given it.
I search around the flat for signs of her. Her purse is gone but her suitcase and everything else is still here.
I have no idea where she’s disappeared to. I contemplate calling Brigs or even Amara, but I’m not sure how to explain myself. Of course I call her a few times but I’m put right through to voicemail. Even the sound of her cheerily sardonic message feels like a dagger to the heart and I’m bleeding all over again.
What if I fucked up beyond repair?
What if I’ve really, truly lost her?
Bloody hell.
What did I do last night?
So I wait. I sit d
own on the couch and I wait and I wait until it becomes less about waiting and more about fighting. Because it’s guilt again and it’s hate and it’s shame and they’re coming around, trying to pull me under, smother me until I can’t take another breathe.
And out there on the street, in the nearest store or pub, there’s something that can take me far away from all of this pain. It’s even singing from the bathroom medicine cabinet, the Percocet, another way to numb it all away. I can’t pretend that I’ve not been popping a few of those every single day.
I put up a good fight though. I hold my ground, even though I know it would make the physical pain going away. I can’t count the amount of times I’ve thrown up already this morning.
Even as noon nears though, she hasn’t returned and I have no choice but to go to practice. It’s the last thing I want, the last thing I need. I don’t want to see the accusing looks of my teammates, I don’t want to feel guilty all over again, I don’t want to move a fucking muscle because of how sick I feel.
But I can’t fuck up absolutely everything in my life.
I slowly get ready and then leave Kayla a note on the hallway table in my chicken scratch handwriting.
I’ve gone to practice. Coming home straight after. Please don’t leave. I love you. We can work through this, please stay and wait for me.
I stare at it for a moment and the words sounds so soulless and futile, as if they could ever convince a woman like Kayla once she’s made up her mind. But I leave it there anyway because it’s all I can do.
***
Practice is unbearable. If it weren’t for people like John and Thierry, like my coach who seems to believe in me no matter what I do, even when I fuck up, I would have turned around the moment I stepped on the pitch. I would have just walked away. I’ve been through so much but everyone has a breaking point and today would have been mine if I hadn’t had a few supportive faces there.
The good news is that Denny will be fine. I guess being a bit drunk before the game helped in my favor because when I bowled into him, it wasn’t a direct hit against the joints. He wasn’t at practice though, which was a good thing because I’m not sure if I could have handled that, but Alan says he’ll return in a few days, ready for the big game. I don’t know what I would have done if it turned out one of our star players couldn’t play. As it is, I’m not playing in the first game anyway according to Alan, so we really would have been fucked going against Glasgow.
The drive from the stadium to my flat seems to go on forever. I’m kneading the steering wheel the whole time, knuckles white, afraid that Kayla won’t be there when I return. Is it possible that she just left and caught the next plane out? Maybe sticking around for her bags wasn’t worth it. Maybe fleeing me, the scene of our destroyed relationship, was the only way out for her. If she had her passport in her purse, it’s all she would have needed to vanish.
I can’t blame her. For all I know my hopes might all be in vain, that I’ll walk in my flat and see her beautiful face. Right now she might be somewhere over the Atlantic. Right now she might be heading back to her new life without a backward glance over her shoulder. Maybe that’s why my calls aren’t going through and my texts aren’t being delivered. She’s in airplane mode, heading far, far away.
The last time I was around her I didn’t even look her way. What if that was the last time I’ll ever see her again? What if my last memory of her is of me feeling too shameful to even glance in her direction? If I had known that would be the end, I would have grabbed her, held onto her with every ounce of strength I had. I would have stared at her so deeply that I wouldn’t know where I end and she begins.
I would have done everything differently.
I would have never given her an excuse to leave.
I have to pull over the car, motorists swerving past me, honking. I don’t care. I can’t even be right now. The thought of losing her so soon, without even a goodbye, is debilitating.
I stay like that, trying to breathe, my head resting on the steering wheel, parked illegally. I stay like that until I find the courage to keep on going and face my truth, whatever that truth may be.
I find parking around the corner from my flat and head on up. Outside the door I wait and listen, hoping to hear some kind of movement inside that will put an immediate end to my suffering, at least on one level. If she’s still here, I still have a chance to right things.
I quickly unlock the door and step on inside. Lionel comes running over, begging for me to scratch him behind the ear. I crouch down, absently petting him, trained for any sort of sound.
There. From the kitchen. The fridge door closing.
Hope sings from somewhere deep within me.
I head straight on over there and see her standing with a glass of juice in her hand. She’s staring at me like she’s been waiting, her hair stringy and hanging around her face. Her eyes are red and puffy and I can feel every ounce of pain that’s radiating from her like poisonous sunbeams.
“I thought you were gone,” I manage to say, dropping my bag to the floor.
She watches me for a moment, her face contorting momentarily. “I tried to.”
I lick my lips, unable to say the right thing. The only thing I can say is, “Kayla, I’m sorry,” and it comes out in a harsh whisper.
She raises her chin, trying to keep it from trembling and all I want to do is stride across the room and hold her in my arms and promise her that everything will be okay.
But I stay in my place. Because I know to hold her right now would be hopeless.
“What are you sorry for?” she asks flatly.
“For what happened?”
“And what happened? Do you remember?”
Guilt has one foot on my lungs, slowing pushing down. I shake my head. “No.”
Her face pinches together. “Then why are you sorry?”
“Because,” I cry out hoarsely. “Because I know I got drunk and I know I was in a mood and I know I did something very, very wrong. I don’t know what but…I can feel it. I can feel what you must have gone through. It’s sticking in me, like knives, and I can’t shake them loose.” I pause, trying to breathe. “I know I hurt you. And you can’t know how sorry I am for that. For everything wrong I’ve done.”
“But you don’t even know,” she says breathlessly, as if in disbelief. The look in her eyes is another kick to the gut. “You don’t even know what you’ve done, what you said. You don’t know the person that you become.”
“I have an idea.”
She gives me a bitter smile. “Oh no, I don’t think you have any fucking idea. You are nothing like this man here. You’re not you. You’re someone else, someone I hate.”
Hate.
“You’re the fucking devil, that’s all I know. Mean. Horrible. You stare at me like you don’t even recognize me, you talk to me like I’m someone else and no matter what I say, how I reason with you, nothing works. It’s like I cease to exist to you. How can I handle that you? How can you promise I won’t see that side of you ever again?”
I want to promise. In my desperation I want to promise her everything. But I know I can’t. Because if I promise it and it happens again, I won’t get another chance.
“Listen, love, please. I am going to do whatever I can to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”
“You said your addict days were behind you. They aren’t. And you know it.”
But the thing is, I didn’t know it until now. I’ve been making too many excuses, too much justification for years. As long as I kept my career, as long as I wasn’t on the streets, as long as I seemed okay to everyone else, then it wasn’t backsliding. I wasn’t like the junkie anymore. I wasn’t powerless and enslaved to something beyond my control. I wasn’t Lachlan Lockhart.
Sometimes it takes years to realize the truth. Sometimes it takes a moment.
My truth is this and it’s immediate: I’ll always be Lachlan Lockhart.
And I’ll always be fighting a very bloody war.
“You’re going to break my heart,” she whimpers, tears streaming down her face that she wipes angrily away.
“No,” I tell her, shaking my head. I stride to her, grabbing her by the shoulders desperately. “No, no, no.”
“Yes,” she cries out, avoiding my gaze. Up close her heartbreak is terrifying. “Yes. If this continues, yes. You will break me. Or I’ll break myself first.”
“Please,” I beg her, the tightness in my chest suffocating me. “We can work through this. I promise you, promise you we can.”
“No,” she says, shaking her head quickly, her lips pinched together. “We can’t. We aren’t strong enough. I’m not strong enough.”
“Yes you are,” I tell her. “You’re the strongest person that I know, Kayla and I know it’s a lot of pressure I’m putting on you, just asking you to even put up with me, let alone move here, but please. I love you. I love you so much that I can’t see straight and it’s destroying me. You’re ruining me to the very ground, can’t you see, but there’s nothing else I want more than to be at your feet.”
I collapse to my knees, holding her around her legs. “I can’t lose you. Don’t walk away from me. Don’t leave me. I’ve finally found you. You. I don’t want to go through the rest of this life without you at my side. I don’t even think I can.”
She’s rigid in my arms and I sob onto her thighs, holding her so tight because I feel that if I don’t let go, she can never leave. I’m just a ravaged mess of a man at the feet of the woman I love and begging for her to stay.
When her hands find their way into my hair, her fingers touching tenderly among my scalp, I nearly cry with relief. Her touch, her affection, soothes me like a bandage on a wound and I melt against her.
“Please,” I mutter against her legs. “I’ve never been more serious. I’ll do whatever it takes.”
“Rehab,” she whispers. “Or counseling. Something Lachlan, you need something and it has to be more than what I can give you.”
“Yes,” I tell her, even though the idea of going back to rehab for alcohol, more than a decade after going to rehab for meth, is embarrassing and shameful. Even though there will be no secrets if I go, that the world will find out and know just what kind of person I am. But I would do it for her. “I’ll go.”