"Grayson, thank you. You didn't have to do all of this," I said as he put me down. "How did you even get here?"
"I rode the bus. So, I'm gonna need a ride home if that's okay," he replied.
"Of course," I said, hugging him again. "I can't believe you did all of this. All I did was drive myself."
"But I know that it meant more than just that to you," he said. "Which means it meant more than just that to me, so really this celebration is 50 percent selfish."
"Okay, does that mean I only have to give you 50 percent of a ride home?" I joked.
"Well, I specifically took the bus so that I'd have an excuse for you to drive me. Besides, this is only 50 percent of the surprise. So I guess that depends on how badly you want to see the rest," he said, winking.
So, I drove him back to the cottage and he covered my eyes and walked me in. When he uncovered my eyes, I saw that he had set up an elaborate dinner. As I looked closer, tears filled my eyes and I recognized the food on the table – all from my father's recipes, the ones I'd held on to but never attempted to make, as badly as I may have wanted to.
"How... how did you," I stammered.
"I was looking for your brownie recipe the day that you fought with Adam because I wanted to cheer you up, and I found your dad's old recipe cards in the back of the box," he explained, taking my hands in his. "I hope it's okay that I copied them. I wanted to do something special for you when we got to this day, because this is it, you know?
"Maybe your situation with Adam isn't completely clear, and maybe you'll have more days here and there where you aren't strong enough to overcome every bit of your illnesses, and that's perfectly normal and okay. But driving was the last big hurdle. Now you can do everything you did before this all started. Sure, you need medication to be able to do it, but there's nothing wrong with that. You can have your life back, and I'm so incredibly happy for you, and proud of you for coming so far."
There was a split second while he was speaking where I involuntarily pictured the stove erupting and setting the entire cottage on fire. But my heart was so full of gratitude in the moment that quieting my mind was easy.
I couldn't muster any words, so I just pulled him close and held on until I could finally say, "Thank you, Grayson. I don't have the slightest idea what to say to you right now beside that, but it doesn't feel like enough. You have been such an incredible friend to me, and I feel like I haven't done anything for you. I don't deserve all of this."
"I mean, you've basically doubled my baked good revenue since you took over for Chelsea," he said, laughing. "So if you just do some mental gymnastics, you can conclude that you paid for it yourself. But seriously, it's not about what you deserve. None of us deserve anything. But if we're lucky, the universe gives us people who loves us anyway. Now, enough of this mushy stuff. Let's eat before Dolly jumps on the table and beats us to it."
After dinner I stayed at his place for a bit, then headed home, feeling like I could handle anything. I was so grateful to Grayson for making me feel like I mattered – like it wasn't silly to see my baby steps as accomplishments. And he was right, driving was my last big mountain to climb. There was nothing stopping me from taking my old life back.
I decided that Dr. Rodriguez was right about reaching out to Adam, and I felt so good that I knew even if it went poorly, it wouldn't bring me down too far. So I dialed his number and held my breath. I didn't honestly expect him to answer, so when the line was picked up, I was a bit taken aback.
"Oh, hey," I said. "I didn't actually think you'd answer.
"Hey, Mark. It's Scotty," Adam's younger brother said in a hushed tone. He was being surprisingly pleasant – Adam's family had never liked the fact that he married another man. "Adam's not exactly in a good place right now, bud. Maybe when we get him sorted out I can tell him to give you a call?"
"Oh, Scotty, hey. What's wrong with him? Is there anything I can do?" I asked, trying not to panic.
"I don't think so, man. Look, he asked us not to say anything to you, but I feel like I owe you at least this – he's been drinking... a lot. But momma's got a plan to take him to an AA meeting on Friday." he said. "Not sure there's much of anything anyone can do for him other than that, but we're trying. I gotta go, but I'll have him call you, I promise."
The line went dead and I let myself fall back onto the bed. I'd been worried about Adam drinking the day I'd seen him. I was kicking myself for not trying to help him. But I decided that there was nothing I could do that night. If he specifically asked his family not to contact me, then he didn't want my help, and I knew they'd take care of him. Whether or not they'd liked me, I'd always known at least his mother loved him. She would make sure he got the help he needed.
Grayson called after that and invited me to have, as he called it, "Day After Thanksgiving-Thanksgiving Dinner" with his parents, Roy and Donna. So on Thursday, Grayson opened the diner as a buffet for homeless people to go and eat a Thanksgiving meal. I volunteered to help him and realized that it was becoming increasingly difficult not to be awestruck by his wonderful heart.
On Friday, I had insisted on making desserts in return for being invited into Roy and Donna's home for a holiday, and Grayson had spent the morning helping me. So, we drove over together. After Donna had let us in and introduced me to Roy, she nudged him and said, "They came together." Roy had given her a look as if she'd just spilled some ancient family secret. I glanced at Grayson and he was giving them both the same look.
Donna had the same kind eyes as Grayson. The rest of his facial features had clearly come from Roy, who looked almost exactly like Grayson, but with gray hair and a few wrinkles. Their home reminded me a lot of Grayson's, with their own set of mismatched furniture and walls covered in family photos.
At the table after dinner, Donna said, "So Mark, Grayson has told us a lot about you."
"Oh really?" I asked. "At least a few good things I hope?"
"Oh, wonderful," Roy said, averting his eyes after Grayson shot him another of those looks. "I mean, he says you've been a great help at the diner. That Chelsea girl always struck me as a bit odd anyway. Don't you think, Donna?"
"Oh yes, she was very strange," Donna quickly agreed, clearly desperate to change the subject.
"How about I go get dessert then? You can tell me if my baking lives up to its reputation," I said, trying to give them an out.
I didn't bring it up through the rest of the time we were there, but I kept wondering what it was Donna and Roy were trying to keep secret. On top of the weird glances exchanged between the three of them, I kept catching whichever of Grayson's parents I wasn't directly talking to watching me with their face contorted as if they were fighting back tears.
As I drove us back to the diner to store the leftovers, Grayson broached the subject first. "Sorry Mom and Dad were being so weird," he said sheepishly. "They mean well."
"They're sweet," I said reassuringly. "I enjoyed getting to know them a bit. They really seem great."
He beamed at me, his large dimples revealing themselves again, and I left it at that until we were back at the diner.
"So," I said, hopping up to sit on the counter near where he was standing. "Do you want to tell me why they kept looking at me like I was dying? It's okay if you told them about... my situation. I'm not embarrassed about it anymore – mostly because of you."
"It's not that," he said, wringing a dish towel in his hands and looking at the floor. "I mean, they do know bits of that because I thought it would give them some comfort to know that someone who had struggled like Alex was making their way out of it. But, that's not what that was about."
"So, what was it?" I asked. "You know you can tell me anything, right?" He nodded, moving slowly closer. He inched closer until his face was so near mine that I could smell the gum he'd been chewing on his breath.
He looked right into my eyes and said, "I sort of told them that I've been falling for someone. I didn't tell them who, exactly, but I'm pretty sure they t
hought it was you."
I felt like the air had been knocked out of me and my lungs were vacuum sealed empty. I became acutely aware of how close he was standing and how quiet the room was as I asked, "Were they right?"
"I think you know the answer to that," he said, reaching for my hands.
Of course, I did. It may not have added up until that moment, but as he said it, all of the signs flashed at me like the skyline of the Vegas strip. The tender way he held me when I was upset. The way he smiled from ear to ear and laughed even when I knew my jokes weren't funny. The way he'd celebrated even my smallest victories. The "I love you," that I'd taken as platonic. "How did I miss this? Did I miss this? Or did I just not want to see it?" I thought to myself. But there was no time to think that train through, because he was speaking again, and I couldn’t risk missing it.
"Look, I know it's not right, Mark," he said, "You're still married and you just got to a really great place. And I know that you can't possibly feel the same way about me. I know it's selfish of me to even be telling you this. But I'm falling for you so hard, and I can't hold it in any longer because keeping it from you is eating me up. I've never felt like this before."
I hated seeing him so torn up. I couldn't even process my own feelings about what he was saying because I so badly just wanted to comfort him. "Grayson," I said softly as I pushed a strand of his long hair that had fallen in his face back into its place. I should have realized I'd opened the door for what happened next.
He looked up at me slowly, then gradually drew closer and finally pressed his lips against mine. His lips were soft, his breath sweet. Even on his day off, he still smelled like coffee mixed with his cologne. His beard scratched against my face, which normally would have bothered me, but felt nice in this case.
My first instinct was to push him away. But part of me knew exactly how I felt. The timing was wrong, I couldn't deny that. But I also couldn't deny that I was falling for him just as much as he was for me. I wrapped my arms around his back, pulled him close, and kissed him back.
Chapter Seven | Adam
I slammed the door to what had evidently become only Mark's house behind me. I was so blindly angry that I didn't even consider how I was going to get home. I wasn't going to just sit around and watch Mark and his new whatever. I ordered a car from an app and walked to the nearby park to wait for it to pick me up.
I couldn't believe that Mark had actually had the audacity to say the things he'd said to me. When I got home, I almost got in my car and drove to the jail to check on Aaron, but I was angry at him too. I'd put my trust in him, and he'd lied to my face about that phone call. I went upstairs and threw back four shots of whiskey.
That only made me angrier. I kept thinking about everything Mark had said to me and ended up slamming my fist through the kitchen wall. The worst part was that I felt nothing in response to it – no guilt, no shock at what I'd done, nothing. I opened the bottle again and drank until I passed out.
Late in the afternoon, I was awakened by loud banging on my front door. I lay perfectly still, hoping whatever fresh hell it might be would just leave me be.
"I know you're in there, dude. Open the fucking door," Aaron's muffled voice called through the door. I weighed my options as well as I could in my buzzed state. I could open the door and have my second ugly confrontation of the day, or I could keep hoping he'd just give up and go away. The latter didn't seem likely, so I begrudgingly opened the door.
"Hey," I said curtly.
"Really dude? 'Hey'? That's all you have to say to me?" he asked angrily.
"What would you like for me to say Aaron?" I asked.
"Oh I dunno man. How about 'sorry I dragged you into my bullshit drinking problem and got you a fucking DUI'?" he said in a mocking tone.
"Yeah, because I put a gun to your head and made you drive the car," I said sarcastically. "Grow up and take responsibility for your own choices. Like, for example how you didn't tell me my husband called me, and apparently deleted the call from my phone since I never saw it in the call logs? Yeah, I saw Mark today. Did you really think I'd never find out?"
"You've gotta be shitting me bro," he said with a scoff. "Yeah, I protected your sorry ass from that call because I knew it'd fuck you up even worse than you already were. Sue me. And you're the king of avoiding responsibility. That's basically your entire existence, dude."
"What is that supposed to mean?" I demanded.
"You sit around whining all day about your sad, desperate divorce like it wasn’t your own goddamn choice, dude," he said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "You bitch about your husband like he just went to the store one day and bought a lifetime subscription of depression and whatever other shit you decided was too much for you to handle. You're like a fucking hurricane dude. You just blow through people like they aren't even there and then you move on and leave them to clean up your mess. Were you even going to bother checking on me at all? It's been over 12 hours!"
"No, actually, I wasn't," I admitted, raising my voice and stepping up nearer to him. "I was pissed at you, and decided you could take care of yourself."
"Have you been drinking? Are you fucking serious? We were just in a wreck because we were drinking! You know what, man? I feel sorry for you," he said, recoiling at my breath and starting to gather up his things around the room. "I'll pay whatever fines I have to and I’ll get my life back together and move on. But unless you get some serious help, all you're ever going to be is a pathetic drunk."
He slammed the door behind him before I had a chance to respond. For the second time in less than 24 hours I was left feeling like I'd just been attacked and left to the wolves. I reached for the bottle of whiskey and found that I'd finished it before I'd fallen asleep. I rummaged through my cabinets and found nothing else to drink.
Desperate for something to take the edge off, I walked down to Sofia's. It was only 2pm, so I expected that Aaron wouldn't be there for a few hours. But he must have stopped by there before he'd gone to my apartment, because Sofia scrambled around the bar to meet me as soon as I walked in.
"You can't drink here no more, mijo," she said. "You've got a problem and you need to get ya some help."
"Sofia, not you too," I said. "Look, I don't have a problem. I'm just going through a rough time right now is all."
"Do you know how many times I've heard that one, blue eyes?" she asked, taking my face in her tiny hands. "I know you don't wanna admit it to yourself, but you do have a problem. And I like ya too much to watch ya drink yourself to death. So, you go and get sober. And after that if ya wanna come in here and get ya some food, it's on me. But ya can't drink here no more, you hear me?"
I didn't even bother answering her. I turned and stormed out without a single word. I took a cab to an upscale bar across town and settled in for a long night. About $100 in, someone bumped my arm and my drink spilled across my lap.
"Watch where you're going, asshole," I slurred. I felt a strong grip on my arm. I was spun so quickly that I didn't see who had done it until after a punch to the face landed me flat on the floor. I looked up and saw a man roughly the same size as me, but more muscular, standing over me. His punch shouldn't have blown me over so easily. I must have been drunker than I'd thought.
"How 'bout you watch your mouth before I break your other arm, idiot?" he asked.
I should have kept my mouth shut, or just gotten up and walked away. Instead, I said, "Oh. Is that all you got, tough guy?"
It wasn't. He kicked me in the ribs, then again. Then he pulled me up by my shirt just to punch me in the face and knock me back down. My broken arm knocked up against the nearby stools a few times, but outright going for that arm seemed to be the line he wouldn't cross. Other than that, he kicked and punched me anywhere he could reach. The whole time, I could hear laughing, and I wondered what kind of jerk would just be laughing at someone who was getting beaten up. Then I caught my reflection in the metal siding of the bar and realized it was me. He ke
pt going because I was laughing.
"You think it's funny you son of a bitch?" he yelled as he delivered another kick to my side. I laughed even harder, still unsure why. It definitely wasn't a reaction to humor. It wasn't even my normal laugh. It was a visceral, almost feral sound, like each blow he delivered was causing my body to release some kind of demonic energy bit by bit.
I didn't make any effort to stop him. I didn't even ask for help. I just lay there, letting him kick me over and over until someone finally stopped him and kicked us both out.
I took a cab home and then stood in front of the long bathroom mirror, examining my naked body. Large purple and blue bruises were already forming all over. I stared at the bruises for a long while, wondering how my life had taken such a dramatic turn. A couple of years earlier all I'd wanted was to teach English and start a family with my husband. Now I was staring at two sets of bruises, unsure which incident any of them even came from. I'd fallen so hard I didn't know how I could possibly get back up.
I went to bed for lack of anything better to do, and stayed there until after noon the following day. I left the house that day only because I was out of liquor. I stocked up at the nearest store with as much as I could carry. Then I stayed holed up in my apartment for a week. One week turned into two, turned into three. Just me and a bottle. All day. Every day. I left the apartment only a handful of times. Once to pick up the divorce papers I intended to send to Mark, and the rest were to buy more liquor.
As Thanksgiving neared, I began to feel even more lonely. Mark and I usually spent the holidays with his father. After he died, we spent the following Thanksgiving alone at our house. We didn't even cook anything special. Mark was in an even worse funk than usual and had locked himself up in the bathroom all day. So I spent the day checking in on him occasionally. I had a feeling that this one, all by myself, was going to feel even worse than that.
But on the Monday before the holiday, I received a surprise call from my youngest brother, Scotty. He was only 22 and still lived at home with our mother while he went to college. It was only six in the morning and I was severely hung-over, so I wasn't exactly a shining example of a big brother when I answered.
How We Love Page 10