February 2, 2023
4:31 p.m.
Siobhan’s hand was still in mine.
I promise, Siobhan. I promise.
But I pulled it away. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t just pretend…
“What is it, Kerry?” Siobhan looked at me, sitting on the edge of the bed. She was so desperate for me to take care of her, but she didn’t know. She didn’t know.
Without a word, I walked across the room, to the kitchen, to a bottle of wine that had not yet been drained. I poured myself a glass and drank down half of it.
You don’t need the wine, Kerry. You really don’t.
But Frank didn’t understand. Nothing was harder to face than shame.
And nothing took away shame like obliteration.
Siobhan’s eyes widened as I poured myself a large glass, as I tipped it back, letting it slosh down my throat.
“I can’t lie to you,” I said. “I can’t just sit here and pretend.”
Siobhan shrugged. “So drink, Kerry. I don’t care. What you do with alcohol, it’s your problem, not mine. It’s not my place to judge.”
But it is, Siobhan. God, if you only knew.
I took another sip, craving again the escape, and I stared at her for a moment, hating that I was going to destroy her, but I didn’t know another way. “I’m not a good person, Siobhan.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked. “Of course you are.”
“No,” I said. “I cheated on Frank. Frank, who never deserved anything like that. We’re separated, we’ll probably be divorced soon, and it’s all because of me.”
Siobhan took a deep breath. “Okay.”
I took another big gulp of wine, already feeling the way it was swimming in my head, thought of that night, that stupid, awful night that had changed everything. Of all the different coincidences that had led me—her, all of us—to that night. So many things could have gone differently. Frank could have come with me after all. Siobhan could have stayed, escorted Charlie home. Allison could have never been there, buying the whole room rounds of shots. And me, of course me. Because it was my mistake, my choices, my pain.
“I didn’t block you because you tried to get me to stop drinking,” I said.
Siobhan’s head tilted to the side. “Then why?”
More wine, sloshing into my mouth, as I went back to that night in a way I hadn’t let myself do since the morning I told it all to Frank.
To the night of Charlie’s birthday.
We were all drinking, all singing, all packed into one of those karaoke rooms. The night was winding down, and I’d tripped, nearly dropping the mic into a pitcher of beer, and the look on Allison’s face, who was already on her way to leaving, it was so cutting, so naked with judgment. She didn’t know me well, did she? I was Siobhan’s friend, not hers. And she, apparently, was the kind of woman who could order shots for the bar and somehow keep her respectability intact. And so, shortly after she left, I stood, too. In words I’m sure were slurred, I announced that it was a good idea for me to go home, too.
How different would things have been if I had?
Would my friendship with Siobhan have ended?
Would Frank and I have split up?
Would I have ever come up here?
Was there some alternate universe where I had just gone home, woken up with a hangover, decided to get my shit together without having to hit rock bottom, apologized to Frank for everything I’d already put him through, committed to our marriage, committed to my career, finished my book, stopped drinking for long enough for us to do another round of IVF?
Some sliding-doors reality where the world wasn’t dark for me, but hopeful?
I looked at the glass in my hand, took another sip, felt it trickle down my throat.
Who was I kidding? This was who I was. A screwup. A drunk. Someone who took took took.
Because I didn’t leave when I said I would. I stepped out of the private karaoke room, walked through the crowd along the bar, until I found a seat in the corner where no one from the party would be likely to see me. Ordered myself a gin and tonic. Dug around to make sure I had my things. Phone, keys, wallet. The drunkard’s constant refrain. Phone keys wallet phone keys wallet. So easy to lose one of them if you didn’t constantly remind yourself not to.
And then my fingers brushed against a smooth plastic cylinder. I pulled it out. The lipstick, of course. It was Allison’s, I was pretty sure. Had no idea how it had gotten in my bag—but that was how drunks were, always collecting things, your hands turning to Velcro, things you’d use to put together a timeline the next morning. She’d probably dropped it, and I’d probably grabbed it to give it back to her, then forgot.
I uncapped the lipstick, sipped my drink, thought I would never be brave enough to wear it, sipped my drink again, slathered it on anyway, sipped my drink again. Ordered another. Sipped sipped sipped.
“Kerry?”
I’d jolted, turned, and then there he was. Charlie.
“You look different.”
“Oh,” I said. I pressed my lips together, felt the smooth cream of the rouge on my mouth.
“Not in a bad way,” he added.
I bit a red lip, ran my tongue across my teeth to make sure it didn’t mark.
“I thought you’d left,” he said.
You know how when you’re drunk out of your mind, how fun it is when you see someone you know? Like hearing a familiar riff on the radio that stands out among the rest of the noise.
“You caught me,” I said. “I guess I wanted another drink. Don’t tell Frank.”
He lifted a finger to his chiseled chin. “Mum’s the word.”
“Where’s everyone else?” I asked.
“Gone, too,” he said. “So I guess you caught me.”
I looked at Charlie, picked up the wanting, but not for what you think: a wanting for the party to keep going. When you live your life like I do, you get exceedingly good at picking that up in other people. You can see very clearly who will indulge you and who won’t. And that, in and of itself, almost sobers you up a little bit, sorts through the holes already forming in your mind, in what will be your memory of this night, and gives you clarity. Focus. Because another drink is about to be in your hands, cold with clinking ice and promising you pure escape, pure annihilation. And when you find someone who won’t judge, who will indulge, well, it’s absolute bliss. “Another round, then?” I asked.
Charlie didn’t even answer, just motioned to the bartender, and I was so happy, so exceedingly happy, that I’d bought myself another stay, another hour at least until I would have to go home, to see Frank, to face the mess I’d made of my life, to disappoint the people who cared about me yet again.
“Kerry,” Siobhan said now. “Kerry. Why did you block me, then?”
I finally let myself look at her. At the friend I had betrayed like it was nothing, telling myself that it was better, far better, to have me out of her life. Telling myself that she deserved so much better than me, because, let’s face it, she did. Everyone did.
“I blocked you so you could be free of me,” I said.
Her eyes narrowed, and she took a slow, deep breath. “Why would I need to be free of you?”
It could have all been harmless. It could have been one of those nights you told your friend about later. Okay, so I actually went to the bar to get another drink and Charlie and I ended up closing the place down. We talked about how much we both love you, and he helped get me into a cab, and I went home. Hilarious, right?
I kept telling myself, as one round turned into another, as Charlie suggested shots, and I said yes, that that was all it would be. But alcohol, it took things, things that were so small as to be harmless, and made them bigger, made them take over completely.
I loved Frank, I did, but I liked how Charlie and I were the fun ones on our couples’ game nights. Sure, Siobhan might have a glass or two and steal outside with Charlie to smoke, but eventually he and I would find ourselves in the kitchen, raiding the fridge, the liquor cabinet, looking for whatever could give us more.
Nothing had ever happened. But it was nice, I guessed, for that part of me—fun, party Kerry, Kerry who laughed loud and talked loud and sometimes dropped things but turned the world Technicolor—to be appreciated, not resented. Because Frank used to love it about me, back when I had it under control. And when I’d see sadness and pity and maybe a tinge of disgust from both Frank and Siobhan, well, there was Charlie to give me a knowing look, like, How did we lasso ourselves to these grandmas? What’s the big deal? It’s just another drink. It’s just a little fun.
And so, that night at the bar, when Charlie asked why Frank wasn’t there, when I told him Frank didn’t really drink these days, didn’t really like me to drink these days, when Charlie shared that Siobhan was the same, that she hadn’t even stayed out on his birthday, that it had disappointed him, it really had, it was impossible not to look at each other. To smile. To feel like, Okay, at least we don’t have to pretend when we’re together.
“But you’re here,” Charlie had said, and I could feel his knee close in on mine, just a millimeter—touching, but not touching—like it wasn’t even happening.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m here.”
Now, I looked at Siobhan, let the lies fall away for the first time. “When I left karaoke that night, I didn’t leave. I went to the back of the bar. I didn’t want to go home yet and face Frank. I knew he would be disappointed in me. I had promised him that I would only have two drinks max. We had a whole system. I would wear two hair ties on my left wrist and move them over to my right as I drank.” I winced, thinking of it now, how helpless Frank must have felt. Because if you were the kind of person who needed a hair-tie system, then of course you were already too far gone. “Charlie didn’t leave, either. He found me at the bar.”
“Did you—” There were tears in her eyes now. She couldn’t finish the sentence.
I took another gulp of wine.
Sitting at the bar with Charlie, I kept thinking about how I should pull my knee away and how I wasn’t. And then there was a pressure on my bladder, an excuse to break contact. And I stood up, and I was already stumbling. It was one of those tiny all-gender stalls.
I found my way in, did what I needed to do, looked in the mirror, stared at the red lips, at this person, wild and selfish, with a mind toward utter destruction.
And then the door cracked open, and there was Charlie.
He stepped inside.
“We shouldn’t—”
But his lips were on mine, and I didn’t push him away. And I kept telling myself over and over again that I could.
Only the thing was, what if I didn’t? Charlie and I were both such fuck-ups, such awful, terrible people. All we did was hurt the people who loved us, made them worry, made them codependent, made them try to save us.
And what if there was a way to stop that all, to save them both? Because in my drunken state, it felt almost like it would.
Hands up my shirt. On my waistband. His pants unzipping. One of those freebie condoms.
This was an opening, a door, a door that led straight to rock bottom. No take-backs. Because I would tell Frank in the morning, and it would destroy him, destroy us, and then he wouldn’t have to love me anymore, and I wouldn’t have to disappoint him anymore. And his heart would be broken, but it would be shattered all at once, instead of the death by a thousand cuts that an alcoholic inevitably put their loved ones through.
I had been looking for a way out, a way to stop owing anyone anything.
And Charlie was it.
So I let it happen, and it was so fast, and then it was over, and even in my drunkenness, I had the wherewithal to do it, to slip the condom wrapper in the pocket of his overcoat, praying that Siobhan would find it in the morning, that she would be free, too.
“It wasn’t about you,” I managed, forcing myself to look Siobhan in the eyes. “Well, it wasn’t about me and you. I was hurting Frank, and Charlie was hurting you, and together, if we did this, I knew it would destroy both relationships. And there wouldn’t be pressure to be good anymore—a good wife, a good friend. I could just be me. Someone who hurts people. Someone who fucks up. It was a rock bottom.”
Siobhan’s lip was quivering. Tears were streaming down her cheeks now. “It was you, then. It was you.”
I didn’t deny it.
“I thought…” She sucked in a breath, catching in her throat. “I didn’t think it was you.”
Heat lifted into my face, shame practically leaking out my pores, because I wished I could say something—anything—to defend myself. It had been the same with Frank the next morning, when I told him all that had happened, laid it out, not skipping a single detail, right down to who it was with.
Only with Frank, there had been relief. I had come so close to destroying him so many times that it was freeing to actually do it, to finally be done with that chapter of my life, to cross a line that I couldn’t uncross.
“Get out,” Siobhan said, shaking me from my thoughts.
“Siobhan.”
And then her words were frantic, charged—a yell, a scream, a cry of desperation.
“For god’s sake, get out!”