I don’t know if I’m right,
I don’t know if I’m wrong,
I guess that’s why I’m here
writing you this song.
— “Acceptance,” Jack Cuoco
The hour-long meeting gave me a lot to think about. In a way, I felt better, but in others, I didn’t. It hadn’t given me the answers I’d hoped for, but it had allowed me to air some of my darker fears about myself and my life going forward without alcohol. Everyone in the room had understood where I was coming from. I appreciated their understanding. It helped to keep me focused on my goal of sobriety.
Since my arrival in London, Hollie had spent more time babysitting Cooper than I had. In an effort to follow Brent’s advice, I offered to take Cooper to a space event so that Hollie could have some time to focus on her business. Running everything almost single handedly while caring for Astin seemed stressful, and I felt bad I hadn’t done more to help her sooner.
A reading by an astronaut seemed like a cool idea. Cooper was up for it, too. I really hoped it’d be something interesting for the both of us.
It wasn’t.
Somehow, this guy who’d been into space had the personality of a blank sheet of paper. He spoke in a monotone, with the subtle hint of a Liverpudlian accent. Well, that’s what the woman standing next to me said when she complained about how boring he was. I had no idea what a monotonal Liverpudlian accent sounded like. I couldn’t tell the difference between most British accents yet.
I sighed, looking back over at Cooper. He was sitting on the floor, staring up at the astronaut. I really hoped he was enjoying the talk more than I was.
“Which one’s yours?” asked the same woman who’d mentioned the speaker’s accent.
I pointed to the blond, blue-eyed, Cooper. “My friend’s brother,” I added, noting the confused look on her face. Of course she’d look confused. Our skin tones couldn’t have been much more different.
“Oh,” she said. She didn’t speak to me again.
Sigh. Why did I even bother?
I slowly moved away, relocating to a vacant chair at the back of the room.
Cooper came over to me during the break. “Can we go?”
A few of the other families were leaving too. We didn’t want to be the last ones there, staying out of guilt. I felt bad for the astronaut, but also, we had other things we could be doing, like napping. I yawned. A nap after that reading was just what I needed.
“Why don’t we get some lunch, then go back to the hotel for a nap?” I suggested, suppressing another yawn.
Cooper was practically out of the door before I stood up.
*
We got some lunch from one of the ubiquitous sandwich places in London, then walked back to the hotel. It was a long walk, but I think Cooper liked it. It gave us the chance to explore the city much more than traveling via the Tube did. And it was probably better for our health, too. Marginally, given the pollution in London, but anyway.
Cooper and I rounded the corner back to the hotel, laughing about how bad the reading had been. We’d tried. Next time I’d do more research before taking him somewhere. Lesson learned.
I looked up and noticed Hollie standing by the door. Her eyes were red and bloodshot, her bag was on her shoulder, her arms were wrapped around herself, and her head was bowed. Oh no. Please tell me Astin hadn’t done something stupid. Please.
I stopped juggling the smoothie I’d been playing with. “Hey Coop,” I said as we approached her. “Why don’t you go get a drink and we’ll come meet you in a minute?”
Cooper looked from Hollie, to me, and back again. I held my breath as I waited for him to ask what was wrong. Thankfully, he didn’t, choosing to go inside instead.
“How was the storytelling thing?” Hollie asked. It was clear from the wobble in her voice she was upset and trying not to think about whatever had happened. Had Astin said something? Had he done something?
“Shit,” I said, guiding her away from the doors. “What happened?”
“Roskowski showed up. Tried to stop him. Got up anyway. Astin blamed me. We…we….”
She couldn’t say it, but she didn’t have to. They’d broken up. It was all over her face. I handed her a crumpled tissue from my pocket as she burst into sobs.
Was this what Tate had been like when she’s realized I’d left her in the hospital? Or all those other times we’d broken up or otherwise stopped speaking?
Then again, I’d sometimes been crying inconsolably because of it, too. Then spiraled into drink and drugs. Hollie wasn’t like that. But I did know she had serious anxiety issues that she was mostly in denial about. And that Astin and his grumpy old man mood had made considerably worse.
“Thanks.” She patted at her eyes with it. “He’s not the person I fell in love with. He’s selfish, he’s lazy, and he’s self-pitying.” She shook her head, as if that would get rid of the memories of everything that’d happened. “Will you be OK?”
“Please. You think he’s bad? You should’ve seen what I was like,” I said. She gave out a small laugh, but I wasn’t joking. I’d been a terrible person at some points in my life, and that gave me more patience for Astin. “It’s you I’m worried about. You’re the one he treated like shit.”
“Yeah. Well. Not anymore.”
“Want me to bring anything to the car?”
“No thanks. The concierge is sorting it.”
As she said that, her little ice blue Toyota Aygo pulled up outside the hotel doors. Jamal and a couple of others opened the trunk and loaded her things into it. Hollie looked away, as if she couldn’t stand seeing her life being packed away.
“OK,” I said.
“I should go talk to Cooper,” she said.
I waited outside while she went to talk to him. It felt like the kind of conversation she needed to have without me there. They’d grown close, and I knew the breakup would be hard on Cooper, too. Especially as Hollie had done so much babysitting lately.
Which was completely my fault because I’d spent so much time at meetings, with Laney, and otherwise trying to distract myself from alcohol.
After a couple of minutes, she and Cooper came back outside. The concierge handed her the keys to her car. Tears streaming down her pale skin, she hugged Cooper and me one last time, then got into her Toyota and drove away.
“Astin screwed up,” stated Cooper.
I sighed. “Yeah, I think he did.”
*
“You’re an idiot, you know that?” I said as I walked into Astin’s suite. It wasn’t my most tactful move, but someone needed to snap some sense into Astin.
Cooper had ranted to me about Astin the whole way up in the elevator, saying how much he was going to miss Hollie and how stupid his big brother—whom he usually idolized—was. It riled me up so much I made Cooper wait in my room while I went to find Astin.
He was in Hollie’s room, looking around all lost and upset. His eyes were blotchy and his face was red. As it should be, because he’d fucked up. I held the unopened smoothie bottle out to Astin.
“No.”
“Suit yourself.” I went and sat on the sofa.
Astin wheeled himself out of her room and over to the dining table. The clock pendant he’d bought her was on the floor nearby. The clock was on one side, the chain the other. He stared at it for a moment, then looked over at me.
I turned back around, crossing one leg over the other. “Did I mention you’re an idiot?”
“Thank you, Dr Phil, for your insight.”
“It’s my job to be honest with you. That was part of our agreement, wasn’t it?”
“What agreement?”
“Fine, an unspoken agreement,” I said, waving the smoothie bottle around. “You’ve been treating her like shit. I can’t believe she put up with it for so long.”
“She shouldn’t have come,” he said through a clenched jaw.
“And what would you have done, if something had happened to her?”
“Gone over and—” He stopped talking, realizing the trap he was falling into. Gotcha.
“Exactly. She did exactly what you would’ve done if the situation was reversed.” I kept waving the smoothie bottle around. It was cathartic. Until Astin knocked it out my hands. It thudded on to the floor, thankfully remaining sealed and not damaging the expensive carpet. “Not only that, but she’s already used to caring for someone in a wheelchair. But instead of listening to her, you kept slamming the door in her face.” I picked the bottle up, opened it, and took a swig. Usually I enjoyed mango and passionfruit smoothies, but with Astin’s anger filling the room, it tasted bitter. “I’m not sure who deserves a medal more: her, for putting up with you, or you, for how much of a cunt you were.”
“What the fuck do you know? Look how you treated Tate all these years!”
I tensed my jaw. “Don’t you think I know she deserves better?”
I’d had enough of his shit. I got up and walked toward the door. But there was one last thing I had to say before I left. “Not being with her every day is like a piece of me is missing, but goddammit, I just drag her down.” Being in her presence wasn’t the same. I wanted to spend my life with her. I knew I was in no state to, though. “But I want to be a better person. I want to be a better person so that I don’t look back on my life when I’m old and regret what a dick I was. I want to look back on my life and be proud of what I did and who I was. Because we all fucking deserve that.”
*
I returned to my room, where Cooper was lying on my bed and reading. Shit. I’d forgotten about him. I was still brimming with anger, but that anger was moving into tears.
Astin had broken Hollie after just a few months. Tate and I had been through so much more. I had to call her and apologize. What if we couldn’t get past everything we’d been through and we were fooling ourselves? I needed her to know how sorry I was. Telling her once wasn’t enough.
But I couldn’t do that with Cooper there. It was too personal. And too intimate and complicated to explain in front of a ten-year-old.
“I should go and see Astin, shouldn’t I?” said Cooper before I spoke.
“He needs his brother right now,” I agreed.
Cooper hopped off the bed and exited without another word.
Well, that was easier than I’d expected.
Now to call Tate.
I took my phone from my pocket and called her. It rang. And rang. Then…went to voicemail. Was she busy? Of course she was. She was Tate.
How could I apologize if she didn’t pick up? I almost left a voicemail, but that wasn’t the same. Dejected, I stopped the call before it asked me to record a message.
I lay back in bed, covering my face with my arm. I really hoped Hollie was OK. She had a long drive to get back to her family, and driving after a breakup seemed risky even to me.
I was just falling asleep when someone video called me. I sat upright and grabbed my phone. It was Tate.
“Hey, what’s up?” she said.
“I just…I wanted to apologize.”
She smiled. “You already did that.”
“I know, but…seeing Hollie and Astin break up—”
“What? When?”
I checked the time on my phone screen. “About an hour ago. Something happened with Roskowski.”
“That bastard. I should check on Hollie.”
“Maybe give it a couple of hours. She’s driving home right now.”
Tate rested her head against what looked like a pillow. “The poor thing. I wish I could help her.”
“I think being back with her family will help a lot. Things were getting pretty intense around here,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
I stood up and started pacing my room while I talked to her. “Astin’s moods are still bad. He just won’t talk to anyone. He’s bottling it all up and it’s eating away at him. Seeing what that did to Hollie…it made me think of you. And all the times I ignored you, or didn’t tell you something, or pushed you away.” My eyes began to fill with tears. I wiped at them with the edge of my shirt. It had pineapples on. Usually, that made me smile. This time, it didn’t. “I’m sorry. I can’t tell you how sorry you are. I never thought of you back then because I was too wrapped up in myself. In my addiction. But I’m a different person now. I need you to know that.”
She smiled, tears welling in her eyes. Moxie jumped into shot licking the tears away from Tate’s face. I smiled. Seeing them together always warmed my heart. “Jack, I…I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything, babe. I just really want you to know.”