Page 25

Chapter 25

Benji Morrison

My head spun as I reached over to my nightstand and turned off my alarm. Fuck. Why the hell was it even going off? Wasn’t it a Saturday? Or was it Sunday?

I blinked away the drowsy sleep clouding my eyes. My hands hurt like a motherfucker. I winced and rolled out of bed, pushing myself up.

“Ow, fuck!” A series of sharp, stinging pains radiated up through my arms. I looked down and noticed two bloody handprints on my bed. “What the…”

My hands… they were covered in blood. Mostly dry, but some cuts had reopened. My bedsheets were coated in it. So was my phone. I looked to the corner of the room where Lucky’s bed was. Thankfully, he slept in a curled-up ball without any blood on or around him.

“No, no… what happened? What the fuck?”

I tried to pull at the memories of last night but couldn’t find anything. It was a sea of black. I had drunk myself into total oblivion. I wanted to escape the pain, wanted to forget about my life and my problems, even for only just a few days.

But this… what had I done?

I rushed into my bathroom and turned on the faucet. There were clothes all over the floor, the sink was a disaster, there was grime in the tiles of the shower. Vomit crusted the rim of my toilet.

This was so fucked. I always considered myself a clean person, never once letting my space get this rotted. I didn’t even realize how bad things were spiraling.

“Fuck.”

I winced as I put my hands under the warm running water. I gently washed away most of the blood. The cuts were all along the tops of my hands, mostly the knuckles. They were long and sharp, with a couple of them feeling pretty deep. There was one bad cut by my thumb that still bled. A spiral of dark red crimson slipped down the drain, mimicking the way my life felt like it was going.

Down the fucking drain.

I cupped my hands and pooled some of the water in my palms. I splashed it on my face. The man in the mirror seemed unrecognizable to me. He was extremely unhappy, exhausted, angry, depressed, hopeless. I’d gone through dark times in my life before, but this was by far the darkest, and I had no idea how I’d find the light again.

…A drink. I could use another drink.

I found myself walking toward the kitchen without even thinking much about it. My hands stung as I gripped the refrigerator door. The clock on my microwave said it was close to five in the evening. How long had I been asleep for?

I leaned forward and rested my forehead against the cold steel of the fridge door. I snapped my eyes shut. This was the lowest I had ever felt. I had fallen into a pit of despair and could see no way of climbing out. No one was around to throw me a rope, either. My bottom lip started to tremble as a wave of profound sadness crashed over me. I slid down to the floor, the cold tiles pressing against my knees as I melted against the fridge. The sadness pushed at the stitching of my soul, threatening to tear me completely apart. I started to cry. It was a soft cry at first before quickly developing into something heavier, more consuming. I started to weep, curling into a ball on the kitchen floor, wishing I could just turn back time, wishing I could have Eli back, wishing I could call my mother, wishing I could dump out all the alcohol in my house, wishing, wishing, wishing.

Lucky must have heard and gotten curious, coming into the kitchen and sniffing at my sides. I lifted my head and managed a weak smile when he kissed my cheek. “Good boy, you’re a good boy, aren’t you? The best boy.” I lay on my side and petted my little buddy, the tears flowing even more freely now. He looked at me with as much concern as those big brown puppy eyes could muster. I kissed his wet nose and pulled him against me. He curled up and lay down. That just made me cry even harder.

I was a loser. A creep.

I was a good guy, with a good heart.

I was a failure, and I was alone.

I could turn this around. I could fix things.

My thoughts ping-ponged in so many different directions. And still, I couldn’t figure out where the fuck that blood had come from. Why were my hands all cut up? Had I gotten in a fight somewhere? I didn’t remember leaving my apartment, but then again, I couldn’t even remember how I spent most of yesterday or the day before that.

A drink. I’d come to the kitchen for a drink. Maybe that could kick-start my memories. A little liquid boost to the psyche. I got back onto my feet and opened the fridge. It was mostly empty except for the two handles of tequila and half a handle of vodka.

Fuck. When did I get like this? Were these demons always inside me, just waiting for a moment of weakness that would allow them to take over? And was there any remedy for it, or was I doomed?

Lucky must not have been done with the floor cuddles. He stood on his hind legs and tried to lick at my hand. Or maybe he was telling me to stop? To close the damn refrigerator door and work to get my life back together.

“You know what… you’re right.”

Maybe I’d officially lost it—thinking that a dog was concerned about my sobriety—but I closed the fridge and went for a glass of water instead. I gulped it down. Refreshing, but it lacked that soft burn that I loved so much.

Just one shot wouldn’t hurt…

No. I couldn’t. I had to get out of the kitchen. I took my glass of water and went into the living room. That’s where the mystery of my cut-up hand finally became clear.

Next to my television was a standing mirror that was completely shattered. Glass shards glittered on the beige carpet. “Fucking hell.” I set my water down and quickly picked up Lucky before he accidentally walked over any glass. I took him to my bedroom and closed him inside, grabbing the vacuum out of the small hallway closet and cleaning up the mess I’d made last night. Glass clinked and crunched together as I passed the vacuum over the carpet.

What had gotten into me?

More importantly, how was I going to get it out?

With the living room relatively clean and free of glass, I let Lucky back out. The hangover from yesterday was beginning to push past the adrenaline that had hit me after seeing all that blood. My head throbbed while my brain swam in thick molasses. I wanted to throw up, I wanted to cry, I wanted to shout.

I wanted Eli.

I wanted him back.

“Fuck!”

This was too much for me to handle on my own. I felt myself spiraling. I grabbed my phone and unlocked it without even looking at the screen. I didn’t have many friends in this world, but I did have one, and I really needed him right now.

“Please answer,” I said as the phone rang.

And rang.

And— ”Hey, Benji, what’s up?”

“Jace, you free?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“I need to talk to someone. Can you come over?”

Without a second’s hesitation, he said, “Of course. Be there in ten.”

* * *

Lucky was apparently a whore for man laps because it only took him a few minutes before he was curled up on Jace’s. He looked way more peaceful than I felt. I didn’t blame him for his obsession.

“Alright,” Jace said. “What’s going on?”

Jace liked to cut straight to the point. It was something I appreciated about him. “Where do I even start.”

“How about why your hand is wrapped in a bandage?”

I sighed and sat next to him on the couch. I rested my forearms on my legs as I leaned forward, staring at my blurry reflection in the television screen. “I have a problem.”

Those words had never left my mouth before, and I genuinely didn’t think they ever would. But after these last few months, they were words I simply couldn’t deny. And saying them out loud felt like lifting a bowling ball off my chest. “A drinking problem.”

“Thank you for telling me,” Jace said, his reaction surprising me. “I know it must be a difficult thing to come to terms with. And to confide in someone. So seriously, thank you.” He put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. My heart filled with warmth, even though the hangover-induced anxiety and depression worked hard to take over.

“I blacked out last night. Can’t remember a single fucking thing. I woke up this morning with my hand covered in blood. I didn’t even know what caused it. Not until I saw the mirror right there. I must have punched it last night.” I held my bandaged hand, unable to retrieve even a shred of memory from the night before.

“Did anything happen that triggered this?”

“I’ve been seeing someone,” I said. “A client. Eli. I fell hard for him. I was really thinking we were going to be something together. But I fucked it up. I did some things that betrayed his trust, and he basically cut ties with me. I just went straight to the bottle.”

“Is there any way it can be fixed?”

“I don’t know,” I said. It was relatively easy for me to admit my drinking problem, but I couldn’t bring myself to say what I’d done to Eli out loud. I understood it was fucked-up. I allowed my darkest urges to take hold. It was something I deeply regretted and just couldn’t say out loud in that moment.

“Okay, let’s rewind a bit here. Let’s handle one thing at a time. When did you start drinking? Before it really spiraled.”

I sat back in the couch. Jace mirrored me. A silver necklace glinted from between the open collar of his plaid shirt. “Alcohol’s always been around me, one way or another. My mom, she’s an alcoholic. She could never fight it. Some days—months, years—were harder than others.”

“Damn. I’m sorry.”

“We’ve stopped speaking because of it. I understand it’s a disease, and I don’t blame her, especially not now. Not with what I’m going through.”

“Good. Blame could be just as toxic as the alcohol.”

“It feels like this shit hit me out of nowhere, but if I’m being honest with myself, I’ve been sinking toward my rock bottom for a while now.”

“So,” Jace said, still petting Lucky’s head. “Do you think that’s what last night was? Your rock bottom?”

I gulped. Sucked in a breath. This was heavy. It was deep. I didn’t feel a lick of judgment coming off Jace, which made it a little easier, but it was still something difficult to put into words. All of this. It was the most vulnerable I’d been in a while, not counting the moments I shared with Eli.

Oh, Eli…

“Yes. I really do think so.”

“Then would you be open to maybe attending a program? One of my clients went to one. It’s a thirty-day intensive stay at a ranch out in Upstate New York. I can give you the name of it.”

It felt like my friend was throwing me a life raft in that moment. He saw me struggling and reached out a hand to pull me up out of the hole I dug myself into. I could be stubborn and say I’d figure it out on my own, but that wasn’t the road I wanted to take. Not anymore. “Yeah, text me the name so I have it. I’ll reach out to them today.” I gave Jace a genuine smile. “And thank you. For hearing me out. Not judging me.”

“No judgment at all. I just want to see you happy and healthy. We all have our demons. It’s about how we live with them that matters.”

My phone buzzed on the coffee table. “There, sent it.” Jace stood up. “Mind if I use your bathroom real quick?”

“Yeah, go for it.”

Jace left the room, the space feeling extra quiet now. I was grateful I had a friend like Jace. Someone who didn’t judge, who offered help. I reached for my phone and was set on sending a message to this program. It could be my way out of this mess.

That’s when I first noticed the missed call. It had been from Eli, coming in last night when I must have been obliterated.

Fuck!

I dialed him back. I didn’t expect him to answer. Why would he? Maybe it had been a butt dial. Or maybe he had gotten drunk, too, and was now regretting ever calling me.

It rang and rang. I was close to hanging up—giving up. But I stayed on the line. I wanted to know why?—

“Hello?”

Eli’s voice came through the phone like a chorus of angels.

Maybe miracles were real?