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“No,” she replied firmly. “I don’t want any more sympathies.”
I nodded, recognizing the heaviness of the day weighing on her.
“Ethan?” she asked, and I shifted my gaze back to her. “Help me forget. Please. If just for a night. I need to forget.”
Without hesitation, I pulled her close, holding her as tightly as I could.
“Let’s get out of here,” I spoke, intent on calming the storm that had enveloped our worlds.
Chapter 22: Ethan
Present Day
It was 8 in the evening, and I was three drinks past drunk, seated at a bar on Capitol Hill.
“No more, man,” the bartender cautioned as I shook my empty glass in his direction, attempting to get him to pour me another whiskey on the rocks.
“Fuck you,” I growled, though even in my drunken stupor, I knew he didn’t deserve that.
Tossing a $50 on the counter, I snatched the damning, weathered letter I’d brought with me off the bar and stumbled out the front door.
My phone lit up in my pocket once again, Sasha’s name and a picture of her perfect smile flashing across the screen. It was a photo I’d snapped that fateful night in Ireland, shortly after she’d gotten my number tattooed on her foot. She looked beautiful but tonight, the image of her smiling only created an ache in my chest.
I steadied my hand, holding my phone out in front of me, careful not to press the answer button as I punched ignore for the 5th time tonight.
I didn’t like hurting her, but at this point, I didn’t care. All I did was let down the people who counted on me. It would be better for her not to hear from me tonight. I was a disappointment, just like my dad had said. What would it matter if I disappointed one more person?
Somehow, I managed to flag down a passing cab and slide into the back seat. Quoting an address I knew by heart, my head lulled back for the short 5-minute drive downtown. When we arrived, the driver had to wake me from my booze induced slumber.
“Keep the change,” I said as I tossed him a 20-dollar bill.
Stepping towards the stone walkway, Beth’s condo loomed ahead, a beacon of blurred familiarity in my alcohol-soaked mind. Stumbling to the front door, I raised my hand to knock and leaned against the frame to prevent myself from falling over.
“Ethan? What are you doing here?” Beth asked, her eyes frantically looking at me up and down as she pulled her robe tighter around her waist. It looked like I might have woken her up.
I knew I looked a mess, the scent of whiskey and bad decisions likely oozing from my pores, but I didn’t care. Trying my best to lean forward and not collapse on to her, I held up the letter, pressing it a little too firmly against her chest.
Beth stepped back, tentatively taking the letter from my hand, her eyes scanning the return address as they darkened with recognition.
“Come in,” she said as she moved from the doorway. I stumbled into the dark condo, collapsing on the couch as she flickered on a nearby lamp.
Beth sat down next to me, as she quietly opened the letter and read through it. Her eyes flickered to mine when she finished, and I noticed the red stain of tears running down her pale cheeks.
The weight of Jake’s last words and my perceived failure pressed down on me as I looked back at her, the reminder of promises unfulfilled.
“I couldn’t do it, Beth. I failed Jake. I couldn’t take care of you like he asked,” I slurred, the words heavy with self-loathing. “The one damn thing he ever asked of me, and I fucked it up. We were supposed to be brothers.”
Beth’s eyes met mine, her gaze softening as she took in my drunken despair.
“Ethan, you did take care of me. You were there when Jake passed. You didn’t just help me through his funeral, you were there through the long months after when everyone else seemed to forget about Jake. You helped me rebuild my life. You showed me that I could move on.”
My vision blurred as I listened to her words.
“I couldn’t even show up to the wedding planning meetings you scheduled. Hell, I couldn’t even manage being engaged for more than four months before I ruined everything.”
Beth’s fingers gently traced my face, the warmth of her touch contrasted with the chill of my body.
“Ethan, our engagement didn’t crumble because of you. We were bound by grief and loss, not love. It was a shared history, not a shared future. Relationships built through trauma rarely work out. I don’t look at what happened between us as a failed relationship. We had a lot of love; we just weren’t meant to translate that love into marriage.”
