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Drawing my fingers over my contacts, I came to her name and pressed on it until the phone was ringing.
It went on for at least five rings, and I started thinking she wasn’t going to answer until her voice filtered over the line in a hesitant, “Hello?”
“What the fuck is going on?” I demanded, immediately regretting my tone.
She sniffled like she’d been crying.
“Sorry, but I’m not feeling good,” she said, her voice cracking with the word ‘good’.
“What happened, Mia? We were talking and then all of a sudden you’re radio silent. Did I say something that offended you or hurt your feelings?” I asked her, forcing my voice to lower and soften.
She let out a whine.
“I’m not ready to talk about it,” she said.
And damn it, I had to respect that.
I let out a long sigh and rubbed at my temple.
“You know you can talk to me about anything?” I reminded her, but she just sniffled at me. “Mia?”
“Mhmm?” she hummed shakily.
“You know I want you, right? This whole thing is kind of fucked up, but it doesn’t change the facts. Whatever your brain is trying to convince you of, just remember that. I want you, and I’ll wait forever until you’re ready to talk.”
She started to full-on sob over the line, and my fingers got twitchy, wishing I could hold her. They remained frustratingly empty, though.
“When you’re ready to talk,” I told her, “Come to my place. I want to just hold you.”
She let out a sobbing ‘ok’, then said goodbye and hung up on me.
Sitting there in my office at the school, I stared at my phone like it was the one who had offended me.
I spent maybe an hour trying to put together the midterm for my creative writing classes before I gave up and headed home. I needed a stiff drink and a purge session on my laptop.
Once at my incredible home, I took in a long breath and absorbed the smell of old wood and history bleeding off the old walls. If only walls could talk, they would have so many incredible stories of love and tragedy that had happened over the last hundred and fifty years.
Going to my study, I grabbed a tumbler and poured a spot of absinth into it to rinse. I stood there a moment, swirling the noxious green alcohol for a moment, then stared at the tablespoon of liquid pooled at the bottom.
Eh.
Shooting the potent spirit down, I choke a bit, because holy shit!
At least it would help me on my quest to get drunk faster.
Next, I added a sugar cube and a couple splashes of bitters before crushing it with the back of a spoon while the absinth burned the everliving fuck out of my mouth. My old go-to sazerac was almost as easy as it was delicious. Sour and sharp and herby, oh my.
I dropped a little more than the prescribed ounce and a half into my glass, then stirred with my trusty old spoon.
After taking a sip to get the taste of the absinth out of my mouth, I frowned at the amber liquid. It needed some ice.
I made my way down the hallway back to the kitchen and collected a couple ice cubes from the modern refrigerator and headed back to my office. I let out a long groan as I sat in my fancy ass chair, ready to purge all my emotions into my keyboard.
For three hours, I sat there. I dumped it all onto the digital pages and felt desolate. Empty.
Damn, creating something can take everything out of you. I felt tired both mentally and physically as I leaned back into my chair and took a big breath, blowing it out slowly.
My back needed a break, and I’d been eyeing my empty tumbler for over half an hour. Time for a refill.
