The door slammed close behind her as she threw her keys onto the cupboard. She didn’t say a word, just walked inside and headed straight to our bedroom.
“Brooke?” I called but got no reply.
Sitting up, I grabbed two of the beer bottles and went to throw them away just to clean up a little, but I was frozen in place when I heard the door to Brooke and my closet. It was a very distinct sound that Brooke had asked me to fix weeks ago but I hadn’t gotten around to doing it yet.
I set the bottles down on the kitchen table and then made my way down the hall to our bedroom.
She was just changing into something more comfortable, I was sure of that. And she was just mad that I slept through our date, that was why she ignored my presence. Maybe she thought I was still asleep.
But then why did this feel so wrong? Why did something feel completely off?
As I stood in between the doorframe, my heart sank so deep that I was almost sure it wasn’t even inside of my body anymore.
There was a suitcase on our bed and Brooke was throwing her clothes into it one after the other. Tears were streaming down her face, and loud, shaky breaths left her lungs. Her movements were uncontrolled and messy—I realized I brought this mess into our lives.
There was no way Brooke would leave just because I missed one date. The past weeks had been a blur but even so, I knew that I must’ve done something totrulyupset her.
The alcohol most likely wasn’t even the worst part of it all. And God, if my brain wasn’t as clouded and I could access my memories, perhaps I could narrow these past weeks down to all the shit I’ve fucked up and find a way to apologize, but I couldn’t. It was a mix of blurred actions and awful-tasting drinks, all of which were currently trying to come back up again.
What was I going to apologize for?
I stood there, paralyzed by the sight of her leaving, my mind swirling with regret and self-loathing.
The image of my fiancée, the love of my goddamn life, packing her bags and getting ready to leave me; anger, hurt, and sadness etched into every inch of her face was now burnt into my memory.
How the fuck did I let it come this far?
“Brooke,” I said quietly. Saying her name was like poison on my tongue, like I didn’t deserve to say her name anymore.
She wiped away her tears, acting like she didn’t hear me but I knew she did.
“Brooke,” I repeated louder this time, my voice rough with emotions. She paused but didn’t turn to look at my face. “I’m sorry.”
She continued to throw two more dresses into her suitcase before she broke down entirely, taking a seat on the floor in front of the bed. Her sobs tortured me, but I deserved it.
All I wanted to do was walk inside the room, take my fiancée into my arms, and hold her tightly, but I doubted she would’ve wanted that right now. Honestly, I wasn’t even sure I still had the right to even look at her.
“I’ve been a mess,” I told her, unsure if she was listening. “I haven’t been myself since my dad passed.”
The truth was, I’d been drowning. I knew it, I could feel it. Every day since he’d passed, I felt like I was suffocating, and I didn’t know how to make that feeling stop.
His death hit me harder than I anticipated. The pain of losing him, coupled with the pressure of wanting to help Brooke succeed and worrying about my own career, became too much to bear.
The only way I knew how to make it stop was by reaching for all those bottles, numbing the ache in my chest.
When that wasn’t enough anymore, it was sex I figured would help. Alcohol numbed the pain, sex silenced my brain. It seemed easy, like a good deal, but in my haze of grief and intoxication, I overlooked the only person who stuck by my side this whole time. I shut Brooke out when I needed her the most.
Now, as I looked at her, every word we’d exchanged in these past weeks felt like a mistake. I was lying to her. I wasusing her kindness, her love, to fuel myself, not realizing I was draining her in return.
How do you apologize for failing to show up, not just tonight, but for weeks? How do you apologize for taking your own fiancée for granted when all she wanted was to help?
“I’m sorry,” I repeated. Words were failing me, and even if I had the entire dictionary memorized to offer her the most poetic apology, it wasn’t worth it. Brooke shouldn’t acceptanyof my apologies, no matter how great they sounded.
Brooke finally looked up at me, her eyes empty, tired. “I get it,” she said, shrugging to herself. “Losing someone sucks, Reece. I get that. And I triedso hardto be there for you. I triedso hardto function when I had to watch you lose yourself more and more with every day, knowing I couldn’t do shit about it. But I can’t keep doing this.”
I took a shaky breath as the weight of her words hit me like a punch to the gut. “I know, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t show up to our date, and I’m sorry that I messed up today and all those other days before.”
“Messed up?!” She chuckled ironically through her tears. “Reece, you made me believe you were doing better. I lied to Colin for you, just so he wouldn’t worry about you. I lied to my dad because of you! This isn’t messed up, it’s awful.”
