For a moment my mind buzzes with possibilities: happy hours, that rooftop bar downtown with those ridiculously good margaritas, maybe organizing a pool party at Calvin’s place. Practically all the brilliant ideas that dragged me into this mess in the first place.
The grin fades from my face. It’s been months since the cardiac arrest, but that near-death trip with Emily still haunts me whenever I feel the urge to grab a bottle. I’m holding on to this fragile fresh start because I’m terrified of what’ll happen if I drink or use again.
I need to stay sober.
“Let’s just grab some lunch,” I finally say. “I’ll have to check in sooner or later anyway.”
Calvin shoots me a surprised look, his freckles scrunching together in confusion.
“Lunch? Who are you, and what have you done to Tom McKenna?”
“Just drive, Callie Coconut.”
He snorts but doesn’t push me, which is rare for him. “Lunch it is.”
He shifts gears and merges into traffic. “I know just the spot. You’re going to love this place, bro.”
Lunch is great. We eat at a local fish place where the owner fishes off the pier, showing us the catch of the day before handing it to his wife to cook. It doesn’t get fresher than that.
It’s fun, catching up with my mate Cal, but I can’t help the nagging thought that it’s time to go to that retreat, rehab, resort, whatever it is.
So after lunch I suggest we get going there straight away. Stretching time won’t make that uneasy feeling go away, so here we are on our way to paradise jail.
The road curves. Dry earth stretches out on either side, dotted with thorny shrubs and the occasional cluster of cacti. The distant green hills look soft against the hazy blue sky.
Calvin keeps talking, gesturing wildly as he goes on about last weekend when he was spinning tracks at some beach party, with endless rum punches, and a dancer who, according to him, was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen; something he texts me at least once a week.
A month ago, I would’ve laughed at every word.
Now it all feels… distant. Hollow even.
I nod occasionally, throwing in the odd “Yeah?” or “Sounds wild,” just to keep the conversation alive, but my mind is replaying memories I’d rather forget.
No one understands what I’m feeling. And worse, no one understands what I’m not feeling.
Before that night in Amsterdam, chaos had been my comfort. I’d drink myself numb, my life a never-ending haze of late nights flowing into early mornings. I’d gone down that road because I couldn’t handle the sound of nothing.
Because the moment the music stops and the people disappear, my mind becomes my enemy.
The hours between 1:00 AM and 5:00 AM were hell. They still are. When the party ends, the woman beside me falls asleep, and the city goes silent. That’s when it comes.
The silence.
I hate it. It crawls into my chest and makes my lungs feel so tight I can barely breathe. I end up crying and ranting on the floor. I scream into pillows, punch walls, dig my nails into my skin. Anything to make the silence stop.
But nothing works.
I’ve visited enough sterile offices explaining the unexplainable. They shrug when nothing shows up on their scans, tell me it’s anxiety or depression. But none of what they describe comes close to the terror of the silence.
And yet, as soon as the sun rises, it vanishes. The birds chirp, the trams rumble over the rails, and the world keeps spinning, erasing the tortures I survived hours earlier.
Alcohol helped. Pills had helped more. They’d softened the sharp edges, numbing me enough so I could breathe again.
I thought it was a fucking great remedy, until my body decided it was done with me.
I should’ve been dead. The doctors had almost recorded a time of death, but a resident covering a shift that night refused to give up. He said he once smashed his little sister’s Half Moon Wolves CD and had spent months saving money to replace it. Giving up on me, he said, felt like a betrayal he couldn’t live with.
So against protocol, he’d delivered one final shock. And, just like that, my heart had started beating again.
