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“It could be worse,” she said.

“How?” I mumbled.

“He could have shit himself instead.”

I choked. “Yay for the preferable body fluids.”

I had never been so unattracted to someone as I was in this moment. Not because he had an accident, but because he let himself get like that.

I knew what it was like to live with a man who couldn’t control his impulses. My dad ruined our lives. The whole thing with Mike catapulted me back to my childhood and the way my dad’s instability made me feel. I was embarrassed. I didn’t want to tell Mom or anyone what had happened, it was too triggering. I almost didn’t want to tell Chris for some reason. And Mike and I just moved in together.

“How did I miss this?” I whispered.

“Because men are experts at hiding who they really are? They lie to get you to the finish line and then—BAM.”

I had to muscle down the urge to sob.

“It doesn’t help that we normalize this shit,” she said. “Game day—drink. Wedding—drink. Mow the lawn with a beer, drink on the boat, drink at brunch. It’s so expected he’d get crap for not drinking.”

I cared about Mike and I was worried about him and I wanted him to be okay, but there was another very real side of me that could not do this. I had already exhausted the part of myself that could nurture a man through his self-destructive era. I’d already lived that once with my dad, and every single one of my mom’s boyfriends and I was terrified that that’s what Mike was about to make me do.

Over the next two days, Mike texted me quick check-ins from the cabin. He was completely oblivious. It was all business as usual and Hey, babe, Miss you, babe.

I felt like I was going to have to explain to him what happened, like he had been possessed and I had to convince him that he’d done what he’d done. I needed to talk to him, but every time he called, he was plastered. Of course he was plastered. Jesse got there early, too, and they were both plastered. Only now what Lexi said ate away at me.

I felt like I was finally seeing what had always been there.

Mike didn’t always drink, but when he did, he drank more than he said he would. Every time. One was always three. Sometimes three was six. It was like he couldn’t just have one. One was a gateway to ten.

And the wildest thing was, he was the healthiest person I knew. He wouldn’t even eat bread. He ran, he worked out, he was in peak physical condition. So when he wanted to drink, I downplayed it in my head because that was his treat.

Lexi was right. I did need to talk to Chris.

Somehow I knew Chris would make it okay. He would have ideas or insight or something.

He was picking me up for the cabin and I could talk to him then. We’d have the whole day for me to tell him everything on the way up. He would know what to do.

The smell was still in the carpet. It was winter, so I couldn’t open the doors and windows and air it out. The whole thing grossed me out.

I couldn’t imagine Mike turning me on after this. The vision of him lying there, snoring in his own vomit and urine. I was disgusted.

I sprayed the rug with a vinegar solution and then dusted it with baking soda and let it sit for two days before I vacuumed it up. It still smelled.

By the time the day rolled around for Chris to pick me up, I was desperate to talk to him. When he pulled in front of the house, I came out before he even put the car in park. But when I got there, someone else was in the front seat.

I stopped on the frozen walkway, holding my bag and staring at the brunette fiddling with her bangs in the visor mirror.

“Hey,” Chris said, getting out. “Why didn’t you wait? I was going to help you with your bag.”

“Are we dropping someone off?” I asked.

He popped the trunk. “I was going to tell you,” he said, taking my duffel. “My girlfriend, Heather, is coming up with us.”

The word girlfriend stuck me in the belly. Knocked all the air right out of me.

“You… you have a girlfriend?”

He threw my bag in and closed the trunk. “Yeah, I’ll introduce you guys. Get in, it’s freezing.”