Just After Midnight

I lifted the bottle and tipped it, disappointed to see only a few drops splash into my cup. There was no fuckin way I’d drunk the whole bottle. Holding it up to the lamp, I gave it a little swirl. Nothing. Yep. Empty.

The kitchen clock glared from across my tiny apartment—kitchen and living room blurring into one. 7:30 pm in harsh red. Too early for bed. Too late for anything. I couldn’t leave anyway; my head spun from the Chardonnay. If he were here, we’d argue over dinner, or he’d dance around the counter, making me laugh. But the apartment was silent except for the fridge’s hum and my bleeding heart.

The Chardonnay had been good, but not good enough to take away the pain.

I picked up the book that had sat beside me for a month. Opened to page ten, tracing the lines, but my eyes wouldn’t catch a word. They drifted to the wine bottle, triple-checking it was empty.

It was.

I put the book back down and picked up the empty wine glass. Stared through it. Swirled it for no reason.

After a stretch of time, one minute or maybe an hour, I grabbed the remote, found Hulu, clicked on our show, then clicked out.

Switched to The Office, the one thing that can always make me laugh. I smirked at a Michael Scott joke—a brief reprieve. But once the show ended, I shut it off and heaved the remote as hard as I could. It bounced and slid under my couch, which would undoubtedly piss me off the next morning.

I glanced around the room, feeling anxious, desperately looking for a glass of wine that wasn’t there. Anything.

Any. Thing.

I sighed, threw my head back, and let my left hand wander under the blanket, under my pajama pants that I’d been wearing for three days now. A small touch, light, careful. I waited for some flicker of warmth or spark of feeling to break through the fog. A little more pressure. Still nothing.

Frustrated and ashamed, I pulled my hand back, flipped off the lamp, and pulled my blanket up around my face, letting it swallow me, allowing myself to drown in his scent. It was the only thing left that smelled like him. The only thing that could cut through the despair, just for a moment, before it all washed over me again.

He was gone, and he wasn’t coming back.

The hospital call ran through me, making me shiver. It had come just after midnight. An accident, sudden, stupid, someone else’s mistake. Sometimes I wonder if I heard them right, if any of it really happened.

But the empty space he left behind answers every time.

I’ll be ok. He’d want me to be.

For now, I play Green Day’s Longview, full blast, on repeat, until I fall asleep.

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Happy Sunday, loves

— GC