August 12th

[spectacularly]

I really start to think I might survive my birthday without giving in until I see him. He's just sitting there smoking a cigarette like always, smoke billowing in front of his face and making him seem like the oldest, wisest person in the world. I feel like a child all over again, it feels like no time has passed at all. All I want is my daddy, and if my throat wasn't close to closing over I might call for him as exactly that.

Nobody in the world has ever loved me like my father did. Maybe nobody in the world has loved me since, period. There have been pretenders, of course, boys like Sutter Keely who have loved me until they didn't, boys like Randy's son who loved me until they'd taken all that they wanted, stolen all that I had to give and more. So when my dad says in that silly Southern accent of his, hi, darlin',  he sounds like love and home. I haven't missed home until right now, until I remember that it's the first place I saw him and last I'll ever see him again.

I start for him and he disappears into the air like the smoke from the cigarette in his hand. I have never hated this city more, and I want to scream and rant and rave but instead I run away. Run for the only thing that's ever made the hurt stop hurting. The bartender gives me my first drink on the house, even, after he checks my ID and sees the date. He wishes me a happy birthday and I smile and sip it like it's the first time I've ever tasted the burn.

My father burned his brain with gasoline. I never understood how good poison could taste until it was placed in my hand. 

I don't even feel that drunk until I step outside and realise it's almost nighttime. My legs feel light and I think maybe I could fly until I realise I can barely stagger, that the heaviness of my heart is weighing me down. I think I might be sick and I look for a bin, a bush, a something, but by the time I'm crouched over I realise all I have left to give are sobs.

Comments

[makeithome]

Even taking the subway for part of it, there's a long walk between DARKLab and home. Gwen's hours are all over the place these days, organized around when she's needed and what her own plans are, a flexibility she knows she only gets for a few more weeks. She hasn't yet decided what to do with her evening, but there are plenty of options. There are books she wants to read before she runs out of time to do much reading for fun.

The sound of sobbing draws her attention and then the sight of a friend bring Gwen running, kneeling down beside Aimee so hard and fast she can feel her knees clash with the concrete. "Aimee, what happened?"

[spectacularly]

I'm mortified to have Gwen see me like this. Sure, we've both seen the other vulnerable, but this is different. This is irresponsible and stupid and nobody's fault but my own. I manage to sit up and clasp my hands together, grateful that the churning in my stomach has stayed at bay. "I saw my father," I tell her. There's no point stepping around it. She understands this grief as well as I. "And then I got really, stupidly drunk."

[makeithome]

Gwen reaches out, wrapping her hand's around Aimee's own. Something about those words frightens her, she doesn't know what. It makes a wave of panic pull her stomach tight, and she has to suck in a deep breath to try to hold it at bay. It's a good thing. It should be a good thing.

This place, she thinks, it's the only chance they've got to see their fathers again. And she's sorry she's thought it, because she knows it can't ever be the same again.

"Aimee..." She thinks about calling Elvis to drive them back to Aimee's, but having him turn up in the hearse seems like a really bad idea right now. "Let's get a cab and get you home. Is he here?"

[spectacularly]

"No, he..." And I realise I don't know how to explain it. How clearly it was him and yet how clearly it wasn't, not with the way he vanished into thin air like he hadn't been there at all. I think maybe I might have imagined it, but he was so real. He was so him. I just let myself slump against her and hate myself all over again. I should know better than deal with my problems through drinking. I should know how to ignore the lure. "He just disappeared. He called to me and then he disappeared, right in front of me."

[makeithome]

"Shh, shh," murmurs Gwen, pulling Aimee close. She presses a kiss to her hair, rubbing her back gently. The smell of alcohol is strong in such proximity, but it's not like it's the worst scent in the world, and Aimee needs someone. She can be that, she can do that. "It's okay. It's okay. You saw him and then you started drinking? Where did you see him?"

If it had been after the fact, it'd be easy to rationalize away, a figment of an intoxicated mind. This is something else, though. What, she isn't sure, but she'll find out.

[spectacularly]

I don't remember the last time someone tried to comfort me like this. At least, without expecting anything in return. I remember the arms of relatives whose names I didn't know enfolding me at the funeral of my father, but I don't know that anything came after that. So though I'm mortified I can't help but lean into Gwen, tears filling my eyes as a new wave of grief crashes over me. "A few blocks away," I tell her. In truth, I'm not sure how far I ran to find the bar I'm crouching outside of. "He was there and he seemed so real. I could smell his cigarette. But then he left."

And now I'm really crying, each word barely coming out for the tightness of my throat. He left me again. As if the first time wasn't hard enough. As if I'd managed to get over loss to begin with, now this? Why would he leave me again? Why do they all leave me? I reach up to wipe my eyes, hating the tremors that have taken over my hands. "I didn't think I missed him this much."

[makeithome]

Gwen nods, though Aimee can't see, her fingers catching softly in the other girl's hair. The ground is still warm from the fading afternoon sun under her thighs, and she feels like a shield, curled around her friend to keep the world away from her, to keep her out of view. "It comes and goes," she says, voice cracking for a moment. She swallows hard, clears it away. "And seeing him like that, it has to... It wakes things up. Of course."

She has to wonder why he would leave. There's no good reason to walk away from his daughter like that. Maybe, she tells herself, he was just overwhelmed too. People come here from the end. Maybe it's just hard to face the daughter he left behind. Maybe grief is as bad on the other side. "It's okay for it to hurt."

[spectacularly]

It's true. Missing him comes and goes, ebbs and flows. I still think I should be over it by now, sometimes, that most people would have moved on. Maybe if I had somebody else to fill the void. For a long time, he was the only one I was sure ever loved me. I still wonder, sometimes, but here's Gwen and I think of T.J. and I know that things here just aren't the same. "I didn't know how to make it stop," I tell her, voice still tight. "The only way I knew was to drink. And... it didn't work."

[makeithome]

"You can't just turn it off," Gwen murmurs, stroking her hair. She doesn't know if it helps. All she knows is that it always helped her, that her mom sitting with her and touching her hair when she was sad was one of the only things that helped when things got really bad. "You just... have to ride it out. I know it's hard. But I'm here, okay?" Drinking might be a temporary solution sometimes, but it can't cure the hurt for good.

[spectacularly]

"Okay," I say, and I want to tell Gwen just how much that means to me, but I can't seem to find the words. Back home, before Sutter, I only really ever had myself. There were people all around me, of course, I even would have called Krystal my best friend, but I know now how little they cared about me. I've always been the one to care more, the one to want to make things work. I don't think I've ever had a friend like Gwen before, and she makes it so easy to let myself be held. I blink back tears. "I wish I could turn it off," I say, knowing she'll understand.

[makeithome]

"I know." It's hard even to think of it without feeling the prick of tears, though the ache isn't as bad as it's been before. Healing is a slow, painful process, and every time Gwen thinks she's made progress, something makes it hurt all over again. The ways the universe can remind her of her dad seem to be infinite in number and cruelty. If she could make it stop... It feels almost like a betrayal, wanting to let go completely, but she knows he'd want that for her, too. He'd never have wanted to hold her back. "Me too."

[spectacularly]

"I'm sorry," I say, feeling guilty for no doubt bringing to the surface her own loss. I'm sure it's nothing she ever forgets, but I know that there are times when I am reminded of what I have lost that the grief takes on a new kind of ache. I was young when I lost my father. Now that I'm older, it just seems to hurt all the more, like for the first time I'm fully aware of the magnitude of what I'm missing. I take a few deep breaths, trying to find the right moments to speak. "I should have... I should have handled this better."

[makeithome]

"No," Gwen murmurs. "Shh, no, it's okay." Missing her father is like a second skin these days. She carries it everywhere, most of the time without being fully aware of it. She knows that loss isn't something Aimee should have to be alone with. It's a horrible thing to bond over, but it's one of the things that first drew her and Elvis together, too, like some shitty club people never wanted to belong to. "It's hard to know what to do, you know? This was a totally reasonable reaction. We should get you somewhere quiet and get you some water or something, though. When you feel up to it."

[spectacularly]

"No, yeah, water sounds good," I say with a quick shake and then nod of my head, because vodka only ever intensifies the thirst. In more ways than one. I know I'll try and apologise to Gwen again when I don't reek of a bar, when my words might hold more weight, but for right now, I think I'm ready to just let myself be cared for. I haven't had that in a while. My mother was never the type to make me soup when I was ill, to brush my fever-drenched hair out of my eyes. "Quiet, too. I... I don't even know where we are."

[makeithome]

"On... Revello," Gwen says after a moment, having had to look up for a street sign. "We're not that far from my apartment." It's a few blocks, and she's not yet sure if that's fine for Aimee or too much. Any further and she'd call a cab for sure, but from here, she thinks it's worth the risk. They can get one if needed, but the air will probably do Aimee some good. "Here, lean on me and I'll help you up, okay?" They can worry about getting her home when Gwen feels more certain she'll be okay on her own.

[spectacularly]

I nod, leaning against Gwen as I stagger to my feet, frightened by how weak I feel. How vulnerable I am. But I've been vulnerable before and the difference now is that Gwen would never use that against me. I don't know her all that well, yet, but we share a common loss and somehow, that means more than any amount of time ever will. "Thank you," I tell her, though it will never be adequate for all she's done for me tonight.

[makeithome]

Gwen shakes her head, slipping her arm around Aimee's waist once she's on her feet. It's easier to guide her this way, to support her without making a big deal of it. "I'm just glad I'm here," she says. It's much better for her to find Aimee than for her to be left alone in this state. At least Gwen didn't have other plans for the evening, and even if she had, this would take precedence. No one should be left to deal with this feeling alone.

[inablur]

In a week and a half, he'll have eight months of sobriety, with one near relapse. It's a hell of a lot, for someone who never made it much more than half a year before. It isn't very much at all, hardly any substantial amount of time, and still so incredibly tenuous. That's why, as T.J. passes by a bar, one he used to go to, when drinking was an activity he still took part in, he doesn't pay much mind, at first, to the woman staggering out. Better just not to get involved with that sort of thing.

With the dim lighting, it takes him longer than it should to realize that the woman isn't really much more than a girl, and she isn't a stranger. Seeing Aimee makes all the difference in the world, and he heads over towards her without a second thought, frown deepening when she sinks to the ground and starts to cry. There isn't anything that could keep him away now, not even how strongly he can smell the alcohol on her breath when he gets near. He's been there too many times himself and cares about her too much for that.

"Aimee," he says quietly, sinking down beside her and slipping an arm gently around her shoulders. "Hey, what's wrong?"

[spectacularly]

In part, I don't want T.J. to see me at all. It isn't fair to him, and it's wholly hypocritical of me. I'd placed so much faith in him and here I am, falling apart. But I've always been selfish, and so when I see him all I really feel is relief. I curl against him almost instinctively, wanting to forget this whole awful thing. But the alcohol didn't work, and nothing else will.

Of course, that's not true. When the booze didn't work for my father he found better, stronger things. Pills and powders. When he couldn't find those, he'd resort to just about anything.

But I can't think like that. I can't be so desperate to forget that I do something like that. So I decide to be honest instead. "I saw my father," I tell him. "But then he disappeared."

[inablur]

"He disappeared?" T.J. echoes, brow furrowing in confusion. "What do you mean?" Distraught as she is, the last thing he wants is to make her recount something painful. There's not much he can do, though, without understanding what's going on, and all he's really got so far is that she's drunk and upset. He doesn't even know the order of events here, whether she saw him and started drinking or if she'd been drinking already. Disappeared could mean into a crowd, or it could mean something more literal, something that probably wouldn't be impossible around here.

Either way, the only difference it makes to him is how it affects her. If all he can do is be here, then he will, holding her close, not caring that they're on a sidewalk in front of a bar. She shouldn't have to be alone with this.

[spectacularly]

I don't know what I mean. I feel so heavy. I just want to close my eyes and bury myself against him and cry and cry and cry. I hate myself for drinking. I hate myself for the cloudiness of my mind, the fact that this is even harder to wrap my head around because I was stupid enough to think alcohol might be the answer. It never is. It never gives. It takes.

"I don't know," I say, though it comes out almost strangled, like the pain is trying to climb out of me. "He was there and he was smoking and he called to me and then he just vanished. Just like that. Like one of those magic tricks, where they disappear into the mist. Why would he leave me?" I ask, knowing T.J. won't know any better than I do.

[inablur]

"I don't know," T.J. says in turn, voice soft. He can't actually make much sense of any of it, when what she's describing doesn't sound like he left her on purpose. It's different than if he'd just turned and walked away, or if she'd seen him and called out to him and gotten no response. More likely, it's this place fucking with her. He doesn't know how to say that, though, or what difference it would make, when she's still been through the same thing either way. "Maybe — maybe he didn't want to. You know? Maybe... I just mean, it doesn't seem like something he would have chosen to do."

[spectacularly]

"Everybody else seems to," I say, through tears and almost pettily, though I know what he says is true. I think of Sutter and how desperate he'd been to get me away from him, how all I ever was to my family was somebody to bring in extra cash, to run errands because my mom and her boyfriend were too busy doing nothing. But he's right, T.J.'s right. My dad was always the exception, my dad has always been the one person I was sure loved me, and this doesn't change that. "I wish I could have made him stay."

[inablur]

"I wish he had," T.J. says, not wanting to leave the weight of that on her. As far as he can tell, it's nothing she did or didn't do that made him vanish like that, and there's nothing she could have done differently to ensure that he would stick around. This has got to be hard enough on her as it is without it seeming like it's somehow her fault, like she fell short. Maybe he won't be able to convince her otherwise, but he can at least try, and make sure she knows that she isn't in this alone. "And for whatever it's worth, I'm not going anywhere."

[spectacularly]

I want to believe T.J., I really do. I have no reason not to. But experience doesn't exactly speak in his favor and so I just nod, hoping that nothing changes and makes him another liar. I don't know when or how he became one of the most important people in this city to me, or anywhere, but the fact is that I'm glad he's here. Beyond glad. I don't know how I would have made my way home without him, what sort of situations I might have opened myself up to.

I shudder at the thought, and try to push it out of my mind. Instead I look up at T.J. and manage a smile. I'm sure I look a mess. I'm even more sure he doesn't care. "Thank you," I say, voice still wavering. Maybe if I'm lucky when I wake up, I won't be able to remember I saw my father at all.

[inablur]

"You don't have to thank me," T.J. says with a shake of his head, absently rubbing her shoulder where his arm is still around her. As far as he's concerned, this, being here now, being there for her in general, is the least he can or would do. At a time like this, between what happened with her having seen her father and the state she's in, she shouldn't have to be alone. It's with that in mind that he continues, head turned so he can catch her gaze and smiling a little in turn. "Come on, why don't you crash at my place tonight?"

He doesn't want to just send her off back to her apartment where she'll be alone and probably wake up sick or hungover or both. He's spent too many nights like that himself.

[spectacularly]

"I don't want to be a hassle," I say, shaking my head in turn, though it's not with much vigor. Normally I'd resist help much harder, used to caring for myself, but it's been so long since I actually was cared for that a part of me desperately wants to give in. And I'm so tired, physically and emotionally drained from the events of the furthest thing from a happy birthday. T.J. is one of the few people I trust to look after me when I'm as vulnerable as I am. Because he's been there, too. "I... if you can just get me into a cab, or..."

[inablur]

"It's not a hassle," T.J. says, voice firm but gentle. "I wouldn't have offered if it were." She shouldn't have to think of herself as an inconvenience. That, too, is a feeling that he knows too well, especially where this sort of thing is concerned. Maybe he can't really change the way she thinks about or looks at it, but he can at least try to do right by her in a way that few ever have for him. "I'll call a cab for the both of us, and text Thomas on the way so he knows you'll be staying over." He'll feel better this way, too. Sending her off on her own, he'd probably just worry. He can't insist, but he can at least try to make sure she knows it won't be a big deal.

[spectacularly]

I hadn't even thought of Thomas, and that just makes me feel all the more awful. I don't want somebody else to see me like this, but I guess the damage is done. So I just nod, tired, before I mumble a thank you as I try to get myself to my feet. You know how people in books say their legs feel like jelly? My legs feel like jelly, like I'm in some cartoon. I would laugh if not for the pain. "Shit," I gasp under my breath, grabbing for something to steady me.

[inablur]

"Hey, hey, I've got you," T.J. says hurriedly, arm around her for support. He ought to find them somewhere to sit down, he thinks, that isn't the pavement, but he's not sure what might be nearby or how far she'd be able to walk. All he can really do is hope that it won't take long for a cab to get here, though calling should be easier than trying to flag one down and hold Aimee up at the same time. "It's okay. You're okay."

[spectacularly]

I'm not okay, and a part of me thinks I never will be. Not if drinking like this continues to be my coping mechanism, not if I forever try to silence my grief with vodka's burn. A part of me doesn't want to leave this spot, a part of me wants to go back to where I'd seen him first and see if he's still there, but the rest of me knows that he won't be. "I'm sorry," I tell T.J., torn between that and thanking him.

[inablur]

"You don't have to be sorry," T.J. says quietly, though he's not sure she'll believe it. Still, it seems like it's an important thing to have said. No one ever told him that. Instead, they'd driven home why he really should have been, and he knows damn well that never helped anything. That she doesn't have a family to embarrass can't really make all that much difference. It comes from the same sort of place. He almost wishes he could insist on bringing her to a meeting with him, but he knows that's not how it works, that that's not really the way to get through to people. They have to seek it out and want it for themselves. "I'm happy to help, okay? Now or whenever."