“And in the end we were all just humans… drunk on the idea that love, only love, could heal our brokenness.”
F.Scott Fitzgerald
She grimaced as it burned down her throat.
Already half the bottle was gone, the cup beside her was unused, and her face flushed as the liquor began to work its magic.
I’ll be screwed at work tomorrow, she muttered, then chuckled, I’m screwed at work everyday.
She sat on the wooden floor, leaning against the wall.
Closing her eyes, her mind drifted.
As a child, she’d been gifted with a singers voice, but the sore throat that lasted the better part of a year, put any dreams on hold…forever.
She loved her job, but her boss’ advances bordered on harassment.
An image of her dead husband popped up, then the faces of their children. And a flash back to the moment she’d found out.
.
It wasn’t one thought in particular, but suddenly she found herself sobbing.
At first a tensing of muscles in the middle of her forehead, then an uncontrollable flood of tears.
She wasn’t sure how long it lasted.
“Sadness slows time.” She couldn’t recall where she’d read that; probably someplace during another drunken episode that ended with watching re-runs of some asian soap.
She inhaled deeply, her body quivering involuntarily.
This time she reached for the unused cup and splashed it full with more alcohol.
She held it to her lips a moment and swallowed deeply.
The burning eased her.
“You drink too much” her older brother had frowned once.
“I don’t drink often” had been her reply
“You more than make up for it when you do”
She remembered that conversation, it had happened after they’d found her passed out in the driver’s seat of her parked car.
She’d woken up to a dented bonnet, tires filled with mud, a cracked windshield, the smell of urine in her seat and her mother screaming hysterically.
She’d made then yet another broken promise to mum “I won’t do it again, I love you, I’m sorry”.
The ‘I love you’s’ had passed since then. Along with more promises gone and there were so many ‘I’m sorrys’ she’d lost count.
So many.
Oh so many.