Once an addict, always an addict.
I slide my mask into place, keeping my voice detached as I ask, “Are you hurt?”
“Only here.” He taps his chest, right over his heart.
God. It’s so sad to see a grown man like him suffer the way he does. During our childhood and early adulthood, he was always so full of life. To see him reduced to this broken version of himself only draws out the protector in me.
Cal has so much to offer the world, but his self-loathing and destructive patterns get in his way every single time. A part of me hoped that he found happiness in the six years we spent apart.
Not with someone else, but with himself.
He is no better than the day he left.
I pick up the vodka bottle so it doesn’t spill any more before taking in our surroundings. A few of Cal’s old hockey trophies are scattered around the floor, along with an old NHL jersey of his and a few opened boxes.
No wonder he was drinking. Going through those kinds of memories—the ones that represent the highest highs and the lowest lows—would upset anyone. It’s just that Cal’s way of coping is the worst.
“What happened?” My voice is much softer this time.
He blinks up at the ceiling. “I fell.”
“So you said. But how?”
“Lost my balance when trying to pick up the bottle.” He stumbles over the sentence. Despite the puddle on the floor, Cal must have drunk a decent amount if he is falling over himself and tripping over his words.
I help prop him up against one of the travel trunks, grunting from how much he weighs. “What happened before that?”
Stop asking him questions and go.
Except when I think about leaving, the image of Cal tapping his chest and saying it hurts replays in my head.
I don’t stick around for the drunk man in front of me. I stay for the man I once loved more than anything.
He steals the vodka bottle back and tips it over an open box beside him.
“Stop!” I steal the bottle from his hands and put it out of reach before assessing the damage.
“Oh, no.” I press my hand against my mouth. “What did you do?”
Vodka soaks through hundreds of photos of the Kane family. The one on top features Cal’s mother, who beams at the camera. Her blond hair looks like spun gold and is slightly lighter than Cal’s. His father has an arm wrapped around her. He looks just like I remember, stern with a hint of something lurking behind his dark, beady eyes. The three Kane brothers smile up at the camera, with Cal just barely standing taller than Declan. Rowan is the smallest, although he was probably barely ten years old here.
“Who cares? It’s all ruined anyway.”
I try to salvage some of the photos, wiping off the vodka with the bottom of my shirt. “These are memories.”
“Memories of what? A family that doesn’t exist anymore?” he snaps.
I keep at my task with every intention to save as many photos as I can. “I understand you’re upset.”
“What do you know?” He scowls.
“You’re not the only one whose mother died. Our situations might not have been the same, but I understand what it feels like to lose someone you love to something you can’t control.”
His glassy eyes track my movements. “She would be ashamed of me.”
I rear back. “What? Why do you say that?”
“Because look at me.” He grabs a trophy and launches it in the opposite direction. It slams into a tower of boxes before clattering against the floor.
“Stop it!”
“Why? It’s not like any of them mean anything.” He repeats the same thing with another trophy, but this time, it smashes into a wall before snapping in half.
“Enough!” I shove the other two trophies away before he destroys those too. “Get angry. Get loud, but don’t get violent. You’re better than that.”
He throws his hands in the air. “Am I? Or am I just biding my time until I turn into him?”
He doesn’t need to clarify which him he is speaking about because I already know. It’s written all over his face.
My chest pinches, the tight sensation making each breath I draw painful. “The only thing you two have in common is an addiction issue.”
“You’re right. Because unlike me, my father is successful. He has a legacy. What do I have?”
“For starters, a heart.”
He frowns. “Who cares? What has that gotten me in the long run? Pain? Misery? Disappointment?” He looks up at the ceiling with a sigh. “I can’t get a single thing right. My whole entire life has been one failure after another, and I’m so fucking tired of pretending it doesn’t bother me.”
Cal steals a fragmented piece of my heart in that moment as a single tear slides down his cheek. A tear that wrecks whatever last bit of anger I have toward him today.
Tomorrow, I’ll be angry about him being drunk in the house.
But today…
Today he needs a friend.
I pull him into my arms and wipe away the tear, banishing it from existence like it never happened. “You haven’t failed at everything.”
“Name one thing.”
I don’t miss a beat. “You made it into the NHL.”
He scoffs. “Only to lose my spot a few years later.”
“So what? Not many people can say they even got that far in the first place.”
“I didn’t even win a championship.” His voice sounds so small. So unsure. So broken.
It tears me up inside, knowing someone as vibrant and lively as him can be riddled with this many insecurities.
Sometimes it is those with the loudest voices who struggle the hardest.
“Life is about perspective. Until you change yours, you’ll always be tied to this.” I hand him the vodka bottle.
He clutches the bottle with a death grip.
I lock the image away in my head, reminding myself that no good can come of Cal and me being around each other. Even after all these years apart, he still hasn’t put in the work to change himself.
No matter how much I love him, it was and never will be enough so long as he doesn’t love himself.
That much I know to be true.
Cal must have gone on a drunken shopping spree yesterday because there is no explanation for the ten packages that show up on my doorstep the next afternoon. The labels on the boxes range from the most expensive luxury department store in America to some French names I can’t pronounce, let alone recognize.
“Please sign here.” The delivery man hands me a clipboard.
I text Cal once he leaves.
You have a delivery.
His reply is instantaneous.
Cal
Be right there.
Perfect. At least this way, we can talk about what happened yesterday and get something straight.
I had planned on speaking to Cal once he came over this afternoon to work on the attic, but he never showed after I came home from work.
It doesn’t take him long to pull into the driveway with his fancy car. Not sure how he plans on fitting all those boxes inside his trunk, but I wish him the best of luck regardless.
“Hey.” He doesn’t remove his sunglasses.
I cross my arms. “Hi.”
He rubs the back of his neck. “About yesterday… Thanks for checking on me.”
My lips tug down into a frown. “I don’t want you getting drunk inside of my house again.”