Re-uploaded because I got paranoid and deleted it last time. This serves no real purpose other than to get something off my chest. The title is from a Sarah Blasko song that I felt somehow fitted.
At times there were moments of clarity, when the reality hit home and made her feel sick. There is a small, innocent child sleeping next door and I am sat here, off my face, sobbing into a bottle of whiskey.
There were nights when it all amused her a little too much, when she felt like a kid at fat camp, diving into their secret stash of chocolate in the middle of the night. You're so proud of me, sticking to my one glass a night. But you don't know about this place!
Sometimes she realized she almost wanted for Maria to walk in one night and catch her taking large swigs straight from the bottle. Maybe then you'd realize that this is a fucking serious problem that you can't cure with your weak tea and sickening sympathy.
Other times it just made her feel guilty, ashamed. You've done so much for me and still I'm here. Is this really what my life has become?
But most of the time she just felt numb, devoid of any feeling, physical or otherwise.
She drank because it was the only way she knew how to survive; because it was the only thing that could silence the voices in her head for even the briefest of moments. The effects may only be temporary, but it was some respite at least.
She drank because she needed relief, and because it was there and he wasn't.
Besides, why not? Why not lie here night after night, slowly eroding her liver with every glass? Those who didn't know directly at least suspected their boss/friend/neighbour/nemesis was nothing more than a pathetic lush. Why let them down? They probably didn't even believe that she'd been raped, not really. The wealthy, successful, charismatic businessmen versus the wreck of a woman who stumbled into work every day and spoke only to snap at people, who only owned this excuse for a business because she'd married the right man; who would you believe?
If Liam could see her now… Or Paul, or her mother. They'd ask where the old Carla had gone, and she'd tell them she simply gave up. Surrendered to this black wave she'd been spent her life fleeing from and found that, in some strange way, it brought her comfort. For the first time in years she could finally stop running, and although her heart was racing and her lungs felt like they might explode, at least she wasn't in denial anymore. She was physically and emotionally exhausted and she just wanted so desperately for it all to stop.
Lying back on the bed that wasn't her own, still clutching the now empty bottle as though it were a childhood toy, Carla wondered if she would ever sleep again. The fitful bursts of rest when she couldn't physically keep her eyes open any more had proven more exhausting than wakefulness, plagued with flashbacks of that night, played over and over until she'd woken, sweating and sobbing silently. She'd give anything to just close her eyes and sleep peacefully, for just a few sacred moments where Frank Foster's twisted, enraged face didn't burn into her mind.
But she knew all attempts were futile, so instead she placed the bottle back behind the bed where she'd stashed it, trying to be quiet for the child's sake but knowing she would probably wake him anyway. As she lay, wrapping her head in the pillow and watching the patterns of the ceiling rotate as the room spun, she began to appreciate the gentle, haze-induced rocking motion. Like a child in a cradle, it at least gave her some sense of comfort.