Hey guys,
Look! It's me! Did you forget about me?
Probably...
Well, here's a new one-shot that took my forever to write. I started it and wrote like the first three hundred words like...three months ago...and finished it in two hours in the middle of the night last night.
It's a song-fic, Whiskey Lullaby by Alison Krauss and Brad Paisley.
Hope you like it!
*Disclaimer* I do not own Degrassi or the song Whiskey Lullaby
~Pho:)
Whiskey Lullaby
She put him out, like the burnin' end of a midnight cigarette.
"I don't know why you're even here, Eli!" Clare screamed at him as they had yet another fight. This happened over and over again. And with each fight, they only grew worse.
"You know, sweetheart, sometimes I wonder the same damn thing! I wonder why, I'm stuck here, in this pathetic, run down, one room apartment, with you! I'm at a minimum wage job, barely having enough money for myself because I'm taking care of you!" He yelled back at her. It was the middle of the night and the young couple was at it again.
It made Clare sick. She promised herself she wouldn't wind up like her parents. Life's funny like that, why you try hardest not to be is exactly what you end up. No matter how hard you try, it's all a losing battle. Some things are just unavoidable.
"I make my own money, Eli, I don't depend on you!"
"Yeah, well you sure could have fooled me,"
"If I'm such a bad girlfriend, why are you still here!" She asked him for what seemed to be the millionth time that night.
"When I have an answer, I'll tell ya!" He said mockingly.
"Well until then, get out!"
"No!"
"No!"Clare questioned. They stared at each other angrily, waiting for someone to make next move. Eli blinked, and Clare stomped down the small hallway to their tiny bedroom.
"I am so fucking sick of you, Elijah Goldsworthy! I've dealt with you and your pathetic bullshit since high school, and I'm so past done with you," She said going through his drawers and yanking out black piece of clothing after black piece of clothing and throwing it into his suitcase, "I'm tired of your arrogance and your perfect image of us! Well guess what Eli; we're not perfect! And I'm tired of trying to be,"
He tried to counter her, putting his clothes back in the drawers. He pulled Clare's shaking form away from the dresser, placing his large hands on her forearms, giving her a little shake but she wouldn't face him.
"Come on, Clare, you don't have to do this. You can't do this," He pleaded, tears beginning to fall from his eyes, "What about us, Clare? Huh? What about how much we love each other? Clare, I love you! And you love me too, I know it, Blue Eyes," He choked.
He tilted up her chin with his index finger, her own tears rolling down her face, but her blue eyes were hard as stone, "Sometimes love just isn't enough anymore, Eli. And I've finally realized that," She said zipping the suitcase. She handed it to him, and slipped the simple engagement ring off of her finger.
"I love you, Eli. But love just isn't enough for us anymore,"
She broke his heart.
"Clare-"
"Goodbye, Eli," She said.
The fight in his eyes was gone; he realized too late he was fighting the wrong person. He walked out the door, neither of them realizing as she shut it behind him the other fall back and slide down, the pain becoming too much.
He spent his whole life tryin' to forget
He walked through the rain to Adam's house, staring at the ring the whole time. He cried himself to sleep that night. The one after that. The one after that, and many, many more.
We watched him drink his pain away, a little at a time. But he never could get drunk enough to get her off his mind.
Eli had literally given up on his hopes, his dreams. Without her, there was no life. He was married to a whiskey bottle which he held in the place she should have been, tightly in his arms.
He tried to drown away his thoughts of her, with little luck.
He had a pitiful apartment, not much bigger than the one he shared with her. It's funny, at times when he was almost as mad with her as he was that night, he thought he'd be so much better off if she wasn't around.
How wrong he was.
He became angry when he drank. Never a heavy drinker before, he lost many people. He'd get into fights, borrow, spend, and never repay money from his friends and family. The only two people he still had were Adam and his mother, CeCe. But Eli wasn't aloud over to his childhood home, because even though CeCe found it easy to forgive her baby boy, Bullfrog could not. He said he wouldn't have a drunk like his father ruin his family again.
He reminded people of a crazy person; he couldn't even recognize himself. His clothes were torn and dirty and smelt of alcohol, his hair was tattered and disheveled, even falling out in some places. He had fallen out of touch with life.
His drinking only tortured him more. He'd go out, get drunk, and stumble around chasing her. Only after did he realize they were only illusions. But they all seemed so real to him! Her auburn curls blowing and the crisp Canadian wind, her blue eyes boring into his. And just as he got close enough, she was gone.
He told himself every morning he woke up that he would be okay, that he could get through the day just fine. Every morning what he told himself was a lie.
Until the night…
He'd made his decision completely sober. Eli couldn't even remember the last time he'd been stone-cold sober. But he stayed sober, for three days. His eyes had been open wide enough to see all of the damage he'd done, and he felt sick. And he decided.
He could not live without her and he was done with trying.
He took all the money he had in his bank, and a sizeable loan – though to this day, no one understands how – and repaid every cent he'd ever borrowed from anybody. He put the money in envelopes each, with notes expressing how much he loved and was grateful for each of them. He delivered each personally to their mailboxes but remaining unnoticed. By the time anyone found them, it'd be too late.
He put that bottle to his head, and pulled the trigger;
He sat in his home, drinking whiskey straight from the bottle as stared down the pistol sitting on his stained night stand. He threw the vodka bottle down to the floor with a loud crash. It didn't faze him. He was numb.
He put the gun to his head as his finger rested on the trigger. He held the note that was originally lying under the gun tightly in his hands. Every moment he'd ever spent with her passed through his mind, and for the first time in four years, he dared to say her name.
"Clare," He released breathily.
A single tear rolled out of his sorrowful, dull green eyes that were once bright with life and love, and across his cheek. He clenched his eyes tightly shut, and with that, his finger around the trigger.
He finally drank away her memory. Life is short, but this time, it was bigger than the strength he had to get up off his knees.
Adam knew something was wrong when he found the fat letter of cash in his mailbox the next morning. It was addressed to, The Best Person I'll Ever Know and Forever be Grateful for, and signed, The Friend Who You Deserved Much Better From.
He didn't have to open it to see who it was from; he'd know his best friend's writing anywhere. He held to it tightly and drove white-knuckled and over the speed limit all the way across town to Eli's apartment.
But nothing he could have done would have gotten him there fast enough.
We found him with his face down in the pillow with a note that said, "I'll love her 'till I die," And when we buried him beneath the willow, the angels sang a whiskey lullaby…
La la la, lah la lah lah, lah la lah lah la lah lah…
The rumors flew,
"Clare! Clare, open the door," Alli stood at the door of Clare's apartment, the one she once shared with him, and knocked frantically on the door.
"Alli, Alli, where's the fire?" Clare giggled just a little tipsy as she opened the door. She didn't drink heavily, and certainly not to get drunk. Only a little, she'd tell herself to rid herself of the guilt she felt for throwing out the love of her life.
"Clare, listen to me," Alli said sternly to her best friend.
"I'm all ears. Come on, come in, lighten up! You act like someone's died!" Clare said, laughing again. Alli stayed cemented to the ground where she stood.
"I just got off the phone with Drew," She began, looking at the ground.
"Okay, he's your husband, why is that such important news? Wait—is he cheating on you, because I swear I'll—"
"No! No, Clare, Sweetie, you need to listen to me," She said sternly. She backed her up and sat beside her on the love seat in the small living room, "He just finished talking, more like comforting, Adam," She droned on.
"Why, what happened to Adam?" Clare said, now worried for her other best friend's well-being. They hadn't spoken up since she ended it with him, but she still cared for him greatly.
"You see," She couldn't find a way around this, a way to let the words out easily. They tasted like vinegar in her mouth, "There's nothing wrong with Adam. It's…Eli."
That was the first time Clare had heard his name in four years. Everyone who cared about her tiptoed over the subject, fearing Clare was a ticking time bomb about to explode at any moment.
"He…he died Clare," She said, choking on a sob.
"Wha…what?" She asked, "He, he couldn't have died. He's only twenty-three; his birthday is in a month! You've got to be joking." She said flabbergasted.
"That's the thing, Clare. He didn't just die. He killed himself," She explained with regret.
"Alli, you don't know Eli. He wouldn't do something like that, why would say that?" She stood up angrily.
"Clare, I know this is hard but you have to-"
"No, Alli, just stop it! You're crazy…"She said turning around with her arms crossed.
Alli sighed and stood behind her, "Drew is the main officer on the scene. He can't tell me much but from what he could tell me, they could tell it was suicide based on the, err…splatter, and positioning of…Eli's body to where the gun fell. That, and that he left a note," She said.
Clare turned around quickly, tears pouring out of her eyes, "What'd the note say?" She asked.
A few stray tears rolled down Alli's cheeks as well, "It said…'I'll love her until I die,'"
Clare let out a gasping noise and dropped to her knees, hugging herself tightly. She felt as if she were suffocating. Like all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room and all that was left was toxic fumes. She was dying.
But nobody knew how much she blamed herself for years and years…
She stood hidden behind the willow that the ceremony was being held. His funeral. The tears slid silently down her face as they laid his mahogany basket in the ground. There, for eternity, would lie everything she ever was; everything she ever missed to be. Without him, she was not whole.
She tried to hide the whiskey on her breath…
"Clare Diane Edwards!" Helen Edwards stood outside Clare's bedroom door in horror. In bed with Clare was a man she did not recognize and she most certainly did not approve, "What in the Lord's name do you think you are doing?" She asked.
"Getting laid…how about you, Ma?" She asked laughing as she took a sip from the whiskey bottle. "And how'd you get in here, the door was locked?"
"You made me a key. Put some clothes on and tell me who that is." Helen ordered.
Clare rolled over onto her side, resting her head in her hand, "Hey, Babe? What's you name again?" She asked.
"Jake," He stated blissfully.
"His name is Jake," She said.
"I heard him! What I want to know is why you're sleeping with a man you whose name you don't even care to remember?"
She finally drank her pain away, a little at a time,
But Helen was wrong. Clare would eventually remember their names. There was K.C., Declan, Reese, Owen, and one night she was so drunk there was Imogen.
"Oh, Mom, lighten up. Maybe you need to get laid every now and then, too," She said covering her head in the pillows.
Helen looked around the room in shock at the empty whiskey bottle that were strewn everywhere.
"Clare Edwards, are you drunk?" She asked dumbfounded.
"No, I'm not drunk," She said as Helen began to notice the slur in her words.
Helen grabbed the robe from where it sat on the end of Clare's bed, wrapped it around her, and yanked her out of her room. She spoke slowly, but sternly.
"Clare, you need help. Your father said there's been a few times he's smelt alcohol on you and you've played it off,"
"So what if I'm having a drink every now and then, huh? Why's that so bad?" She asked, waving her hands in the air.
"Honey, ever since Eli die-"
But she never could get drunk enough to get him off her mind…
"Don't you say it," Clare shut her eyes tightly, "Don't say his name, don't talk about him, don't think about him! Because you never accepted him ; you judged him before you got the chance to know him! We were happy, and engaged, Mom! Until you decided to poison my mind with these pathetic lies! And just like you ran Dad out, I ran Eli out! I turned into you! And now the love of my life is dead because of me! And you have no right to even mention him to me! Now give me your keys and get out!" She screamed so loudly she frightened her mother and caused her partner to come out and see what was wrong.
"Hey, babe, are you-"
"You get out, too! Get out, get out, get out! I never want to see you again!" And with that she slammed the door behind them and ran back into her bedroom, and grabbed the whiskey bottle off the night stand. She slid down her bed as the brown liquid burned down the back of her throat. She opened the drawer and pulled out the one picture she had left of she and Eli that Adam had taken on their graduation day; right after he proposed. They looked so happy.
Clare didn't recognize herself in the picture, because when she looked in the mirror in front of her, the two people were entirely different.
Her hair didn't have the same shine and reddish tint it'd had back then. All the rosy color had been drained from her cheeks and she was sallow and yellowish. She'd lost the curves he'd once said he'd loved and was now stick thin. And her eyes, once a deep, mesmerizing blue, were now a dull, sad gray.
Until the night…
She hated herself.
She put that bottle to her head and pulled the trigger;
She pulled the pistol she had taped on the under-side of night stand for safety and just looked at it for what seemed like hours. She finished the bottle of whiskey and tossed it to the ground. She lied back and got comfortable against the pillows. She looked at the picture one last time, thinking how happy she was with him and how happy she'd soon be again. She tucked it into her arm and put the gun to her head. A single tear fell to the pillow as she wept.
"Eli…"
She counted to three, and pulled the trigger.
She finally drank away his memory. Life is short, but this time, it was bigger than the strength she had to get up off her knees. They found her with her face down in the pillow, clinging to his picture for dear life.
They laid her next to him beneath the willow, and the angels sang a whiskey lullaby.
La la la, lah la lah lah, lah la lah lah la lah lah…
So...
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Love Always,
~Pho:)