Chapter 25
Try for me she had said.
Please try for me.
Matt looked into his glass, now almost empty and not for the first time today. He wondered when drinking alcohol had gone from being a way to relax and wind down, or to have fun at a party and changed to being something of another limb. A limb he felt he could not live without.
Even though the alcohol didn't ever make him feel better. Jen had been right. Of course he was turning into his Dad. How often did I used to go down to the pub and collect him after he'd had one too many and got all emotional, Matt thought to himself. Jennifer had even been there on one such occasion, and had been able to see the state Callum often drank himself in to. Now Matt had allowed the strong hand of the drink dictate his feelings and how he felt about things. He had let it lead him to believe that alcohol was the only answer.
How pathetic.
Matt reached for the bottle of scotch and stared at the label for a moment before pushing it across the table away from his reach. Thinking more about it, now increasingly aware of the hold it had over him and mad at the fact he had let it happen, he got up out of his chair and shoved it forcefully further across the table until it fell right off the edge at the opposite end to where he had been sitting.
The bottle bounced on the floor with a clatter before breaking into an array of chunks. Scotch spilled everywhere, flooding the floor at a frightening pace, quickly making its way around table and chair legs and towards the kitchen door, where it seeped over the ledge invading the next room.
The smell wafted up surprisingly quickly too, and enveloped Matt in a hot steamy rush of air, heavy with the alcohol that had started to ruin his life. He sat at the table and smelt it, gritting his teeth and gripping his glass forcefully. An instant later he pushed back his chair so hard that it fell over and walked over to the sink. Throwing his glass into the metal trough, it too shattered into a million pieces and he didn't even leap back when shards sprayed onto his chest, sticking momentarily to the jumper he was wearing. Instead he just leant on the bench top that bordered the sink and stared out the kitchen window into the backyard. Tears pricked at his eyes but he fought them back. They would only make him feel worse. So instead he bowed his head, wondering what the hell was happening to him, this young cop who had once had the world at his feet, so much out there for him to achieve.
I was bruised and battered
I couldn't tell what I felt
I was unrecognisable to myself
Saw my reflection in the window
Didn't know my own face
Matt sat up in bed later, the lights off, so scared that he couldn't move a single part of his body. He was surprised he was even still breathing. Frantically he wondered how he had ever reached the point of thinking about this. How had he sunk this low? He didn't know if anyone could save him now.
The night has fallen
And I'm lying awake
I can feel myself fading away