28.
John's perspective –
The rest of the night went by brutally. Everyone was either blaming themselves for what happened or deathly silent.
Esme came in around 9 and took one look at me, laying in the couch in the fetal position. My stomach was growling like an angry bear but no one seemed to notice. She walked over to me and slipped her credit card into my hand like it was nothing.
"Go get something to eat before you starve," she said softly, nodding to the door.
I got up slowly and made my way out of the room. The tension that I had felt the whole night left me the minute I stepped outside the door. I let out a sigh and made my way to the elevator.
The café downstairs was bustling with people preparing for morning tours or business meetings. It took me about half an hour of waiting in line before I could order a cup of espresso and toast and eggs. The girl behind the counter gave me a tiny cup filled with strong coffee and a plate piled with sunny-side-up eggs and bread. I took a seat in the corner, away from everyone else chatting away, some in English, others in Italian or various other languages. I was beginning to get a headache from everything that was happening.
"I miss you, Lisa," I whispered to myself. All I wanted was a drink, and I realized that the only thing holding me together all these years was Lisa. I closed my eyes as I fell into a memory.
"What are you doing?" was all I heard her scream as she burst through the door of my apartment. Pills and empty alcohol bottles lay everywhere. My cheek was pressed against the cool glass of my coffee table, a small pile of throw up by my open mouth. I jerked up as Lisa stormed into the room, taking everything in. "What are you trying to do, John, kill yourself?"
She began collecting pills and placing them in the right containers. The empty bottles she tossed in the trash. All the while I sat numbly watching her. The night before was a haze; I could not remember what I had done. All I could remember was the hopeless feeling that had crashed over me like a wave, sending me down into deep depression.
"John," Lisa's voice filled my mind as she sat down beside me on the floor, rubbing my hair. "Baby, what happened?"
I look around the room, trying to remember. "There was so much hurt, I couldn't contain it." I looked at her. "Look at you. You've got it all figured out, this life thing. You're beautiful and respected, with parents that love you to death. You're so perfect," I slurred off, loosing my train of thoughts.
"John," she whispered sadly, taking my face in her hands. "You have so much to live for. You can be someone."
"Can I? Is anyone really going to hire an alcoholic with tendencies to commit suicide."
Lisa had seen her share of my lows. She had found me on several occasions, blacked out, and driven me to the hospital. Why she was still here I would never know. "You're the only thing in my life worth living for, and when I think about loosing you –" A sob stopped me from continuing. She pulled me into her arms and I cried.
"Shh, I'm not going anywhere," she whispered as she rocked me back and forth.
It was the first time I had felt like someone needed me, even wanted me, in a long time. I had grown up believing that the people raising me where my parents, only to find out my real mother was homeless and drunk somewhere, perhaps dead, and my father had left as soon as he found out my mom was pregnant. My mother gave birth to me prematurely, dropped me off at the local church, and stumbled off to get high. It seemed misfortune and tragedy followed me everywhere. My adoptive father couldn't handle living with me anymore and divorced my adoptive mother, who was slowly going insane. After that, she gave herself over to the bottle, and one night she got so blindly drunk that she drove herself off a cliff. I was fifteen, so I was put into foster home after foster home, never staying in one place longer than two or three months. No one wanted me because I was a troublemaker. At age sixteen I discovered drugs and I don't remember anything until homelessness at age eighteen forced me off the habit. Having nothing and no one to live for, I ended up in the hospital after trying to commit suicide, which is where I met Anne Dewell. She was a woman in her sixties who was parked in the bed next to mine, recovering from surgery to remove her cancer. She instantly took me under her wing, giving me some tough love, and sending me through college. She had no children or family to speak of, so she adopted me as her little project. If not for that woman, I would have been dead by the time I was twenty.
Every now and then the memories and scars would creep up again, sending me into a darkness I could not fight. Lisa was the only one who was able to pull me out and get me going again.
A tear slid down my cheek before I could stop it. I turned my head away from everyone as it traveled down my face to my hand. Lisa, I need to find you. I'm so lost without you here.
I finished the rest of my breakfast and made my way up the stairs two at a time. I burst through the hotel door with renewed vigor. "Alright, moping around isn't going to help anyone. Let's brainstorm; where else could she be? We need ideas, people!"
