CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: THE PAPERS

The Town

After

I am fucked-up.

But it's only beer. It's only one, two, three, four. A few steps in the wrong direction, crumpled money on the bar. That's all this is.

There is no reason. No tipping point. Only Wednesday and an impulse.

I don't look at anyone. I refuse to look at them.

It's only one shot, and it's better than I remember. Which doesn't explain why I still feel too much. And remember too much and want too much.

One, two, three, four shot glasses lined up. I know I'm really fucked when I finally feel nothing. But it's only liquor. I'm only drunk.

Two months sober was this morning. Once it's gone it's gone. So I have another.

I was on my way to a meeting. I laugh and I don't remember the last time my face felt like this.

They shouldn't hold meetings by bars. Some of us have to walk.

I'm surrounded by alcoholics with liquid eyes and Rudolph noses. I wonder if they know that's what they are. I wonder if they've been to those meetings too.

They're talking about some hooker who was found dead in the parking lot of this shithole last December. Apparently her name was Frances. I'd seen her around a few times. Before she was a corpse.

My wife left me so many months ago that I've lost count and I haven't had sex in so long that I might as well become a priest. The thought makes me laugh again. This time loud enough for the bartender to stare. I look at him without meaning to.

I am so fucking drunk.

I pretend like I'm better than these worthless lushes because I don't have a beer gut or a regular stool at this bar. I have a wife. I used to.

I need to get out of here. I need to go home. But it's too cold there in that bed. It's too cold there without her.

I throw some money on the counter and manage to get outside. I can see my breath, so it must be winter.

I stop at a pay phone and put in every quarter I have. I dial slowly, making sure to get it right. And it's not until I hear that robot voice that I remember I've been right here before. She disconnected her number. She erased me from her life.

I try to slam the phone down but something is wrong with it and it doesn't fit together right so I leave it hanging.

The liquor store glares at me and I spend the rest of my money on the cheapest bottle of tequila they have. I drink from the bag like the blue-eyed man—before he was a corpse like Frances the hooker.

I walk the rest of the way to that cold, crooked house and I pretend like she'll be there waiting.

The house is standing still.

I'm in the kitchen and I've lost that bottle. I am tired. I am so fucking tired.

She's probably upstairs sleeping. Tequila lets me forget anything I want.

I'll sleep downstairs on the couch. I don't want to wake her. I try to hold on to her face but my eyes keep closing and all I can see is the Bella who walked out the front door. All I can remember is that door squeaking on its hinges.

The tequila pins my arms down, and I can't remember why I am not the man I was yesterday.

I sleep. The kind of sleep where you close your eyes and the sun rises.

"You look like shit."

I blink, trying to figure out where the fuck I am. The living room.

Emmett towers over me, his forehead wrinkled and his eyes disapproving.

"How'd you get in here?"

He looks at me like I'm an idiot. "Edward, your front door is wide open. I thought you'd been robbed."

"Get out," I tell him, with as much conviction as I can. But he laughs at me. And I want to punch him in the jaw.

He sits and he keeps opening his mouth without speaking.

"What do you want?"

"I came to talk to you."

"Then talk."

"I thought you were doing better."

"I thought you didn't give a shit."

He shakes his head like he's disagreeing but then he speaks and I know exactly what he thinks of me. "What pills are you on?"

"Fuck you."

"You're a lousy drunk, Edward."

I don't respond because I know he's right. We sit in silence and he almost looks sad. Like this is his life instead of mine.

"You could have told me, you know. About the baby." He isn't making sense and I don't care because my head is pounding and my mouth is trying to glue itself shut.

He follows me into the kitchen, and I wish he'd stop looking at me like I'm the most pathetic man to ever live.

I paw through the cupboards searching for some coffee, but only find two empty bags and an unopened box of those fancy coffee filters. I used to tease her for buying overpriced paper. I cling to the box.

An open bottle of tequila sits by the sink and I take a swig before Emmett tries to grab it and dump it down the drain.

"Jesus, Edward."

I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, his voice making me dizzy. "What baby?"

He stares at me, his jaw slack and his palms up. "Your baby."

"I don't have a baby."

"Yeah, pretty sure you do."

"I think I'd know." You fucking moron.

"Look, Edward, I've always tried to stay out of all of the Edward and Bella melodrama. It's your life. But I can't watch you self-destruct anymore. I don't blame Bella for leaving. You've put her through enough of your shit."

"Shut up." It doesn't even sound like I mean it.

"What I don't get is how you just let your pregnant wife walk away after all that the two of you have been through. You just let her go. You just let her. And don't you dare tell me you don't love her anymore. Don't you dare lie to me."

"Get out."

"Don't you care? You have a daughter."

"You're a liar."

"No, I'm pretty sure you've cornered that market."

"Get out!"

"No." He just stands there in my kitchen, his jaw set, staring me down. He's looking at me like I'm worthless. Pathetic.

I can feel the rage in my veins, curling my fingers into fists. And then I punch him, square in the jaw.

He turns slowly and as soon as his eyes meet mine, I'm knocked to the ground by a fucking freight train.

I lie motionless on the floor, clutching my cheek. He stands over me, blood seeping from his cracked lip. He doesn't let it linger, his hand quickly wiping away any evidence that I threw the first punch.

"I told Bella I'd check on you, but I'm done. I won't be back." I watch him grab the bottle of tequila and I don't say a word.

He turns just before leaving the kitchen, the hate and the rage draining from his face. "I saw her, by the way, your daughter. She looks just like you." He stares and I stare back and it's the freight train all over again. And then he's gone.

I don't have a daughter. I don't have anything.

I spend two weeks looking for work and sleeping alone. I'm too drunk to actually work and not drunk enough to actually sleep.

There's a knock on the door and I have to look at the clock to see if it's morning or afternoon.

Emmett said he wouldn't be back, but I'm not the only liar.

I open the door with a smirk, because I haven't had a drink in two days and fuck him for thinking I was a lost cause.

A sheriff stands on my porch, a picture of me pinched between his fat fingers.

"Edward Cullen?"

"Yeah."

He holds out a large envelope and I take it without thinking.

"You've been served. Sign at the X."

"What the fuck is this?"

"It's an affidavit of service," he says, as if that means something to me.

"I'm not signing shit."

"Sir, you've already accepted the envelope." Sir.

I look at him in his uniform with his polished shoes and smarmy face. And I wonder if he has a wife.

I sign his bullshit paper and he leaves. He probably goes home to fuck his wife.

I let the envelope sit. I leave it on the floor of the dining room and I don't even look at it. I pretend it's not there. I eat all of my meals on the couch. Who am I fucking kidding? I barely eat.

I make a doctor's appointment. I don't know the last time I voluntarily saw a doctor. But I do know. The last time was when they told me my prescription would not be refilled and I had to be escorted out.

I think I go eleven days without speaking a word to anyone.

My doctor has glasses and the wrong color brown hair. She looks smart and she might even be pretty but I already hate her.

"The lab is backed up, but your results should be in within the week. I'd like to see you back here next Monday, Edward."

"Can't you just have someone call me?"

"How many drinks would you say you have a day?"

"What?"

"On average."

She doesn't let me look away. "I'll see you in a week," she says. "I'll have your results then."

The week is short even though the days are long. My pockets stay empty. I drink three beers on Friday, just to take the edge off.

I'm early for my appointment and she looks at me the way I imagine a mother would look at her child.

She sits down. I didn't know doctors ever sat down.

"You do in fact have viable sperm."

I can hear the air rushing in and out of my lungs like it doesn't belong there.

"How is that possible? I told you. I had a vasectomy."

"You're sure that's the procedure you had done?"

"Yeah, when I was eighteen."

"I don't know any doctor who would perform a vasectomy on an eighteen-year-old."

"I found someone who would do it."

I realize how stupid she must think I am but her face doesn't give away anything. "Did you go back to get checked after your procedure?"

"No."

She asks me if I want the vasectomy. The one I may or may not have already had. It's the most stupid question she could ever ask me. I don't want to be the person I thought I was.

She wants to know about my family history with substance abuse. She doesn't say substance abuse like they're dirty words. When I'm honest and I tell her that alcohol took my father and drugs took my mother, she smiles at me. The kind of smile that doesn't show teeth, but shows plenty of pity.

"Have you thought about treatment?"

"I've been clean. I can do it on my own."

"Edward, your overdose was less than a year ago. To be honest I'm surprised you're sitting here at all. There is no shame in seeking treatment. You are only one man and this is a very powerful disease."

She hands me a brochure but I don't open it. "They're the best in the state."

I go home and I open that envelope and I sign everything. I sign everything. I read them and I sign. There are words I can't even say. But I know what this is. I know what it means.

It's over. Everything is over.

But she is real. And she has a name.

She could have been mine but this will make it official. This will erase me. And maybe she'll have a chance. Maybe they both will.

I don't cry. Instead, the last bits of me that were alive, die all at once.

I walk across town instead of taking the bus. I walk all the way to Emmett's apartment.

I ring the doorbell twice before he opens it.

"Will you take me home?" I am begging. I am on my knees, hands in front of my face, begging.

He stares at me before taking my arm and dragging me to his car. He shoves me into the passenger seat. "Put on your seat belt." As if seat belts are important in my life right now.

"Where are we going?"

"You asked me to take you home."

"No. Not that home. I want to go home."

The light turns green but he doesn't notice. "Not like this."

"I just want to see her."

"No."

"Please."

He shakes his head and I know it's final.

He takes me back to that stupid house and I pace. He doesn't leave.

I hand him the brochure and he doesn't even flinch.

He makes a call in the other room and then we go. We don't talk. I stare out the passenger window for two hours, watching the blurred trees. At some point it starts to rain.

It rains and it rains and it rains. He pulls into a lot that's nearly empty. It's the middle of the night.

"Do you want me to go in with you?"

I get out of his car and force myself to look at him. "No."

He tosses me his umbrella even though I already have water dripping down my face. I use it.

"You can do this," he tells me. I swear the storm gets louder. "I know you can do this." He is convinced of things that might be impossible.

I turn away from the car and I don't even think about looking back.

A crow walks across the path. Drenched from the storm, its feathers stick together making it look deranged. I swear to God it stares at me.

I shake the umbrella out and I walk through the door.

This is rehab.

Because I have a daughter. And Bella named her Willow.

-HL-

A/N:

hi.

To Susan, Kim and Peri. You're important.