You learn to make it through.

Day by day. Cigarette after cigarette. Drink after drink.

It helps that she keeps her distance. It helps that your sister makes it a point that you do the same.

You barely ever see her anymore and it burns a hole through your chest but you wonder that maybe, maybe it was all for the best.

You were always so completely consumed by each other.

Maybe that wasn't how it was supposed to be like.

Maybe that isn't what love is supposed to be like. Maybe.

You start to accept your reality. Form a new one. You don't frequent gloomy bars anymore, you try not to look for her in every woman you meet.

You try.

At least, you try.

And then the morning after Christmas, your mother dies.

In her sleep. In your childhood home. All by herself. All alone.

Everything in New York is a blur for you. Your grieving sisters. Their myriad of children. The casseroles and the hugs. The conversations and the service.

You barely feel any of it. You barely feel anything at all.

They tell you that she lived a long life, a good life. That she was loved. Implicitly. Extensively. They tell you that she was in a better place now.

They tell you a lot of things. But all you can think about is how she was all alone. All alone in the home she made for you.

Alone. Afraid.

Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone.

You go through the proceedings as much as you can. You smoke relentlessly. Your youngest sister prevents you from consuming any alcohol. You hate her a little for it.

She arrives for the service. With her husband, and your children.

Your daughter cries in your arms, your son prefers the company of his step-father. You don't even have the energy to summon your usual anger.

Halfway through it, you leave. You can't. It's too much. It was all too much. You need a cigarette. Or a pack, really. You make your way to your childhood bedroom and rummage in your stuff. You can't find it, you can't find anything. Your hands shake, your breathing gets ragged. You don't know, don't know what's happening. So you slide down to the floor, head between your legs.

And then she's there.

You would recognise her anywhere, in any way.

She puts a gentle hand on your shoulder and, you fall apart.

You sob in her arms until you can barely breathe. Until you barely feel like a person anymore.

She holds you, she stays and you hate her for it. And you love her so much that every cell in your body hurts.

She stays until you stop crying. And then she stays for a little while longer. With you in her arms.

But you know that she will leave.

She always does.

Everyone tends to do that with you.

You stay in New York for a while. You spend your days wandering the streets, looking for old haunts and new bars.

You drink so much that you often forget your name. You like that so you do it again. The days you manage to stumble back to your house, you cry in your bed. The days you don't, you pass out in unfamiliar places.

Your sisters are concerned but they move on. Everyone does. Everyone has to.

Except, it seems like, you.

You. You who refuse to move. Who stay. Who suffer. You. All alone. Always so alone.

Your ex-wife visits. The one you loved but, just not enough.

You spend the day together talking about the city. The time you spent here. The time you didn't. The time after the city.

Your best friend. The woman you love. The man she did.

Your children and hers. Your failed marriage and hers.

You realise then, how easy it was. To be with her. To love her.

And ironically, how easy it was to let her go.

How completely unlike the love you shared with her. How much simpler.

A part of you wants to blame the drinks when you reach for her but the truth is that you just want to feel, feel anything but the incessant loneliness.

Years later, you will be grateful for the way she pushed you away, for the way she laughed at you, for the way she continued to be your friend.

But in that moment, you will just be profoundly lonely.

At the end of the night, she books herself a cab to her hotel and books you one to your house.

You get off two turns earlier and choose to walk back. It's too cold and your thin jacket hardly provides any protection but you stay, stay in the snow.

It's so silent you can hear your heart beating and for a second, just for a second, you let yourself wonder what it would be like to lie down in that endless, quiet white snow.

Lie down until you don't feel the gaping void in your stomach. Until you don't feel so empty.

You close your eyes and almost, almost follow through but then, a stupid, solitary car honks you out of your reverie.

You curse at the man and walk away.

You cry yourself to sleep yet again.

You can't really help yourself anymore.

You go back eventually but you don't tell anyone.

You stay holed up in your apartment. You hardly eat and drink excessively. You only go out to get more alcohol and more cigarettes.

Your practice calls you repeatedly, you pretend to be in New York until your partner threatens to fire you.

You don't care. About him. About your job. About anyone.

You're lying on the floor of your apartment when you realise how much you hate it there. How much you hate apartments. You've always hated them. You hated them in Manhattan and you fiercely irrevocably hate them now.

You remember the house you once built. For her. For you. But mostly, only for her. Because of her. She was the beginning. She was always the beginning.

You had the house razed and sold the land but around your neck on a thin silver chain is the key to the house you'd once filled with all of your dreams. And all your hopes.

After every single one of your dirty, illicit meetings she would fall asleep with her arm around you, her fingers clutching the key round your neck.

You remember how that gave you hope. Hope that someday, somewhere you could build her a house again. Hope that you could find your home again.

Hope.

How ridiculously funny it is the way our brains hold onto hope.

And honestly, how very pathetic.

But hope, hope wasn't something that held you down anymore.

Your sister finds out about your lies and comes barging into your home. You don't pay her much heed. She yells, she threatens, she reminds you of your responsibilities. To your children. To your profession.

It doesn't matter. You failed as a father long ago. You've failed your patients far too many times.

You just ask her to leave. You yell, you scream. You make fake promises. Just so she would be gone.

She does ultimately with the promise that you would return to work in two days. You don't plan on it but you agree, nonetheless.

Nothing changes in the next two days.

When your sister visits this time, you don't open the door.

You can hear her sniffle, you know you've hurt her. You've always hurt her so much. You failed as a brother, too, years ago.

You sigh, you cry with her but you don't let her in.

When you finally do get out of the house, it's because of her.

She texts you, asking about if you were back, wanting to know if you'd come over for dinner. There was something your son needed to speak to you about.

It's four days after your sister leaves, heartbroken. You don't remember three out of those four days. Your memory a blank slate.

You sober up. You have to see your children. You have to be a father. A father irrespective of your mistakes.

You unconsciously wear her favourite shirt, the one she returned the day she ended your affair. You regret the choice but you're already in your car and you're already late.

Your hands shake with the need for some form of intoxication, for some way to numb it all. But you can't, can't be that horrible to your children so you breathe and drive to her place.

Not much has changed in this house since the year you met her. Since the days you spent curled up against her, adamant that what you shared wasn't love.

The dinner goes uneventful. She avoids your eyes, you make it a point not to glance her way. The tension is palpable but you try and breathe your way through it.

There are conversations about school, about surgeries, you don't quite participate, your brain finds it hard to focus. Your hands yearn for a cold glass of whiskey.

You understand that it has maybe become a problem. You understand.

But you also don't do anything about it.

Your son calls out to you and you manage a smile. And then he's talking animatedly, excitedly. This time the smile that makes it way on your face isn't forced.

You haven't been on the other side of this exuberance in a long long time. You've missed it. You've missed him.

And then your brain yanks you back into your reality. He's talking about hockey. About he had aced the try-outs. How he was exceptional. How his step-father had been helping him practice.

Hockey? Last time you checked, your son loved baseball.

You don't understand. He had been practising. He had been selected. He hadn't told you a thing.

There's underlying shame there, you realise but the irreparable betrayal that you feel is so much more.

He wants to know if he can join the team. Wants you to say that's it's okay.

You know he's already joined. You know it, because you would have done the same thing.

And he is your son, after all.

You want to tell him about hockey, about you and your team, about your best friend who you'd forced into playing with the pretence of impressing senior girls. About a boy you'd hurt, about guilt, about the unwavering, incessant guilt you lived with.

You want to tell him about fear, and how you were terrified of him ever having to carry that same burden, that same pain.

But all that comes out is the jealous, dark, frustrating anger.

"No. No, you won't join the team.", you find yourself saying.

You see the sparkle go out of his eyes. The eyes he shared with you. The sparkle he shared with her. You know, you know you've broken something forever. But it's too late now. You can't stop yourself.

"But, Dad I-"

"I said no, end of conversation."

You never speak to your children like that. You see the betrayal in his eyes, you see the confusion in your daughter's and you see the inevitable disappointment in hers.

Your son doesn't speak for a while.

"I hate you. I wish you weren't my dad."

He doesn't yell. He doesn't scream. He whispers and leaves. You watch him walk away, tears streaming down his face and you wish, you wish that you could drown it all in your bottle.

Your daughter follows him, so does her husband.

You're left alone in the room with her.

There's nothing left to say.

There's the familiar, stifling pressure in your chest, the walls are caving in.

You've messed up. You've messed up beyond measure this time.

You don't know what to do. Just don't know.

You can feel your breathing get shallow, you chest getting heavier.

You decide to leave then, before you break down, before you could make any amends.

You manage to get your car a few hundred metres away from the house before you have to stop and cry. Stop and break down.

Nothing matters anymore. Nothing matters anymore. It's too late. Too late for everything.

Your body craves alcohol, craves the transient amnesia it brings with it. You want to forget everything. For ever, if you could. You want to forget yourself, if you could.

You buy three bottles of whiskey and two packs of cigarettes.

You smoke one pack while you're driving. You drink one bottle while you're driving.

The road is empty, you're glad for it. You couldn't bear to hurt another being.

What you're doing is wrong, you know that but you don't seem to care too much anymore.

And somehow, you find yourself at Elliot Bay.

The place you'd almost lost her, years ago. The place you'd almost lost everything, years ago. You can still feel her freezing, cold body in your arms. You can still feel the way her heart stopped beating.

You remember being furious, so frustrated and so very miserable. You didn't understand. It didn't make any sense to you. Didn't make any sense to you when she said that she had been swimming, she had been, but just just for one second, she chose to stop.

But, as you look at into the dark, bottomless water, the second bottle half empty, the cigarette burning in your hand, perhaps for the first time in your life, you understand.

A/N: so there you go, the next part! Hope you like it, please let me know what you think!

And dont worry dont worry, Derek will figure it out. Hopefully haha.

Thanks for reading and reviewing!