Everything You Are(32)

The checker scans his purchases like an automaton. She looks weary, dark circles under her eyes, and Braden wonders what her story is. He dredges up a smile for her, tells her thank you. She glances up at that, briefly, and he wishes he’d left well enough alone. There’s a deadness to her, a hopelessness, that makes him wonder how many bottles she’s got stashed away.

Maybe she needs an adventure.

The thought comes with a flash of Phee’s face, the light in her eyes, her smile. Right. The Angels meeting is this afternoon, and he has not even thought about an adventure. Well, no doubt this woman needs something good in her life, but he’s not the guy who can give it to her.

He picks up his grocery bags, distributing the weight for the long walk home. Almost done. Almost there. His eyes betray him, straying from the straight and narrow, skimming over the bottles of Washington wines and seeking the whiskey.

Keep on moving, Braden. There’s nothing to see here.

His feet slow, then detour. A man can look, as long as he doesn’t touch. He’s just browsing. But he can taste it now, can almost feel the reprieve it offers. A smoothing of his rough edges, a numbing of his raw nerves, a space to forget his memories and his guilt.

Again, he thinks of Phee, remembers the Adventure Angels contract, but it all seems distant now, a small blip on his consciousness compared to the whiskey that has always been there for him. It won’t hurt to pick up a bottle, just to hold it.

It doesn’t hurt at all.

When he walks out of the store five minutes later, his bags are heavier by the weight of one bottle of whiskey. It’s just a security bottle, in case the pain gets overwhelming. He’ll put it away somewhere and not touch it until Allie turns eighteen. He doesn’t have to drink it.

What’s six months?

All the way home, he tells himself this fairy tale, almost laughing at the way he believes his own bullshit. Denial is his superpower. He should wear a cape with a giant D on it, standing for Denial Man, or maybe just Dumb Fuck.

His denial dissolves before he’s halfway home. Who is he kidding? Of course he’s going to drink. What Allie doesn’t know won’t hurt her. He’ll ration it out, make it last. This time will be different. Other people can drink and be functional, why can’t he? His steps quicken in anticipation of that first swallow, always so much more amazing after a period of dryness.

But when he reaches the house, there’s a teenager sitting on the porch.

She could be pretty, if it weren’t for the distraction of the nose ring, the eyebrow rings, the harshness of the black eyeliner that fades the impact of her brown eyes. She was at the funeral, glued to Allie’s side.

They stare at each other in silence, and he’s aware she’s making judgments about his appearance just as surely as he is about hers.

“I don’t think we’ve met,” he says.

“I’m Allie’s friend. Steph. Her best friend.”

“And what can I do for you, Allie’s best friend Steph?”

He wonders, if she’s Allie’s best friend, why isn’t she with Allie? He doesn’t ask. He wants her to go away, let him escape into the house and settle in with his own best friend.

Steph levels an accusing glare at him. “Where is she? Allie?” The subtext is clear. What have you done with her?

“Excuse me,” Braden says, making a detour around her and putting his key in the lock, his actions belying the politeness of the words. He hopes she’ll take the hint and leave him alone.

But Steph gets up, stretches like a cat, and follows him into the house.

“She’s at school. Where I’m guessing you should be,” he says.

“School’s out. And she wasn’t there.” Steph stops dead at the edge of the amoeba-shaped red stain on the carpet. “Oh my God! Did you kill her?”

She edges backward toward the door, her fingers fumbling with her phone, her eyes wide and alarmed.

“Hey, hold up. It’s a wine stain. Cabernet. Turning Leaf, I believe. You can ask Allie.”

He sets the grocery bags on the counter. The whiskey makes a satisfying little thump. He gets out a glass. He’ll drink like a human being instead of a bum. One glass. That’s all. He’ll savor it. Slowly.

“I can’t ask her when I can’t find her.” Steph isn’t entirely convinced, but at least she hasn’t called 911 yet. “I can’t ask her anything. She won’t answer my texts.”

“Have you tried actually calling her? Like, using the phone to talk on?” He pulls the chicken out of the bag, starts to put it in the fridge, but hesitates. Maybe he should start dinner first, before he opens the bottle. That way he can relax, enjoy the drink, feel virtuous over completing his parental duties.

Also, if he’s honest, so he doesn’t forget about dinner if he should decide to have more than one glass.

Steph interrupts his musing. “Yes, I’ve tried calling her. I’ve called. I’ve texted. I’ve Facebooked and Snapchatted. I even e-mailed. This isn’t normal!”

Braden takes a breath, flattens his hands on the counter, thinks longingly of the bottle still in the bag. Alarms are going off all over inside his head. If Allie is shutting out her best friend, too, the problem is bigger than he’d thought.

“I don’t imagine things are normal for her right now,” he says carefully.