“I’m never going to be right for you, Raine,” I argued. “I’m never going to be the guy who brings you flowers and remembers our fucking anniversary or buys you just the right gift for Christmas. I’ve seen too much shit I’m not going to get over. You deserve better than that, a lot better, and I can’t give it to you because I’m a fucked up drunk.”
I couldn’t look at her. I just couldn’t. Even when I felt her fingertips starting the familiar trail from my temple, around my ear, and down to the end of my chin, I couldn’t turn and face her. It took every last ounce of control I had just to keep my hand from shaking around the shot glass.
“I don’t want anyone but you.” Raine’s voice climbed up in pitch, and I could hear the tears in her tone. “You once told me that you would fight any motherfucker who tried to take me from you. Well, there’s someone trying to take me from you right now, and he’s in that glass in front of you. You told me you would fight, Bastian. Did you mean it?”
The liquid sloshed in the glass with the vibrations of my fingers, and I couldn’t make it stop.
“How many times have you berated yourself for hitting me?” Raine suddenly asked, her fingers trailing down across my shoulder and eventually wrapping around my forearm. My throat tightened, and my heart clenched. She had told me to stop bringing it up, and for the most part I had. It didn’t keep me from thinking about it, especially when I thought about how much better she could do without me. I was a little pissed she was using it against me now after all the times I had tried to use it against myself. It didn’t make any fucking sense, but that didn’t stop me from feeling pissed about it.
“I told you to stop talking about it because it didn’t matter anymore,” Raine said. “You aren’t that person anymore, Bastian. I meant that. I wouldn’t be with someone like that. I couldn’t be with someone who I thought would hit me again.”
“I love you,” Raine said softly, her hand still on my arm, “but when you drink, you become someone else. I can’t be with that man, Bastian. I won’t be. If this is what you really want…well, then I’m going to go now.”
I felt her hand drop, and I heard her footsteps as she walked away from me and towards the exit.
I closed my eyes, and for a moment I felt as if my whole life literally flashed in front of me. So fucking cliché, but that’s what happened. Everything I could remember – all the times I had been tossed out, unwanted, unloved…and I had moved on anyway. I remembered every time I hit someone out of anger, frustration, hatred – either of myself or the person I hit – it didn’t matter. I remembered all of it. I remembered that fucker in the group home and the look on his face when he’d finished with Theresa – the same look he had when I was charged with assault. I remembered the street fights, and I remembered the first time I killed someone in a tournament. Then I remembered the second time. And the third. I remembered all of them. I remembered the gut-wrenching feeling when I realized Jillian was gone with my child. I remembered opening up a bottle of Jack afterwards and downing the whole fucking thing in a night. I had done the same the next night. And the next.
I remembered everything Landon had said to me.
If you aren’t up for this, just say the word and I’ll end you right now.
You have no idea what you could do, and your self-pitying nature means you’ll probably never actualize any of it beyond staying alive in the tournaments.
You don’t have to live like that, Bastian, but if anything’s ever going to change, you’re going to have to let someone inside again someday.
Get up, you son-of-a-bitch! You aren’t hurt that bad! Fucking GET UP!
I remembered the sixteen people who were herded together and tortured to death for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I remembered the first nightmare and the trial. I remembered looking for a bottle of Jack and only finding vodka in the cabinet. It knocked me out cold for the whole night. I remembered everything that had happened. I remembered all the reasons I took to the bottle. I drank to forget it all. I drank to make it all go away. I drank because I thought I was a worthless piece of shit – unwanted, unneeded, and unloved.
With Raine, I felt different.
Raine wanted me. Raine needed me. Raine loved me. She loved me.
I opened my eyes and saw first the glass of clear, unassuming liquid posed right before my lips. Then I saw the bartender over the rim, looking at me quizzically and waiting for me to make a move. His eyes flickered over towards the door where he could probably still see Raine on her way out. On her way out of the bar, away from me and out of my life.