I wasn’t a strong person. I was muscular, and I knew a lot of shit about how to survive, but when you got right down to it, I was weak. I was weak, and on some level, I drank because I wanted to die and was too fucking pig-headed to just end myself. I was going to let the alcohol do it for me. That had always been in the back of my mind. Eventually – either through the violence that ensued, the stupidity that followed, liver failure or a fucking overdose – the drink would kill me. I had wanted to die.
Was I different now? Did Raine make me different? With her I had something I had kept at bay for so long, too afraid of being left again to let anyone get close enough to hurt me. With Raine I had another chance – a chance at love, and even more so – a chance at life. With her I could have a real life, without the constant threat of pain. I’d lived through a lot of shit. I’d survived abandonment, betrayal, endless violence, and the elements, but could I survive Raine? Could I live with her, in her world like a regular person? Was I strong enough to do that?
No, I wasn’t. I was fucking weak.
She deserved better, and this would be a quick and easy way to end it all.
My fingers tightened reflexively around the shot glass, and my arm moved ever so slightly closer to my mouth. I wanted it. I wanted it so fucking bad. It would take less than a second to drink it, and then I could forget everything again. I could go back to the way it was before I had even met her.
I stared at the shot glass, precariously balanced between my fingers with the clear liquid sloshing slightly from one side to the other, a mere half inch from my lips. Vodka – sweet, evil vodka.
Just one.
My head turned, and I looked over my shoulder at Raine’s retreating form. My gut lurched, my jaw clenched, and shooting pain radiated from the center of my chest. I looked back at the glass in my shaking fingers, and slowly lowered it back onto the surface of the bar. When I looked at it, there was want. There was need. There was a shitload of fucking desire. I was drawn to it as if it was calling my name sweetly and offering to suck my dick. I fucking wanted it bad. It felt like I needed it more than any other substance in the world.
But I could live without it.
There was something – someone – I couldn’t live without, though, and she was walking away.
“‘If you call forth what is in you, it will save you. If you do not call forth what is in you, it will destroy you,’” I whispered aloud. I pushed the glass away with my fingertips, rose off of the bar stool, and turned around to follow her.
I didn’t want to drink.
I wanted to live.
I guess I was going to survive Raine after all.
The End
Epilogue – Gaze
Landon
Over the rim of my champagne flute, I watched my former student tap his fingers against the table where he sat and glanced rapidly between the bar a few feet away on his right and the slender woman standing a few feet away on his left. She was with a large group of people, including a local reporter with matching photographer, and seemed to blush with every other question posed to her. My student looked down at the table and shook his head a little, like the motion could purge the thoughts from his head. There was a glass between his hands obviously containing water.
Glancing at the woman, I wondered how much she knew. Would he have told her about his past? If so, how much had he revealed? If she knew too much, well, that was going to be a problem. It was one thing to send him off on his own with John Paul to watch over him, but something completely different for him to rejoin society with a woman on his arm. Just having him out of the bottle was a risk, and he was clearly sober.
I took a half step backwards, further concealing myself behind a large ficus tree, right before he looked up. His eyes took in the room – automatically sizing up every individual as a potential threat. He was out of practice, no doubt, since this was the first time he had looked at anyone other than the woman and the bartender in seven minutes. I’d taught him better than that. The entire populace of the party could have switched in that amount of time. He’d become complacent and lazy, obviously. No wonder he ended up on a barely adequate raft instead of one of the life boats with radio equipment. It was a wonder he didn’t end up dead on the open sea. No, that wasn’t true. That part didn’t surprise me at all – he was always resourceful, and when he put some actual effort into something, he was nearly unstoppable.