Kindred Souls

Chapter 7

     Summer wound down before I knew it, and unfortunately I had been so caught up with work that I barely saw Tom at all. Blink-182 had embarked on a voyage to Europe to play their late summer and early fall leg of their massive world tour. With the time differences, some of those upwards of 12 hours, we had barely spoken at all. Every now and then he would Facetime me, but the time zones were so all over the place that it was usually after a show late at night for him. Those calls usually came through in the morning or early afternoon while I was at work. I appreciated my job for being pretty lenient about being able to take personal phone calls on the clock, but it still stung. Tom had been on top of texting me as much as he could with his busy tour schedule, and I made sure to tell him that I was grateful for his efforts.

     Being clingy was a problem in past relationships for me, and I had worked hard through my 20's to stomp out that part of my personality. However, it was hard, especially when I was dating someone who was famous and very good-looking. I would be lying if I said that Tom's thirst trap pictures that he loved to post didn't bother me at least a little bit and cause me to want to backslide to a part of me that should have been long gone. Drinking when I felt lonely was another thing that I had worked hard to get rid of during that time as well, though sometimes it became tempting, especially when the winter drew near. When I drank with Tom, I had an excuse and a confidant to spend the time with. I had been doing a pretty good job at keeping both of those issues at bay, though, mostly throughout the week while I was busy. The weekends, however, often were a different story, as I spent most of my time sitting around waiting for a text or a phone call. The Padres hopes at a playoff run were squashed that particular season, and with baseball season over and Tom out of the country for a month, alcohol became an enticing prize to fill the space that was left by my other half gone and my family across the country.

     One Friday night, I found myself at the local liquor store perusing their local market section, but my eyes were glossed over and my brain was overwhelmed by the endless selection of booze. Usually, I stuck to the same booze when I drank because I hated change, but I didn't feel like backsliding into drinking the hard stuff again. I fought with my thoughts as they conversed amongst themselves on whether I should even consider picking up alcohol again while I was alone, but I ended up convincing myself that a few drinks wouldn't hurt. I grabbed a 12-pack of green apple flavored Smirnoff, paid the cashier for my therapy of flavored ethanol and water, threw it in the passenger's seat of my Soul, and drove the few miles back to my house.

     Snapping off the jagged thin metal lid on the glass bottle, I grabbed my laptop and sat down, Angels and Airwaves playing over the speakers of my flat-screen TV. If Tom couldn't be there in person then having his art playing throughout my apartment was a nice substitute. I grabbed my iPhone out of my pocket and checked my home screen for any messages, sighing and chucking it onto the cushion next to me when I realized that I had nothing to look at. I took one long swig from the cold bottle and stared at the lyrics for 'Letters to God, Part 2' as they flashed across my screen. I pulled up social media and started scouring for pictures from the shows the band was playing over in Europe, a pang of sadness when I saw that Tom looked like he was having the time of his life across the pond. I took another drink and reprimanded my brain for wanting to think like that, reminding myself that space to do activities separately was extremely healthy and important in relationships.

     I pulled up a story I was working on for a client and stared blankly at the Word document in front of me, scrolling between the pages and rereading them to myself. After some time had passed of pondering what I should add to further the story, my phone buzzed and startled me. The bottles had began to pile up on my coffee table and I checked the time on the corner of my computer screen. 2:15 a.m.