what now? | outerbanks

• one hundred ten •

Kie

When I get home, I'm not quiet. I know he's sleeping. I know he'll be hungover.
Consequences.
I shut the door behind me and don't bother locking it. There's a mug on the floor, shattered in a sticky mess of drying liquid. I think it's one my mom bought for me.
    It takes self-control to clean it up before continuing to the main act. I grab a broom and sweep up the shards and dust into the trash can, getting on my hands and knees to wipe away the coffee.
    When I finally get to our bedroom, I pause in the doorway to take everything in. There's a towel on the floor, and I can hear the tap dripping into the bathtub. He showered. The lights are on. He's in nothing but his boxers, sprawled across the bed, on top of the messy covers I jumped out of the night before when I was terrified for his life.
I grab a shirt from the closet and throw it at him forcefully. It hits his chest and slides down to his stomach. He jolts awake like he's been shot, arms flying up in defense.
    "What the—?" His voice is thick and wrecked with whatever's still left in his system. He squints, eyes adjusting to the light, and then his face drops. "Kie..."
    "Put it on," I say.
    He takes a few seconds to process before looking down at himself and whispering, "Jesus."
    I flip the lights on aggressively and pace at the foot of the bed, grappling for something to say. I'm at a loss. All I can do is yank the comforter and sheets off the bed and shove them into the laundry basket. I need to wash his stupidity off them.
    "You don't have to attack me," he mutters.
    "What should I do, then?" I snap. "You tell me! What's a reasonable thing for me to do?!"
    He pushes himself upright, shirt half on, half tangled around his arms. He winces.
    "I don't know," he says hoarsely. "Yell, I guess. You're doing a pretty good job already."
    "That's not funny."
    "I know." He drags the shirt the rest of the way over his head and scrubs his hands down his face. "I'm not trying to be funny."
    I stop pacing. My chest is tight and my breathing is shallow. "You scared me, JJ! I thought I was going to get out there and you were going to be—" My voice cracks despite how strong I'm trying to be.
    "What? Be wasted?"
    "Be dead!" I shout. "I thought I was going to find you dead!"
    He looks at the floor. "I didn't want you seeing me like that."
"Like what?" I laugh once, sharp and ugly. "Human? Broken? Because newsflash, JJ, you already are. All of us are. That's not new."
He presses his elbows into his knees, shoulders hunched. "It just... got loud."
I throw my hands up. "There! That. You keep saying that. What does that even mean?"
He sighs, dropping his head in his hands. "I don't know, Kie. I don't know!"
"Make me understand! I want to understand. Why?!"
He flinches at the word why like I've slapped him.
"My head," he starts, then stops, then tries again. "It's like everything stacks up. Stuff I think I'm done with. Stuff I tell myself I've handled. And then all of a sudden it's not quiet anymore."
"So you drink?" I ask incredulously. "That's the solution?"
"No," he snaps back. He immediately calms himself back down. "No. It's not. It's just the fastest one."
I shake my head, tears finally spilling over. "We're married, JJ! This isn't how this is supposed to work!"
He laughs weakly. "That's exactly why I didn't want to tell you."
I stare at him. "I just need you to explain."
He swallows, throat bobbing. "I can't. I just—I just can't carry all of this shit without wrecking everything."
"You already fucking wrecked everything!" I yell. "You've wrecked things worse than ever and I don't know how to fix any of it!"
He goes quiet for a long time. The faucet drips in the bathroom. One... two... three...
"It's my dad," he finally says. Nothing else.
My anger doesn't subside. It sits there, in that same uncomfortable place in my throat it always does. But it changes slightly. It opens its gates just enough that maybe I can start to hear him out.
I sit down on the edge of the bed, closer to him than my pride wants. "What about him?"
"Everything," he whispers. "Nothing. All of it." His hands start shaking, subtle at first, then worse. "I'll be fine for days. I won't even think about him. And then things get too quiet and I sit for too long and it all comes rushing back."
He laughs again, but this time it breaks halfway through. "And then I hear his voice. Or I see myself doing something stupid and reckless and I think—fuck. What if that's all I am too?"
I start crying again.
"I hate him," JJ continues, words tumbling faster now. "And I miss him. And I feel guilty for both. And I hate myself for letting him make me feel this way. I hate that he's dead and he still holds all of this shit over me. I hate that I can't let any of it go."
"I could've helped you," I whisper.
"I didn't want to put that on you," he says. "You didn't sign up to be my therapist. You didn't sign up to carry his shadow too."
"I signed up to be your wife," I say firmly. "That includes the ugly parts."
He finally looks up at me, eyes glassy and red. "I don't know how to let you help without feeling like I'm drowning you."
"That won't drown me," I say, tears slipping down my cheeks. "Last night is the kind of shit that drowns me. Shit where I think I might lose you. That drowns me."
Something in him caves.
His shoulders start shaking, breath hitching hard, like he's trying and failing to keep it together. He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes, but it's useless. The sound that comes out of him is raw and broken.
"I'm so tired," he sobs. "I'm so tired of fighting my own head."
I move without thinking, climbing onto the bed and pulling him into me. He collapses forward, forehead pressing into my chest, fists clutching my shirt like he's afraid I'll disappear.
"I've got you," I murmur, over and over, rocking him gently. "I just need you to talk to me. We can't keep playing this game."
He nods against me. "I know," he chokes. "I know. I just don't know how to do any of this without fucking it up."
"Then we need a plan for when it gets loud."
"A plan?"
"Yes," I say. "Not a bottle. Not disappearing. Not scaring the shit out of everyone who loves you. A real, solid plan."
He sniffs, wiping the tears out of his eyes. "Like what?"
"Like you tell me," I say. "No matter what. You wake me up. You interrupt me. You sit me down. You say, 'Hey, my head's being an asshole,' and we work it out."
    "I just don't want to be him," he whispers.
    "The person you were last night, that was your dad," I say honestly. "But the fact that you're this scared about becoming him is proof that you're not him."
    "I wouldn't be so sure if I were you."
    I lift his head and hold his face in my hands, wiping away tears. "Well, I don't care. I am so sure," I say. "You don't get to isolate yourself anymore."
    "I'll try," he says eventually. "I promise. I'll tell you next time. Before it gets too late."
    I press my forehead to his. "That's all I'm asking."