A month passed and Jay felt so unnerved that he hadn't even tried looking for her. Another month passed by and every effort Jay made to find Erin failed. Finally, a third month passed by and he dug himself into a booze-filled hole and couldn't crawl out of it. By then, Voight was taking care of the kids and Jay spent every night in a bar and every morning hungover at work. He'd gotten so bad one time that he wasn't allowed to come into work for a week.
Halfway through the fourth month she was gone, he'd went over to Voight's, having already had a few more than too many beers.
"Voight," he started, "I wanna see my kids," his words slurred together.
"Are you drunk?" Voight questioned.
"No, I mean not really," Jay lied.
"How many?"
"I lost count after 4, but really, I'm fine," Jay grabbed onto the porch railing, trying to keep himself standing stable.
"Well, you drank too many then, Jay. You've gotta clean yourself up for these kids, you've gotta get better. If she comes back and finds you like this, you know she won't want to be with you. If she comes back and sees you like this, she might just leave again. Clean yourself up, and then you can see your kids," Voight stated as he started shutting the door. Just before he closed it, he added a few more words, "They need at least one parent."
"Voight!" Jay shouted at the closed door. "Let me see them, god damn it! They are my kids!" Jay yelled. He knew he shouldn't drive anywhere like this, even though he'd drove to Voight house, so he walked home. When he entered the apartment, he started throwing stuff around. He did this almost daily. And every time he did, he'd pick it up only to do it again that night.
Picture frames were broken previous to that night and anything that was breakable would be broken. Jay flung chairs across the room, punched a few holes in the wall and smashed his foot into his glass coffee table. Shards of glass tore into his leg but he continued to commit destruction. He took his wedding ring off and threw it across the room. The ping sound of it hitting the floor pulled him out of whatever trance he was in and he rushed over to it to pick it up before it was lost.
He sat there, disappointed in himself yet again.
When the doorbell rang, he ran over to the door and flung it open, hoping it was Erin.
"Jay," Kate frowned as she saw the room behind him. "Jay, you've gotta stop this. You've gotta get help," Kate pulled him into a hug.
"I miss her, Kate. I miss her. Why did she leave? I just, it hurts to be here. It hurts to live. It hurts to think. It just hurts everywhere."
"I'm sure that leg hurts too," Kate joked. "Let me call Will. We will get you some help, I promise."
A few minutes later, Will had arrived with his first aid kit. He removed the shards of glass in Jay's leg and bandaged him up. He then started picking up the broken surroundings in the room.
"Jay, you've gotta stop this."
"I know, Will. I know," Jay cried.
"Don't cry, man. Don't cry," Will knelt down by him.
Kate grabbed his hand and held it for a while.
Eventually that night, they convinced Jay to surrender all of his alcohol and to put a tracker app on his phone so whenever he went to a bar they'd be notified. They also put a notification setting on his debit card to notify them whenever anything alcohol related was bought.
~~~
More months went by, and Kota was nearly 32 months old and Lyn was 20 months old. Erin had been gone for 10 months. She had missed Kota turn 2 and Lyn turn 1. She had missed important dates, and when that happened, Jay gave up. He gave up looking for her, because if she was gonna come home, she'd have done it when they had a birthday, but she didn't. So he decided to stop looking for her and to have patience and faith. He hadn't given up one her, but he'd given up on looking for her.
