It's Never Just Goodbye // Ed Sheeran

Put Your Faith In My Stomach

Ed

Easy baby maybe I'm a liar, but for tonight I wanna fall in love, and put your faith in my stomach – Ed Sheeran

She called me once as I was just going into the corner store. A second time as I was grabbing my first beer off the shelf. The calls kept coming, too. She was persistent. But I didn’t care. I was being reckless and hopeless. In need of drinks. In need of a way to forget.

I wanted something to make the guilt disappear.

Another beer and another phone call. The clock rolled past six, the sun just rising, as I sat on the concrete in the front of the liquor station. With a cigarette lit in one hand and a beer in the other, I had to say I was calming down.

Hours passed as I remained in front of the store. Every time I finished off a drink, I’d go in and buy another one. When my pack was smoked, I’d head in and get another. People passed by me in one blurry rush.

Calls were constant. Voicemails left. I never answered, but I didn’t shut my phone off either. I’m not sure what I was looking for exactly. Attention? Did I want Nina to worry? My head was in the clouds from the drink. If I did answer, I wouldn’t be able to make sense out of leaving.

I had my eyes set on the pub across the street. Waiting for the guy to show up and open the doors. I was buying time drinking on the sidewalk while I waited. Wasting my money. My time. My life. Everything connected in my mind; my new relationship, my career, Alice…all of that was gone. Vanished to another dimension and I couldn’t grasp the thought of what my life was at the moment. Where I stood relationship wise. Everything a jumble of shit.

“I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” The clerk nudged his foot in my side. “As much as I love your business-“

I shook my head, pushed myself up, and brushed the back of my jeans off. My head was swirling, the ground spinning below my feet. I had these feeling that if I tried to walk, I’d trip and fall on my face. The clerk patted me on the shoulder and left me to deal with my own problem. The bell ringing above the door making the feeling of being drunk even crazier as the sound hit my ears.

It had been a while since I was this trashed from only a few bottles a beer. The only thought that coursed through my mind was, “How the hell am I going to cross the street?”

I had been worse, I guess. To the point where I couldn’t even stand up. All I needed was to move my feet until I was positive I was all the way there. When I was smashed, it was easy. I didn’t wobble or fall. Yet, I couldn’t even see ten feet in front of me. It felt like I was on a merry-go-round that was spinning way too fast.

“Need any help?” someone passing by asked. I shook my head no, kicking the empty glass bottle lightly with my foot. “I’m good.” I slurred. And I had to be because I had to get over that bar and get another drink into my system before my brain exploded.

When I’m drunk, my thoughts either completely vanish or I’m stuck with the same repeated ones.  It was the same thing in my brain. A worried Nina with a phone pressed to her ear. A pregnant Alice screaming at me. Guilt.

Without much thought and little remembrance of how I ended up here, I fell through the doors of the pub. Empty, except for an old man at the bar, I collapsed into a booth in the back. I rested my head on the cool surface of the table, my arms over my pounding head.

“Ed?” I hear someone say. Squinting, I look up slowly. I thought it was going to be Nina. Instead, it was an old friend. Charlotte. “What’s up?”