My Heart Hates Me

Chapter 56 Chemicals Leave

Ethan agreed to everything in silence after that night. He stopped fighting back to her because that would just raise arguments. He slept peacefully after many days. Vivian left that morning before he woke up. She called him during the afternoon.

"The shows are booked! I need to write a new song within three hours! Can you believe it, Ethan? I won't be coming home for a while- The tour!" Vivian complained over the phone.

"Okay"
"But hey, we can always call!"
"Okay"
"Oh! I've gotta hang up now! Eat properly and don't drink! I'll be home soon" She said with a smile. "Okay," He said as he kept the phone aside and looked at the beer bottle in his hand. He got up and threw it in the dustbin.

'If this is what you want...'

Vivian looked at her phone as she travelled in her van. Hans drove the van and looked at her from the rear mirror. "Is something wrong, Vivian?" He asked.
"I feel tired,"
"You didn't sleep well?"
"No, I slept a lot but I don't know. It's nothing" She looked outside the window.

'Are you happy?'

'I couldn't answer that...' She took her notepad and began writing a song. It came out as a really sad one. That wasn't what her album was about. She tore the page and threw it away. Suddenly, she realised-

"My Antabulam!" She said.
"What's that?" Her manager asked.
She laughed "It's nothing"

'I think it's safer at home...'

Ethan fell on his bed and tried to fall asleep. But he couldn't. He would stand on the balcony all night and stare outside. He looked into his phone and found a folder at the corner of his gallery. Those were pictures of him and Vivian from the day they married. He had completely forgotten about it.

"Are you an idiot? We are married now, we're gonna do much more than sharing a room."

"Mom said I can show you my skin since you're my husband"

"Let's have a pillow fight!"
"What are we--12?"
"You can drive Kirito?"
"I will protect you"

He got a lump in his throat and finally closed the folder.

"Hiomi, are you scared of water? Because, when you were drowning, you seemed as if you've gone through that before too"

"I have. I don't how I ended up in those waters. I was actually experiencing death and life together. I still wonder who was that blonde girl. Was it you, Vivian?" He asked himself. Finally, he decided to have one drink. One drink wouldn't hurt. So he drank and slept peacefully. As he developed the tolerance, the number of drinks increased from one to two to three and so on.

He would try to sleep, but he couldn't.
In the end, he stopped trying. He would drink until he lost consciousness. Vivian would call once a while which eventually faded away with her presence in the house.

Things changed. Now, the fridge only had beer cans and soda bottles instead of handmade dishes and watermelon mocktails. His weight began falling. He skipped breakfast, lunch and all he drank was beer. The apartment turned into a mess and he fired the housekeeper. He stopped going to the office and took a medical leave.

He'd sleep during the day and drink during the night. He turned weak, both physically and mentally. He'd get panic attacks where he would break all the crockery or anything that he saw. But their wedding picture was still intact hanging on the walls of that broken house.

Vivian went up and he went down.

"Ethan, you sound drunk. I don't want that," She said and he woke up to realise it was just a dream. He could only meet her in his dreams now. So he decided to stop drinking. He fell sick after that and realised that he had to drink to stay in "okay" health. He lost his appetite, his sleeping patterns changed. He couldn't smile anymore nor could he enjoy any activity.