* * *
I was awakened by loud thumping and cursing. I grabbed my phone from the nightstand, shocked that I’d slept so long. Grant had holed himself up in his office for several hours, leaving me to stew in my uncertainty about the future. To mitigate the racing thoughts, I took a sleep aid, hoping it’d put me on my ass for a few hours, and by the time I woke up, we could revisit the issue, and he could tell me how he felt.
I sat up in bed and watched Grant make trips back and forth to the closet with an armful of my clothes. The bedroom smelled like alcohol, and if it wasn’t clear that he was hammered, his stumbling into the walls and bumping into the closet’s doorjamb was a dead-ass giveaway.
“What are you doing, Grant?” I asked, clearing the sleep from my voice.
“Packing your fucking shit,” he said, slurring his words. “Y-you’re a fucking liar and a baby killer.”
Fair enough.
“Okay… what else?” I said, inviting him to get it off his chest. His words stung like a motherfucker, but he wasn’t telling me anything I hadn’t already told myself a million times.
“You’re the biggest piece of shit I know.”
I can’t argue with him there.
He threw the clothes with the hangers still attached into an open suitcase on the bed.
“Then you have thefuckingnerves to turn this shit on me.”
“G…Mimi and Papa had to stay with you for a few weeks because you were inconsolable when our family dog died, and you turned into an alcoholic when they died. Yeah, a part of me thought you wouldn’t take the news very well and would spiral,” I said softly. “You’re not to blame.”
“Fuck you, Kiyah!” he yelled, shoving the suitcase off the bed. My heart thumped in my chest when he rounded the foot of the bed. I’d never witnessed him so visibly angry before. Hishair was skewed in every direction from hours of raking his fingers through it and yanking at the roots. His face was red and splotchy from rage and alcohol, and the feral look in his eyes activated alarm bells inside me. “Do you know why I’m a fucking alcoholic? It’s you!” he yelled. “You’re the fucking reason! You made vows, and you fucking ghosted me like I didn’t mean shit to you! You’re a toxic, spoiled bitch who wrecks everything you touch. Nothing is fucking safe from you! Not me, not our kid—you’re a fucking plague, Kiyah.”
“Okay… what else?” I asked, voice cracking from his hateful words.
“What else?” he asked, sounding completely flabbergasted. He chuckled ruefully, pulling out a fifth of vodka from his pocket. He took a healthy swig before addressing me again. “You want more, Kiyah?”
“I want you to get everything off your chest,” I replied, fondling the pendant around my neck.
“Fine. The necklace you love from your dead dad wasn’t from him.” I froze. “Dad gave it to Mom when he was simping over her. It was supposed to be a touching memento or some bullshit. She rejected his gift and told him to give it to you instead.”
“You’re lying—you’re drunk and confused.”
“We already established between us that you’re the liar.”
“How would you even know something like that?”
“If you shut your mouth and listen long enough, you’d be shocked at what you might learn.”
He’s lying. He just wants to hurt me.
“I don’t understand why you’re like this. I don’t understand how you can grow up with so much privilege and love and end up being this soulless individual. And more than that, I don’t understand how I fell for it for all these years. You and Mom must come from a long line of witches—”
“Nope,” I said, cutting him off with a shake of my head. “You’re not doing this. I won’t allow you to disrespectourmother like this because your mother decided to check out.”
I rolled out the opposite side of the bed, putting distance between us because if we came to blows, there would be no turning back.
Grant snorted. “Check out. Sure.”
I was confused by his skepticism because we all knew his mother had swallowed a bottle of pills because Dad moved on.
“Grant, you’re upset and have every right to be, but your anger needs to remain on me. You’re trying to hurt me by bringing up Rory and disrespecting my mother. You know I don’t play about my mother. I’m a piece of shit, I’m a plague—sure, I’ll take that. But leave my mother out of this. She loves you like she birthed you herself, and you know that.”
For a moment, his features softened, and I felt I was getting through the drunken haze until he started sobbing.
“I want you out of my life, Ki. Y-y-you’ve hurt me for the last fucking time. Do you hear me?”