Page 164 of We Drank the Dawn

“I promise I’m good. I just got…got a little…” My voice lost the battle, tears bitterly rising to my throat. Suddenly angry, I growled in frustration. “I don’t want to cry again—sorry.” I took a gulp of air. “All I’ve done the whole damn week is cry. And I’m sick of it.”

A dense quiet settled over us as steam curled into the atmosphere, skimming off the top of our coffee mugs. The heavy silence was awkward, different from our bubbling, tentative excitement last night. There was a lot of ground to cover, and I suddenly felt so weary.

Then Peter’s hand slipped around the back of my shoulder, applying just enough pressure to break me. His voice was soft. “Why have you been crying all week?”

Forcing the words out hurt the tendons in my neck. “There’s so many reasons. I don’t even know where to start.”

“Just start with one.”

“Fine—I cut my hair,” I blurted. “Tonya told me to get a pixie cut and I listened to her.”

“Okay. Keep going.”

“My dad was hospitalized with alcoholic hepatitis a couple weeks ago.” I played with my hands in my lap.

“I had no idea. Is he alright?”

“No.” I shook my head. “His alcoholism is killing him. Of course, Mom doesn’t want to admit the truth to herself because she’s been enabling him for so long. He’s out of the hospital now, but it won’t be long before he’s back.”

“Did you see them?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I sat with them for a while. Seeing Mom was awful like always.”

If anyone understood how I felt about my mom, it was Peter. I didn’t have to explain. After I was quiet for a moment, he prodded me. “What else, Sarah?”

“I’m tired. I’ve been working way too much and not taking care of myself just like Mom. I’ve lost weight and my clothes don’t fit right but I can’t make myself sit down and rest or eat like a normal human because there’s something wrong with me, I guess.

“And I started shopping with Instacart.” I snorted at how ridiculous it sounded. “I hate it. The people are rude and I run orders late at night because it means…it means I don’t have to be at home.”

His voice tightened too. “Why don’t you want to be at home?”

“Because I feel so guilty.” My voice cracked.

He sounded genuinely surprised. “Guilty?”

I swallowed, losing my fight against my tears. “I—I slapped you.”

His eyes softened with knowing.

“There’s no excuses.” I heaved a breath. “I cannot even tell you how every part of that slap—the way it sounded, how your face looked afterward, the way my hand stung—has haunted me. It was so—hateful and I haven’t been able to sit alone with myself ever since. I’m sorry, Peter—I’m so sorry.”

“Sarah—”

But I wasn’t done. “Then I filed for a divorce. It was the wrong thing to do. I dipped into our savings for something I never truly wanted.”

“You never wanted a divorce?”

I shook my head. “No, Peter. I already emailed my attorney and told her to cancel everything. But in the moment, it felt like the right thing to do. Like the next step to take.” Tears bubbled out of me. “I saw my mom, and she looked so bad. And my Dad never takes care of her—I don’t think he even loves her. And sitting there while she looked through me like I didn’t exist was so upsetting. And I started feeling like that with you, and I was so worried I’d turn into her.”

A light frown rested on Peter’s brow as he struggled to keep up with my train of thought.

“And then Tonya said I was just like mom—obsessed with a man to the point that I lost myself. I got so scared that I called an attorney the next morning. But then I met this client who takes care of her husband who has Parkinson’s disease and we talked about being selfless in love…then I got your voicemails…”

“Wait.” His eyes brightened. “You got my voicemails?”

“All of them. I listened to them all.”

“What? When?”