The big glass doors whooshed open, and a blast of air shook him. It was frigid outside, the conditions harsh and brutal. Any sensible human being was hunkering down and keeping warm.
He had snow tires and he could go slow, and did it really matter if he careened out of control and didn’t make it?
Had he had that thought? Fuck. Ty was right, and he was fucked up and he wasn’t even trying.
He had no idea how to start trying.
“Michael? Michael, you should come inside. It’s freezing out here, and you don’t have a coat on.”
How long had he been standing there stuck between the hard reality of the world outside and the warmth behind him? He turned and Trina stood in the doorway, holding her sweater around her body. She shivered but didn’t move back into the warmth of the building.
A strong wind swept by, threatening to knock him back, the cold slamming over his skin.
“Please come inside,” Trina implored. “I can’t go back without you.”
He didn’t understand why. He hadn’t been kind to her. He hadn’t called or checked to make sure she was okay. He hadn’t cared if she was okay, and suddenly that seemed like such a crime.
How stubborn was he going to be? Was he going to let them both freeze because he wasn’t willing to let go?
We can’t fix you.
Ty’s words whispered along his brain. He hadn’t said them unkindly. They’d been a spoken truth, one that had been between them the whole time.
They couldn’t fix him.
He was worried he couldn’t be fixed. He hadn’t even bothered to ask the question. Did he want to be fixed?
He stepped back into the lobby and the doors closed behind him, locking out the frigid wind, though the cold had settled into his bones.
“Come over here.” Trina gestured to one of the many seating spaces across the big, homey lobby. She seemed to have settled in front of the big fireplace, looking out of the floor-to-ceiling glass windows. It was a cozy place to sit and read and enjoy the warmth while watching the beauty of the winter storm. Sanctuary. “I ordered a pot of tea. They brought two cups. I don’t think they realized I was alone. Come on. It’ll warm you up.”
He should walk away. He should get back on the elevator and do what he’d intended to do, but when she sat down, he found himself sitting across from her, allowing her to pour him tea. He sat back in the comfort of the sofa, allowing the glow from the fireplace to start to dispel the chill in his bones.
“It’s Earl Grey. I gave up coffee a while back,” she said quietly as she offered him the mug. No delicate teacups for the Elk Creek Lodge. “Right around the time I gave up alcohol and all the other stuff.”
“You didn’t drink much. Not that I remember.” His voice sounded weird to him. Like he’d forgotten how to talk in the brief time since he’d walked away from Ty. Like any conversation was surreal.
She smiled, but it was a tight expression. “Well, I made up for it. In the last two years I drank enough and did enough drugs to put me in a hospital. You don’t know you’ve hit rock bottom until you wake up in a hospital and your dad is on his knees begging God not to take another daughter. My mom had to be sedated. I gave her a nervous breakdown.”
“God didn’t…” He had to stop that.
“He knows,” she replied, picking up her own mug. “My dad, that is. He knows Jessie did it to herself, but he finds comfort in religion, and I don’t see the harm in it. He wants to believe there’s a higher power who has enough grace to forgive us so we don’t spend an eternity being punished. The point is I now indulge in tea because I can’t do that to them. No matter how much my addict brain wants to.”
“I have a hard time seeing you as an addict.”
“Me, too. But I spiraled after Tommy left me. I felt like I’d lost everything, like Jessie cost me the rest of my life with her selfish choices. I took some pills one night at a club and I felt good for the first time in months. And then I chased that feeling until it almost killed me. Now I wonder if I would have ever unleashed that beast had Jessie not died. I worry it would have come up at some point down the line. Some tragedy would have happened, and I wouldn’t have known how to handle it. It’s funny. I’ve figured out that the result of having an awesome, pain-free childhood is an adult who doesn’t understand how to really process pain. I’m not saying I wish I’d had a tragic childhood. I’m simply recognizing that I wasn’t ready for this, and it’s hard to acknowledge that my grief caused my parents more pain.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Trina.” He couldn’t imagine the sweet, happy young woman he’d known turning to drugs and alcohol. She’d been a bright light to Jessie’s sometimes darkness.
“I’m glad to know you didn’t end up like me,” she said. “I worried about it. I thought you might find the bottom of a bottle and not come out of it. That’s good.”
“No. I found something else to get addicted to.” He’d stayed in Bliss because he hadn’t been able to face going home. He’d bought the place on the mountain because he’d convinced himself that what he’d needed was time alone. “My rage.”
Her eyes widened, and she set down her mug. “I was angry with her, too.”
She didn’t understand. “I was…am angry with me.”
“Why?”
He couldn’t seem to make anyone understand. “I should have known who she was. I should have seen it. I asked her to marry me. I was ready to spend my life with her, have children with her, and all along she was someone completely different.”
Trina leaned in, her skin warmed by the glow of the fire. “But she wasn’t. I mean I never thought she could turn her back on her badge like that, but she wasn’t merely one moment in time, Michael. You’re viewing her whole life through that one incident, and I think that’s where you’re missing the point.”
“I would love for you to tell me the point.”
She stiffened, and he realized those words had come out harsh. They’d been yet another accusation, a way to put up walls so he didn’t have to be vulnerable again. Like the way he’d leapt on any slight possibility that the sweetest woman he’d ever met could have killed someone.
“I’m sorry.” He softened his tone and leaned in. “I really would love for you to tell me the point because I can’t find one. I meant what I said. I’ve been addicted to my anger. I’ve let it lead me, let it make all my choices. I don’t know how to let go of it.”
She was quiet for a moment. “Is it still anger? I was angry in the beginning, but I think it was because it was easier to be mad than to mourn.”
“I shouldn’t have to mourn.”
Her face softened, and she reached out to him, holding her palm up. “None of us should, but you have to mourn or you can’t heal. Even if what you mourn is the love you gave her, you have to see that nothing she did invalidated how you felt. You loved her. You have to mourn the life you could have had. Even if it wasn’t real. It was real to you. My life with her was real to me. The rest of the world can shrug and say she deserved it, but we have to acknowledge that she’s gone and it affects us. It makes us sad. It leaves a hole. Anger has a place, but so does our sorrow.”