“It’s two years of sobriety in the toilet.” I look up to see Danny weaving unsteadily toward me across the carpet, wine bottle still in hand. “I know how hard you’ve worked to stay sober, and you threw it all away the second I failed to be the perfect girl you want me to be.”
Danny scowls. “I know you’re not perfect. I just wanted you to try.”
“I am trying,” I say, laughing through my tears. “I’m trying so hard!”
“Doesn’t seem like it,” he says, lifting his wine bottle. “And if you’re not trying, why should I?”
“Because you’re better than this.” I wave my hand up and down his body as he tips back the bottle for another drink and stumbles. “Because you’re not dealing with the shit I’ve been dealing with.”
“Which is what?” he shouts, his voice loud enough to make me jump. “You still haven’t told me shit. You’ve barely talked to me for months, for fuck’s sake. I thought you were going to break up with me, Samantha. Do you have any idea how horrible that felt? To be thousands of miles away and feel you slipping away from me and not have any fucking way to get you back?”
“I don’t care,” I shout between the sobs gripping my chest. “I don’t care! Get the fuck over it! There are bigger problems in the world than the way you—”
My words end in a startled squeal as Danny hurls the wine bottle across the room. It shatters into two heavy pieces against the wall, and the remaining wine splatters across the white paint before rolling down the wall like blood from a wound.
“Fuck you,” he says, voice shaking with anger as he spins to face me. “There is no bigger problem in my world, because you are my world, you selfish bitch.”
I suck in a shocked breath as I back away from him, stumbling across the room until my feet hit the wall. It feels like he’s slapped me.
Danny has never called me names. Never.
We rarely fight, and when we do, raised voices are the extent of it. We don’t call each other names, we don’t say the words we know will hurt the most. When someone has trusted you enough to hand over every tool you would need to tear them apart, you honor that trust by never getting anywhere near those tools.
But it seems Danny’s decided he’s done playing nice.
“Ever since we were kids, your problems have always been the important problems,” he says, the words emerging in a low, menacing tone that raises the hair on the back of my neck. “Your parents’ divorce, your drama with the new stepmom, your issues with your mom flaking and all the new boyfriends. And I listened and listened and tried to make you feel better.”
A hard smile creaks across his face as he moves slowly toward me. “Meanwhile, my alcoholic piece of shit father died. And I hated him, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t fucking torn up and scared, too. And then my sister’s boyfriend came back from the fucking dead and I had to move to a new country and learn a new language and it felt like forever before I made friends. I was so lonely, and scared our new life was going to fall apart all over again, but you never asked about that.”
He stops in front of me, close enough that I can smell the sour, fermented smell rising from his skin. “Sam’s problems have always been the most important problems.”
He lifts his arms, bracing his hands on the wall on either side of my face. “But for some reason I never thought you were selfish until tonight. Why is that?”
I swallow, fighting the urge to duck under his arm and run. He’s drunk, but he’s still Danny, and I can see that he wants a real answer.
“Because you love me,” I finally whisper.
He nods, and his eyes begin to shine. “I do. But it’s more than that.” He stares down at me for a long moment, while my heart continues to pound. “I guess deep down I didn’t feel worthy, you know. It was fine for my shit to come second because I was just some ghetto runt who didn’t deserve you.”
“Danny, I never—”
“But that girl from your school deserves justice,” he pushes on, words slurring worse than they were before. “She deserves the best of you and you’re giving her shit. It’s more than selfishness, Sam. It’s criminal. Is that you want to be? A criminal?”
A hysterical laugh burbles up from somewhere inside me. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Right, right,” he drawls, eyes sliding closed as he swallows hard. “You know everything. You always know…”
He turns and lurches toward the bed, barely making it to the edge of the mattress before he collapses back onto the rumpled sheets.
“Sam always knows,” he mutters to the ceiling as his eyes drift close. “And I know…shit.”
I wait, watching his body for some sign of life. A few seconds later, he pulls in a breath that emerges as a soft snore.
He’s passed out. It’s over…for now.
My knees collapse. I slide down the wall to sit on the carpet, my thoughts racing. Danny’s words hurt, but he’s right.
What I’m doing is criminal. I can’t drag him down with me, and that’s what will happen if I stay. He might wake up tomorrow, regret drinking too much, and apologize for the things he said. We might find our footing and be okay for a while, but it will only be a matter of time before we stumble and fall again. Danny’s always been my rock, but apparently he’s only able to be that rock when he’s with someone worthy of his fierce devotion. I’ve tumbled off my pedestal and what used to work for us doesn’t anymore.
I never asked to be put on a pedestal—God knows I’m not perfect—but for Danny, I will try to climb back up there. I can’t destroy anyone else, especially not the person I love most in the world. I wouldn’t have gone back to L.A. for Deidre’s family or Alec. I wouldn’t have sat in that courtroom to maintain ties with my parents, salvage what’s left of my old life, or try to bring a scrap of justice to an unjust world. I don’t believe in justice anymore, but I believe in Danny.
So there’s only one choice I can make.
I gather my things, write Danny the hardest letter I’ve ever written, and all too soon I’m ready to go. I stand at the foot of the bed for a few minutes, watching him sleep, memorizing the way the light from the bathroom plays across his handsome face and his big hands look childlike curled in sleep.
Finally, I lean down and kiss his forehead softly.
“I love you,” I whisper, my heart feeling like it’s crumbling to ash inside my chest. “I’m sorry.”
I don’t know what I’m apologizing for exactly—dragging him thousands of miles from home only to leave him, or the selfish thirteen year old I was that year I complained about my own problems while his entire world was turned upside down—I only know that I wish so much that things could be different. I wish I could spare him the pain that’s coming, but that pain is the only thing that can convince him I’m still the girl he loves.
Maybe, after it’s all over, we’ll be able to find our way back to each other, but as I cross the room and let myself out into the sharp winter air, I can’t help feeling like this is the last time I’ll ever see Danny Cooney.