I tried to think of a rebuttal, but my mind was consumed with what Bobby would think when I didn't show up. Would he leave me? Would he think I chose Rory over him? If he left, would I get the chance to tell him I didn't? Or would he break his promise and vanish again?
I was certain of nothing, except for the fact that Rory was in a state unlike anything I had ever seen. Despite the drinking and the arguments, I had never feared him. I had known him almost my whole life, and for most of those years, he was a stable person. He grew up in a good home with loving parents. I never thought he could become the man in front of me. But on this day, under these circumstances, cornered like a frightened animal, something dark came out of him.
He was scared. He would never admit it, but I could see the terror in the way his hands trembled as he lifted the glass to his lips. As he mumbled to himself, and sometimes to me, how “we were going to get through this,” reciting his plan over and over.
I had no choice but to go with his plan or pray Bobby would come and save me from my captivity. But Bobby promised me he wouldn't force me. That he wanted me to make this decision with a clear head. I had to come to him to tell him I was ready to leave it all behind.
At 11:55, my hope of making it to Bobby in time had died. Rory had slowed his drinking pace, not because he was moderating his drunkenness, but because I think he was on the verge of being sick. So when he could not distract himself with drink, he brought the record player upstairs for entertainment.
Rory begged me to dance with him. I agreed, thinking this would calm his nerves and keep his hands occupied with something other than a glass of liquor.
And like some sick, twisted joke that confirmed to me that god did exist and he was cruel—the record he grabbed was something I didn't even know we owned.
I recognized the melody right away. It was a different arrangement, a little quicker and peppier, the voice a little higher in the throat; more old-fashioned.
“What's this?” I asked through a clenched throat as Rory pulled me in to dance.
“Uh, Ruth...” he glanced back to the record sleeve and almost lost his balance. “...Et—ting. Ma and Pa used to play her all the time,” he added, his face droopy from the copious amounts of alcohol he had ingested.
Rory tried to lead, but his feet kept tangling into mine, and his body rocked haphazardly like a boat docked in a storm.
“Let's just go slow,” I suggested, pulling him in close and resting my head on his shoulder.
I listened to the words of the song. The story of who I had become. I rocked side to side with Rory as I looked at the clock on the nightstand, the second hand rapidly approaching the twelve.
The chime of the grandfather clock that had become white noise during this time of turmoil, rose back to the surface. Taunting me as it always did. This was the inevitable. This was the countdown I had always known was imminent.
The last time I heard this song, sung by Billie Holiday, the words were bittersweet. A love note. A little boy watched his parents dance and thought of a little girl. He didn't know yet what that meant, but on a warm summer night, they swam in the lake under the moon and they understood. One day he left the little girl, now a woman, taking all the good parts of her when he left. But he was back. And so, she was back.
Now, the song was an elegy. The sad story of a girl who loved the wrong boy. Of a boy who tried to run away to make things better, but instead left with best pieces of that girl. So that every time she looked in the mirror she saw skin, and hair, and eyes and lips. But she didn't see herself.
Tick. Tock.
The second hand pointed to the 12, and I buried my face deeper onto Rory's chest to mask the tears, bracing for the feeling of loss like a grenade had been dropped onto what was left of my soul.
Bobby thought I had chosen Rory again.
And if he left again, there would be no putting me back together.
For hours, I held in the tears. The words. The anger. The betrayal. Bobby didn't come to my door. He didn't demand to know why I didn't come. He kept his word that he would leave if I didn't show. And I sat on the bed, my head pulsating with pain, next to a frightened, drunken man determined to self-destruct. I was haunted by a dead friend (if I could still call her that), and a future that was as barren as a tundra.
Bobby could make me feel limitless and swollen with love. But with that same love, he could steal all of my hope and joy. He could make me whole, but with that power he could turn around and leave me in misshapen fragments. Fragments so warped and destroyed that no one else could figure how to put me back together; not myself, not his brother. That's what happened the first time around. Rory did try. But he couldn't fix what Bobby had demolished. No one could.
Rory played record after record, as I sat in a state of numbness. I was growing tired, but still determined to stay awake in this passive standoff with Rory. And so, I found myself in a trance-like state. Staring into nothingness, back to the hell of hollowness, as Rory's raspy, drunk voice sang along to song after song to keep himself awake.
That is until the popping and crackling of the end of a record broke my fog. Rory's slurred voice wasn't crooning in the background. I looked over at him to see if he was going to address the record and saw what, only to me, looked like a shred of hope: Rory sunken into his chair, the bottle of whiskey barely perched on his fingers, the neck of the bottle supported on the floor, dripping the last drops onto the carpet.
I opened my lips and moved them, but only a broken gust of air escaped my throat. I tried again.
“Rory?”
A snore. The most beautiful, glorious sound I had heard all day. The numbness was overtaken by a surge of adrenaline. I was so close to being free, but I knew what it was like to taste freedom, only to immediately become shackled. I slowly slid my legs to the floor and tiptoed out the room. Rory's snoring picked up and I let out a hushed sigh of relief in the hallway. The house undulated as I leaned against the bannister and hurried down the steps, which proved to be more difficult that I had anticipated.
I ran to the kitchen. The keys. Where were the keys? The last I remembered, they were in his pocket when he wrestled me for the phone.
“Come on. Come on . . .” I coached myself as I searched each drawer. Then I remembered, I could hear jingling when Rory was moving around in his clothes before he showered. But I hadn't heard that jingling in hours. They were in his pocket in the heap on the floor. I would have to go back up there.
I filled with dread as I realized I would need to risk going back to the place of my captivity to gain my freedom. But the freedom I was seeking wasn't just outside the door. I needed to get to that motel. That's all I cared about. I had fixated on the idea that Bobby might still be there. I didn't want to run to a neighbor, who might call the police, and hold me up further. Every second was precious.
I steeled myself with a lungful of air and tiptoed back up the stairs. No matter how light I was on my feet, the stairs creaked, forcing me to go even slower and add to the tension. Rory's snores could be heard from the hallway, which gave me a slight assurance. He only snored when he was very drunk. Still, I knew that once I could be in his sights, if he woke up, I would have lost the one shot I had.
I made my way into the room, holding my breath as I knelt down in front of the heap of muddy, wet clothes. Rory shifted in his seat and I clenched my eyes shut, preparing for his outburst. But the symphony of his snores resumed. My shoulders dropped in relief when I realized he was still asleep. I pulled his pants out of the pile, and slipped my hand into an empty pocket. Maybe I had imagined the jingling. Maybe the keys were on his person. Then I slid my hand into the other pocket and felt the cold, jagged metal.