This Is Not the End

by Sidney Bell

  Zac strides toward the sliding glass door and Cal’s feet follow without his permission. They step out onto the back porch. A pair of Adirondack chairs overlook the yard, the pond, and the barbecue pit, but neither of them sit.

  Instead, Cal goes to the edge of the porch and leans against the baluster. The columns come up to the hip, fat and spindled, the handrail sturdy enough to lean against, but Cal doesn’t. He feels kind of sick. The day is warm and bright, not quite beach weather. It’s September now, not that it makes much of a difference to the weather here in LA. Back home the change would already be obvious—trees beginning to yellow, the light turning crisp, the air taking on the distinct earthy smell he’ll always associate with autumn. He has a pang of homesickness, instantly followed by a stronger pang of relief that he’s not there. Unpleasant as this conversation is likely to be, he’d still rather stay here with Zac than go anywhere else.

  “About last night,” Cal starts.

  “So you broke a bottle of tequila,” Zac interrupts, and Cal supposes the cat has been out of the bag this whole time after all.

  “Yeah.” Cal grins weakly. “Could use some help cleaning that up later. Please. If you wouldn’t mind.”

  Zac looks at him, then scoffs. “Yeah. Fine. Whatever. I can’t believe you.”

  Cal sucks in a breath. “If it’s asking too much—”

  “Too much? Fuck, man, how about asking me for anything?”

  Cal doesn’t understand. It must be on his face, because Zac shakes his head and paces away. He folds his fingers together and braces them on the top of his head like a runner with a stitch in his side. The minute stretches, silent and thick, and then Zac turns and points at him. “You have a problem.”

  “I know. You think I’d be breaking bottles if I—”

  “I don’t mean a drinking problem. I mean a you problem, a Cal problem. You can’t fucking—Jesus, you’re such a pain in my—”

  “I do have a drinking problem. I’m an alcoholic, Zac.”

  Zac’s expression twists. Cal’s already flinching internally when Zac says, “You really do think I’m a moron, don’t you? ‘I’m an alcoholic,’ he says. No shit you’re an alcoholic. You think I didn’t notice when you quit drinking? Why do you think I moved in with you for those three weeks and watched the whole Friday the 13th series with you so many times? I was keeping an eye on you while you detoxed.”

  “Is that what that was? I thought you were just... I don’t know. On a horror movie kick.”

  “Yeah I can’t get enough of the masterpiece that is Jason Takes Manhattan. I watched it six times in three weeks because it’s a hallmark of great cinema. Why have champagne while the ball drops when you can watch a guy in a hockey mask kill idiots on a boat?”

  “Well, I didn’t know. Why didn’t you say? You never mentioned—”

  “Because talking about serious shit is something you find relaxing even when you’re not sick as a dog? What kind of asshole do you think I am? I’m not going to read you the riot act while you’re puking on my shoes. Fuck.”

  Zac has a point there. “Sorry.”

  “And then you were doing mostly okay, and I don’t care if we don’t have booze on the bus or in the green rooms on tour, so what was there to talk about? Your head almost exploded when you had to do that apology thing for AA, so it seemed better to leave it alone. It never occurred to me that your stupid ass would think it meant that I hadn’t noticed.”

  “All right, that was a little dumb,” Cal admits with what dignity he can scrape together. It would be easier if he didn’t have a cartoon of a fuzzy blue puppet stuck to his face.

  “A little? How the hell do you think I could’ve possibly missed you sweating and shaking and running to the bathroom every five minutes during that movie binge? A couple of times I thought I was gonna have to haul your ass to the ER. How the fuck could you think I wouldn’t notice?”

  “In my defense, I was in withdrawal. I might not have noticed if aliens beamed into my living room.”

  “You sitting there with those purple bruises under your eyes from breaking your nose in that car accident—you think I didn’t put together that you got behind the wheel of a car so fucking lit that you couldn’t see straight? You think that didn’t scare the shit out of me?”

  “I didn’t—”

  “It sounds like a fucked-up standard to say this, but Jesus, you got lucky. You got so lucky. You could’ve killed someone. You could’ve died. You handled everything about that wrong, you dick.”

  “I know.” He still has nightmares about the accident sometimes, wakes up hot with shame and terror. He doesn’t know what prompted him to go see his sister at three in the morning on Christmas. He does know that he drove his car directly through her big bay window, lodging the Camry in her living room in a shower of glass and beams and drywall. Thank God it was the middle of the night and everyone was snug in their beds upstairs. Thank God the kids weren’t having a sleepover camped out in front of the television to watch Rudolph or something. Thank God the only person hurt by his stupidity was himself. Him and the Christmas tree, as well as the presents beneath it.

  June went with him to the hospital while Cal’s parents and brother-in-law spent the rest of the night moving the kids to a hotel and trying to make the house stable until a contractor could come. The doctors set his nose and diagnosed him with a concussion and a hairline orbital fracture and let him sleep it off for half of Christmas morning on a gurney in the hallway, an unsympathetic nurse shaking him awake from time to time to check on him, June in a plastic chair nearby each time he blearily opened his eyes. He walked out with a half-dozen pamphlets about AA and support systems and the knowledge that if he didn’t quit drinking this time, he really was going to kill someone.

  After, in the hospital parking lot, June told him she wanted two hundred thousand dollars to pay for the repairs to her home, and she stood there and watched as he used his phone to transfer the money. Then she called him a cab and said she never wanted to see him again.

  He gave her a cool million, although he didn’t remember until he checked his bank account a few days later. He didn’t mind. It was—very literally—the least he could do.

  “You don’t even remember me picking you up at the airport, do you?” Zac asks.

  Cal shakes his head. The cab driver at the hospital asked him for a destination and Cal remembers thinking that he couldn’t bear to face his parents, remembers thinking that he had to get to LA, had to get home, had to have a safe space to detox or the whole thing would be a failure before it even started.

  Well, if he’s honest, it was at least as much about getting to Zac. He was craving the presence of someone who didn’t think he was shit. He wasn’t sure he could get sober without at least one person who wouldn’t choke on the words I’ll help you.

  Cal had a handful of shots in the airport bar before boarding so he wouldn’t go into withdrawal on the plane. Maybe more than he needed, though, because Zac’s right, he doesn’t remember landing or getting home. He always assumed that he took a cab, and he lacked the energy to second-guess it after the fact. He was too busy replaying the accident over and over in his head, reminding himself of all the reasons he had to beat it this time.

  “That was a fun conversation I had with your mom,” Zac tells him. “Thanks for that. She woke me up at six in the morning screeching in my ear about how I had to find you because you were sick and needed help. Not sure how you forgot me pulling over on the 405 to let you puke on the side of the highway, but then, I’m pretty sure you were trashed when you got off the plane. Great idea, by the way, drinking with a concussion.” He shakes his head, disgusted. “You should’ve been in the hospital. It gives me chills, thinking about how stupid it was to try to detox you at home. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I kept looking shit up on the internet, and everything said you should have a doctor with you
, but you kept saying you felt fine. You’re an awful liar, by the way.”

  “I didn’t want the paparazzi to find out.” Cal eyes the stone wall at the edge of the property. He likes that wall a lot. He wishes he had a wall at his place instead of a fence. Maybe he’d feel less like there were so many eyes on him. “The last thing I needed was a lot of media attention.”

  “Coming back to LA was a risky move if you wanted privacy. You would’ve been better off in Nebraska.”

  “I kind of burned my bridges there.”

  “Oh.” Zac seems momentarily at a loss. “Is that why you stopped going home for the holidays?”

  Cal nods.

  “Was that your decision or theirs?” Zac’s voice picks up an edge, a shrewd one that doesn’t exactly fit him.

  “I didn’t wait for them to ask.” Cal rubs at a knot of wood on the railing with his thumb. “I could tell they—I called a few days after Christmas to explain that I was getting sober, but my mom didn’t—I don’t blame her for not believing me, it wasn’t the first time I’d said that, and when I called her again later to do the Ninth Step thing, it didn’t go real well. June wouldn’t accept my call, and I don’t blame her, I don’t blame either of them, it’s on me, that whole thing was on me, but... I don’t know. The idea of being there and knowing they all wished I wasn’t... I didn’t think that kind of stress was going to help me avoid crawling into a bottle, you know?”

  “Sorry, pal,” Zac says quietly.

  “I’m the one who should be sorry. My behavior was unforgivable.”

  Zac groans, all of his agitation abruptly flooding back into him. “Here we go.”

  “Hey, no, it was. I really put you through hell. I owe you an apology.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “And thank you. For taking care of me. For the support. I should’ve said it before, apparently.” He feels so embarrassed. “Zac, I’m so sorry. I really fucked up.”

  “Cue the self-loathing and overthinking and angst.” Zac flings his hands up. “I’m not telling you all of this to make you feel like shit. I’m not your family. I’m a fuckup too, remember? One of the perks of being friends with another fuckup is that they’ve been there and they understand and they forgive you. I’m telling you so you’ll believe me when I say that I can be pissed off at you and still want you here. I knew you were an alcoholic when I signed up for serious, you ass. I don’t fucking like you right now, but that’s because you’re stupid and stubborn and you didn’t spend the night, not because you puked on me eight years ago. You still can’t talk about anything real for shit and you still make me do all the work—”

  “You do all the work?”

  “Yes!” Zac’s voice cuts sharp through the afternoon. He glances at the house with a guilty flinch, then subsides into a furious whisper. “I tell you everything. I don’t have any damn secrets from you. You think that doesn’t count as work?”

  “Apart from the secret where you and Anya have sex with other people, you mean,” Cal says conversationally.

  Zac ignores that part, of course. “The fact that you made it through a car wreck and detoxing and eight years of AA without realizing that I knew you were an alcoholic is the problem. You’re so...you’re so locked up. You can say you’re going to a meeting or something, fuckface. Just stop freezing me out and bailing, it’s driving me nuts.”

  “I was scared! This—this whole thing...” Cal gestures between the two of them and then to the house to mean Anya. “It’s so much bigger and more complicated than anything I’ve ever done, and it scares me. And being scared makes me want to drink. And that scares me more. All right? Is that enough? Do I have your permission to make mistakes now?”

  Zac laughs, something bitter and judgmental. “I’m not the one who holds grudges about your mistakes.”

  “Anya doesn’t.”

  Zac rolls his eyes so hard they almost fall out of his head. “And I’m the one who’s stupid.”

  “You’re not stupid.”

  “I could punch you. I really could. You cut me slack all the time. Jesus, the excuses you make for me. You’ve done like five irresponsible things in the whole time I’ve known you, and yeah, they were doozies, but the rest of the time you’ve been a fucking oak, man, you took me in when I had no place else to go, I wouldn’t have a career if it wasn’t for you, you’ve been solid for eight years without a hiccup, not that you’d know based on the way you talk about yourself.”

  “You said I scared the shit out of you.”

  “My kid scares the shit out of me every time he tries to stick things in his mouth that don’t belong there. Fear is part of loving someone.”

  “I drove a car into my sister’s house—”

  “Which would explain why your sister hates your guts. But you only have to apologize to me about the shit you’ve done to me. And Jesus, Cal, it was eight years ago. All of this was eight years ago. I forgave you back then. When are you going to let yourself off the hook?”

  “I thought you were mad at me for taking off last night! Isn’t the point that I’m supposed to be on the hook?”

  “You’re on the hook for bailing and not letting us in, not for being an alcoholic!”

  “I’m sorry. Okay? I’m sorry. I’ll do better.”

  “If you say you’re sorry one more time, I’m gonna lose my shit.” But Zac takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly. He sounds calmer when he continues. “Christ. Can you—I just—Fuck, let me in a little. Foot in the door, that’s all I’m asking. Don’t you know I’ll say yes if you ask for help?”

  “I know you’ll help.” Cal didn’t doubt it for second.

  Zac searches his face, sharp-eyed and a little mean before subsiding. “Well, that’s something, at least.”

  “So you didn’t tell Anya anything last night?”

  “What’s to tell? Until five minutes ago, I thought this was old news. I thought you were pulling the same bullshit you did two weeks ago where you freaked out and couldn’t say what your problem was.” He breaks off, eyes Cal warily. “Are you drinking again?”

  “No.”

  “Then why is there a broken bottle of tequila on your floor?”

  “I have a routine.” Cal can’t think of good words to explain. “I get up and I go for a run and I eat, and then I have this—this thing I do. I pour a glass of tequila and force myself to stare at it for three minutes before I pour it down the drain. I have a special shot glass. Take it on tour and everything. It’s risky. Tracy—my sponsor—she says I’m an idiot. Maybe she’s right. I don’t know. But even if the fact that I’m an addict is something outside of my control, my sobriety isn’t, and the routine reminds me of that. I’ve done it for five years, every day for five years, and I couldn’t stay over and sleep in today because I had to do it.”

  Zac’s squinting a little, like he’s trying to remember a morning in the last five years when they’d met up early. Cal already knows he won’t find anything. The routine is sacrosanct.

  “I had to do it, but this morning I couldn’t. I was close, Zac. God, that’s the closest I’ve been since the first year I quit. I—I broke the bottle instead of drinking, but it was so close. I’ve been feeling the strain for weeks now, and I didn’t want to take the chance that messing up my routine would be the thing that tipped me over. I had to go home.”

  “You couldn’t have said this last night?”

  Cal grimaced. “I can barely say it now.”

  Zac sighs and turns to stare out over the yard. “Okay. Fine. But you’re staying tonight.”

  Cal groans. “Zac—I thought you understood—”

  “You can do your routine here, you know.” Zac flaps a hand in the air, brushing away Cal’s protest. “We’re serious, remember? This is what it’s like to be serious. You can stare at your stupid tequila here, and that way if you freak out, we can help.”

&n
bsp; Cal’s hand moves of its own accord, finding Zac’s biceps and hanging on. Zac reaches up and presses his fingers to the back of Cal’s hand, holding him in place. The touch seems to burn right through his skin, and Cal’s heart stumbles in his chest.

  Zac stares out at the yard. “We can go to the liquor store after we hit your place. What are we buying, anyway?”

  Cal pulls his hand back, clearing his throat. “Herradura Selección Suprema.”

  “You’re pouring two-hundred-dollar tequila down the drain, you fucking psycho?” Zac yells. “Why don’t you buy some five-dollar shit or something?”

  “The whole point is to remind myself that I’m strong enough to resist temptation. No one in their right mind is tempted by dirt-cheap tequila,” Cal points out, and he might laugh at Zac’s outrage on any other day, but this topic is really not helping. “Can we go back to talking about me fucking up? This isn’t...”

  “Sure, yeah. Sorry.”

  “It’s fine.”

  Zac’s quiet for a moment. “We should go clean it up now, shouldn’t we? The longer it sits, the harder it’s going to be to get the smell out.”

  “Yeah. Probably.” Cal hesitates. “What are you going to tell Anya?”

  “Nothing. You’re going to tell her yourself. When we get back.”

  Cal’s gut clenches.

  * * *

  Cal waits outside in the car while Zac cleans up the mess. It takes a good hour, during which time Cal plays on his phone and tries to avoid going nuts.

  Zac finally walks out with a trash bag in one hand that he drops in the big Rubbermaid can at the end of Cal’s driveway. “Come take a look.” He jerks a thumb toward the house. “Make sure I got everything.”

  Cal braces himself in the entryway, but the house reeks of lemon cleanser, not tequila. The cabinet doors—driftwood-gray—are damp, but there’s no sign of a stain. The broom’s leaning against the fridge, the yellow fronds dust-bunny free and clean. Zac even washed the dustpan that he’d used to sweep up the wet glass. The shot glass has been either hidden or trashed. Cal doesn’t feel up to asking which it is.