“I’d like to have a cup of wine with you”.
The air that day was filled with ominous premonition, but my excitement was greater. I got into the car at one. It was like any other day, except this time we would drink wine in his house. I was nervous, of course, having told my mother we would go out to eat. What if she saw us? Something felt wrong, but at the same time it almost felt right. Dangerous. I felt the thrill, the excitement of the forbidden. So I went along with it.
We drove to the store to buy some wine. The 1L bottle was the same price as the small ones, so we might as well go big. We drove to his house and started drinking. It was a soft red wine, a Merlot. We ordered some junk food to go along with the wine. It was a perfect pairing, even though chicken wings and wine don’t usually go well together. Maybe it was being together that made it feel perfect.
The wine did nothing to us, even after drinking the whole bottle. “Let’s have something else. I want to be tipsy”. I agreed. I wanted to be tipsy too. I love being at that point where everything is fun and light, when you feel the effects of alcohol, but are still in control of yourself. “Let’s go to a movie,” I suggested.
He grabbed the FourLoko handed it to me. It tasted like a thousand different candies melted into one big fizzy drink. “No, thanks”. He shrugged and drank it himself, complaining he hated the taste of it. We bought a beer on the way to get his tastebuds readjusted. I took a sip -mine needed some readjustment too. He drank as he drove, as he always does. I don’t know when the sight of him with one hand on a beer and another on the wheel became normal for me. I wish I had told him to stop when he started doing it.
We got to the movies only to be told the movie we wanted to see was scheduled for tomorrow. “The next showing is at 6:20pm”. 6:20pm… If the movie lasted two hours, that would have meant getting home until around 9pm, way past my curfew. I said no, but he begged. I grabbed my phone and texted my mother. It all rested on her. While we waited we went for a few drinks.
He had two whiskeys, and I had a Long Island Iced Tea. That was enough for me, specially after the wine. Not a drop more! I decided.
“I can’t have any more. I want to go look at books,” I declared.
“Just one more, please. Come on. It’s just one more”.
“You can have it if it’s not whiskey. Then I’ll really know you want it”.
He ordered a glass of rum, and after that we went to the bookstore.
“Where’s the bar?” was the first thing he said to the person who greeted us. That’s a bit rude, I thought.
“Uh… We don’t have a bar. We do serve drinks, though”.
He sat down at a table and ordered a beer. I was still buzzed, so I decided to order a plain old tea. I went to look at books while we waited for our drinks. I could barely think about what I was looking at, much less decide what to read next. Buying a book would have been an irresponsible use of my money, that much I knew. I went over to the table and we drank together. It made me uncomfortable seeing him down more alcohol, but I knew better than to say anything. I knew what he would have said. “It’s just a beer. It barely has alcohol in it”. “My alcohol tolerance is so high, this is barely making me tipsy”. “Come on, don’t be like that”. Or maybe he would have went with “The movie lasts two hours. I’ll sober up by then”. Anyway, I didn’t feel allowed to comment on his drinks, so I drank my tea quietly.
We got into the movie, and I could tell he was drunk by the way he sat so close to me. Then, put his arm around me. “Does it bother you?” It did, a little bit. But I never show any affection, and I was tipsy enough that it didn’t make me feel anxious. “No”. Then he kissed my head, and it was okay.
The movie itself was pretty bad. I like bad movies, specially when you watch them with someone you know really well. That way, you can make fun of the characters together. If I’m alone, I make fun of them in my head, but it’s not as fun. But he got bored. Or anxious. Or mad. Whatever it was, the movie had sent him into a state of desperation that made him leave about 20 minutes before the ending.
“They didn’t let me back in without a ticket,” he texted. “I’ll just wait for you to finish the movie alone”.
The movie was about to end, so I didn’t think too much of it.
“I’m at the bar we were at earlier,” he texted later. I hated that he did that, but I didn’t know how much I would hate him for it after. I went to get him. He still had to drive me home.
The first sign I should have noticed was that he didn’t remember where we parked. It’s one of the little things I always trust him with; I don’t even worry about it, I just know he will remember. But this time he didn’t. It doesn’t matter, I thought. I know where we parked. And so I took him to the car.
“Mia, baby!” he shouted. “I can’t believe I forgot where you were, my girl”.
I almost thought he was going to hug his car before we got in, but he didn’t.
“Can you drive? I’m pretty sober. I can drive,” I asked him.
“No, I’m fine”.
By the time we got to the exit of the parking lot, I knew he wasn’t fine. He had been yelling at everyone who even crossed our paths, didn’t know how to follow the exit signs and could barely put the ticket into the machine.
“Give me the car. I’m driving. You are way too drunk for this”.
“No. I can drive. I’m perfectly capable of driving on my own”.
“No. I know you. You can’t drive like this”.
We argued back and forth a while, but I couldn’t persuade him to give me the car, much less force him to do so. I should have called an Uber right then and there. I should have gone home the safest way I knew how instead of having him drive me, but the thought didn’t even cross my mind. I couldn’t leave him alone.
He started driving and it was obvious from the start that if we didn’t crash on the way, we would be the luckiest people on planet Earth. He swerved into other lanes at random, drove at crazy speeds for no reason, cursed at every other driver like they were in the wrong and not him. I couldn’t take it. I started crying and begging him to stop, to just let me drive.
“I hate you so much!” he shouted. “I don’t give a single fuck about what you want”.
I slapped him. It didn’t hurt him much, but it seemed to get him even angrier.
“I hate you so fucking much you can’t even begin to imagine. I don’t want to listen to a single word you have to say. You don’t know shit. These drivers don’t know shit. I just wish you would shut the fuck up. I’m driving. I’m at the wheel, and that means I’m the one in fucking charge, so you don’t get to tell me what the fuck I should be doing. I’m the only one who gets to decide what the fuck I want to do. I hate you. I despise you”.
“Don’t you care about me even a little bit?”
“No. I don’t feel anything for you except utter hatred”.
I stifled a sob. I knew what he was saying was true, at least deep inside of him. I was shaking from sheer terror, trying to keep from crying and thinking of anything that would calm him down. Or at least make him slow down.
He started turning on streets at random, sometimes even against the right of passage.
“Do you even know where you’re going?”
“No. But I don’t give a shit. I get to say where we’re going. And we’re going this way!”
I didn’t know what to say. Everything I said made him feel angrier and drive faster. I kept quiet for a while, and as I saw him I thought about how he did this every weekend with his friends. This was fun for him. This was what got him through the week, what made him feel special every single time he did it. It was putting his life in danger for a few moments of… of not being anxious? Of not worrying about every single little thing? Maybe it was something else, but I felt pity for him. I stroked his arm.
“Don’t do that”.
“Don’t do that,” he repeated letting out a sob. He was on the verge of tears.
“Don’t do that,” he said it again, but the more he said it the more I did it because for the first time I got through to him. It felt like playing mind games with a toddler. He didn’t want to be told what to do or where to go. He wanted someone to love him… I thought I would talk to him like I talked to dogs.
“I love you. Who’s my handsome boy? Who’s my pretty boy? Who is the goodest boy there is? Is it you? I bet it’s you!”
He started crying. “It’s not me,” he sobbed.
“Oh it is you! You’re the goodest boy there is because you drive slowly. You are my handsome boy because we are going to get home safely”.
He held my hand and drove with the other. “Really?”
“Really, really. I love you so so much, my baby. I think you’re the best person there is”.
He drove slowly towards our condominium. Finally, I had some control. I couldn’t let him take me to my house like that. Not in that state. I couldn’t do what I wanted to do for so long in front of my house, so I asked him to stop a few blocks before.
“Good boy, could you be a sweetie pie and stop right here for me?”
“Why?”
“Oh, I just want to tell you something. It’ll be quick, I promise”.
I opened my door and almost didn’t do it, but as he looked at me, the pity for him went away. My heart filled up with anger. I punched him in the nose as hard as I could. It couldn’t have been very hard, but he wears glasses, so I hoped those would do more damage.
“Ouch!”
I stepped out of the car. “What the fuck?”
I started walking towards my house, and he started following me. He passed me and made a U-turn. Finally, he’s going home, I thought. As he went by with his window rolled down, I gave him the middle finger. Fuck you. Fuck you very very much.
Suddenly, he stopped his car and got out. What is he doing? He got into the passenger’s side. Does he want me to drive him home? I could take him home and then bring his car here and park it somewhere. But when I got to him, he looked confused.
“I think I lost my keys”.
A guard approached the vehicle. I explained the situation, and he decided to stay to see to it that the car was removed from the middle of the road. I called his best friend. No answer. I didn’t know who else to call. I didn’t have any more numbers. But he does on his phone.
With the sweetest little voice I could muster I said. “Baby, would you pretty pretty please let me use your phone?”
As soon as he gave it to me I called his mom. She went to pick him up, but another problem arose: who would drive his car home?
“Can you drive?” she asked me.
I got into the car with heels. Just don’t fuck this up. He was in the back seat cursing me out for how I was driving his car.
“What the fuck are you fucking doing? You can’t fucking drive. This is not how you drive. Go faster. Fucking shit. Go faster”.
He reminded me of my father a little bit. If you could do it with him, you can do it this time too. And as I drove on with him berating him the whole way there, I realized that I could really do it. I felt a little bit proud of myself.
When we got to this house, the car wouldn’t start again.
“I hate you so fucking much,” he shouted at me in front of his mother.
“You already told me that. Tell me something I don’t know!” I yelled back.
“Don’t fight with him right now,” his mother said. “He’ll be on his knees tomorrow begging for your forgiveness. How much did he have to drink?”
I didn’t remember. In the anxiety, the whole day became a blur. I said he had wine, whiskey and that I didn’t know what he’d had when he left me in the movie theater.
“I’m just going to go home,” I said. And I walked home in the cold night.
The secret writer 