Ambedo

Thought I'd find her in a bottle

My voice trembles, and I can feel the lump in my throat and the pressure in my chest blocking my breath. Tears roll down my face, I couldn't help it, I can't help it.
I can't breathe, I can still hear her voice inside of my head, I can picture the shine in her eyes, I can picture her mouth pronouncing every single word she wrote in that letter. I can't bear it. I miss her.
I want to run away so badly from this room. In this moment of desperation, with tears running down my face, I try to clean my throat.
"Mom?" I call her from my room. She doesn't answer. She is still in her friend's house. I grab a post-it and a pen.

"Mom, I'll be staying in Mike's house, we have to do a science project. Call me."

I paste it in the dining room, as I know she will see it when she comes home and I just leave. I get out of the house as fast as I can and I go running to a little store that's always open.
"Can you please give me a bottle of tequila" I say as I rush into the store without even saying hello,
"Goodnight sir, El Jimador would be okay?" He questioned being extremely polite despite my rudeness.
"Yes whatever" I answer desperate to run again.
"Okay, that would be $25" He answers trying not to get mad with my attitude.
I hand him the money and run away desperately. With the bottle in one hand and the letter in the other, I run till my last breath for 10 minutes until I reach the old dock in the beach and I just start drinking. All because of that stupid letter and my inability to bare the feelings that just keep coming back to me. I was all alone in this huge old dock, past midnight, with nothing more than the sound of the sea, while drinking from the bottle of El Jimador to drown these fucking feelings that I can't handle.

Why is it so hard to forget her? I keep trying to move on, but it's like every time I try, something that reminds me of her appears in my life, just like that fucking letter. And here I am heartbroken, wondering if things will ever be okay again? I want to convince myself that they will eventually, I really do, but I find it so hard to believe. I open the whisky bottle and take a sip, which leaves a burning sensation in my throat. It's funny how I used to hate alcohol, I was that type of person who wouldn't even drink a beer at parties. But things have changed, I have changed, and since now, agony seems to haunt me almost daily. I don't see any harm in getting drunk once in a while, after all, it is the only way to numb my pain.

Ella, Ella, Ella, when will you get out of my mind? I start remembering the words she wrote in the letter.
"I'm aware of the little big mess I am, and I know it must be hard bearing me" I take a sip of the bottle. She was always so impulsive and reckless. I can't deny she got on my nerves sometimes, but even when I was mad she still managed to lighten up my days.
"And it's weird the feeling of happiness you can get when, for once, you feel that things do make sense when you are with that person." Another sip of tequila. I know exactly what she means, because it is exactly the same feeling she caused on me. The mere fact of having her as a part of my life, made me instantly happier. Suddenly all of my problems, all of my worries would start to vanish, because I didn't care about them. I didn't care about anything as long as I had her. Ella was everything to me; she showed me a different way to see the world. When I was with her it felt like everything else was better, easier and certainly brighter. My life has never been perfect, but at least when I had Ella it was complete. Now I walk around with this feeling of emptiness and loneliness, it's like she left a hole, and I'm not sure if I'll be able to fill it one day. I take two more sips of the bottle, because the thought of that is completely unbearable.
"I don't take words carelessly, every time I look into your eyes and say I love you, I mean it"
Tears start rolling down my face as soon as I read this. This is so fucking hard; I can't deal with this anymore. The memories are killing me, remembering her is killing me. It is so difficult trying to live in the present, when all I want to do is to go back to the past. Many people have told me that it is just a matter of time, that the heart will start healing eventually. But I'm still waiting for that to happen, I'm not feeling better and I know for sure that things aren't getting any easier, they are actually getting harder every time. I live each day with this pain on my chest that just remains there, and doesn't want to go away because every day I miss her more and more. I take a sip.
Because I lost her, and I know can't have her back. One more.
Because I know deep down that things will never be the same without her. I take another sip.
Because I've got to the point, to which every damn thing reminds me of her. And another.
Because I know there isn't anyone in the whole world like her, nobody can replace her. And another.
Because I love her, I still fucking do and she doesn't even know. I take the last big, long sip of tequila and swallow it slowly and I feel it burn as it goes down my throat.

I am drunk, I know that. I can still feel the tequila burning in my throat and its taste in my mouth, and I hate this, I can't even think clearly. I am so mad, and this whole thing makes me so sad. I start to feel the warmth of my tears as they roll down my face, slowly and then all at once. I start sobbing desperately, hitting the wood floor with my fist.
I try to read the words she wrote once again but all the alcohol I have in my blood won't let me, everything is spinning around.
I can see every single "I love you" she wrote. I can feel every single "I love you" she wrote.
Her voice trembles in my head as I cry, and in the hopelessness and desperation I throw the bottle of tequila and hear as it bursts loudly against the wooden floor, everything around me spins in circus and I am dizzy.
With all the anger and the desperation I start tearing the letter apart, little by little, I break it in little pieces, throw them to the air as if they were some kind of colorful confetti and I start sobbing again.
"Ellaaaaaa" I scream loudly at the top of my lungs without a breath.

I can't breathe and all this alcohol in my system is making the situation worse.

"What have I done? No wait" I realize the mess I made, the letter. No.

Fuck, the letter. As I cry even more I pick up the little pieces of letter in the floor, and even more desperately than before I try to put the pieces all back together as if it was a puzzle, but it makes no sense, nothing fits, I can barely see the words written in it. Why the fuck did I do that. Fuck. I see one little piece that is laying a few meters away from me, I can't stand up so I go crawling to pick it up. With all the other pieces in my hand, and now with the final piece with me, I just sit down. Tears still rolling down my face, I try to put them together one more time, but I fail. So I sit there, quietly crying, with all the pieces of the letter between my legs, and the broken bottle of tequila right next to me.