The two empty bottles were on the counter and the third, I could barely figure out how to open. Setting it back onto the granite, I held on to the counter letting the strong breeze blow past before I tried again. This bottle had to open and I needed it to open now.
Closing my eyes, the room spun and waved and moved all around me, but it didn't matter. Why bother even caring anymore? Wasn't that what got me in this position in the first place?
Three damn years and that woman hadn't said one word to me since she took everything away from me. Now, she decides she wants to make things right, to patch up the pain as if it were just a mere breakup? She took everything from me! And I was just supposed to forgive her as if what she did meant nothing at all?
And that girl, that student... that... Jacki. Why did she have to walk into my class? Three years I avoided women, didn't even look at one twice, nor even cared about one. The first day of class I was teaching and she had to be there wearing those tight pants and knee high boots. The other female students were wearing less than she was, but for some reason, I couldn't take my eyes off her.
I had everything under control. I had these feelings about her wrapped up to where I was able to fight them off. And I was doing a damn good job resisting the looks, her always watching me, listening to everything I said, and that blushing of her cheeks when I asked her a question or looked in her direction.
I've had girls gawk at me, drool over me, and even pick me up in the club knowing nothing would be more than a quick fix. But this one... this student of mine. Watching her on that horse was amazing in how she had that animal under her thumb from the second she mounted.
I was no stranger to horses, had been riding all my life because of my father, but I had yet to come across someone who could get a horse to submit to her the second she settled into the saddle. When he first came out of the trailer, I couldn't imagine her getting on him if he even allowed it. Then, she went up as if he wasn't that big and that powerful turning him into a mouse. A graceful, delicate creature that he was. And that side stepping prance she was having him do... Those moves to where he was dancing and she was just sitting there giving him directions that were so subtle, I barely spotted them.
Monday night and I couldn't stand it. The silence in my house was sickening. My thoughts on that woman and her horse alone were inching me into a spot I know I never should dive in to. Not to count the text messages from the woman who stole my life from me three years ago reopened a large wound in my heart. And there was the fresh bottle waiting for me, begging me to just give in and numb everything.
"That is what you do? You drink?" The Smirnov thunder came around the fireplace in the middle of the room. Coming into the kitchen, his dark blues found the wreckage at the counter. "You do not answer the call. You do not come to door when I knock. You sit here drinking."
"I just needed a drink." Letting go of the counter, I reached for the fresh, untouched bottle swallowing back the pain. Untouched... like I heard the guys joke around about in the parking lot with Jacki. Untouched. Even she said she had sex before, being untouched at her age would never be the truth. Not many lovers have climbed in her bed that I could tell. My guess would be only one with the way she held herself.
The others in class promoted their goods to me all the time. The low cut shirts, the see through fabrics, and the short shorts and skirts, it was all there. Nothing I saw fit to take a few more looks at. But that one who was wearing that sweatshirt and the one who had taken it off in front of me just wearing a tank top that molded to the most perfect breasts, now that was a sight that robbed my attention.
"I do not want to see this in my son." His hand came down hard on the granite table top as his eyes fixed on the stack of tests I hadn't bothered to even touch yet. How could I when my thoughts have been drowning in the bottle since seeing her on that damn horse, catching her in the parking lot with her animal? "You are not this person who drinks until he cannot feel."
"Well, I am partly Russian. What did you expect?" Tomorrow would be another day I couldn't be at school. Tomorrow, I would have to call in sick just to stay home after having her catch me. She knew I was drinking, but I was the one who made the mistake of taking a drink before going out to talk to her.
And why did I even chase after her? I should have let her just walk away and I wouldn't be in this position. I had the chance to just sit there and let her leave after I dismissed the class early. The other students jumped up and ran out as fast as they could. She, that one student, stayed back wanting to learn, to ask questions, to stay there and torture me with her presence even more.
How could she even think I was a good man or even a good teacher? The past week, I've been barely there as it was, hung over, and even a little buzzed when I gave that test. I was doing good at hiding it, but she caught on all because I chased after her. I just had to talk to her.
After seeing Jacki in my class, watching her every chance I could, I was starting to feel my broken pieces fit back together. That was until I read that text message. Just as I was starting to get my life back in order by seeing there was someone out there who stole my attention, Susie had to come back into my life and shatter it again.
"No, you do not use Russian as this excuse. You..." Taking in a deep breath, he pressed his hand to his chest. Beads of sweat layers his forehead. His eyes sank deeper as the disappointment weight heavily in them. "Sergei, I do not like this. I do not like to see you, my son, do this. You do not use alcohol for healing."
"I don't. I just... I would rather you let me deal with this myself." Pushing off the counter, I grabbed the new bottle and held it up. "This is what I want and this is what I will have."
"You are a disgrace if this is what you turn to!" The gasp in his breath came hard as he tried grabbing the bottle from me, but the wind he brought on knocked me backward.
Stumbling to get my feet back under me, I cursed as my eyes tried focusing on the papers on the table, the tests I failed to grade yet since my life was starting to be filled with the only numbing agent I knew of. That name was the only thing I could make out in the hazy blur, and it was the one name I needed so desperately to forget.
I shouldn't be thinking about any student. I shouldn't be thinking about any girl for that matter. I didn't want one in my life. I didn't want one coming into my mind like this student was. I didn't want that pain in my life again. Suzie crushed me, broke me, shattered me to the point where I just didn't want to ever deal with that kind of pain again. How could I ever let another woman in after what she did?
My father clutched his chest again as he picked up one of the empty bottles. "You had one woman bring you this much pain! But this was three years ago, Sergei! I raise you to be strong! This..." He reached for the full bottle again, but I staggered back to the counter for support. The sweat trickled down the sides of his face taking some of his color with it. "She was not a good girl, Sergei. She was not good for you. You do not deserve a girl like her. I tell you this before. I tell you now again."
"You did and I did not listen to you! I know that! I know what she did! I hate her! I hate what she did to me! I live it with every day! Do you not see what I have to see when I wake up?! When I go to bed?!" Lifting the bottle up, the blood pumped through my veins as I looked at that test on the table seeing that name, the student's name.
"Sergei, three years is too long to hold on to this pain." His dark blues softened as he eased his shoulders back, his chest rising and falling more than a few minutes ago. "You have a good life. You have a good start. Do not throw it away with the alcohol because of a girl who was not good."
"How do I get over that? How do I get past the pain she brings onto me by taking everything thing I love away from me?" Slamming the bottle down on the wooden floor, I watched the glass shatter all over and the alcohol spreading out just like my heart when I found out what Suzie did behind my back. "There is nothing to get over the pain she brought to me!"
"You bring this to yourself. This..." Holding up an empty bottle, his hand trembled as he leaned against the table to support him. Clenching tightly to the glass, he sucked in a breath before letting go of his own physical pain. "I cannot see my son do this. You are a being a disgrace. A shame to me."
"That is all I am! That is all she left me with! Do you not understand? She took everything from me!" Shoving past him, I went to the end cupboard by the stainless steel fridge and grabbed out another bottle of Vodka. Holding it up, I smirked as I stumbled into the stove. "This will get me through the days when that pain comes back."
Twisting the cap off, I tossed it across the room and held the bottle up toasting him. My eyes shot over to the test with that name on the top... Jacki Montgomery. Bringing the bottle to my lips, I closed my eyes envisioning that look she gave me before she got out of my truck.
"Please, Sergei. Don't turn into this terrible man you think you are. Be the man you really are because he's charming, handsome, and very tender-hearted. Please, don't drink his existence away."
How could just a few words hit me like hers had? How that one woman could see what I was doing, see all the pain I was holding in? When she looked at me, those eyes searching deep within me, I tried not to make eye contact, but it was near impossible when I felt her digging into me like no other girl ever had. Not even Suzie. She managed to figure it all out. She knew and yet, she tried talking to me, tried to help me, but I was too far gone. I was at the point where the black hole reopened letting everything drain out of my life just like three years ago when I found out what Susie did.
"I know, Sergei. I was in a spot just as you. You forget. I had my heart broken. I had my love walk away. She left me, you, and Nikolay. I get up, dust off, and give you both a home and good education. I did not go to drink the pain away. You... You are..." his gasping increased as he dropped the bottle letting it shatter along with the other one on the floor. "You are... my shame... a disgrace to me."
Rubbing his chest, my father pressed his gray lips together as he tipped his head and walked out letting the heavy door slam behind him. Holding the bottle to my lips again, I wanted to just indulge in whatever I could to take away his words, to be able to wake up and not have this pain weighing inside me.
"That is bullshit and you know it. If she walked away like it didn't matter, then apparently she wasn't the one for you. Maybe it worked out that way for a reason. It really sucks to have your heart broken, but it could mend. It really can and it will take some time, but drinking isn't the way."
My eyes drifted over to the name of the girl who spoke those words to me just a few hours ago. Did it really matter what she thought? My own father told me I was a disgrace and a shame to him so why did what she say really matter?
Taking the bottle away from my lips, I looked at the clear liquid inside as my heart crumbled into little pieces. Suzie broke my hopes and dreams, what I wanted in my life, but how did these words of a student I had no business in talking with afterhours and on a personal level hit me even harder?
Three years I gave my heart to Suzie. Three years ago, she walked out telling me what she did with no regrets, and now, she wanted to talk, to make it all right? If she walked away like it didn't matter... It was what she did. She told me what she did, shrugged her shoulders, and walked out without a tear in her cold and uncaring gray eyes. My heart shattered into tiny, little pieces with what she did, with my dreams going down the drain, and I could barely breathe with my chest closing in on my lungs.
"Be the man you really are because he's charming, handsome, and very tender-hearted. Please, don't drink his existence away." Those words came from Jacki's heart, deep in her heart. That was why I didn't want to look at her. That student could see what I was feeling and why I was feeling it and it hurt her also. I just didn't want to see it. I didn't want to see the pain I was putting there because Suzie didn't see it in me when she walked out the door with my dreams.
Smashing the bottle on the floor with the other, I let the pain of the hot tears roll free. How could a girl in my class, one I watched for a month now, care so much when the girl I loved and gave my heart to shoved me off and walked away not giving me another thought?
Grabbing another bottle out of my cupboard, I threw it down on the floor letting it shatter, splatter all over just like everything inside of me. Why not? I was nothing. I was a disgrace. My father thought so, my brother thought so, and now the only student I had who cared a little thought so too. There was no way I could ever make Jacki see I was the man she saw in me, to show her she was right about me.
I ruined that when I got out of her truck and walked away from her without looking back, just like that day Suzie walked out of my life taking my world with her. I still haven't forgiven Suzie so why should a student who tried reaching out to me ever give me a second chance?
Picking up the test, her test, my heart sank deep into the Vodka pool of my stomach. Focusing on the words she wrote, the walls began to close in and the floor started to go up and down, up and down. Nausea crawled up my throat as I found her name.
"Please, don't drink his existence away." Pain washed through her words as the salt waters filled into her soft hazels.
"No. No more." Setting the test down, I pressed my hands down on the granite table sucking in a few breaths. I had to stop. I had to get my life back in order before I really do lose whatever I have left. If I talked to Jacki on Wednesday, would she see I really took in what she said? She caught me drinking at school, in class, and yet, she didn't look at me as a disgrace or a disappointment. She looked at me as if she were feeling exactly what I had been for the past three years. She saw everything in me that others couldn't. Student or not, I need to show her I wasn't that guy taking his problems to the bottle. I could show her and maybe she might be able to help me heal a little inside to where I wouldn't have to numb my pain by drinking.
My father was right too. He had my mother walk out on him and his two children. I remembered the pain he went through, seeing it in his eyes every time he looked at us. He didn't need anything to numb his pain. And I could do that for him. I could change for him to show him I was strong also.
Tomorrow, I would go over and talk to him, make him see I was ready to heal from the past and move onto the future. No matter what he thought of me, he would always be behind me helping me get back to the path I needed to be on. I could make him see I wasn't a shame at all. I just didn't know how to heal. Booze was able to numb me, but that wound was still there when it wore off.
No more drinking. No more of just numbing the pain. It was time to heal and right now, I had two people who cared enough to try and help, two people I pushed away today. But I could fix that, couldn't I?
The phone rang from the corner of the counter. Who would be calling me now? It was late and I had to teach class in the morning. I needed to just get into bed, sleep this off, and get up to work on healing. My father left over an hour ago and I haven't touched a drop since. And I will try my best to not touch the bottle anymore. There was no way I deserved those two people caring for me as they did, but I had to do what I could not to lose that now.
The answering machine picked up with Nikolay's voice coming through the device loud and heavy with pain. "Sergei, I got a call from the hospital about Dad. You need to there now. I will fly out in one hour to be there."
The room started spinning hard. If my brother was flying in, there was something very wrong and that something wrong was something I should have spotted in a heartbeat, through the alcohol daze I was consumed in. Sliding down the front of the cupboard, I sat letting the liquid spreading across the floor soak into my jeans and the glass dug into my skin. I could feel those little shards poking through the denim fabric, but what did it matter now? Why bother? My father died believing I was his shame.