Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 99921 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99921 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
Will caught it. “Thanks. I’m on retainer now.”
“Retainer for what?”
“I might not practice anymore, but I’m still an attorney. Now I’m yours. We have privilege, so tell me what’s going on. You kill someone? Drug problems? A diagnosis you don’t want anyone to know about?”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “It’s not me. It’s Evie.”
“The skater? You two still together?”
I nodded.
“Haven’t seen her around in a while. The other guys brought their wives to the fundraiser last night. Why didn’t you bring her?”
Because I can’t trust her not to disappear into the bathroom stall like Clark Kent and come out Superdrunk. “Evie’s got some issues.”
“Health?”
I met Will’s eyes. “Mental health. She’s also got a drinking problem.”
Will frowned. “Oh, man. I’m sorry to hear that. Has she tried rehab?”
“Three times. A five-day detox and two thirty-day stints.”
“My old man was a drunk. It’s not easy.”
“Was? Is he sober now?”
Will nodded. “I think he’s been clean about ten years.”
“What made him stop drinking?”
“I’m not sure I know the answer to that question. It was after my mom left him with us, but not right away. Probably two years after. He was on and off the wagon from the time they got married until I was twelve. He’d lose his job, we’d go stay at my grandmother’s with my mom for a while, and then he’d show up clean shaven and sober and convince her to come back and give him another chance. But it would never last.” Will shrugged. “Took more than losing everything for him to get better. All those years he tried for my mom. I think he really did love her. But it never stuck until he did it for himself.”
My face fell.
Will noticed and smiled sadly. “Hits home?”
“Right on the damn nose.”
The waitress brought over our drinks. Will held his glass out to me. We clinked and both took healthy swigs. After my agent set his glass down, he folded his hands on the table and leaned forward. “I’m sorry to hear what you’re going through. I really am. But I’m going to give it to you straight. You need to get your head back in the game, or you’re not going to be happy with your renewal. Management doesn’t know what’s going on, so they’re thinking the worst—that you’re on your way down. I can hold off pushing the contract talks any further until the season starts up again so you can show ’em they’re wrong. But you need to find a way to get your shit together.”
I blew out two cheeks of air and nodded. “Got it.”
“If you want to talk, I’m here. The quarter gets you a lot of hours.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it.”
“A few months after we left my dad, I asked my mother if we were going back, like we always did. She said no, so I asked why not? I’ll never forget the answer she gave me. She said, ‘Because I finally figured out that you can’t love an alcoholic into sobriety, but you can love yourself enough to let go.’”
***
I laid back on the paddleboard, set the paddle across my waist, and inhaled the smell of the morning lake. This house…this lake had always been my solace. But the only way I could get any peace lately was to come out here and float.
I’d been back for three days now. Normally when I came home to a shitshow like I had the first night—a dented car, six stitches in Evie’s finger, and a recycle bin that weighed more than the garbage one—Evie would sleep for a day and then cry and apologize. Not this time. She just kept drinking. And I was miserable in my own home. Last night, while we were arguing, I’d thought about going to a hotel. But instead I came out here and laid down on the board to think. By the time I went back inside, she was passed out.
Our relationship wasn’t fun anymore—not that any relationship had to be fun all the time, but there needed to be a balance. This was a seesaw that hadn’t teetered up in a very long time. If Evie were any other woman, I would’ve ended things by now. But she wasn’t. She’d dedicated twenty years to a sport rather than create friends and a life. And the only real person she’d ever been close to was her mother, and that woman would only drag her the rest of the way down. So what was I supposed to do, kick her to the curb? I cared about her, loved her even if I didn’t like her very much. Though what Will had said the other day at lunch kept rattling around in my head. “You can’t love an alcoholic into sobriety, but you can love yourself enough to let go.”