GIN AND JUICE pt 14

Flashing lights….

He entered the frat house to a chorus of cheers, his name shouted from every corner, “Shawn?! Shawn! SHAWWWWNNNN!” He spotted Zubin and Mike across the room and headed straight toward them.

Persistent whirring and beeping….

It didn’t take long to find his bottle of gin, the green glass whispering to him from the kitchen. He ripped the cap off in one twist and tipped the bottle back, too impatient to find a glass. The sharp burn hit the back of his throat and it was like coming home after the hardest day of your life to a woman that never let you down, a woman that would always be there no matter how bad you fucked up, how much you lied, how much you said or didn’t say.

Bursts of red and white filtered through his eyelids, too heavy to open….

An hour, a whole bottle of gin, and an innumerable number of straight shots later, and she was the only thing he could see. The blue eyes that haunted him that first football game after he met her were on every girl’s face. Her smell was all over this rank frat house and he couldn’t find where it was coming from. He stumbled, up and down stairs, into and out of empty and occupied rooms, but she wasn’t there. And why would she be? She was determined to cut him out.

A high-pitched siren that wouldn’t go away, wouldn’t leave him alone….

He barely made it to the bathroom door before falling in, his feet finally giving out beneath him. The cold tile felt good against his cheek. His body was shutting down and he could feel the numbness spreading from his limbs inward, pushing him farther and farther into the deep dark that he remembered, that he craved, that he needed to snuff out her light. The last thing he saw before he succumbed to the black was her face, deep in sleep and pressed against his chest. He could still feel her steady exhales softly brush his skin, the involuntary movement of her fingers lost in a dream. He could still hear her whisper his name, a breathy, satisfied sound, a confession of love before she dared to say it out loud. Her peace had been his haven—until she’d shut her dorm room door.

He knew was that he was moving. He also knew that he was lying down, a treacherous battle raging between his churning stomach and resistant muscles. He didn’t know where he was. Why he was there. The images ripped through him unbidden and murky, as if he was looking into the bottom of a well.

“Shawn? Can you hear me?” He felt a faint tap on his face. Someone forcibly opened his eyelid, but all he could see was light. Too much light. His stomach wrenched, forcing him over involuntarily, and he wretched. The acrid smell of vomit creeped into his nose and filled the small space. It acted like smelling salts, jarring him into a lethargic waking coma. He couldn’t move his own muscles, felt disconnected from his body. His eyes focused and finally took in his surroundings.

He was in an ambulance. The precarious rocking of monitors and tubes made it feel as if they were traveling a hundred miles per hour. A bag of fluid hung from the ceiling, dripping into the tube and through a needle connected to his arm.  He was leaning over the side of a gurney, his mouth still dripping stomach acid onto the floor and onto the EMT’s shoes. He tried to lie back, but the EMT stopped him, forcing his shoulders at an angle.

“I don’t want you to aspirate,” she shouted, penetrating his eardrum and hitting his aching head like a sledgehammer, “you should lean over while we transport you. Do you need me to assist you?” He hung his head low, resting his forehead against his arm. His throat was raw, from acid and alcohol, and when he opened his mouth only scratched and incoherent sounds came out.

The ambulance turned and he pitched forward. The EMT caught him by the shoulders, wrapping her fingers firmly around his arms to hold him tilted, “okay, big boy, it’s better out than in.” His stomach cramped and rolled again, emptying itself in waves, the evidence of his relapse coloring the floor a sick green.

When they finally pulled into the hospital, Shawn was damp with sweat, his skin an unnatural gray color, dry heaving. The EMTs rolled the gurney out of the ambulance and into the ER. There was immediate chaos, a group of people shouting from the waiting room as they pushed him into a room and shut the door. The residents scrambled to push more fluid into the IV still buried in his arm. He curled into the fetal position and held his knees against another surge of nausea.

Sweat poured from his brow as he gripped his skin, white knuckles screaming in protest. His stomach revolted again, green bile the only thing left for him to expel. It ran down his face and onto the ER bed. Everything was starting to hurt. His abs, his lungs, his throat. His head was screaming, wishing everything would stop. The corners of his vision were closing in shadow, everything going dark. Not in the way that he liked, that felt like he’d wake up the next morning a little worse for wear but knowing he had lived free for a few beautiful hours. This felt like a drain he wasn’t likely to emerge from. A hallway, except there wasn’t a light at the end of the tunnel. There was just an endless pit of dark, pock-marked with pairs of blue eyes, sure to haunt him for eternity. He heard a drowning moan that turned to a scream, foreign and far away from the surface in the emergency room.

“Shawn?! Stay with me!” A resident slapped his cheek and forcibly opened his eyes, shining a small flashlight across his vision just like the EMT had. He tried to push them away, but just ended up rolling himself over to the edge of the bed and spewing bile onto the floor. He heard the resident shout at her colleague, “we have to stop the vomiting. The vessels in his eyes are bursting. I don’t want to put another kid on life support.”

Life support….

“Push Zofran!” The doctors were scrambling, yelling, making quick decisions to try and stabilize him. Precious minutes ticked by while Shawn just tried to hold his world together. The voices from the waiting room were starting to filter in as the fog in his head settled, the nausea drug starting to take effect. He could hear Coach trying to wrangle to players shouting into the hall. Mike, Zubin, and Geoff were all competing for loudest drunk, slurring and yelling over one another.

“HEY!” Shawn heard through the door, Coach’s authoritative voice cutting through the hospital sounds and causing the nurses to pause. “IF YOU HAVE HAD EVEN A DROP OF ALCOHOL, GET YOUR *** HOME. I’M CALLING A CAB.” He couldn’t help but laugh a little as a new kind of heaviness spread over his body, starting from his head. The nausea had vanished and the rollercoaster in his stomach had come to a screeching halt. He was still damp with sweat but he didn’t care anymore because he was so tired. So very tired. So goddamn tired.

“Do you want us to call anyone?” He heard someone ask just before he surrendered to the weariness in his bones. He tried to answer but his tongue felt paralyzed, his lips only able to open enough to breathe. “Shawn? Can you hear me?” He tried again to respond but knew he was only making indiscriminate noises that no nurse or human could understand. All he could do was hope and pray that they didn’t do anything rash. Anything stupid. Coach Bradford knew better, right?

“Shawn?!” Mike snapped in front of his face after they took a second shot of tequila. He was drunk. So drunk. He couldn’t remember the last time he could feel his fingers or his feet or his face. His whole body was pleasantly numb, shutting out the feelings and the confusion and the anger he felt.

“Dude, what’s up with you?” Mike looked at him with a healthy amount of friendly concern, his brow creased and eyes narrowed.

“I’m fucking fine, Mike. Leave me alone. Let’s do another one.” Shawn filled the two shot glasses again and gestured toward Mike’s. “No, dude. I’m good. Maybe you’re good too. You don’t look great.”

“Fine, **** you then.” Shawn threw back his shot and then picked up Mike’s and tossed that one back too. No salt, no lime. Just liquid fire coursing down his throat and into his veins. He needed that fire to burn him into nothing, burn her into nothing, so he could remember what it was like before when no one could hurt him because no one could touch him…

The door to his room burst open, jolting him awake. A woman with big blonde hair and a gaudy silver cross stormed in, followed by an older, salt-and-pepper bearded man in sunglasses. A parade of doctors and nurses followed, all jabbering at the same time.

“He can go home today…”

“His liver is starting to show evidence…”

“We should really send him for a couple more tests…”

“One of you needs to tell me, RIGHT NOW, what is wrong with my son.” Karen Rayment was steaming. The nurses stopped what they were doing immediately and stepped back. Shawn didn’t know what they were trying to do anyway, he felt much better. He had no idea how long he’d been asleep but it had to have been several hours.

“Mom,” he croaked, his voice like sandpaper after trauma and disuse, “it’s fine.” She turned on him and narrowed her eyes, “oh, no, Shawn. It’s not fine. I already got one report from Coach Bradford, who has blessedly kept this misstep out of the press, but these people seem to think something more serious is wrong.” She whipped around to the attending physician, focusing her wrath on them.

“Speak, now.”

“I…Mr. and Mrs. Mendes,” Shawn watched his mother’s nostrils flare at the assumption that she was his father’s property, “your son is recovering from alcohol poisoning. He’s okay now, but last night we had to give him some pretty serious fluids and drugs to control the vomiting.” The attending took a steadying breath, like he was about to deliver some sort of death blow. “We’re more concerned about some of the test results. We did a blood test to check his blood alcohol levels and confirm the alcohol poisoning diagnosis. Shawn shows some early signs of poor liver function. For someone his age and excellent physical health, it suggests significant and sustained alcohol use.”

An eerie silence settled over the room.

“Excuse me,” Manny Mendes finally found his voice, “are you telling me that my son is an alcoholic?” Shawn could hear the cogs moving in his parents’ heads. His own head had stopped functioning when the attending said blood test. He knew what he was going to say before he said it, knew the repercussions of alcohol on metabolic functions. Hearing but not really listening, Shawn sat there while the doctor explained that with the amount of deposits on his liver, they would expect that he had been drinking heavily for quite some time and not allowing his body to recover before the next onslaught of poison.

“We recommend a psych consult and a support program,” the attending told his parents, whose demeanors had shifted from anger and disinterest to a unified concern for their son. But he knew his parents, he knew that at least some part of them was upset that their precious boy, their precious cash cow, may have been sacrificed on the altar of lofty expectations. The sad part was that he wasn’t even mad about it, just resigned to the weight of the truth. He waited for the doctor to make his recommendations for programs and psychologists, waited for the nurses to remove his IVs, waited for his parents to stop whispering while he filled out his discharge paperwork.

On the way out of the hospital, they walked by the waiting room. Coach Bradford sat in the corner of the room fast asleep with his head leaned against a sweatshirt, open-mouthed and drooling. Shawn nodded at his parents, motioning for them to pull the car around without him. Walking over, he ducked his head and scrubbed the back of his neck, embarrassment not big enough a word to describe the way he was feeling. He cleared his throat. Coach startled awake, blinking rapidly.

“Hey, buddy,” he stretched and stood, “how are you feeling?” Like his bloodshot eyes weren’t a clear indicator. Shawn had never seen him so nervous. He was so used to Coach being the backbone of the team, the guy who was counselor, enforcer, juror, and sometimes executioner all in one, that he was unfamiliar with this man who looked like he’d been in danger of losing a son.

“Hey, Coach,” Shawn couldn’t look him in the eye, “I’m sorry about all this. I…I’m sorry you had to come down here. Thanks for keeping it out of the media. It won’t happen again I’m promise.” He spat it all out, in short quick bursts. Coach gave him a warm smile that he didn’t deserve.

“It’s okay, I took care of it,” he said, “if anyone asks, you came in for an overnight concussion check and sleep test after that hit you took yesterday.” He sighed heavily, “that doesn’t mean I’m happy about covering for your ***. Just because I want your personal life and **** ups to remain your own and not media fodder doesn’t mean I don’t care that you almost put yourself on life support. I’ve partied a lot in my life but I’ve nev–”

“Coach,” Shawn interrupted, not wanting his second father-figure to try to level with him before having the whole story, “I haven’t told you everything.” He paused. There’s so much advice on what to do when your idols let you down, but what do you do when you disappoint your idols? That’s what Shawn felt like he was about to do. He steeled himself, attempting again to pull on that armor he used to know so well but must have lost somewhere, “I…I’ve been drinking for awhile now.”

“Sure, so does every college kid, Shawn.” He didn’t understand. Shawn was going to have to make him understand.

“No, Coach. I mean I’ve been drinking. Into oblivion. For years.” He had finally stunned him into silence. It’s better this way. But, now that it was out there in the open, he just kept talking. “I’ve woken up on so many bathroom floors, tripped over so many empty bottles, that I can’t even count them anymore. You don’t want to know how many practices I’ve shown up to still drunk from the night before.” Shawn could see the pain—and all the things that came with it—building in his coach’s eyes. The anger, the disappointment, the shock, it was all there coming in waves over his face. Shawn didn’t give him time to collect his thoughts, couldn’t let him think about why or if he was part of the problem.

“The doctors recommended some programs. They want me to talk to someone.” He avoided Coach’s eyes again, counting tiles on the floor. It wasn’t until he saw a small wet circle bloom on his shoe that Shawn realized tears were streaming down his face. It was the first moment of vulnerability he could remember having in front of Coach Bradford. He felt a hand clap his shoulder and pull him in.

“It’s okay, son,” Coach placed his other hand on the back of Shawn’s head, giving him permission to cry in earnest.

So he did.

Shawn cried, and cried, and cried. He cried for his parents that didn’t understand their role in all this; he cried for the people who may have been let down if he’d been really hurt; he cried for her, for the gaping hole in his chest that he thought he could fill with alcohol and wipe out her memory; but most of all, he cried for himself. The self he felt he couldn’t be. The self that felt free. The self that hid behind the tattered armor he was still trying to piece back together. He knew it was time to reconcile his two selves on his own without the help of liquid courage or a safe harbor. He needed to stand on his own now and be the boy and the man, the protected and the protector. But he couldn’t do it alone.

“Coach?” he said, after he was done crying, wiping his face free of tears and snot, “will you help me?”

“Son, I’m no shrink, but you know my door is always open. If you want to talk, no matter what time, you call me. Even if it’s 3 AM and you’re staring at a bottle, you call me.” His eyes were honest, full of pride and love for a kid that wasn’t even really his. “Fuck, we can have standing appointments and you can tell me what you had for breakfast. I don’t care. I’m here for you.”

Coach took a deep breath before continuing, “you know, I’ve been where you are. Not the alcohol, but the position you’re in. The pressures you’re facing. I’ve been there. I may never have won that big Heisman trophy, or had the national attention that you have, but the burden of winning, of being the best I could be, to support my team? The fear that I might never be enough? I know that feeling. You can share that with me.”

Shawn believed him. He nodded vigorously, wanting that more than he could ever have realized even a day ago. He needed to talk to someone who understood what he was going through. He hadn’t realized that maybe that person had been sitting in an office off the locker room this whole time. Everything had always seemed so singular, so lost in his own tunnel vision, that he hadn’t stopped to think about help outside of his own remedies. He regretted that now more than he could even wrap his mind around.

Why have I been so stupid?

“Okay, Shawn,” Coach gripped him by the shoulders and looked him in the eye, “go home with your family. Have a good holiday. Come back and we’ll work on this. One step at a time.” Oh ****, the holiday. He nodded one final time and waved goodbye, now stuck on the fact that he was going home to stare at his parents for several days while they came to terms with everything that had happened. He already missed the burn of straight liquor hitting the back of his throat. It was going to be a long recovery. Especially without her.

His parents were waiting for him at the entrance. He got in the car, grimacing at the light outside, still feeling the effects of the drugs they’d given him. The car was silent for a long time. It was a long drive to their home, almost three hours, so when Manny finally handed Shawn his backpack about an hour in, it was a blessing. He pulled out his phone, shocked at all of the notifications that popped up on his screen—emails from press asking about his concussion (deleted), tweets from concerned fans (address later), and texts from the team.

He opened his Messenger app and looked at his inbox. There must have been texts from 50 different people. Mike, Zubin, and Geoff of course, and their house group text, but almost every member of the team had texted too. He knew some people had been at the party, so he was going to have to do damage control. But, generally everybody knew that what went out to the press wasn’t always an accurate representation of reality. He was more worried about the other people there, the non-football people, the frat bros, and sorority girls. He slowly inhaled, trying to keep his heartbeat level. One minute, one crisis at a time. He kept scrolling and stopped on some curious messages. They were to her.

Shawn: I cna’t belivbe u woyld do thos to mE

Shawn: whatnebr i siad let me mrke it uP  two u

He groaned. Why hadn’t he turned off his phone? He knew better than that. He didn’t blame her for not responding. There were more at a later time stamp, more incoherent than the rest.

Shawn: I c u ebrywhre

Shawn: soooooo mch blu

Shawn: wht perfm do u wear…i cn smell u everyyyywhere

Jesus Christ. He sounded so creepy. It was fucked. He wanted to crawl in a hole and die of embarrassment. This had never been a problem before. He’d never been so fucked for a girl before. Goddamn, he loved her and it made him an idiot. He scrolled to the end of the chat and his blood ran cold.

Shawn: Hey, this is Zubin. I know you don’t know me, but Shawn is in trouble and I thought you should know. He’s had a lot to drink. They’re taking him to the hospital.

Zubin must have known because he had idiotically named her contact ‘My Girl 💖’ like a fucking teenager. His eyes widened when he saw that she replied.

Her: Thank you for letting me know.

She knew. She knew and she hadn’t come. Why did that feel like a fresh wound to nurse? Another gaping hole in his chest he didn’t have the tools to stitch up? He felt like he might bleed out right here on the way home. The injuries were imaginary, but the pain was so real to him he could taste it, bitter and sweetness mixed. Every touch he remembered, every sound she made, her smell that followed him, it was now all colored with one truth. She knew and she hadn’t come.

Did she love him at all?

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