The following is written with my own memories, and edited for clarity, truthfulness, and to remove unnecessary dialogue by my partner. This happened two nights ago, in our living room in Texas, around 10 at night.
The rain pattered softly against the window.
I set the bottle down and groaned.
My world did that thing again, where my eyes shook a bit and it rotated just a few degrees.
Fucking world.
Fucking gravity.
Fucking inner-ear balancing bullshit.
Today would break a string of sobriety that had lasted a year and a half. A year and a half of careful, calculated avoidance of that lovely lady who sat at the bottom of the bottles in our pantry. She was lithe, dark skin, and a smooth talker.
The taste of the bourbon on my lips was so sweet. It tasted of vanilla, fruit, late nights, shaving in the mirror with a straight razor, and a guitar gently crying into the darkness.
I put my hands in my hair and muttered to my partner, coming through the doorway of the hall,
"Why didn't you stop me?"