My girlfriend drank through her depression. And mine. She drank through my endoscopy and colonoscopy. She drank before picking me up from the clinic. And she drank after when I lay on the couch asking her what she was doing with her life. And with mine. She assured me she didn’t have a problem. She drank heavily through law school, she said, and her master’s program. But not now. These vodka sodas were relaxing, taking the edge off, about surviving. She drank through her past abusive boyfriend, his threats, his ringed fists, his meth addiction. She couldn’t help it, she explained. But I was safe. Different. A Brit in Oklahoma. I was as dangerous as tea with milk, beige biscuits, the Queen’s Christmas Day speech. She loved me, she said. Wasn’t that enough? I thought it could be. I thought I could get over her hollow promises to quit, to her declarations of this being her last drink. My girlfriend drank through her excuses, her stops at liquor stores, saying she just needed wine for a party or baby shower. She didn’t have a problem. She said this all the time. Then she drank through the doctor’s explanation of my biopsies. Nothing serious. I could go back to normal. But I couldn’t. She drank through our breakup. She drank through our last hug and my last words for her to look after herself. She was glad to be my ex-girlfriend. She could go out to the bars now with her friends. No more judgment. No more documenting her nightly glasses of vodka or the empty bottles hidden behind the recycling bin. No more listening to the sounds of her vomiting or the calls to her old boyfriend. No more. No more. No more.
Christopher Linforth’s latest book is The Distortions (Orison Books, 2022). He can be found at christopherlinforth.com.
the museum of americana: A LITERARY REVIEW 