2019-04-11 - Drinking and Driving Don't Mix

Spring is springing all over the place around Gray Harbor. The days are warming up, there's actual sunshine every once in a while, and the flowers are trying to do flower-things at every available opportunity. There were a few good days in a row after this bed came home, like everything might just be coming up... well, shit. 'Coming up roses' is just a horrible term now, and maybe that's where things started to take a turn the day before yesterday.

Whatever it was, two nights ago was a rough one, and everyone went to bed fully-clothed, Logan on top of the blankets and Emily underneath them. Yesterday, the weather was all sunshine-and-daisies. A perfect day, weather-wise. The kind of day that a person that was the bright, shining center of the solar system would have loved, would have spent in the swing Logan made for her. That ghost was just everywhere yesterday, in every speck of dust that danced in every ray of sunlight, in every rustle of a breeze through the opening leaves, in every breath of warm air that promised the coming of summer.

And today, all of it is undone in a hard, loud, terrible thunderstorm that started sometime in the dead of that lonely night - two people, one bed, zero connections. Emily slipped off to work normally, quietly... and then didn't come home. Not when it was raining cats-and-dogs at lunch. Not when it was smashing thunder-and-lightning at dinner. Not when it was howling wind and hail at dark. No message. No indication that she received any of Logan's messages.

Now it's nearly midnight, and Logan's alone. But his friendly ghost is humming around upstairs, just visible every time that lightning sparks in a window, just audible between the rumbles of thunder. "She's not coming back, you know," the ghost keeps telling Logan.

Logan couldn't put his finger on any one thing that had happened that would've turned the good bad, but he wasn't really trying all that hard either. He was finding comfort and familiarity in the roller coaster - the highs and the lows, the ups and the downs, the clothes and the lack of clothes - it was just apart of him. Apart of them. It was the new normal, and so long as Emily was there, he could handle anything else.

Until she wasn't there anymore.

He didn't consider her gone until sometime between lunch and dinner. As he was cooking, he looks to the front door with expectation - any second now, she would breeze in and past him with her book, she'd sit at the table until he put food in front of her, and even if they didn't talk, she'd be there. Dinner was cold by the time he finally sent the first text: where are you? But there was nothing but silence on the other line. Every hour on the hour there'd be another text, a phone call made, the response the same every time. No answer. No answer. No answer.

And now here he was, him and his ghost and the phone in his hand. He really wanted a drink. "Yes she will," he didn't even sound like he believed himself anymore. "She didn't take her stuff." He types out another text: who are you with? Then backspaces over that, that old familiar sting. Instead, he sends: just tell me you're all right.

No, no. He really, really wants a drink. The smell of it is in the air, wafting on every thunderstormy breath of air that drifts around the house. Is there a window open somewhere? Because that smell is overwhelming - bourbon, harsh and full of forgetting. The pantry door even swings open helpfully, creaking softly on the hinges that Logan should fix so they don't creak anymore. That bourbon smell gets all tangled up in his nose, blending with the smell of heavy rain, wet house, Lucy's perfume, Emily's shampoo, it's like a physical thing, that smell.

"Oh, my poor love. She didn't take her stuff last time she left, remember? You just got to her before she got out of town." Can ghosts shrug? This one does, right into another flash of lightning. "She's not coming back." Such certainty. "Not this time. She went off the deep-end, just like she said you would." And there's a terrible giggle there, enjoying the dramatic irony of it.

Please. The text was sent as the scent of bourbon and shampoo and perfume lingers, the creak of the pantry door focusing his attention up off the phone, away from the ghost, and to the hinges that so badly need fixing. Surely, that's the only reason he would approach the pantry anyway, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his palm and taking in a breath through his mouth as the ghost goes on in his peripheral. "She's fine. She's not gone off the deep end, she's not going off the deep-end. This is your fucking sister, Luce, aren't you even a little concerned?"

Arguing with a ghost. Add this to the new-normal, too.

It's only because he's near the door that he casts a look into the pantry, down at the bottom shelf where he keeps his bourbon. He wasn't buying any new bottles when he finishes one, that was his promise to Emily. He never did tell her he'd stop completely. He frowns as he looks back to the hinges, opens the door and slowly closes it and then opens it again, trying to figure out at which point it creaks. "She's coming back. She has to come back. She wouldn't just up and leave, not anymore. She's probably just.." he doesn't finish the sentence. The thoughts are bad enough.

Ghosts don't have to follow people. When people move, ghosts move. This one sits in her chair at the table now, like she's been there forever, like she never left it. Her voice fits into the creaks from the pantry door, picks up the high-notes to blend them into the tail-end of that giggle. "Noooo," she lilts amiably. "Why would I be concerned? She's so close now, almost here. I'm happy, I miss her." The sigh isn't forlorn, exactly, but there's a melancholy hopefulness, like the Lucy-ghost is lonely. Wherever she is.

The creak is everywhere. The whole door is probably ruined. The frame, too. It's all falling apart, now that he's close to it, a much bigger project than just oiling the hinges. Is Logan up for that kind of thing tonight? It'd be better to just have some drinks - all the drinks - and not worry about it. Especially since, "Fucking someone?" That's the ghost's guess for what Emily's just doing. "Mhm. Room nine. But that's not really her fault, you know. You can't hold people accountable if they're not all there anymore. Probably, when he's finished with her, she'll be all the way here. If you hurry, you could get here, first. And we could all be together again."

Thunder. The rattle of the pill-bottle. The slosh of the bourbon bottle.

The door splits when she finishes his sentence for him, a crack right down the middle. It was already ruined anyway, it deserves what it gets. Logan's knuckles are white on the knob, he doesn't even look at the crack he's made in the door. Instead, his focus is on the bourbon bottle even as his attention is on the ghost. "You're not really here," his voice is quiet, distant. He doesn't believe that, either. "It's not really you. Room nine?" he asks for confirmation, while reaching for the bourbon bottle. The liquid sloshes as the thunder rattles; he just wants to hold it, clasp it to his chest, as he walks out of the pantry and past the ghost and for his truck keys. He doesn't grab his phone, it stays on the table.

"I can hold her accountable for whatever the fuck I want," he decides. "She fucking promised."

The door splits, and there's that feeling, the nails that rake down his spine in the dark. They're raking down someone else's spine right now, someone in room nine, someone that's not here arguing with a ghost. "Room nine." The voice comes from the top of the stairs, falling down in the dim house, bouncing over the steps, landing in a broken heap at the bottom of them. "You think you were the first person she fucked in that room? Or the last? Please, my love. She fucked the desk clerk before you even got there. Think about it." Emily, half-dressed, disheveled, the hasty shower that could have started the second he said he was on his way.

"It doesn't matter. I'm here. She'll be here soon. She's so close. Have a few drinks, hit the stash - you didn't get rid of alllll of it, did you? And you can be here, too. It's fine here, you know. It doesn't hurt. And I'm not mad at you, and Emmy won't be mad at you. It'll be like it's supposed to be, just the three of us." Open the door, it's all just dark and rain and hail and a distant, breathless, hungry moan that might be thunder, "But it's not thunder, and it's not you. Just stay, just stay and we can talk all night, like the old days, remember?"

Logan is in the living room when the voice falls down the stairs, and there's nothing to see yet he can hear every heavy thud echoing in his eardrums before the final collapse there at the bottom. He winces his eyes shut and bows his head towards the bottle of bourbon, the smell of it so strong now. "Room nine," he repeats to himself, his voice as sharp as the nails he feels down his back. It could just be one drink. One small, teeny-tiny sip. His hands tremble on the bottle.

She was right though, he didn't get rid of it allll. Emily's been upending cabinets but she hasn't found it all. He hasn't sold it all. But he promised. Not that it matters, because "She promised," too. His voice aches, his throat aches for a drink, he's got the cap open but the door open too, trying to ignore the moan on the wind that wasn't the thunder and wasn't him, either. "I'll just go and get her. Room nine. She doesn't know what she's doing," so he has to save her from herself, obviously. Fix her. He keeps the uncapped bourbon bottle low, he doesn't lead it to his lips, he takes a step outside and clasps his keys to his palm. "I'll just.. I'll go and get her and this all will be okay."

Why ghosts gotta be all rational?

"You're not thinking this through." The voice stops on the threshold, it can't go out there, and Logan is leaving it. Leaving it in here. All broken and dying, and it sounds thin and lonely now. "She wants to go, Logan, she wants to be here, with me, not there, with you. If you go there, it won't be okay. She'll hate you again, and she'll leave again, and I'll be gone when you get back, because I'll have her, and we won't need you." The sad pout, the fading perfume, like the last time he could smell it on his skin, when he didn't want to shower after because he'd never smell it again.

"Stay here, please, please? With me, and we'll just wait for her. You and me and Emily, and it'll be laughter and summer and sunshine soon. But not if you go out there. Out there, it's all - " Lightning obliges then. Hail tap-tap-taps on the awning over the porch. "Please? I need you, and she'll need you, once she's here."

He wasn't thinking this through, she wasn't wrong. He was about to get into his truck in the hail and the rain with an open bottle of bourbon that was practically screaming to get drunk, all to do ... what, exactly? Drive across town, to some seedy motel, knock down the door to Room 9 and confront whoever was fucking Emily into the mattress right now. He was probably going to punch that guy in the face for fucking his ... whatever Emily was to him now. But what was he to her? Nothing, probably, just another something to slide between her thighs. He stalls out beneath the awning, listening, already mourning the loss of the smell of Lucy's perfume all over again. Maybe Lucy was right. Maybe Emily doesn't want to be there, with him. His hands shake on the bottle again, lifting to nudge the lip of it to his mouth. Just a sip.

"She promised, Luce," he shoves the bottle back down, turns just enough to bring unfocused eyes to the doorway. "She can't come here, not like that. Not yet. I fucking told her it was just going to be us," and that pisses him off so much that he bounces the goddamn bottle off the step. It smashes, the bourbon spills. Party foul. "Fuck this. I'll fucking find him and I'll fucking kill him, he's not fucking taking her from me yet." And that was his decision. He walks right off the porch and into the hail.

"We all promised things. You promised to stay. You promised to help."

But the voice can't get to him out there, on the patio, and it fades into something thin and distant, swallowed up beneath the sounds of hail and rain and thunder, the sounds of his truck, the sounds of his bottle. The lights of the truck flash across the front window of the house, and she's still in there - not the pretty ghost that sat at the table, but the broken thing bleeding on the floor. And all the way there, all the way there, he's so goddamn sure he's going to bang on room number nine and... what?

What's going to happen is some out-of-towner who's just trying to catch some ZZes before his conference is going to be confused as fuck about this drunk prick waking him up in the middle of the night is what.

"I'm not gonna let her fucking die, too, Luce. I can't."

And though the thin voice claws at him, he doesn't let it break the skin; he forges ahead, into his truck, the door shuddering behind him as he slams it closed. He doesn't stop when he sees her there in the window, under the flash of the headlights, because he couldn't save her from laying there but he could save Emily from joining her, at least for tonight. His hands were shaking and his head hurt and his heart was broken, but he slams through the rain and the hail and into the parking lot of the Seabreeze, until he's at Room 9 and hammering on the door.

He wasn't drunk, he wasn't. He hadn't even had a sip of the bourbon. But that didn't mean he wasn't a little crazy, and so when the door opens to the out-of-towner he slams his fist into it to open it more. "Where the fuck is she? EMILY? Emily! Get out of this fucking prick's bed, I'll rip your fucking dick off if you touched her," that last part was said to the confused out-of-towner, of course.

It's only after Logan threatens the man that he realizes Emily isn't in the room. Oh well.

There's a lot of floundering from the half-asleep, really pissed off guy. He's just some middle-aged dude in his shorts, bald and portly and confused and groggy, gaping at Logan with a complete inability to comprehend what the actual fuck. There's some inarticulate blundering on his part, a lot of unfinished sentences, many of them peppered with the beginnings of profanity. But the only one that winds up mattering? "I'm calling the fucking cops!" And he snatches his phone off the nightstand to do exactly that thing, keeping a wary eye on the nutter, ready to bolt if it comes to that.

Not only is Emily not in the room, but there's no evidence that Emily has ever been in this room. Like, Logan knows she was here once - 'cause he was here, too - but Emily wouldn't be in this bed, with its shitty comforter that has the white-rose pattern on it. But the room's been cleaned and used more than once since then, so Logan is barking up the wrong tree. His friendly ghost sent him on a wild goose chase.

On a dark and stormy night. Gosh, what could possibly go wrong~.

Shit. What was he going to say? 'Oops, wrong room?' The guy was already reaching for his phone. "Call the fucking cops and I'll rip off your dick and shove it down your goddamn throat," he decides is the appropriate response here, tightening his fist unconsciously at his side. Cracks erupt on the surface of the cellphone screen, rendering it useless. And just for good measure? The line on the desk phone frays. No police for you, bucko.

Logan slams the door and breaks off the handle; this time, with his own hand, just from the force of his anger. He was boiling - mad at Lucy, pissed at Emily, furious with himself. He didn't even get that drink. And he left his fucking phone in the house. So back to his truck he goes, throwing it in reverse and whipping out of the parking lot, putting his foot to the pedal to get back home. He should probably be more careful.

So that guy is never coming to this town again. Especially since his wife is gonna pissed all day tomorrow when he doesn't check in with her, and then he gets home with the excuse that some random crazy broke into his room in the middle of the night and... then he's not really sure what happened to his phone; he thinks he squeezed it so hard that it just shattered, look! He makes sure to bring home the evidence. Which doesn't help. The end result is: Logan just ruined this guy's marriage.

And he's driving madcap down Bayside, which is not a great road under the best of circumstances. Tonight, it's steep, slick with rain, and the power must have gone out in the same second that Logan threw his truck in reverse, because it's impossibly dark, with every streetlight and traffic light and house light extinguished all at once. He's mad at Lucy, at home giggling at him for being so gullible while she bleeds out on the hardwood floor of the living room. He's mad at Emily, who ran away when she promised not to and is probably fucking some heroin addict under the boardwalk. It's dark. No one has to know if he just... drives right off the cliff, sails through the air. It'd be over so quick. Just don't pay attention, just blink at the wrong second, just reach for the bottle instead of turn the wheel.

Quick and painful. Just like Lucy's death had been. Just like the last two months with Emily have been.

Poor random dude. Logan gives no fucks. It's dark out here, way too dark, and the road's twisted and slippery and full of potholes and he's doing double the speed limit. What was he going to do anyway? Go back home to the ghost and the otherwise empty house, drive down to the boardwalk to see which limp-dick heroin addict Emily's riding instead of him? Sail his truck off the cliff and into the water instead, where maybe nobody would care if he died anyway. The truck drifts close to the shoulder, what was that about a bottle? Did he have a bottle in here somewhere?

No.

He jerks the wheel the other way, away from the edge of the cliff. He had to get back to the house. Emily would be there, waiting, and they could make this work. They would make this work. But the course-correction back to life has his tires slipping on the wet road and he fishtails, and in his panic, he slams his foot into the brake. The truck slides right into the opposite side of the road (the one away from the cliff, thankfully) but it stops so aggressively that Logan slams his head into the steering wheel.

Crack goes Logan's noggin, but he doesn't break his crown. Pop! goes one of Logan's tires, sinking him into a puddle of rain and muck and mud. The airbag doesn't inflate. Blood streaks down Logan's face. The headlights die, and Logan's left in the darkness. It's a good thing he's passed out, else that might be a little terrifying.

Man, if only he'd let that guy call the cops, they'd be on their way up Bayside right now. Logan wouldn't have to sit in his truck for... oh... a while, bleeding out of his face. But he decided to be cute and break the phone of a dude whose only crime was being in room number nine. So let's just call this justice. Granted, they don't want justice; they want pain, and if this isn't the ultimate pain, it'll do as a midnight snack.

The eyelid movies that Logan has to watch while no one passes by, while he's unconscious and bleeding, are the hard ones. What his life with Lucy might have been - the happy future he won't get to have, pretty babies with strawberry blonde hair, growing old together, such lovely thoughts were they not crowded by the reminder that they were never going to to happen. What his life with Emily is bound to become - they'll have to come and take her away, shove pills down her throat, and he can finally just open his throat, such awful thoughts full of the certainty that they were things to come.

"Hey. Hey man. You okay? Shit."

The dizzying lights of the ambulance. And hey, is that the tiny doctor? Logan knows that guy.

Morphine is even better than oxy. Logan should enjoy that part, at least.

Logan wasn't okay, and not just because of the gash on the forehead. Those eyelid movies made him wish his truck had gone off the other side of the road.

But before the morphine drip comes, when the little doctor blurs into view, while the ghosts of Christmases Never to Come are still haunting his mind and stomping all over his broken heart, he reaches out. His hand falls limp on the tiny doctor's arm, but insistent. "Call. Call her," he was hoarse, the words were hard to find. "Emily. Please. Tell her.. tell her I wasn't.. drunk, okay? No bourbon. No pills. Call her. Please. Tell her.. Tell her I.." and then he passes out again.

Yeah. 'Cause Alex and Emily totally exchanged numbers. That happened.

But don't worry, they do all kinds of tests to make sure Logan wasn't driving drunk. They also do all kinds of tests to make sure his brain isn't scrambled beyond repair. Also, just because it seems really unfair to his player otherwise, they do a bunch of X-rays that confirm nothing is broken and he won't need any casts. <.<

But he's gonna be here for a minute. They admit him. They send him to a room that he has to share with an old homeless guy whose liver is about to give up the ghost. They keep him sedated.

Someone - whether Alex or a nurse or just one of the countless nosy fuckers in this town - eventually filters word to Emily that Logan's in the hospital. So she'll be here when he comes to. But for now? He should get some morphine-induced rest.