september 18, 2009.

Tears streamed down her face as she clung to the bottle of cheap tequila in her hand.  Underage and overdramatic, she screamed and sobbed and cried.  She begged and lied and wheezed an asthmatic’s wheeze.  Emotion seeped through her pores.

“I’ve been thinking about this for a while now,” he’d said plainly when he walked in the door.

It was two hours after he had said he would be home.

During these two hours, she had been sitting, thinking, in his living room, taking shot after shot of tequila to get the courage to confront him.  After he arrived, and when she finally did, he had responded by saying he was leaving her.

It was ultimate humiliation and devastation.  And she was going to be sick.

“Is there someone else?” she pleaded, “Say there is and I’ll go.. I swear.”

“No there isn’t,” he replied curtly.

“Then st-stay,” she sobbed, pulling her shirt over her head and throwing it to the floor, “C-come upstairs with me then.”

His mouth twisted into a smile briefly, but it faded. He shook his head.

“No, Lyss.  It’s tempting, and I would – God, you are sexy – but I’d still leave anyway,” he finally managed to say.

“Is there someone else?  Honestly.  Tell me the truth!” she demanded, still standing half-naked.

“No.  Of course not.”

But his eyes met hers and she knew deep down that it was yet another lie.  Alyssa grabbed her shirt off the floor and wrestled it back on.  She stormed out the door and into the darkness to call the only person she could trust, leaving her clothes, laptop, textbooks, dignity, and heart behind.

He fingers fumbled for speed dial – for Grace… for the help she needed, the answers she knew she’d never get… for protection, for strength…

Inside, Jack opened the refrigerator door and drank straight from the soda bottle.