When I get to the cabin, I head inside and check my alcohol supply.
I have five or six bottles of the strongest shit I could find in this fucking hick town. That’ll probably only hold me over for two days. Three at the max.
Another whine. The mutt has snuck into the cabin. He’s sniffing around the pasta that’s stuck all over the floor.
Apparently, I upended the table last night. Both chairs still lay on their sides. The table, too. And pasta everywhere.
“Fuck,” I mutter.
The smell in here is mostly booze and sweat. Underneath it all, though, is a stink that set in weeks ago.
I need to fucking clean up.
I pick up one of the fresh bottles of whiskey, set one of the chairs upright, and sink into it. I crack the top and take a burning swig.
I don’t usually start drinking so early, but I’m feeling restless today. Worse than usual.
The mutt eagerly laps up the pasta.
I take another drink and set the bottle down on the floor. When it clinks, the mutt looks up with a startled little flinch and fixes his sad eyes on me.
“Don’t fucking judge me,” I snarl. “At least east I don’t look like you do.”
The dog starts wagging his tail and pads over to me. I don’t touch. I don’t want the mongrel to get too comfortable with me.
I don’t mind him eating shit off the floor, but I’m in no position to look after anything.
The whiskey settles my nerves. I get out of the chair and survey the cabin.
It looks like a fucking shithole. Mostly because it is. I know where all the important shit is—the whiskey and the weapons—but the rest of it is a haphazard mess.
Sighing, I right the table and the other chair back to their normal positions. One of the table’s legs is crooked, but I’m in no hurry to fix it.
Then I move around the cabin and straighten what I can.
The place is nowhere near clean, but it’s the most I can bring myself to accomplish right now.
When I’m sick of trying to fix this unfixable chaos, I grab my jacket.
The dog perks his head up.
“Don’t even fucking thinking about it,” I tell him. “You’re not coming with me.”
He actually lets out a little whine, as though he’s understood me perfectly.
“Too fucking bad,” I reply. “I’m not your damn owner.” I glare down at him. “Nobody would want you anyway.”
The dog just blinks at me.
“Yeah, now you decide not to understand me.”
I wonder if I should be concerned that I’m talking to a fucking animal. It feels inconsequential, though, given everything I’ve lost.
I’ve had three months to think on all those losses. And what I’ve decided is that they were all necessary.
I needed the bullshit to be stripped away. For my vision to be cleared.
I needed a reminder of who I am and what my purpose in life is.