You have a choice. Live or die. Every breath is a choice. Every minute is a choice. To be or not to be. – Chuck Palahniuk

Silence greeted me when I entered the house. I could tell immediately that Gus wasn’t home, although it was already past midnight. For a second I was worried, and then I remembered that it was Friday, and he was at Joey’s for the night. I put down my keys and wallet, slipped off my shoes, tossed my jacket aside, and went to my office.

I didn’t make any food. I wasn’t hungry. Cynthia had tried to make me eat before I left Kinnetik today, but I lied and told her I would at the hospital. Michael tried to make me eat at the hospital, but I lied and said I already had at work. I didn’t want to eat. I wasn’t hungry. Lasagna wasn’t going to make me feel better. I wasn’t Italian, like Mikey. I was Irish.

I poured myself a large glass of Beam, put on a record, and sat down in my usual spot on the floor. Every day since… things changed, Gus made me dinner. At first I’d tried to eat a little, but eventually I stopped. Today was the first day there wasn’t a sandwich waiting for me. I guess he’d given up.

It was about time I gave up, too.

Ben was fine. He was exhausted, and weak, and shaken, but he was going to be okay. He’d leave the hospital in a few days, a week at most, and he’d be fine. This meant that Michael was also fine. He was also exhausted and weak and shaken, but he was fine. Ben was coming home. He didn’t need me to sit there and hold his hand anymore, or tell him everything was going to be okay.

Which was good, because I was too tired to do it anymore.

When I’d seen Justin at the hospital, I thought I might actually be able to fix things. I thought now that Ben was okay, we could work things out. Then I saw him speaking to that nurse, and I knew. This was bad.

I didn’t remember his name, but that nurse had been there almost the entire time Justin was in the hospital. He’d talked to me. Brought me coffee. He knew who I was. He knew who Justin was. And he knew that I’d been there.

Somehow I’d forgotten that Justin didn’t know. It was so fucking long ago. But when he ran past me, and we bumped shoulders, I felt it.

He knew.

And he was never, ever coming back now.

I wanted to be angry. I wanted to be pissed about the things he’d said when we’d fought, but I’d already forgotten what they were. I wanted to be angry that he’d left again, even after promising so many fucking times that he wouldn’t, but I couldn’t. He had every right to go. It was for the best, just like I always knew it was.

At least I’d had a few months before it happened.

But this time, there wouldn’t be another ten years apart before he returned. I couldn’t do it again. I couldn’t move on, because I hadn’t been able to move on since the first night I brought him home. I couldn’t wait anymore, because I knew that this was it. He wasn’t coming back.

I was just working myself down into a nice, deep depression, when the phone rang.

Justin.

“Hey,” I said. If he’d called the day before, I might have felt a rush at seeing his name on my caller ID. But this was today, and today I knew that it was really over. So there was no hope. There was no rush.

“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?”

He’d been crying. He was angry, furious, seething. His throat was raw, and his voice was hoarse. “I didn’t want to,” was all I could say.

“You lied. All this time, I thought the one thing I could count on from you was the truth. I’ve been waiting since the day I woke up from that coma to know where the FUCK you were, why the FUCK you weren’t there! And how the fuck could you say you LOVED me, if you didn’t care enough to fucking visit me in the hospital when I could have DIED?!”

I shut my eyes and frowned. “Are you hurt?” I asked.

“What?” he asked, clearly taken aback.

“You’re hurt,” I said. It was obvious, from the way he was talking. He was in pain, and not just fucking emotionally.

“I’m fine!” he shouted. “Fucking listen to me!”

I shut my mouth and nodded, even though he couldn’t see it. Until now, our fights had always been heated, exhausting, passionate. But I didn’t feel any of that this time. This time I just couldn’t bring myself to feel it. I’d felt more in the past week than I had in years. I wasn’t used to it. I was shut down. I was comfortably fucking numb. And that was okay. Because Justin wasn’t coming back.

“If you had told me… if you have fucking TOLD ME that you’d been there, I never would have left! I wouldn’t have left you for Ethan, I wouldn’t have gone to LA, I wouldn’t have gone to ml:namespace prefix = st1 />New York, I-“

“That’s why,” I said.

“FUCK YOU, BRIAN,” he yelled again, sounding like he was on the verge of tears. “Do you have ANY IDEA how much it’s fucking HURT?! How much it’s KILLED me to know that you didn’t GIVE A FUCK? To know that you were NEVER there?! And now I find out you WERE?! You let me feel that for YEARS.”

“Now you know,” I said. I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I’m sorry? That wasn’t going to cut it. Sorry’s bullshit. I couldn’t explain to him that his own mother had known, and hadn’t told him, and clearly didn’t want me to. She didn’t need to get this from him. He needed her. Besides, it was my decision.

“Is that it?! Is that all you have to say?!” he asked, practically sobbing.

“I guess so,” I replied.

I heard him make this noise that he always makes, when he’s really, really upset. Then there was a click, and he was gone. He’d hung up.

I shut my phone and set it aside, and thought. I poured myself another glass and drank it down quickly, the burn soothing.

I’d become just like my parents in the end.

I’d hurt, lied to, and driven away the one person that really gave a fuck, that really loved me. I’d turned to fucking drinking myself into oblivion because, just like my folks, I was too weak to deal with the reality of my own fucking stupid decisions. And then, icing on the cake, I’d hurt Gus.

Gus was practically an adult at fifteen, and the formative years were long past. He was his own man now, whether his mothers liked it or not. He was smarter and more responsible than anyone else his age, and even if he still made stupid, teenage fuckups, they weren’t huge. Hell, he was already more mature and fucking up less than me now.

He didn’t need me anymore. All I was doing was hurting him.

I poured another glass and drank it, and then another.

He was better off with his mothers after all. Finally, my first chance to be a full-time dad, and I fucked it up. Good job, Brian.

Michael was fine. He was better off with Ben. I’d performed my best friend duty, and I wouldn’t be needed anymore.

Justin would be fine. All I was doing was hurting him. He didn’t need me. He was better off in New York, before he’d come back and let me fuck up his life all over again.

And here I was, completely drunk, completely fucked up, and wallowing in self pity.

Brian Fucking Kinney doesn’t do self pity. Brian Fucking Kinney doesn’t do love. Brian Fucking Kinney doesn’t live past thirty.

What a fucking joke.

Maybe I should have tied the scarf a little tighter that time. If only I’d started a few minutes sooner, Michael would have been too late.

Maybe I really should have gone to Ibiza instead of getting my ball removed.

Then none of this would have happened. Then I wouldn’t be an old, pathetic, self-pitying, drunken loser.

Did I really want to continue doing this shit to myself? Did I really want to stick around to fuck up Gus’ life more? To FEEL this way more? To live to a ripe old age and not only deal with disease and the gradual decomposition of my fucking body and mind, but also to do it alone? Without Justin?

No. I didn’t want that at all.

But I was too drunk, too fucking exhausted to think about it anymore. So I got up and locked the door to my office, so that Gus couldn’t come in and see me passed out drunk again when he got home. He didn’t need that shit. Then I lay down on the blankets that Gus had brought me, and opened another bottle of Beam.

In the back of my mind, I knew that drinking so much and having barely eaten for days was probably a bad idea. But I really didn’t care anymore. If I died from alcohol poisoning, I wouldn’t really mind. It would save me the trouble later, of having to make decisions about that sort of thing myself.

So I drank the last bottle, and passed out on the floor.