Love Song

Josh

As soon as Josh got home from taking Jordan to the hospital, he stepped through the front door of his house, for some reason irritated by Erin’s cheerful greeting.

“Hi baby!” she exclaimed, kissing his cheek, “Is Jordan ok?”

“She’s fine,” Josh said, heading for the kitchen, “Do we have any beer left?”

“Josh…” Erin murmured, “I thought you could sit down with me for awhile and talk.”

Josh pulled a beer out of the fridge and leaned against the door frame, “I’m just not in the mood for talking right now.”

“But you are in the mood for drinking yourself into unconsciousness?” Erin snapped, crossing her arms, “Every day you come home and start drinking. What’s happening to you?”

“Nothing’s happening,” Josh opened the bottle and took guzzled half of it down, “It’s just been stressful lately, ya know?”

Erin nodded and ran her tongue along her teeth, “Yeah. I know. Your sister is dragging you down.”

“My sister has nothing to do with it,” Josh waved her off and took another sip, “I’m having a beer because I want to. No one influences me to do anything.”

“Would you be able to make it a day without drinking?” Erin asked, “I don’t think you could!”

“Jesus fucking Christ Erin!” Josh slammed the bottle down on the kitchen, “Can you get off my fucking ass?! I’m fine! Everyone keeps telling me I have a goddamn problem but I. Am. Fine. Dear sweet Jesus…”

Erin narrowed her eyes at him and she hurried into their bedroom. She was gone for a few minutes and Josh sat down with his bottle of beer, leaning back as he finished off his first bottle of beer. He sighed as he took his last sip and set the bottle down. Erin eventually emerged with her suitcases, purse and sunglasses on. Josh hurried onto his feet, “Erin! What are you doing?”

She threw open the door and kept Josh at arm’s length, “I’m leaving! I can’t sit here and watch you circle the drain and get drunk every single night and then sleep all day. If Jordan hadn’t called, you would’ve slept all damn day. Let me know when you’re ready to grow up Josh. Until then, I’m gone.”

Josh sighed but didn’t bother going after her. He instead went into the kitchen and grabbed another beer. He stared at the front door the entire time as he opened his bottle and started drinking it, as if he was doing it in spite of Erin, grinning as he swallowed, “Fine. Go then. I needed the extra space anyways.”

** ** ** ** ** **

Josh woke up the next morning face down on his couch, the pillows and cushions scattered all around his living room along with the beer bottles. He groaned and slowly sat up on the couch, careful of his pounding head. Yesterday was a complete blur. Simply trying to remember what happened yesterday made his head hurt even worse. He stood up, his legs like Jell-O as he moved towards the bathroom, “Erin! Where’s the ibuprofen? Erin!”

Silence. Josh shuffled into the bedroom and lifted the blankets to find the bed was empty, “Erin? Baby? Where are you?”

Josh searched the entire house, even searching the closet like a fool. After awhile he began to remember that Erin had packed her things and left yesterday. He groaned and ran his fingers through his hair, “Fuck!”

He took his aspirin and that was when his mom called his phone. He grumbled under his breath as he answered, knowing she was going to invite him over to the house for the day. His body ached too much to spend the day with the family. But he could never say no to his mom.

“Hi Mom,” he said.

“What’re you doing today?” she asked, “Tia and Jordan said they’d come over today so I wanted you here too. Tia’s bringing her boyfriend and Jordan’s bringing the baby. Ryan’s working, thank god.”

“I hear ya,” Josh chuckled, “I’ll be there Mom.”

“Bring Erin too!” she said.

“Uh…Mom…we kinda…decided to take a little break,” Josh replied awkwardly.

“Why?!” she asked.

(Because I’m slowly screwing up my life and she doesn’t want to be a part of it.)

“There’s just things we have to work out,” Josh said, “We’ll be ok Mom. Don’t worry.”

Josh was bombarded by his mother’s questions almost immediately after he arrived at the house. Jordan had shown up right before he did and of course Mom noticed the stitches on Jordan’s arm, anyone would notice them. Jordan had taken off her sweatshirt by mistake, completely forgetting about her stitches and their mom flipped out and began asking her a bunch of questions. She wasn’t happy with Jordan’s answers, she bothered Josh about it, as if this was his problem.

“Mom, she didn’t give me any more information than she gave you,” Josh said, “All I did was drive her to the hospital.”

“Well how could she possibly get a pair of scissors into her arm?!” she snapped, “I mean, Jordan is clumsy but she’s not that clumsy.”

Josh was about to reply when Jordan came out into the living room with the rest of the family. She’d put a jacket on to cover up her arm. But Josh wasn’t going to let her get away with being quiet.

“So Jordan why don’t you tell us what happened to your arm,” Josh said, sitting down on the couch across from her. All eyes focused on Jordan and she narrowed her eyes at him, aiming daggers at his head. She finally smiled and leaned back, crossing her arms, “Josh have you been drinking? You look a little haggard. You’ve been looking like that lately.”

Then everyone switched their attention to Josh and he began to fidget uncomfortably. He cleared his throat and sunk as far as he could into the couch, “Well, I did go drinking last night but it’s not something I normally do.”

“Oh really?” Jordan said, “You know you can’t be partying all the time. Especially since we’ve been recording and stuff.”

“How has your husband been treating you lately Jordan?” Josh could tell he’d hit a nerve saying that to her. She took the baby from Tia and stormed out of the house.

“What’s wrong with her?” Tia asked. Josh stood up and headed for the door, “I’ll go talk to her. We’ll be back.”

When Josh came outside, Jordan was buckling Aria into her car seat. Josh attempted to grab her but he didn’t want to scare her, “Jordan what the hell are you doing?”

“You are a fucking asshole Josh,” Jordan snapped as she threw open her car door, “I told you not to say anything and what do you do? You might as well have just said it! What was stopping you?”

“Well you threw me under the bus!” he shouted back, “Why should I keep a secret when you try to worry Mom and John and Tia and Dad for nothing?!”

“Oh, because you think you don’t have a problem right?” Jordan said. She started laughing and climbed into her car, “You’re just as fucked up as the rest of us Josh. The only difference between you and I is that I acknowledge that my life is fucked up. You lost Erin because you’re a complete tool!”

Jordan slammed the door shut and backed out of the driveway, leaving Josh to stand their in the middle of the driveway and watch her go. He didn’t have a problem. Erin and Jordan both were over thinking this whole thing. He didn’t have a problem. He could stop anytime he wanted to. He just didn’t want to stop. He came back into the house with all eyes on him. Even the dogs looked at him with total interest.

“Where did Jordan go?” Mom asked.

“Oh, she had to leave,” he said, “She’s totally fine.”