“Sometimes the only way to really forget everything is to go to sleep,” he mutters under his breath as he turns away from me, pulling the covers up to the cold shoulder he was giving her. Brigid felt the tears stinging the corner of her eyes as looked at his back. Even though they were sharing the same bed, it felt like he was a million miles away.

“Babe, please don’t be like that. When I said forget it all, I just meant...” she started to say. But before she could get any further, Chris pulled on his noise cancelling headphones, cutting off the already feeble oxygen supply of their connection. Early on in their relationship, she would not have let that stand. Brigid five years ago would have pulled the headphones off him, pleaded her side, fought and cried and lost slept until they fell into the sheets for passionate hate sex that made them lose track of what they were upset about - and more sympathetic to the other once they finally did. Or maybe they would have yelled why they were right, cried over the triggers unintentionally pressed like a sore bruise, or angry bitter tears of needs unmet until they were finally expressed and reflected back long enough for them to have make up sex as hot and mind numbing as the hate sex. The point was, Brigid from 2015 would have made a point of fighting. Because there would have been something worth fighting for.

Now, though, all the fight had gone out of her. Out of her heart, out of the pit of her stomach, out of the back of her throat, all of the places that used to come alive at the very thought of Chris were now just empty, numb, deadened. Looking at Chris’ back now was like looking at a stranger. Like looking at the corpse of not only their relationship, but all of the hopes and dreams they had constructed together, the life she had envisioned for herself - the life she was living right now, even. She threw the covers off herself. All of a sudden, the bed felt like a prison and she had to escape before she was trapped forever.

Passing through the kitchen, she grabbed the bottle of scotch from the counter. She started to open the cupboard to grab a glass but pulled her hand away leaving the cupboard unopened. Opening the sliding door to the screened in porch, she fell into the closest chair and opened the bottle, tossing away the cap that would not be needed. Come morning, she knew that she had a choice. To continue the process of turning to stone as this relationship drained her of passion and joy and hope. Or to shake off the fetters and leave life as she was currently living it behind. She drank long and deep, feeling the liquid burning matching the fire that she could feel being lit within her. A fire she had not felt in a long time, a fire that felt like it belonged to someone else, someone she used to her. Someone she hoped to become again.