against the clock

I shouldn’t have left. It hits Nace not even five steps down the road, but he carries on walking. Right now, he needs to put as much distance between him and his flat as possible. I should go back. Back to... what, exactly? To the empty glasses and equally empty wine bottle sitting on his coffee table from last night? To the now single set of clothes strewn all over the floor on the way to the bedroom, after he’d grabbed his own in a blind panic not ten minutes ago? To Jan, still fast asleep in his bed, hair tangled and lips still swollen and still, somehow, looking as beautiful as ever? Where am I even going? There had been a lot of incidents over the years that had added up to his eventual resolution to quit drinking, but what they all ultimately came back round to was that he always made bad decisions when drunk. Stupid, reckless decisions that threatened to implode his life and those of anyone around him that got caught in the crossfire. It’s never been a hard and fast rule, of course. He does still drink sometimes. But there’s a huge difference between a few sips of wine at a family dinner to be polite and, apparently, opening a whole bottle of wine with just one friend and finding your alcohol tolerance – which has never been all that reliable – is now ancient history. Half a bottle of wine and now this happens. I’ll have to go back eventually. He’s not sure he can. How can he face Jan now? What is he going to say to him? ‘Sorry I kissed you’? ‘Sorry we slept together’? ‘Sorry I didn’t stop myself from ruining everything’? Is he sorry? He knows he’s going to keep coming back to what he can remember of last night, knows there’s more waiting to make itself known the second he stops pushing it away, and that makes it all the worse. He’s been so good at keeping everything under control all this time. His one rule has always been not to shit where he eats, no matter how attractive one of his bandmates might be, and he’s never broken it before, not even for Jan. Until last night, that is. And not being sorry would make it all so much worse. Will the awkwardness be worth that one night? Maybe they’ll get past it eventually. Maybe it’ll hang over them forever. Maybe he’ll have to leave the one place he’d finally thought he belonged in for more than five minutes, just because he couldn’t keep himself under control any more. He’s coming up to the end of the street. He can’t turn around now. His head is spinning. Maybe he should keep walking until it clears, keep going until all that exists is one foot in front of the other and the hard ground beneath them. It might not work as well as a run, but he can keep going until his muscles are screaming at him too loud for him to hear his own thoughts. Maybe his bed will be empty by the time he returns and he can strip the sheets straight for the washing machine and tell himself he never has to think again. Maybe they can pretend. Or maybe he could head to the shop two streets over, grab some milk, and come back to put the coffee machine on. He could wake Jan and they could talk about it all and decide where to go from here. If he confronts everything head on, then... well, he won’t allow himself to imagine a world where Jan might kiss him again and tell him he wants more, but perhaps they can chalk it up as a bit of fun and salvage something of their friendship. The end of the street is coming up. His head is still spinning. His feet slow just enough to almost stumble before he decides.