I Sipped Wine and Watched Him Burn

The day I lost my empathy for a man I once loved

I curled up on the ugly red couch I bought second-hand. It had ends that reclined, where my cat could curl up by my feet and I could stretch out after dealing with the public all day at the liquor store I managed.

I poured myself a large glass of red wine from the bottle sitting on the coffee table. There was no reason to keep it in the kitchen, I was going to finish it anyway.

I attempted to talk to my boyfriend. I wanted to tell him about my day and see how his was, but he was nodding out on the couch from the handful of pills he had taken earlier.

I told myself he was tired after working his roofing job. Why wouldn’t he be? It was a hard, physical job.

‘Glad I don’t have a physical job like that,’ I thought while I massaged my tired feet from being on them for 15 hours.

I pulled out my laptop and escaped into my Pinterest boards. It was my favorite getaway since every weekend was the same. I lived in a perpetual state of watching my boyfriend nod and drool after eating or snorting too many pills. Occasionally he would switch it up and smoke some meth (unbeknownst to me) and be up for a few erratic days.

My boards were full of the life I wanted to live so badly. One where I didn’t live in a run-down trailer with dusty plastic over the windows and mice scurrying across the floor. The carpets were oddly discolored from years of being a former flop house and there was no amount of cleaning that could be done to make this trailer feel like home.

I pinned pictures of clean, white, uncluttered spaces, big windows, and beautiful yards. Homes where you could use the front and the back door, open the windows, and use every cabinet in your kitchen. My kitchen had cabinets I wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole. Lord knows what was living in the dark corners of the forgotten kitchen corner.

I threw away my dreams of one day living in a city, where culture thrived and people had stimulating conversations. I settled for the few grunts I’d get when trying to converse with someone who had been with me for six years and still didn’t know when my birthday was.

He woke up from his pill-induced slumber to throw some more wood in the wood stove, our main heating source. I thanked him, as I always did even though my words fell through the same deep cracks my dreams had fallen through years before.

He pulled a stool up to the wood stove to sit on while he stoked the fire — something he did often. As I watched him stoke the embers, I wondered what it would be like to live with someone that wanted to know how your day was. I also wondered exactly what pills he had taken before I came home.

There was no reason to ask, he would lie anyway. He was never truthful about his pill usage and usually used his job as an excuse for why he was nodding off while standing up. The sad part is that I actually believed him for many years.

I knew in my heart something was off, but denial was easier than facing the truth. Besides, asking questions only led to me feeling crazy because gaslighting is essential in hiding your addictions.

I quietly stared at this man who I once fell so deeply in love with when I was just a young, insecure teenager. What happened to him? Or, was this always who he was and my blinders were finally coming off?

With the cast iron wood stove door flung wide open, he nodded again as he stoked the fire. His head moved up and down, like one of those Bobbleheads you could buy at the gas station.

His eyes were struggling to stay open, but failing him. He was so fucked up that he was going to pass out into the fire. This wasn’t the first time. At least once a week, I would yell at him, “Hey honey, go to bed.” I hated his pill addiction, but I couldn’t let him get hurt.

This night was different though. I sat up on my ugly red couch, refilled my glass of wine, and set my laptop aside. Completely silent, I sipped and watched as he slowly swayed back and forth, up and down. I could feel the rage bubbling in my stomach, the closer his forehead inched toward the piping-hot cast iron stove.

Terrible thoughts started creeping into my mind, as I whispered to my cat, “You’re gonna hit your head. That’s what you deserve, you pill-loving asshole.”

These angry thoughts were new to me. My empathy was completely drained after 6 years of loving someone who loved pills more. I was turning into someone I didn’t recognize, but at that moment I was done. I was done feeling sorry for him. I was done trying to help him. And I was angry.

Closer. Closer. Closer. His head was mere centimeters away. One more head bob and…

BAM.

He smacked his forehead on the hot stove. Searing pain jolted him back to reality and he screamed profanities while I sat there smirking and shaking my head. I just watched the man I love burn his forehead while I did nothing to stop it.

Am I the asshole?

I finally spoke and asked him if he was okay. He mumbled something as he threw the firewood into the stove and slammed the door shut like the stove itself jumped up and burned him. He was never to blame — everything was always out to get him, including inanimate objects.

I curled up on my ugly red couch and finished my wine in one big chug. In that moment of bitterness and anger, I decided that my Pinterest boards were going to become my reality.