Brandy and Regret

Rhonda knew I was unraveling, and I wasn’t hiding it well on the air. The ten-year anniversary of the Beirut bombing was eating me alive, and I had mentioned it not once but twice, like some broken record stuck on repeat.

After the second time, she called. She must’ve known. “Are you alright?” she asked, her voice softer than usual, but there was an edge to it, a subtle tension.

I promised her I’d call when I got home. Hours later, I was drunk—completely fucking wasted off my ass. Christian Brothers brandy, the whole bottle sucked down before I even dialed.

The liquid fire had numbed me and dulled the sharp memories. But the second I heard that voice, something snapped. “Why now?” I slurred into the receiver, half-angry, half-desperate. “Why do you care now?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” she shot back. “I’ve always cared.”

“Sure. Sure, you have,” I spat, my words dripping with bitterness. “But you weren’t there, were you? Ten years, and you weren’t fucking there. You don’t get it.”

“I’m not your punching bag,” she said, her voice hardening, a cold edge cutting through the static. “I called because I thought you needed someone. Clearly, I was wrong.”

But I couldn’t stop. It was like the floodgates had opened. “Needed someone? Needed someone?” I laughed, a harsh, ugly sound. “You weren’t there in Beirut. You weren’t there when we pulled pieces of them out of the rubble. You don’t know what it’s like to smell burning flesh and know it’s your brothers. So don’t tell me you give a damn now.”

“Jesus Christ,” she whispered, her voice low, shaken. “I’ve always been there for you. But you? You’ve pushed everyone away.”

I don’t remember the rest of it. I don’t recall what I said, what insults I threw, what bridges I burned. All I know is that by the time I hung up the phone, I felt like shit. The brandy had done its job, leaving me numb but hollow inside.

I knew I’d crossed a line, but I was too far gone to care. We didn’t talk for weeks after that. Rhonda didn’t call and didn’t leave messages. And I didn’t have the guts to reach out. I could feel the silence growing, heavy as a lead weight in my chest.

Three weeks passed before she finally called the station, and the second I heard her voice, I knew it would hit hard.

“You’re a real piece of work, you know that?” Her words cut through the static like a razor. I’d been waiting for this, dreading it, knowing it was coming like a slow-motion train wreck. “You don’t get to treat me like shit and then disappear for weeks. Who the hell do you think you are?”

I stumbled over my apology, trying to make sense of the mess I’d made. But it wasn’t enough, and we both knew it. The apology felt hollow, just words clinging to the air.

“You hurt me,” she said, her voice quieter now, but the anger had shifted to something worse—disappointment. That knife-in-the-gut kind of disappointment, simple and sharp. “I don’t know if I can trust you anymore. Not after that.”

And that was it. That was the moment everything crumbled. I hung up the phone, the weight of those words pressing down on me like a goddamn boulder. I knew I’d fucked up beyond repair. It wasn’t the alcohol that killed it; it was me. My bitterness, my anger—everything I’d shoved deep down came spilling out, and I’d destroyed the only friendship that had meant anything.

It wasn’t like Beirut, the kind of loss that you bury under blood and chaos. It was different. It was a slower, quieter kind of regret that putrefies. It was the memory of everything I wrecked, everything I pushed away. And there’s no undoing that kind of damage.

You sit with it, let it haunt you, carve out pieces of your soul that you’ll never get back. Every goddamn bottle you drown yourself in sinks you deeper.