6- Quentin

6.
Quentin: 

I couldn’t remember when Jem started to change, but as sure as hell, it was defiantly after all the stuff with the police. The worst thing is that I should’ve shared his hatred; after all, they thought he was drunk calling them when he said our mother was dead, but I didn’t, nor did I blame the fact she wasn’t here anymore on them. It was accident and Sure, he was drunk, but he was right, our mother did lay in barn, cold and eyes not moving. Jem had seen so many deaths in his time; I wasn’t surprised at the state of his life.  
     So when Amy came along, not only being his girlfriend, but his friend, I thought it the panic might be over. But no. It didn’t matter how many times she begged him to stop all the drinking, he’d just leave the house and buy another bottle of Vodka. He’d come back to the home that he shared with Amy and sit in the armchair, staring at her as he took sips from the new bottle. After five years, she had enough, told him she couldn’t do this anymore; she loved him as friend, nothing more. He agreed. Whether out of wanting to or just agreeing, we’ll never know.
     A few months after their breakup, I had to go and collect Jem from her house. He had gone over there, drunk, and asked her to take him back. That he loved her more than any bottle of vodka or bourbon. She had just laughed at him and that’s when he slapped her round the face, chucking the bottle at the T.V. I heard his scream from outside.
     “I LOVED YOU! I STILL DO AND YOU JUST LAUGH AT ME? I’M DRUNK ENOUGH THAT HOPEFULLY I WILL FORGET THIS IN THE MORNING, BUT I’M NOT DRUNK ENOUGH TO NOT CONTROL MYSELF. I THOUGHT YOU’D ALWAYS BE THERE FOR ME, WHETHER WE WERE TOGETHER OR NOT? I’M GUESSING I WAS WRONG, I ALWAYS AM.” That’s when I ran in and got him.
     I apologized to Amy for his behaviour, who looked like she was about to cry and left, Jem still shouting at her. I slipped him into the back seat of my car so he could sleep. That’s when I knew he needed help. I had brought him so many things to help him stop drinking before that night, I thought they’d work, or he’d at least try and use them. But no. Every year for my birthday or Christmas, he’d just wrap them up and give them to me. He’d then laugh and go get another drink. 
     But that night, I knew I needed help to stop him, so I called someone that would listen to him. Another person who had gone through the same thing. I thought it was working, Jem was no longer drunk before ten in the morning, nor was he drinking himself to death at night, well not of what I saw. But then one day, when I was on a date with a girl named Katherine at a bar down town, I saw him, along with the man who was supposed to listen to him, they were getting drunk.
      That’s when I knew it is no longer a habit for Jem; it was a lifestyle.