I could quite easily never go back to the house. Sell it from a distance, get removal men to pack everything up, find somewhere new. I could stay with friends, or at Mum’s house. I never need step foot into the house again.

But I know those dreams. They’re the ‘go to the gym’ dreams, the ‘need to start saving more’ fantasies that never quite pan out. Though I’m gripping the steering wheel hard, I know that eventually, I’ll go back to the house, and face whatever it is thats haunting me.

It’s tragically funny how we ignore the dangerous things, right until they kill us.

You left me because of the booze. Too many nights spent on the sofa, or puke stains, or a recycling bin so full that even a pub landlord would raise an eyebrow. Everything I did was jigsawed around my drinking. Either a night out had to be book-ended by beer, or I’d nip out for a quick one in the middle of the movie.

Pretty fucking rude, really.

And I got boring with it. Time was when I’d drink myself into a stupor by eight o’clock on a week night, and then dribble while watching the T.V., not saying a word, monosyllabic and lost.

You put up with it for a long time. Reminded yourself you loved me, gave me umpteen million chances. Even tried to join in a few times, but your heart wasn’t in it, and you always suffered from hellish hang-overs.

So then the ultimatums started. You need to cut down, we couldn’t afford it. You can be sober, as well, you know.

I can’t blame you, but I resisted like it was life or death. Didn’t become a secret drinker until later, hiding it like a junkie, always with a pack of mints in my pocket, my thoughts always on the next one.

And worse still, though it cost me you, I’m still doing it, though for different reasons. The fun guy with you became a depressed drunk without you. Instead of drinking to have a laugh, I’m drinking to remember being the fun guy with you.

And even as I turn into the car park, outside the warehouse-sized pet shop, full of sawdust smells and chirping cages and bubbling water, I’m aware of the itch in my throat and a need in my brain. I know where the nearest pub is. I know how long it would take to get there, and down one pint. Just one.

Always just one.

These thoughts used to hurt, like gargling a cactus. Truths I couldn’t face, admit or accept. Seeing you, Julia-One, I mean, would have once been the highlight of my week. You actually came back to the house. I’d have happily ignored that you wanted to section me, send me to rehab, skin me with a potato-peeler. Just seeing you would be enough to make me glow, lying to myself on the sofa in a sozzled slump.

But Julia-Two … that takes the blinkers off. I have been rolling about in my own shit, being childish, not letting go. It’s like how ready we are to admit our faults concerning exes, just never to the current girlfriend. I’d sit there with you, and tell you everything about how stupid I was, pinning over Julia-One. Should have seen how she didn’t care, hated me, pitied me.

I buy a sack of dried dog food, and a new bed, in a trendy cow-hide pattern, which will probably be the newest soft furnishings in the house by a year. The queue is short, the til-girl ignorant, the walk back to the car like walking on eggshells or sunlight, I can’t tell which.

I sit back down, key in the ignition, gripping the steering wheel like I’m throttling it.

Torn between home and the pub yet again, like many times before, for once I make the right decision, and head on home.