Edge of Recovery (Love on the Edge)

by Molly Lee

  It’s as if the girl had sliced me open on day one and peeled apart my layers, exposing all my flaws. She just didn’t know all the details of my secrets. “Why didn’t you?”

  “Because I see you. There is more than what you project. So much more.”

  “You don’t know that.” I banged the back of my head lightly against the wall, tearing my eyes away from her. She was too close—not only in unraveling me but in proximity. It would only take one move of my hand, and I could crush her against me.

  “I do. And you will too, in time. You just have to give me a chance.” She licked her lips. “Can you do that for me? Please,” she whispered the last word, her mouth inching closer to mine.

  My dick throbbed with her so close, with her strawberry scent in my air, her soft body touching mine, but I didn’t move. Couldn’t move.

  “Tell me I’m not just some ex-junkie with a crush on her Sponsee. Tell me I’m not crazy. That you feel this too.” She held her position, so close to my lips I could feel her breath on my skin.

  “I feel it,” I said, wanting to say more but the words died on my tongue. This was a tease from God, a trick placing a piece of perfection like Charlie in front of me, only to have her be off limits. Clearly, she didn’t care about the rules—not only losing the opportunity to be a sponsor in the future but quite possibly losing access to this clinic, which acted as a lifeline to her—but that was right now…what would she do later? After she learned who I really was? After I inevitably hurt her? Because there was no other way this would end. I hurt people. It’s what I did.

  “Prove it,” she said. “Show me something real. Something so I know you’re willing to try. That you want to get better. Because that’s the key, Justin. You have to want it, or I can’t even begin to help you.”

  She had already helped me in more ways than she knew. She’d awoken a piece of my heart that I thought was long dead—the ability to care hadn’t happened since Blake, about myself, about anyone—but I did care about her. What she thought and how she looked at me. And it wasn’t that I wanted to change for her because I felt like I had already set those goals before she came around. I wanted to become who I was around her. I wanted to be the guy I felt like in her presence. The one who cracked jokes with her like rapid fire, the one who pushed her when she pushed back. The one who wasn’t a raging drunk. The one who was just simply…Justin. Charlie’s version of Justin. He was okay to be around. He was almost pleasant.

  I didn’t have a clue how to show her badly I wanted to be him.

  “How do I dig out of a hole so deep and so dark I can’t tell which is the bottom and which is the top?” I asked, pushing some of her hair away from her face.

  “Easy,” she said, leaning into my palm. “You ask me for a shovel.”

  I closed my eyes and exhaled. This girl. She always had the right words. I took my hand away from her cheek and slipped it into my pocket. Pulling out the baggie of a half-dozen pills, I showed them to her. She tilted her head, her eyes slits as she saw one small white pill in particular. I quickly tipped the bag upside down over the toilet and flushed away what would have been over four grand.

  Her eyes widened, the specks of gold catching in the light that flickered above us. She smiled. “It’s real then?”

  “Yeah,” I huffed. “As crazy as it sounds, it is. I want to get better, Charlie. I just don’t have a fucking clue how.”

  Reaching up on her tiptoes, she gripped my face between her hands. “I’m going to show you.”

  I moved my head slightly, her lips only a breath away from mine. The closeness of her ignited my core and my mouth watered, craving more.

  Her sigh hit my skin as she urged me closer.

  Knock! Knock! Two loud bangs jolted us out of our embrace.

  “You about done in there? I have to take a piss!” a man shouted from the other side of the closed door.

  “Coming!” Charlie said and smoothed her hands over her hair, winking at me.

  She went out first, me following right behind her. The guy gave us a sideways glance but quickly shrugged. I stopped him, my hand darting out to block his path to the bathroom.

  “You know,” I said, “there are hundreds of bathrooms on the massive property. Including one right outside in the hallway.”

  The guy swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he nodded quickly. “Didn’t realize you had company.” He raised his hands, and I smacked his shoulder.

  “No worries,” I said, walking to where Charlie waited for me in the entryway.

  Funny. I actually meant that. Two years ago the attitude the guy gave would’ve merited a fight from me. Now it barely rose my blood pressure. Though, it could be the fact that he saved me from making a huge mistake because I’d been seconds away from claiming Charlie’s mouth. And while I had that fantasy on repeat, there were too many haunting memories reminding me every second of why I shouldn’t cross that line—not to mention the professional forbiddance of the two of us being “romantic.” I would destroy her. Professionally or personally or both. Somehow. Someway. It was in my blood to hurt whatever I cared most about, and right now, that was Charlie.

  The knowledge of this didn’t stop me from taking her outstretched hand when I reached her. She intertwined our fingers as we walked down the hallway, her guiding me straight back to my room.

  “Never had a girl drop me off before,” I joked.

  “I like being your first,” she said, never missing a beat.

  Fuck, she was my first. The first one to strike a spark after I’d woken the fuck up that awful night I’d hurt Blake, hurt her dog. Shit, it crept in at the worst possible times.

  “Tomorrow?” She asked, squeezing my hand.

  “You have something planned?” I resisted the urge to bring her hand to my lips.

  “You know I do.”

  “More pottery?” I laughed, thinking of the tornado, of the smashed pieces of clay that I’d wanted to be that version of my past.

  “No,” she shook her head, her hair tussling back and forth. “You’ll see. And I’ll make you a bet.”

  “Gambling is absolutely my thing.”

  “Figures.”

  “What? I’m not addicted to it.”

  She laughed. “Well, I’d wager almost anything against this.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Tomorrow, you’re going to talk to me. Really talk to me.”

  My chest tightened like she was making some kind of prophetic reading. “You think so?”

  “I know so.”

  “How?”

  “It’s step five.”

  I drew my eyebrows together, retracing the steps in my head. Step five blared red in my mind. Confession.

  “How do you know I’m on that one?”

  “Have you not seen how much we’re alike? How I can read you like a book? Come on, Justin. I’ve lived this. I was where you’re standing, and I made it out alive. You can too.”

  “Jury is still out on that one,” I said. “What are you wagering?”

  “What do you want.”

  I cocked an eyebrow at her, and she smacked my chest.

  “You’d bet me like I was a chip in a poker game?” She teased but her words stung every inch of my skin.

  I checked the hallway to make sure we were alone before I cupped her cheek in my hand. I shook my head, trying to convey my sincerity, praying she would see the truth in my eyes. “I would never bet with something that precious.”

  She sucked in a sharp breath, all joking leaving her eyes. “Good answer.”

  “It’s not a line, I swear.”

  “I know.”

  “Because you’re psychic.” I tried to bring us back to humorville because we were teetering too close to an edge I didn’t know I could go over and come back from whole.

  “Right. So let’s stick to something safer. Lunch?”

  “Loser buys lunch,” I said, grabbing her hand and shaking it. “Deal.”

  “I�
�ll see you tomorrow,” she said and tried to pull away.

  I held onto her hand, drawing her closer. “You’re going to lose.”

  She sighed. “It’s so sad that you believe that.”

  Something dark flashed behind her eyes and in the look, I saw a piece of myself. It scared the hell out of me because I knew if there was anyone in the world who could get me to talk…it was Charlie.

  Fuck, I’d already lost.

  And I hadn’t even opened my mouth yet.

  5

  Confession

  “You want to come with us?” I asked Conner, who sat on the bench of the wooden deck that connected to the massive lake on the grounds.

  “Nah, man,” he said, gazing out at the water. He motioned toward it with his lit cigarette. “That’s more my brother’s thing. I prefer to stay on land. Keeps me grounded.”

  I nodded, glancing over at Charlie where she walked toward us with a couple of life vests.

  “Seriously?” I asked her when she’d made it to us.

  “Facility policy.” She shrugged, handing me a damp vest that smelled like mud and lake water. “They won’t let us take the jet skis out unless we wear these.”

  “Ugh.” I slipped one arm after the other inside the wet vest.

  Charlie grinned and snapped the two stained latches together. “Act like you aren’t pumped this is what I chose for today.”

  I tried not to smile down at her, but it was useless. “It’s better than knitting.”

  “My life’s ambition. To be better than knitting.” She shook her head and glanced at Conner. “How are you doing?”

  He blew smoke out of his mouth before answering, his knee bouncing up and down repeatedly without him really noticing. “All right. Think it’s going to stick this time, Charlie.”

  She gripped his shoulder and he patted her hand before standing up. “That’s real good, Conner. You heard from Connell lately?”

  Something dark flashed across his eyes. “Not for a few months.”

  “He’ll come around. He’s more stubborn than you are.”

  “Truth.” He crushed his cigarette on the metal ashtray next to the table. “All right, you two. Have a good time.” He focused his eyes on me, his hands over the center of his chest. “Make sure to share all your feelings, Justin.” He smirked as I flipped him off.

  “You ready?” I asked Charlie after she’d gone quiet, watching Conner’s back as he walked away with his hands shoved in his pockets.

  She blinked a few times before looking at me. “He’s not doing good.”

  “What?” I puckered my eyebrows. “Sure he is. He just said he was.”

  “Can you really not see it? His struggle?”

  I thought about his twitching movements in group recently, his need to speak faster than usual, and his general irritability at any given time of the day. “I thought that was just part of the process?”

  “You should talk to him.”

  “About what?”

  “I don’t know. Whatever he needs. There is something bothering him. He may tell you. You two are close.”

  “He’s my neighbor and has an endless supply of smokes.”

  “He’s more than that, and you know it.” She situated the vest around her small frame, the massive thing nearly swallowing her.

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “That he’s the first real friend you’ve had in a very long time.” She never hesitated, never stopped to formulate a response. She simply spouted out whatever was there and usually, I’d come to find, she was right.

  My old friends from when Blake and I were together, Mark and Andy, had bolted the second I started drinking more than playing video games. They never bothered to check on me either. Looking back, I couldn’t really understand the draw they’d held. We didn’t have much in common other than Call of Duty, which lost its luster the second I’d had my awakening. How I had ever spent days absorbed in the game was beyond me. Just another way to disconnect from myself, I guess.

  Doc would be proud, sorting shit out all on my own.

  “I’ll talk to him tonight,” I finally said.

  “Thank you.” She motioned her head toward the jet skis floating on the other side of the dock. “You ever done this before?” She shook a set of keys attached to a foam bobber at me.

  I snatched them from her outstretched hand. “I used to all the time,” I said, visions of summers before I’d been kicked out of my aunt’s house flashing in my head. My uncle had a lake house an hour outside of town, and we’d spend weeks at a time there. Blake had been with me twice.

  “Oh, God, do you hate it?” She asked, stepping toward me and placing her hand on my tight forearm.

  “No, why?”

  “You looked—never mind. Let’s roll!” She shot off toward the skis and threw a perfectly bare leg over the center. Heat pulsed in my blood at the sight of her skin. I was so used to seeing her fully covered in a variety tight leggings—not that I was complaining—but now that she was bare, I couldn’t help but notice thin white scars that lined her upper thighs.

  Following her, I turned the key in my ski and revved the engine. She took off a few seconds before me, a mess of lake water spraying me from behind. I relished the feel of the machine beneath me, the roar of the water from the speed, the height of the jump when I caught a break from the waves she created in front of me.

  I chased her, circled her, and rode by her side. She laughed, her hair flying in all different directions as she pushed her ski faster, harder. The challenge was there, and I met it speed for speed, jump for jump, loving every second of it.

  On the water, with no sound but the splash and groan of the engine, or her laugh, I didn’t think about the past or the future. Didn’t think about where I was or why. I simply was me. Who currently was just a guy, trying to impress a girl, by catching air and taking the machine to full capacity. Every smile, every gasp, every laugh, fueled me in a way nothing had in such a long time. I drank it in like I would have a bottle or two of vodka a few months ago. The craving was still there, the desire to return to the numb, disconnected feeling the drink offered me, but it wasn’t as powerful. I knew I’d never truly be free of the want but right now, in the moment with Charlie so near, I was okay. And I knew it was due to a combination of things—the doc, this place, being sober—but mostly it was her.

  After an hour we returned the skis and vests, and sat on the dock overlooking the water, our chests heaving from the exhilaration of the ride.

  “Yeah?” She asked, nudging me with her elbow.

  “So much better than knitting,” I said, nudging her back.

  She chuckled, tossing her blue hair out of her face. “I love anything with speed. Motorcycles, boats, jets. It’s a free rush. No consequences.”

  “Not unless you eat the pavement or something.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Well, if you want to be a pessimist about it. At least it’s legal.”

  I huffed. “True,” I said, stretching out my legs and leaning back against the wooden railing with my elbows propped on it. The angle gave me a perfect view of her legs, and she sat so close to me I could easily reach out and touch the thin scars that were almost iridescent against her skin.

  “Cutter,” she said, catching my gaze.

  Heat flooded my face. “I wasn’t going to ask.”

  “If I was ashamed of it I’d never wear shorts.” She shrugged. “It was my first affliction. First sign to my parents that I wasn’t the emotionally stable teenager they thought I was.”

  And no fucking wonder. With the stories she’d told me about the family member taking advantage of her, I wouldn’t blame her for any action she took to numb the pain, erase the memories that suffocated her.

  “What was yours?” She asked casually but had those green eyes pinned on mine.

  I arched my head back, inhaling the scent of lake and dirt and pine. “I was sixteen. Just got into partying, wrong crowd. My guardians—my aunt and uncle—they k
icked me out that year. Said I’d abused their generosity when they took me in after my mother abandoned me when I little…for a drug addiction, no less.” I chuckled darkly. “Go figure, right?”

  “Assholes,” she snapped, and it made me laugh harder.

  I tilted my head back and forth. “Maybe. Maybe I got what I deserved. She’s trying to make amends, though. Bought my ticket out of prison and into this place.”

  “Okay, now I feel bad about the asshole thing.”

  “Don’t. They were simply preemptive. I would’ve ruined their lives. It’s what I do.”

  “Why do you say that?” she sighed.

  I crossed my arms over my chest and shrugged.

  “Justin,” she urged. Her eyes were full of acceptance and openness and no hint of judgment anywhere. If there was anyone I could ever spill my blood to and let it wash clean, it would be her.

  “Do you ever look back on your life and find sections of nothing but…haze? Like someone came in and blurred the edges of your memories with an eraser?” I asked.

  “Only every other memory.”

  I nodded. “I can’t pinpoint the spot in time—between being kicked out and up to a year and a half ago—where I went wrong. And believe me, I’ve tried every night to find it. Like if I could latch on to the moment in time where I became something darker, something twisted, then I could somehow fix it. Internally, I could blot that part of my life out and start fresh.”

  “What are you trying to find?” She asked, shifting her legs toward me.

  I shrugged. “The second in time I became a monster.”

  A crease formed between her eyes. “You’re not a”

  “Yes, I am,” I cut her off.

  My chest tightened, begging me to hold on to the past. To not let Charlie see me for who I really was. Problem was, I didn’t know how to not tell her. She’d shared so much of her life with me, given me pieces of her darkness with nothing but the promise of light at the end of recovery.

  “I fell in love with Blake when I was sixteen. She was my world. Every. Single. Day. For eight years, I lived and breathed her. When we were kids, it was just first love. It was new and exciting, and she was just so good. And she…she was the one who never left me when everyone else did. Then, as we grew up, we grew apart. We were different, but I didn’t want to see it. Didn’t want to acknowledge just how drastically separate our futures were headed.” I pinched the bridge of my nose, the slick, oily guilt filling my insides like gasoline. “Somewhere along the way, I realized she’d leave. It was inevitable because she was going places. Chasing her dreams regardless if I wanted to keep standing still. And I hated her for it. Hated her for having a passion outside of me, outside of the life I saw for us—which was her at home with a few kids. I thought she’d get college out of her system, and we’d get married, and that would be the end of it…but I was kidding myself. I knew. I’d never be good enough for her, no matter how hard I tried, I would never be the man she needed. Someone who wanted to run as fast as she did, soar as high as she liked to, live as close to the edge as she did. And so I hated myself too. I always felt…inadequate before I even opened my mouth.” I rubbed my palms over my face, resting my elbows on my knees.