by Molly Lee
“Oh, Justin,” Charlie sighed, placing her hand on my back.
“I punished her for it,” I blurted out before I lost my nerve.
Images flashed behind my clenched eyes—Blake’s tears, her screams, all the times she’d told me sex had hurt and I couldn’t understand why. I’d always thought something was wrong with her…that was before I’d finally snapped out of it.
“I hurt her, over and over again, for something she hadn’t even done yet. I threatened her into staying with me, even though I knew her leaving was a certainty, and I didn’t realize how fucking toxic I was until…” Toxic. Blake’s own words filtered through my mind before my living nightmare played out behind my eyes. “All the things I’d done over the last few years of our relationship, the fights, and the traps, it wasn’t anything compared to what I did to her after she’d finally ended it.” I sucked in a sharp breath, acid rolling my stomach as if the dock bobbed up and down from a tidal wave. “I…forced myself on her. Not entirely, but I would’ve…I was so wasted that night I barely remember anything other than her scream, her fighting me off…” Hail’s yelp burst through my brain, and my skin tightened as it did every time the memory was this clear. “I wanted to make her see, make her realize who she belonged to. Somehow, I’d thought that was the way to do it.” Hot tears rolled down my cheeks, and I couldn’t stop them regardless of how hard I tried. “I took the only person who ever really loved me, and fucking shredded her.”
Charlie pulled my hands away from my face, every inch of my skin responding to her touch, waking up underneath the gentle graze of her fingers as she wrapped her arms around my neck, clutching me to her.
“So, yeah,” I said, clinging to her even though I wondered why the fuck she wasn’t running in the opposite direction. “I’m a fucking monster, and I always will be.”
“You’re wrong,” she said, pressing her head against mine. She pushed me back slightly, wiping the tears off my face. “A monster wouldn’t be able to look back and see his wrongs, acknowledge his sins. A monster would celebrate getting away with it so long, and he most certainly wouldn’t ache over the events. He wouldn’t try to kill himself slowly with liquor, torture himself day in and day out over what he’d done.” She cupped my cheek, her green eyes showing me nothing but sincerity.
I shook my head, not allowing myself to believe her though my heart begged me to. “You should be afraid of me.”
“I’m not. I can see you, Justin. Remember? And now I know the source of your torture.” She touched the center of my chest. “You’ve taken your inventory, gathered all the wrongs you’ve done, but you aren’t letting them go. You’re giving them control over your present life, and that will only take you straight back to the bottle. You have to let them go, understand what you did was wrong, horrible even, but acknowledge that you are no longer that man.”
“I am still that man!” I snapped, jerking away from her gentle touch, her accepting, open arms. I paced the length of the dock, adrenaline making my arms shake. “I’m angry. All the time. At myself, at her. At what I turned into. I used to be decent—I know I was. I just can’t fucking remember where it all went wrong. I have no clue how to get back there. I don’t think I can.” I stomped against the wood harder with each step, my soul twisting inside, wringing out all my shit for Charlie to see. “Drinking is the only thing that evened me out. The only thing that made me forget. And honestly, the second I’m free of this place, I’ll go back to it. I’ll have to, or I’ll be stuck living with the monster that I am.”
One second Charlie was sitting calmly on the bench and the next she was blocking my path, shoving her palms against me so hard I stumbled back a few paces.
“What the fuck?”
“Is that what you want?” She pushed me again. “You want me to punish you? You want me to say you’re a sick twisted asshole who deserves to be in prison? Huh?” She smacked my chest, my skin stinging underneath her harsh touch. Heat pulsed in my core and even though I saw the hit coming, I didn’t block it when she slapped me across the face. “When will it be enough, Justin? When will you have suffered enough to pay for what you did? Cause I can hit you all fucking day if it will rid you of this and put you on the path you deserve. Which is a clean, promising life.”
I glared at her, adrenaline shaking my entire body now. She read the hesitance in my eyes and cracked me across the face again. The pain was minimal, but the impact was a direct hit.
“You. Are. Not. A. Monster.” She pronounced each word clearly despite being breathless.
“I am---“
Another shove to my chest cut me off.
“That night, the one you have nightmares about? Guess what, buttercup? That was the night you woke the fuck up! You’re not that man anymore. You haven’t been since then.”
“You have no idea who I am.” I crossed my arms over my chest.
“Really? You want to play that game with me? I’ve been here, with you, every day for weeks, but it took me all of five minutes to peg you. You’re the brooding, introspective, man who lets his past haunt him. Lets it destroy every good thing in the present. You’re the guy who has done every exercise I’ve ever asked him to do, no matter how ridiculous. You’re the man who smiles when he thinks no one is looking, laughs when he thinks no one can hear it. You just confessed to me, Justin. You gave me the darkest piece of yourself and guess what? It’s mine now. You can’t have it back. You have no choice but to move forward. Live every day to better yourself, because if you don’t? That’s how you let the monster win.”
I clenched my eyes shut, two tears squeezing out despite my efforts to stop them. Fuck, this girl. She saw the dirty pieces of my soul and picked them up like they were something precious. Collected them and carried them willingly. Without judgment or fear, she gave me every single thing I needed without asking for a thing in return except that I be the man she believed me to be. How could anyone be so perfect?
But she wasn’t. She had black spots on her past just as much, or more so than I did. She was far from perfect, full of flaws. She was simply perfect for me.
Shit.
I opened my eyes, and though nothing had changed, everything looked different. The sun glittered brighter off the lake, the sky blue and crisp against the white clouds in the sky. I breathed in deep, the motion satisfying for the first time in years. I’d never unloaded the weight I carried on anyone before.
Charlie shoved me again, but I didn’t budge this time. I felt solid and reckless at the same time. Light but grounded.
She reached her right hand back, readying to slap me again but I stopped her before she made connection. A smirk played across her pink lips as she eyed where my hand fully enveloped her tiny wrist. Her chest heaved in unison with mine, the adrenaline slamming into me like the strongest want I’d ever felt.
Don’t. She’s your sponsor. Untouchable.
She swiped the tip of her tongue across her bottom lip, and I was a fucking goner.
Fuck it.
I tugged on the wrist in my hand, yanking her to me. Her body hit flush against mine, and I crushed my lips on hers, pouring every ounce of emotion I had into the kiss. She opened up for me, giving me the green light where I was fully prepared to stop at the hint she didn’t want this. Her tongue slipped into my mouth, and I rubbed it with my own, flicking against the edges of her teeth until she sighed between my lips.
Fingering the strands of her soft hair, I angled her to deepen the kiss, wanting nothing more than to devour her. She fisted the back of my shirt, pulling me against her as she backed into the railing of the dock. I pressed my hips into hers, unable to hide my hard dick as she wrapped one leg around me. Grabbing a handful of her perfect ass, my fingers grazed the hem of her shorts, feeling her silky smooth skin, and she whimpered before sighing, “Stop.”
I jerked backward, the sound stopping the hot blood pulsing through my veins cold.
She looked at me with hooded eyes, lust pouring from the green and gold flecks
but I couldn’t think straight. That sound. Was it a good whimper or a bad one? Was I forcing this? She kissed me back---
“Justin,” she whispered. “Don’t.”
Oh, fuck. I’d done it again.
“I’m sorry. Fuck, I didn’t think” The urge to go Hulk on the dock surged through my chest.
“No, stop,” she said, stepping toward me.
“I am. I did! I thought you wanted…fuck, I’m sorry.” I kept backing away from her, though she advanced as if I would jump her at any second out of control.
“No.” She wouldn’t stop coming at me. “I mean, shit. Yes. I wanted that, Justin. Please. God, I wanted that.”
A huff of air flew out of my chest as I backed against the opposite rail, nowhere to run. “Wait, what?”
“I wanted that. I want you, Justin. I do. We just”
“Can’t,” I said, the rage at myself cooling with her words. I hadn’t forced her. I hadn’t. “You’re my sponsor.”
“Right,” she said, her hands dropping to her sides. “And that means I have to put your well being before my own desires.”
I nodded, my stomach hitting the floor. Damn, I didn’t think I’d ever be so disappointed to have someone helping me in my life. But I was. Fuck I was. “I told you I don’t know how to get back to normal.”
“You want me to tell you how?”
I gazed at her slightly swollen lips. “Yes.” I would do anything to be worthy of claiming those lips again, even if it meant months from now after I completed the program, and by God, I would complete this fucking thing if it killed me. If Charlie was an option in my future, I would go through hell to get to her.
“Forgive yourself.”
I sank heavy on the wooden bench to my left, my eyes on the water. “You’ve just asked me to do the one thing I’m physically incapable of.”
She stepped in front of me, forcing me to look up at her. “You think you can’t, and maybe it’s too soon now but you will have to someday if you want to move forward. Until then,” she scratched the stubble along my jaw. “Am I enough?”
I tilted my head. She could read me better than anyone ever had before, stripping me bare until I was nothing but hers for the taking. How could she not see how much she meant to me? She arched an eyebrow at me and then it clicked.
“You mean…” I sucked in a sharp breath. “You forgive me?”
She nodded, slipping an arm around my neck. “Yes, Justin. I forgive you for your past, for what you’ve done.”
It was like the wind knocked out of me, and I leaned my head against her stomach, allowing her to hold me there. I hadn’t thought forgiveness was an option, but Charlie had granted it with a few simple words and reassurance from those eyes of hers. And now that she’d given it to me so freely, I wanted to earn it.
6
Remove defects of character
“Do you think that your instant response to any kind of conflict is anger because you’re displeased with how people approach you or because you’ve been angry with yourself for much too long?” Thomas asked as he bounced from one foot to the other in the ring.
I slammed my gloved hand against the mat, the flesh beneath my ribs still stinging from the hit he’d just landed. “You’re the doctor,” I hissed through clenched teeth. Mr. Rodgers hadn’t let up a bit over our sessions, and while my body hated him, I respected the hell out of him for it.
“Justin,” he chided as I rose to my feet.
“The last one,” I answered honestly.
Charlie would be proud. She wanted me to open up to people other than her, said it was part of the process of recovery, and I’d do just about anything to be worthy of her when this was all over.
The heat from her lips still lingered on my mouth despite the week it had been since I’d kissed her on the dock. Since then I’d kept my distance, respecting the professional line drawn between us, but damn if I didn’t want to cross it every single second we were together. Even when I was spilling my guts to her, over and over, about instances in my past where I couldn’t recognize the man I’d been then. She’d not only listen, she’d swallow it and match it with a story of her own. We were the same in so many ways—both fighting addictions we’d used to bury our pasts, hide the darker parts of ourselves, both angry at the hand life had dealt us but prepared to take a turn to change it now. She was fairing better at the last part than I was.
“And being here for six weeks? Has the anger settled since there has been so much space since your last drink?”
I could answer him. I wanted to, but I also liked the arrangement we had, so I darted out a right jab, tapping the side of his jaw with just enough force to make his head jerk back. He recovered quickly, dancing with speed I aimed to match, before landing a hit to my left cheek.
The sting of pain made me laugh. “Do you ever find it ironic we’re working on my anger issues inside a boxing ring?”
“I do, but let’s face it, you’re not really the lay on the couch and open up kind of man, are you?” Thomas smirked and raised his gloves to block most of his face.
“No. That I am not.” Unless perhaps the couch had Charlie on it. God, I couldn’t get her out of my head, and I’d seen her this morning. She’d brought me breakfast, and though I was grateful for the gesture, it only made me realize how desperately I wished I could take her out for a proper date. But that was impossible, because not only was she my off limits sponsor—the one person I was to turn to the second I felt myself reaching for the bottle—she was also the only one allowed to leave the grounds.
I jabbed left twice, then right, the muscles in my arms burning from the rounds I’d stopped counting long ago. “And, I feel better,” I said, finally answering his question. “Don’t get me wrong. I still want a fucking drink. But it’s not as…urgent. More like a low buzz where it used to be an alarm.”
“And the reasons behind that, you think?” He danced until he threw me off balance and hit me square in the abdomen.
I sucked in a sharp breath. “Step five.”
He cocked an eyebrow at me, dropping his hands. “Really?”
Wrong move. I hit him with a right hook across his jaw.
“Touché,” he said.
“Really.” I backed up to the opposite side of the ring, giving him space and me a minute to breathe.
“It wasn’t me you confessed to,” he said.
“Obviously.”
“Conner?” He tilted his head, his eyes trailing me up and down before widening. “Ahh. Charlie.”
Her name soared through me like the first drink of the night, but I didn’t confirm it.
“I’m glad to see things are working on that end. You need to talk to someone freely. I’m happy for you, even if it isn’t me.”
“Don’t be jealous, Doc.”
“Can’t help it,” Thomas said, chuckling. “I doubt you made her beat it out of you.”
Heat flushed across my already sweating face, the memory of the sting from her slaps whispered like a caress on my skin.
“Oh no,” he said, leaning against the ropes. “You haven’t…”
“What?” I asked when he didn’t go on.
“Justin, she’s your sponsor. You can’t---“
“I know. We aren’t.” I shut him down as quickly as possible.
“That only ends in disaster,” he continued anyway and had the audacity to look pissed. “You have to keep your feelings for your sponsor strictly platonic. If you blur the lines, with stakes as high as confessing your past transgressions and laying your soul bare every time you feel like giving up, you’ll wind up not knowing if what she says is because she’s your sponsor or because she cares about you on another level. The trust gets tangled, and she won’t be able to treat you like she would any other charge.”
Well, fuck. I hadn’t thought of it in that light before. My gut turned sour with the thought, but I swallowed a mouthful of acid to offset it. I wasn’t planning on crossing the line with her anyway. I would wait, patie
ntly, until I was done. Until I didn’t need a sponsor anymore. Then we would see what happened between us.
“She makes me want to be better,” I said without really knowing why. I shrugged. “I can’t help it, Doc. I’m not going to cross any lines, but I’m not going to throw away the one thing that has made me see hope since before I can remember.”
He nodded. “I see.”
In an effort harder than lifting a car, I swallowed my pride and stepped toward him, shredding my hands of the gloves. “Will you help me?”
Thomas eyed the gloves in the center of the mat. He could easily throw a punch, lay my ass out on the mat, defenseless as I was now. “For you or for her?”
“Both. She deserves the best version of myself.” He eyed me, so I hurried on. “When I’m free to give it to her.”
He chewed on his bottom lip for a minute, contemplative. About what, I wasn’t sure. How could it be a hard decision to help a willing patient? Maybe he didn’t trust that I’d be truthful?
