Recovery (The Addictive Trilogy Book 3)

by Ashley Love

  “I can’t. I…Lex, I can’t,” is all I can choke out.

  “Are you fucking insane? Of course you can, you just know it’s a stupid, stupid fucking idea and you can’t face me. You’re scared shitless, you’re turning and fucking running. Is this about that money? Sam talked you into this shit, didn’t she?”

  I roll my eyes, wiping at my face, pulling words from somewhere in the back of my throat. “This has nothing to do with the money, you fucking dick, and I am perfectly capable of making decisions for myself. Just because I’ve made them based on your bullshit for the last five years doesn’t mean I don’t know what’s good for me.”

  He laughs humorlessly. “Oh, oh, that’s really sweet, I’m gonna miss you, too.”

  “Jesus, I did not call to do this with you,” I say weakly.

  “Well I guess that’s what you get for calling my ass, huh? Shoulda ran away when you had the chance. Gotten away from me like you’ve been trying to do since I came to this motherfucker.”

  My voice jumps in question, “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “Your fucking best friend Sam who hates me, hanging out with your sister all the fucking time, your crazy ass mom,” he ticks off a list, irritated. “You’re trying to weed me out of your fucking life—”

  “I just almost put my fucking ass on the line for you AGAIN! This morning! Today!” I shout, cutting him off, lauging in disbelief. “God, you are so…”

  “What? Might as well get it all off your chest if you’re never gonna see me again,” he snaps.

  “Selfish. You’re selfish and you never think about anybody but your fucking self,” I say, matter of factly without hesitation. It feels good and awful all at once to just be honest with him.

  He snorts. “Well if you were so miserable why the fuck’d you hang around?”

  “I was hooked on your shit, you motherfucker!” I say angrily, my temper heating to a point I didn’t think the conversation would reach. This is not how I planned on any of this going. Pissed, yes; I figured he would be pissed, but to come at me like this is something vindictive I’ve been doing to jerk him the fuck around. Like this is something I’ve had planned out to bring down on him. Before I can stop myself I snap at him, “And maybe I thought I loved you, but I guess I might’ve just mistook that for something else.”

  As soon as it leaves my mouth I regret it. And the longer he’s silent on the other line I wish I could dig a fucking hole and jump into it.

  And when all he can muster is a throaty, “Have a nice fucking trip,” before the line goes dead, I wish I’d never fucking called him.

  24

  So I lost my nerve.

  Not completely, but I was in no state to get on a plane three days ago and jumpstart my life on a whim. I decided to lay low, bought a ticket for this afternoon so I could at least clear my head for a few days and make a few decisions, have a few options for myself. And, whatever, so I could say goodbye to Lex, and maybe redeem myself from that disaster of a phone call.

  At the moment I just can’t quite muster up the guts to go inside and do the latter.

  So I’ve currently lost my nerve, then.

  I guess it’s sort of worrisome, sitting here thinking of all the ugly things, all of the potentially brutal things he could say to me once I get him alone. Maybe it’s not so much what he’d say, but maybe that it’d be true. That I’d feel guilty. That I’d want to stay. More than I already wish I could.

  I have to keep telling myself that things can be different. I’ve spent so long in this lightless tunnel I forget that there’s a whole world out there, that I’m not even twenty-five, and as behind as I feel in life there’s still time to make it all up, to make it right. We both have time.

  My hand grabs the door handle of its own accord and before I know it I’m on my feet and through the same double doors and standing in front of the same glass windows, signed in, looking out. I look out far, to the dense leafless trees, remember my hands in his, the honesty in his eyes and how all of that hope had been squashed so abruptly. I realize now that it will just happen over and over the longer I stay.

  A hand on my arm makes me jump, turning to find warm brown eyes and a kind smile from the receptionist who’d checked me in moments ago.

  “He’ll be just a minute,” she assures me. I see a young guy standing off behind her, tall with a handsome face, lanky and stretched out into a frame that resembles Lex’s.

  I nod at the woman and when she turns away I notice the guy's looking at me, fingering a lanyard and nametag around his neck, eyeing me in a knowing way that makes me curious and uneasy at once. He’s dressed in slacks, business casual without his tie and his dress shirt sleeves rolled up. I try to fix my gaze out the window again but when I glance at him and he’s looking at me again I can’t shake it, the feeling of transparency, like he’s looking right through me and knows all of me at once. I step up to the receptionist’s window, closer to him and he shifts away a few steps, looking down at his shoes.

  “I’m just gonna…wait for him outside,” I say quietly into the small opening and turn quickly, not waiting for a nod in return.

  The cold wind shocks me and dries my eyes, causing them to water in overcompensation. And when Lex materializes out the door where I’d just exited and I’m still wiping my eyes I hope he doesn’t think I’m already crying. And yes, I say already because I’m positive this scenario will come to that. But at least this time I’ve prepared myself ahead of time. For now, I just try to stop wiping at my face.

  He looks just as shocked to see me as I expected, and he attempts to straighten his clothes haphazardly, wiping his palms down the legs of his jeans before shoving his hands back in his pockets. His face is painfully exhausted, his eyes completely extinguished and void and he tries not to look at me, but when he does there’s a glint of hope that rises up and it kills me, knowing that he’s maybe thinking I decided to stay.

  “I figured you’d be gone,” he says hoarsely, clearing his throat as he steps up closer to me.

  “My stuff’s in the car.” I gesture over my shoulder, sure that it’s not the direction of the parking lot, but it’s lost on him anyway when he looks down at his shoes.

  “So…I guess you didn’t spend the last three days changing your mind.”

  It’s both a statement and a question and when he looks up to me hopefully, all I can do is shake my head. He nods assuredly and looks away again, as if really he’d known the answer all along.

  He rocks from his toes to his heels with discreet anxiety as we stand in silence, so many questions that he needs to ask and answers I wish I had, reasons I wish I could explain away, some false closure so we might both sleep tonight. Nothing comes.

  He puts a cigarette in his mouth and it shakes between his trembling lips, which had been more easily hidden moments ago when he was chewing on them in his usual nervous fashion. Before he gets it lit I reach up, pulling it out.

  “Stop doing that,” I say, admonishing him softly, but not for smoking.

  He sighs, turning away now that there’s nothing to cut the tension thickening the crisp air. He walks a few steps away, hands deep in his pockets, looking out and away with his back turned to me, like he’d stood, avoiding me, avoiding how he felt, the day I’d told him about Seth.

  “You’re not making this any easier,” I say after him.

  “Why do we have to sit around here and talk about this? Like anything I can say will make you change your fucking mind and stay here.” He shakes his head, not turning to look at me.

  “Do you want me to stay?”

  “Don’t be stupid.”

  It’s harsh, and it hurts a little, but something in me knows it’s probably miniscule in comparison to what he’s feeling. Judging by his reaction since he laid eyes on me here, I know he’s hurting, too.

  “I didn’t come here to fight with you,” I say, small, pathetic.

  “I’m not fighting.” />
  I beg toward his back, “You’re upset.”

  “Well no fucking shit,” he spits, turning finally to look at me incredulously. He softens a little when his eyes meet mine, shrugging as he says. “I just don’t understand why you’re doing this. I dunno, maybe I do…” He reaches up to scratch the back of his neck, looking at the ground. “Maybe that’s the fucked up part. You know, that I get it. Like...I know this is my fault, and the thing about it is I can’t do anything about it or stop you, 'cause you finally figured me out.” He adds the last part sadly, looking at me again, lost.

  I try to walk to him, saying softly, “You know, I could’ve been a coward and left and let you think everything was fine—”

  “Then why’d you come here? Huh?” He steps back from me, his switch flipping instantly and he’s angry again, not letting me touch him, quickly brushing past me in the opposite direction to throw his weight atop the table behind me, his feet clunking moodily against the bench seat.

  I sigh, feeling more and more of my resolve draining from me, Lex’s on-edge demeanor putting me on edge with him, ready to crack.

  “'Cause I didn’t wanna just run away from you.”

  The weight of the truth in it finally makes my voice break.

  I turn to look at him, his eyes void and needy, and when I approach him again, slowly, standing between his knees, he doesn’t get up, he doesn’t run, just like I couldn’t. I wanted to see him, as much as anyone could have told me this was the worst solution, coming here one more time because I felt like I owed him something, owed us something.

  As much as this hurts, not coming here would’ve been worse.

  He stares down at our knees, where mine are wedged between his, the dark of my jeans against the light of his, and I don’t realize how long we’ve been quiet until he looks up at me again. His eyes ask me a million questions, ask if things will ever change, if somehow they could maybe stay the same, maybe stay like this, with both of our hearts finally open because they’re on the verge of breaking wide down the middle. Ask if we can ever really fix any of this, if we ever really could from the start, ask if this is all we have left, if this is all we’ll ever have.

  Ask if this is it.

  I think he knows that it is, and maybe all my coming here has really done is soften the blow.

  I reach out to touch him tenderly, running a hand over his hair, and it breaks us, me instantly, my eyes filling up and my throat closing so I can barely speak.

  “You can do this without me. You have to,” I plead, stroking his head again.

  He breaks next.

  “Stop,” I say softly when he turns his head, embarrassed, tears falling as his eyes shut angrily, as if doing so would keep them out, keep me out, too. I turn his face back to me and he turns it away again. We do this a few times before he gives in, opening his eyes but not looking at me.

  “Is this why you came here? To see me like this?” He wipes at his face irritably.

  “I just came to see you.”

  “Just…one last time, huh?” he asks bitterly, sniffling, something in the question sort of petulant and selfish, as if I’m doing all of this just to make him miserable, as if upon hearing it I would answer no emphatically.

  All I can do is shrug. “Maybe,” I say softly, because it’s the truth.

  His eyes well harder, tears reappearing on his cheeks as soon as he’d wiped the last away. He doesn’t try and stop these, hanging his head, his large hands reaching to wrap around the backs of my knees, keeping them against his, keeping us together. When his grip lets up and his breathing slows again I can tell he’s stopped crying.

  “God, I wish I wasn’t the kind of guy you needed to run away from,” he finally says, his voice low and muffled in the space between us, his words steady, and he sniffles, sitting back and wiping his face, looking at me again.

  “You won’t always be.” I shake my head and smile sadly, wrapping my hand around the back of his neck and bringing my face to the top of his head. I stay there, breathing against him, my voice muffled in his hair and skin. “I told you I could’ve just left. And I didn’t.”

  It’s true, I didn’t run away. I told him blatantly when I came here that I didn’t want to run away. Because as much as I’ve told myself this could be the last time I see him…people who just run away usually don’t want to be found.

  “What about when I get better?” he asks, as if he’s read my mind, and I smile, my mouth still pressed to his head, and tears well in my eyes again.

  “Then you can do anything you want,” I say, careful my voice doesn’t break as I pull back, my hand on his neck coming up to rub his hair again before falling back to my side. “But you have to figure that part out.”

  He asks quietly, “You think you’ll come back?”

  I shake my head. That much I know, I’ll never come back to L.A. I’ll start over somewhere new, with or without him.

  “Well, I’m kinda getting sick of L.A. anyway.”

  I choke out a watery laugh when he says it. So does he, and I don’t know what it means exactly, and right now I don’t really care. I don’t care about much beyond this, beyond seeing him smile, even if it’s just to keep from crying again.

  He takes a deep breath and lets it out slow, and neither of us moves but he’s not looking at me again and we both know there’s really nothing left to say. His hands sneak around the backs of mine and his cold fingers press to my palms, making mine curl around them, the only comfort I can really offer anymore, and he stares at them, his hands grasped in mine, both of us white knuckled and neither of us is really sure who’s holding on anymore to the other.

  “Well…go ahead and say goodbye, you know, get the hell outta here.” He drops my hands and stands up so that I have to take a few quick steps back to allow him space in front of me. His pockets swallow his hands and he moves away and to the side of me, allowing me unblocked access back into the center, I notice with a quick glance behind me. He’s really going to let me go. I turn to him again and he’s looking at me impatiently, wanting only for this to be quick and painless.

  I take a step toward the center and my other foot doesn’t follow, rooting me halfway between him and my escape. I look at him, asking what I should do, what I should say. Surely there’s something he needs to know before I go. He flinches for only a moment before looking away, pained, physically turning from me, and I see him run a hand over his face and take a breath to steel himself before he turns back, only halfway to me now, so that I can see his face but not look him in the eyes.

  He speaks before I can. “If anything happens to you, I swear to God…” He shakes his head, trying to swallow down the unsteadiness in his voice. “Just don’t make me drive across the country and kill somebody. I already used my get out of jail free card.”

  Realizing this is the best of a goodbye I’m going to get from him, I let my feet carry me back to him, his head tipping back with a sigh of resistance as my arms curl under his shoulders and pull him close to me, his hands still wedged deep, clenching fists in the pockets of his jeans.

  “Bye, Lex.” I say it quietly against his shoulder without letting him go, the feeling of his collarbone under my chin too familiar, the ridge of his shoulder blades under my hands, his hands pulling from his pockets slowly, holding my head against his shoulder, my chest to his chest, his cold nose pressing to my temple.

  “Goddamn you for doing this to me.”

  My fingers curl against thick cotton, imagine piercing through, grabbing skin, pressing him harder to me, his own hand curling against my spine, winding in my hair, through the back of my head. Painfully close, we hold on until it hurts, until my hands cramp and my arms shake. It hurts to hold on this much, until we can’t breathe.

  I need room to breathe.