He moves a strand of hair away from my forehead before placing his hands on my shoulders. I shrug and bite my trembling lower lip, my vision blurring.
“Are children destined to become like their parents?” I ask through my clogged throat.
His brows pinch. “Have you taken something, paidí mou?” He steps back to scrutinize me, bringing his hands up to my cheeks to check my eyes.
“No, that’s not what I mean.” I swat away his hands and take a deep breath. “My mother ran away from her problems and hid behind her addiction. Am I doing the same thing with my fear?”
With a hand between my shoulder blades, he guides me to the sofa, his deep espresso eyes shining with warmth and understanding. “Those who come before us only give us this”—he gestures to his face and body—”only our shapes. Our spirits are something else entirely.” He leans forward, the cushion beneath us dipping me into a slight slant. “We are who we choose to be.”
“Life is full of choices that people don’t recognize. Our fates are contingent on our choices.”
Zack’s words ring through my mind. We are our choices, our actions. Our choices dictate who we are. And I chose to abandon Zack without confronting him after finding the drugs. I didn’t even let him explain. And worse? I chose to not believe him when he swore he didn’t take the drugs. And worst of all? I chose to let him walk away. The best thing that’s ever happened to me, I cast it aside a second time. This time, when he needed me to pull him closer rather than push him away.
I run a hand over my thigh. “Then why do I have a need to push people away?
He places his hand over mine. “You’re a fighter. In all things. You’ve spent your whole life preparing for the next match. And the greatest battles are fought against ourselves. Our own struggles and fears. When we push those who love us away, those fears win.” He eyes me cautiously. “I can’t help you fight this, paidí mou. It can only be you.”
My eyes drift over the geometric pattern on the pale blue carpet. For the first time in my life, I’m tired of fighting. Tired of walking away battered and bruised. I need rest. I need calm. I need Zack. In all of his soothing comfort.
Christos is right. When you push someone away, the fear wins. While I thought it had been eradicated that first night I spent with Zack, it was still there, lurking in the shadows. I’ve never truly conquered it, though I’ve had more than my share of chances.
I think back to a few weeks ago when my resolve crumbled at Sammy’s Wingshop, when I told myself I was done running. When I told Zack I was his, I hadn’t realized I was giving myself over with contingencies.
My past will always be there, something I can’t change or throw away. But what I can do is see it as a small fragment of a much broader picture of my life. How are we to witness and fully understand the beauty of our lives if we don’t experience the ugly parts of it?
“There’s no love in fear,” I repeat the words he spoke to me after my first night with Zack.
Christos nods, his eyes creasing with his smile. “That’s right, paidí mou. And when I said you have much to offer, I didn’t just mean to the studio.” My chin tilts in question, and he takes my hand. “You have a beautiful heart. I only wish you would allow the rest of the world to see that as I do.”
After a warm kiss to my cheek, he rises from the couch and strides back into the kitchen.
I’m not as strong as I like to think I am. On the outside maybe, but because I’ve locked my heart away for so many years, it’s become emaciated and fearful. When I gave it to Zack, he somehow brought it back to life. And when he threw it back in my face in the studio, with the source of its nourishment stripped away, my heart went right back to the way it was before.
After taking his heart and then crushing his heart with my bare hands, how can I possibly expect for him to take mine back?
IT’S SATURDAY NIGHT AND I’M sitting on my bed with a cup of kava tea and a family-size bag of salt and vinegar chips, watching a show about some idiotic man surviving a plague that wiped out most of humanity. MasterChef is off the table now. No pun intended. Zack and I took to watching that together, and now the sight of Gordon Ramsay makes my stomach churn.
The entire week has been an exercise in pure hellish torment. It was difficult enough avoiding Zack after that first kiss, but now, after knowing what it’s like to be with him, that kind of misery seems like a reprieve.
Walking up to him at random to claim him back doesn’t seem like it would work this time. He’s been angry at me before, but never has he looked at me in disgusted disbelief. Our relationship is done, and all I can do is hope that the remainder of this semester goes by quickly and the powers that be will spare me any future shared classes with him. The more distance, the better.
Besides, according to Lexi, he’s partying it up over at the celebration he and Keith are throwing for the team. Thankfully, this is one party Lexi knew better than to ask if I wanted to attend. But that hasn’t stopped her, even while she parties with them, from sending the occasional text about Zack. Yeah, I know I said the more distance, the better, but baby steps.
She hasn’t texted in almost an hour though, and I’m hoping that means she’s too busy mingling to pay attention to what Zack is doing and not because of . . . some other reason my mind refuses to contemplate. It’s too painful.
He’s free to do as he wishes. He’s not mine anymore because I threw him away. Like my mother did to me eleven years ago.
Children are not their parents, but my actions have said otherwise and that terrifies me down to my core.
I’M SEEING DOUBLE, AND I squint in an attempt to better my focus, but instead it just cuts off my peripheral vision. I end up sideswiping the railing as Christie’s talons dig into my forearm as she drags me up the stairs.
My head swings to the side while I regain my balance, and I catch the sight of bubblegum-pink hair and chestnut eyes glaring daggers at me before disappearing back into the crowd. I briefly consider if that was just my imagination. Or maybe it was the sober part of my subconscious attempting to pull me out of the drunken stupor I’m drowning in.
Whatever the case may be, the thought disappears as quickly as it came. Next thing I know, I’m standing in my bedroom with my shirt being tugged off while the smacking sounds of Keith’s headboard rattles the crossed pair of hockey sticks over my bed.
Christie’s lips latch onto the crook of my neck, her gloss leaving a sticky film as her fingers pop the button on my jeans. I grasp her elbows for balance when she yanks my pants to my knees.
I can only watch with unfocused eyes when she hooks an arm behind her back and tugs at a silver string. The halter top falls to the floor while she approaches me, her bare tits swaying gently. I feel like I’m going to be sick.
Her hand lurches forward to grab my dick and she frowns slightly, her red lip gloss smeared around her mouth. Instead of sporting a raging hard-on like I would have a year back, I’m as limp as a fucking noodle. Not sure if it’s a case of whiskey dick or if my junk is as repulsed as my eyeballs.
“What’s the matter?” she asks in a breathy voice, but then her tone turns snide. “Too used to the ice queen to remember a real woman’s touch?”
Dahlia. When I touched her, she was anything but cold. My fingers twitch and curl from the memory of her heated porcelain skin, slightly flushed and silky fucking smooth. How pliable she became beneath my hands. Blood rushes to my dick. Not because of Christie’s hand, but because of the visions of Dahlia sprawled out beneath me.
“See?” A pleased smile spreads her lips. “Nothing like it, is there?”
No, there isn’t. But we aren’t talking about the same thing.
Turning me to face the bed, she hooks her nails into my shoulders and pulls us both down with a bounce, me on top of her while her blonde hair fans out over my pillowcase.
I close my eyes in frustration. All I can think about while an undeniably gorgeous woman lies half naked under me is how her blonde hair should
be the color of the leaves in fall. How the brown-speckled green of her hooded gaze should be piercing ice blue. How her voice should be a husky caress rather than syrupy sweet. This is wrong. So wrong.
Before I have the chance to pull away, a blood-curdling scream pierces through the walls, sending us both shooting upright.
Scrambling to get off the bed, I throw on my shirt, then I hop unsteadily to yank my pants back on. I don’t even look back at Christie as I throw open my door, my button and fly still open, to find Keith’s door wide open and a swarm of people rushing in.
“Move, move!” I shove people out of my way to get through the door.
When I finally make it through, a curvy brunette, hovers over Keith’s naked body sprawled out on the bed. He’s not responding while the brunette jostles and shakes his bare shoulders, gasps of desperation pouring from her mouth.
I rush up beside them. His eyes are closed, and I pull open his lids. “Keith!”
I smack the side of his cheek to jerk him awake, but he doesn’t respond. I stick two fingers under his nose, feeling a rush of relief as a soft breath blows against my skin. Something on his nose catches my eye, and I lean closer.
White residue encircles the outer edge of his nostril. My head jerks up to find an empty clear plastic bag, a credit card, and a half-rolled dollar bill lying next to his lamp on the nightstand.
He took it. The stupid bastard somehow found the coke and snorted it up his goddamn nose.
“What the fuck happened?” I holler at the brunette, now huddled at the corner of the bed.
“W-we took a hit of the blow, and while we were having s-sex, he went rigid all of the sudden and began to s-hake.”
He had a seizure?
“How long did it last?” I ask.
She holds out her hands, shaking her head. “I-I don’t know. A couple of minutes maybe?”
I jerk my head over my shoulder and look at the crowd at the door. Sniffles and whispers of, “Oh my God,” echo around them.
“Call a fucking ambulance!” I yell before turning my attention back to Keith.
As I’m rolling him onto his back, the rest of the team barrels into the room, some of them half-dressed just as I am, and help me to sit Keith up. Dave rummages through Keith’s drawers and pulls out several articles of clothing.
“Keith, wake up, man. Don’t do this to me,” I beg in a quivering voice while the group attempts to dress him.
Minutes later, the paramedics pull a stretcher through the doorway and pull Keith from the bed to lay him onto it. I try desperately to listen to what they’re saying, but my mind is too clouded with sheer dread as a man closer to me than my own brother is wheeled out of the room.
First my mother, then my father, then my girlfriend, and now my fucking best friend. All leaving me behind.
MY EYES SNAP OPEN AT the sound of my phone ringing on my nightstand. Lifting my head, I smack my nightstand a few times before finally grasping my buzzing phone, and I squint to see who the caller is. Lexi. Calling me at twelve thirty in the morning.
I jerk myself up and slide my thumb across the screen, panic lacing my voice. “What’s wrong?”
“D, something’s happened.”
Oh God. Zack.
Before my mind can conjure up a myriad of unwelcome images, Lexi expounds upon her foreboding statement. “Keith’s been taken to the hospital. I didn’t see exactly what happened, but from what I’m hearing, it was a seizure.”
The breath I’ve been withholding releases, but my heart races at an alarming rate at the thought of something happening to Zack’s best friend. Strange as he may seem, underneath the ridiculous banter and semi outlandish behavior, Keith’s an incredibly decent human being who would go to the ends of the earth for those he cares about.
And Zack. My heart aches for him. The entire belief that bad things don’t happen to good people is total bullshit. The innocent and the benevolent aren’t spared unfounded cruelty, but Jesus Christ, hasn’t he suffered enough?
Then here I am, twisted up over something that happened over a decade ago. Yes, it was terrible, and yes, it’ll always be painful to remember, but I’m not in that place anymore. I have an adoptive father who is more of a parent to me than so many biological parents are to their children—a man who gave me not just a house but a home, one filled with so much warmth and comforts most could only hope to have.
All these years, I’ve never taken my eyes away from the rearview mirror to gaze at what’s directly in front of me. Life. A chance to live freely and without reservation. A chance to fall in love so deeply it would awaken parts of me I never even knew were there. A chance I’ve chosen to squander.
Leaping out of bed, I ask Lexi for the name of the hospital then hang up, plugging the address into my maps app.
Less than five minutes later, I’m fully dressed and heading out the front door after leaving a brief note for Christos so he won’t worry. I peel out of the driveway within seconds of turning the key.
I’m racing as fast as I can go. And for the first time in my life, I’m not running from something but to something. Even if all of my chances are gone, I don’t care. I need to be with him right now.
I HATE EVERYTHING ABOUT HOSPITALS. The strange, overly sterile smell, the vast hallways that echo with every footstep, the florescent lights that seem to highlight every mark, scar, and defect. I spent two and half years walking in and out of these places. Several times for my mother’s chemo sessions, and more often after that for the surgeries on her brain tumor. Suffice it to say, I’m not looking forward to walking into a hospital with my father, but I’m prepared for it.
But nothing could have prepared me to see my best friend since grade school lying in a hospital gown, tubes up his nose and a heart monitor clasped to his finger.
A tonic-clonic seizure, the doctors had told me. Sounds more like some weird rap lyric than an actual medical event. Keith should get a laugh out of that when he wakes up.
The door creaks open, and I straighten up from my hunched position in the uncomfortable armchair beside Keith’s bed, expecting to see Keith’s parents flying through the door. I called them while Dave, who was the DD of the night, drove me behind the ambulance. Thankfully, most of the booze has worn off. Seeing your best friend lie motionless on a bed after an adverse reaction to coke will sober your ass up really quick.
But it’s not his parents. With her copper hair pulled up in a messy ponytail and a gray hoodie zipped up to her chin, Dahlia steps into the room, her hands clasped in front of her and her mouth pressed into a tight line.
“Hi,” she says softly.
“Hi.”
“How’d you find out?” I ask, turning back toward Keith. It’s almost less painful to look at him than it is her.
She walks into the room and stops beside my chair. Her sweet cinnamon fragrance fills my nose. “Lexi called and told me.”
Ah, so it wasn’t my inebriated brain imagining things. I hum my response.
She drags a chair from the corner of the room, the rubber pads on the legs squeaking against the linoleum floor as she pulls it up next to me.
I’m not sure how much time passes as we sit there in silence. Could be seconds, minutes, even hours. Eventually I feel her soft hand covering mine on the armrest. My eyes snap up to meet hers, and sincerity shines in her gaze. I curl my fingers around hers, the contact sending sparks up my arm and straight to my pounding heart.
“Back in elementary school, I was the kid who always got picked on.” I run my thumb along her knuckles. “I was a little pudgy and the other kids never let me forget it. Then Keith came along.” I nod in his direction. “And after he dealt out a few ass kickings, the teasing stopped. He’s been my best friend ever since. Always has my back.”
I hear her swallow. “I’m so sorry, Zack.”
Heat floods my face as my eyes water. I clench my jaw to squelch the urge to let the tears fall. “He’s done a lot of stupid shit in the time I’ve known him, but never
once has he ever done drugs.”
She inhales sharply, and I turn to see a shocked expression on her face. I guess her friend didn’t tell her that little detail.
“If I had even considered taking drugs, Keith would have clocked me dead in the face.” I shake my head. “I think the constant partying has gotten to his head.”
“Is he going to be okay?” she asks.
I nod. “The doctors said it was an adverse reaction, and because he’s never used before, the detoxification process should be fairly painless. He’s just going to feel like shit when he wakes up. He deserves as much for scaring the living shit outta me.”
She casts her eyes down briefly, her soft eyelashes fluttering against her cheeks before she looks back up. “And what about your father?”
I breathe deeply. “I don’t know yet.”
It’s so hard to even think about that right now. Seeing Keith lying in a hospital bed and the woman who broke my heart sitting next to me is more than I can handle.
I run my shirt sleeve under my nose. “Life isn’t guaranteed to us. Sometimes it throws shit at us when we least expect it. Sometimes the obstacles are easy and sometimes they aren’t.”
She lightly squeezes my hand while I press on.
“I could have lost faith when my mom passed away, but because I had my father, brother, and Keith, I knew I’d be okay.” I make sure to hold her gaze while I say the next part. If I wasn’t clear about how she made me feel before, I need to make it clear now. “I could have lost faith when my father told me he had cancer. I almost did, but I didn’t because I thought I had you.”
She flinches slightly as if my words cut her, but I don’t stop, because I need to say it even if she doesn’t want to hear it.
“I’m not your mother,” I say. “Lord knows I’m not fucking perfect and I’ve screwed up more times than I can count, but I would never, ever hurt you like that.”
“Not like I hurt you, you mean,” she retorts, taking her hand from mine. Her gaze shifts to the far window.
Sweet Insanity (Sweet Series Book 1) Page 19
