by Marni Mann
When I got to the spa, Shane was waiting for me outside his truck. We were driving separately, though he wanted to follow me up to Bangor. I’d driven there and back every night since I’d started working at the casino, but in his eyes, I was still a kid. This was his way of watching out for me, to make sure I didn’t get lost and that I arrived safely. It was a sweet gesture, and another reminder of how a parent was supposed to act.
“You ready?” he asked as I got out of my car and gave him a quick hug.
“Yeah, one second. I just want to say hello to Hart.”
He stuck one foot inside his truck. “He’s not here.”
My heart skipped when I heard that. “Where did he go?”
“Don’t know,” he said. “A car pulled up here a few minutes ago and he hopped in. Not sure where they were going.”
They?
I smiled and walked to my car. It was the most artificial grin; I was sure he knew that. “Then let’s go.”
“Okay,” he said cautiously. He climbed all the way into his truck.
We both pulled out of the driveway and onto the main road. I let him lead the way—not because I didn’t know how to get to Acadia; everyone in this town knew where the rehab center was. It was because I didn’t want to really pay attention. Something felt off about Hart, in light of what Shane had just told me.
I didn’t like it at all.
CHAPTER TWENTY
SHANE AND I sat a table in the rec room waiting for Brady to come out. The woman at the front desk where we’d signed in and had been patted down told us he was almost finished with his morning therapy session and would join us as soon as it was over.
Shane’s nerves showed. He traced the grooves that had been dug into the table with his thumbnail, over and over again. I was nervous, too. The last time I’d seen my best friend, his whole face had been swollen, bruised, bloodied. When he hadn’t been throwing up, he’d been screaming out in pain.
Sober Brady had a distinctly different look, of course. His skin had a youthful shine, his eyes were clear, almost radiant, and his laugh was carefree. He was sunshine. Sometimes, his demon would remain quiet for several months, allowing his light to linger. But inevitably, it rose and dragged him back down again.
Maybe that was because he’d never gotten help before.
I knew Shane was feeling the same thing, this blend of happiness and heartbreak. I saw the worry on his face, the fear that Brady would leave rehab before he was ready, or start using as soon as he got out. There was plenty of hope now, for both of us. But I didn’t know if the underlying fear would ever go away, or if I would ever be completely certain that he wouldn’t turn to drugs when the demons nipped at his heels again.
I wondered that for myself, too.
Would I ever not turn to weed to dull the pain of my own scars? Would I ever be able to keep my food down in the days that led to December seventeenth? Would I ever leave the nightmares behind?
“Brady,” I whispered as my eyes drifted toward the doorway.
It was loud enough for Shane to hear. He lifted his head and glanced in the same direction. Then he looked back at me, and a thought passed between us. I’d seen Shane and Brady do something similar so many times before, and now I understood what it meant, what it felt like.
Without speaking, we knew we were in complete agreement.
“Hey,” Brady said quietly. There was still a bit of bruising under his eye, and the stitches he’d gotten above his brow hadn’t yet dissolved. The cuts around his lips were still healing. Regardless, it was impossible to miss the certainty in his movement, and the clarity in his eyes.
His mouth broke into a smile.
“Brady…” I said aloud.
Shane pushed his chair back and rushed to greet him, throwing his arms around his son’s neck. He kissed the top of his head as Brady folded into his chest.
I’d seen them hug each other affectionately so many times. This was something entirely different. This was two people being reunited after spending years apart. This was a love so deep, so genuine, I knew I wouldn’t feel anything like it until I had children of my own. It was overwhelming to see them together again.
They finally parted. Shane wiped the corners of his eyes and walked back to his chair.
“What?” Brady said, his arms open, the smile still on his face. “No hug for the asshole in rehab?”
I hurried over and curled into his chest, letting him take most of my weight. His chin rested on the top of my head. His hands ran a trail along my back, up to my neck and down to the middle of my spine.
“I missed you so much.” My fingers clung to his shoulders; I didn’t even try to stop my nails from digging into his skin.
I wanted him to stay like this forever.
“I missed you, too.” His breath was clean and minty—no alcohol. His shirt smelled like fabric softener instead of smoke. He wasn’t sniffing or wiping his nose.
He was clean.
I squeezed harder. “You look so good.”
“You look tired…and way too fucking skinny.”
I laughed at his honesty—another thing I missed. Besides Shane, Brady was the only person who could say something like that without offending me. I knew it came from a place of concern. He’d more than earned the right to call me on my shit. “I’ve been eating. A little.”
“I know it’s hard for you to keep it down, but Rae, you’ve got to try to eat more.” He pressed his cheek against the side of my forehead. “Just twenty-two more days.”
I couldn’t stop the knot from lodging into my throat.
Even in rehab, he’d remembered my countdown.
“I know,” I whispered. “I’m almost there.” I gently pulled out of his arms, clasped onto his hand and brought him over to the table.
“You’re looking so much healthier, son,” Shane said once we both took a seat. “How do you feel?”
Brady didn’t take his eyes off me. I knew he had questions—I could see them. He wanted to know everything he’d missed since he had been gone, how bad I was feeling, if my mom had been in touch. But Shane and I weren’t here to talk about me. This visit was all about him.
“We’ll catch up later,” I promised him. “Tell us how you’re doing.”
He nodded, his pale blue stare finally shifting to his dad. “I’m good…very good, actually. I’m starting to sort shit out, you know, with my counselors. They’re helping me find my triggers and teaching me about what I’ll have to change when I get out of here.”
Brady’s childhood had been nothing like mine, but he understood what it felt like to be raised by a single parent and to have the other want nothing to do with him. His mom had re-married when we were in middle school; Brady had never gotten along with her new husband. He was loud and physically abusive, and he and Shane had gotten into it more than a few times over how he was treating Brady. When Brady’s mom got pregnant, her husband didn’t want him around anymore. It was ugly.
It was also the beginning of his storm.
“Everything is all ready for when you come home,” Shane said. “Got your things all set up in your old room, and the rest of your stuff is in my garage. It’ll be like old times for us.”
I wished Shane hadn’t brought that up. The second he’d mentioned it, I knew Brady was going to have a strong reaction. I also knew it would lead him to worry about my living situation.
The lines in Brady’s forehead deepened. He looked at me intently, waiting for an explanation. I didn’t say anything. He then looked at his dad. “What happened to my apartment?”
I would never lie to him. Rehab or not, he deserved the truth. “I lost your apartment, Brady. I couldn’t afford it so the landlord evicted us…or me. I’m sorry.” I wished I hadn’t needed to admit how much I’d failed.
He shook his head. “You didn’t lose anything. It’s my fault for not paying and for leaving it all for you to handle.” His hand rested on top of mine. There were still a few cuts on his knuckles, but his
nails were now short and clean, and the calluses under his fingers had softened a little. “I hope it means you’re living with my dad…that’s where you are, right?”
Shane crossed his arms over the table. His thumb went back to tracing the grooves.
He realized his mistake, and everything that would follow now.
“I stayed with Caleb and Jeremy for a little bit,” I said.
“A little bit?” I knew that tone. He was worried; he had every reason to be. “So you’re not there anymore?”
I shook my head.
“What made you leave?”
I definitely wasn’t getting into any of that now. Once Brady was out of rehab and able to keep his anger in check, I’d tell him everything that had happened at that house. But I couldn’t take the chance of jeopardizing his stay there or his progress just to tell him about Gary, the peeping fuck.
“I’m staying at Hart’s house now. He’s back.” It came out before I could consider what those words would mean to him.
“Hart?” He glanced at his dad, whose eyes were still pointed at the table, then back at me. “Hart Booker?”
We didn’t know any other Hart. ”Yes.”
“You’re living with Hart Booker?”
I couldn’t fault him for his reaction. It was a name I hadn’t thought I’d ever say again, either.
“I’m staying with him.” I decided not to bring up that Hart was also Shane’s boss, and it didn’t seem like Shane was going to volunteer that information. It felt like this was all too much for him. Brady didn’t like anyone who’d hurt me, and Hart had been on that list for quite some time. “Would you rather me stay at Caleb’s?” I hadn’t meant for so much attitude to rush out of me, but Hart had stormed out of the house when Brady’s name had come up, and now Brady didn’t look pleased that I was at Hart’s.
Didn’t anyone care about what I wanted?
“No, I’d rather you be at my dad’s.” He leaned back in his chair and fiddled with the bottom of his T-shirt. “I’m surprised he’s back, and that you’d even let him talk to you after everything that went down between you two.” I could feel his questions starting to mount. He was wondering if we were together, if my feelings for him were similar to the ones I’d had for Saint. What was developing between me and Hart was completely different from anything I’d had before—especially with Saint. There was no way Brady would know that, and this wasn’t the right time to tell him. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re not at Caleb’s,” he said. He didn’t look at me when he spoke, which told me he wasn’t happy I was at Hart’s.
Shane looked up from the table as soon as Brady paused. “Son, give us more details about the things you’re discussing with your counselors. What are they teaching you?”
I silently thanked Shane for changing the topic. The attention should never have been on me. Brady needed to focus on himself and on staying clean.
I watched the way his mouth moved as he answered Shane’s questions. How his pupils grew after each blink and stayed larger than the pinpoints I was used to staring at. The opiates he had always taken had kept them that way, and had given him his raw and often bloody nose, and his heavy lids, and his busy hands that were usually scratching some part of his body. His fingers didn’t jitter now. They’d released the end of his shirt and rested on the table. They were crossed and relaxed.
Brady was back, and it sounded like he was finding himself within these walls. He told us about his daily schedule and how things had been since he’d checked in, how he was trying to find new habits to replace the old ones. He discussed the staff, the counselors he clicked with and the aids who were in recovery themselves. He was really learning how to cope and master the tools he would need to finally change his life and stay clean.
I envied him.
I envied that he was able to admit when he had reached rock bottom, and that he’d been able to ask for help. That he had finally faced his darkness and had stayed in rehab for this long already. He was conquering his demons with courage.
My demon was a man who haunted my dreams, my past. There was no way in hell I would ever submit to that sick bastard.
But how could I ever conquer him?
And what would it take for me to finally ask for help if I couldn’t do it on my own?
Help wouldn’t heal the scar on my face or what it represented, or the loss I felt because of it. It wouldn’t erase the memories. It wouldn’t heal me. It wasn’t as if Hart could do that for me, either. And my brother certainly couldn’t.
The only one who could do it was me.
“Brady,” a man said from the doorway. “Lunch in three.”
Brady sighed, one of his hands touching his dad’s shoulder and the other resting on top of mine. “I’ve got to go. If we’re late to anything, we get toilet duty and an even earlier bedtime.”
Shane stood from the table and pulled Brady in for a hug. “I understand, son. Happy we got to see you for as long as we did. Keep doing good, you hear me?”
“I hear you, Dad.”
“Got lots of things to tell you—good things—but they’ll have to wait until you’re healthy. Don’t you worry about what’s going on out there; Rae and I are handling that.”
Brady finally pulled away from Shane, and he reached for me. I tucked myself into his chest again and buried my face in the crook of his neck. I loved his new smell. It reminded me of the earth after a heavy rain. “I’m so damn proud of you, Brady.”
He squeezed tighter. “Yeah, well…I’m worried about you.”
“Don’t be. I’m fine.”
“Twenty-two days. I don’t know if I’ll be out in time.”
Save me, I screamed silently.
“I’ll be okay,” I lied.
He kissed the top of my head, gripped my arms and held me back a few inches, looking into my face. “Promise me that?”
I nodded. “Don’t worry about me. Just concentrate on getting healthy so I can have my best friend back.”
His lips softly touched my forehead. He was giving me whatever was in him—his strength, his warmth. His brotherly love.
I knew I depended on him and Shane. They had become my surrogate family, so having him back for the briefest moment only made me miss him more. I felt his absence in my bones. I felt it every time I took a breath.
Shane’s arms circled around me, and together we watched Brady walk through the door and away from us yet again. It closed completely and locked into place. We still hadn’t moved. We just watched the space that had held him, and the door he’d disappeared behind.
“He’s going to be just fine,” Shane said softly, “and so are you.” His grip tightened. I rested my head on his shoulder.
I wanted Brady to be in here, where he was safe. But part of me wanted to break him out and keep him with me for the next twenty-two days. He understood what I was going through, what happened within me every year at this time, and he had always given me exactly what I needed. It might not have been enough to fix what was broken, though it had been enough to get me past the seventeenth.
I needed my best friend back.
It was so selfish of me to want that now. I had Hart; my feelings for him were real, and he was good for me. I had Shane, too; he was the closest thing I had to a dad. As for my past, he knew almost as much as Brady. He just didn’t know about those dark nights…the moments when I’d curled into a ball at the end of Brady’s bed and sobbed until I couldn’t breathe. I’d cried so hard I’d made myself sick. No matter how much of a mess I was or how many times I threw up, or how I couldn’t stop my body from rocking back and forth, Brady still wouldn’t let me go.
He was a real friend and a true part of my family. He didn’t do my hair or paint makeup over my scar like a girlfriend would, and we didn’t take pictures of each other and post them all over some bullshit website. He meant more to me than any of those things.
Besides the month he was gone, he never left me when I needed him, he never made promises he
couldn’t keep, and he always made me believe that someday there would be a safe harbor on the other side of my storm.
And now, he was finding that for himself, on the other side of his.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“ARE YOU DRIVING HOME?”
Hart’s voice jumped through the phone as soon as I answered his call. I glanced at my dashboard to check the time. I had just clocked out and wasn’t even at the Bangor city limits quite yet. I was actually surprised to be hearing from him. I’d sent him a text as I was leaving the rehab center; during my shift, sometime around ten, he’d finally replied, telling me to call when I was on my way home.
I hadn’t done that.
“Yes, I’m driving,” I said. “Do you want me there?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” His words were clipped.
I rolled my eyes even though he couldn’t see me. “Cut the bullshit, Hart. You had all day to reach out to me and you didn’t. You weren’t even at the spa when I went there to meet Shane, and now you suddenly want me at your house? Your words and your actions aren’t lining up.”
“It was a busy day.”
He hadn’t appreciated that dead phone excuse I’d used not that long ago. I felt the same about what he’d just said.
“Busy doesn’t work for me,” I told him rudely. “I need something better than that.”
He was silent for a while. “It won’t happen again, Rae.” His tone was stern, business-like. I imagined this was how he addressed the guys who worked for him.
I adjusted the seatbelt a little and relaxed my grip on the steering wheel. “That’s better.” It didn’t make up for the way he had acted earlier, but at least he recognized that ignoring me all day was wrong.
“I’ll see you soon?”
I tried to match my tone to his. “Yes, you will.”
And he did, but this time I didn’t smell breakfast when I walked in the door, and he didn’t hand me a mug of coffee when I got to the kitchen. He was freshly showered again, using the island as a desk and reading something on his laptop while he sipped a glass of juice. He had sprayed on too much cologne, and he looked tired. A little messy, even.