Broken (The Addictive Trilogy Book 2)

by Ashley Love

  Tell him no, my brain says. I tell my brain to fuck off, just like I always have when it comes to him. My brain made it through rehab okay, it knows what to do in the face of danger.

  “Yeah. That’s fine.”

  But my heart just isn’t ready to give up on him.

  18

  “You want me to drive?” I ask out of concern for him. While for the most part he seems to be okay, I can tell that he’s still a bit shaken from the entire experience, and despite the fact that I myself have never been locked up, I can’t say I blame him for being a little on edge. I can only imagine the things he saw and experienced as my eyes roam over the wounds on his face, and I just can’t fathom someone beating the shit out of him like that. I wonder what the other guy came out looking like, and then my mind slips further into a scene of Lex just submitting as some guy pounded his face. I feel sick to my stomach when I realize he’s experienced far too much of that in his life.

  “No. I’m fine,” he replies gruffly, snatching the keys from my hand and I sigh.

  We get on the 101 and exit onto 110 going south and he seems nervous and uncomfortable. I know it’s not the traffic, which in itself could make anyone wanna piss themselves, but he keeps wiping his palms on his jeans and his cheeks are flushed a little.

  Once we get off the freeway he’s fidgeting, shifting in his seat and I see him swallow hard repeatedly. I’m waiting for him to go into convulsions or a seizure or something but he just keeps driving, hands gripping the wheel until his knuckles are white. We cruise through MacArthur Park and I wonder what the fuck is going on with him.

  Lex takes a few shortcuts because he knows this city like the back of his hand. Well, at least I thought he did, but I give him a look when he pulls off of Wilshire onto a side street, his trembling hand fumbling clumsily with his seatbelt until it clicks open and he stops suddenly, throwing the truck into park.

  “Lex, what are you—”

  But he doesn’t say anything, just opens the door and leans out, retching so hard he almost falls out of the truck and has to grab the inside of the door frame to steady himself. I watch wide-eyed as he does this three more times, each round of nausea accompanied by deep guttural gags and coughs and I see him lurch forward a few final times but I know his stomach is empty. I feel it trembling when I reach to put a hand on his side. I’m nervous because I know what’s coming, I know what’s ahead for him if he’s been in jail for two nights without drugs and I know not to expect anything good for the next few days until he goes to court.

  “Lex, are you sure you’re—”

  “I’m fucking fine.” He groans, resting his elbows against his knees and pressing his palms against his forehead but his skin is damp with sweat when I slide my hand under his T-shirt to rub his back, and I don’t know what happened to him in that place but I just want to make it all go away.

  The sun is completely down when we finally climb the stairs to my front door, and part of me is nineteen and coming home with him after a long night of partying to curl up and watch a movie until I fall asleep and he moves us to that little bed that we can both barely fit on. But when I put the key in the doorknob and turn it until it allows me entry, it’s new and unfamiliar when he hangs back outside the door and waits for me to turn to him and say, “C’mon,” impatiently beckoning him inside.

  He steps inside and closes the door, turning the lock and the deadbolt both, and I turn to go into the kitchen.

  “Are you hungry?” I ask over my shoulder as I flip the light switch on the wall and the kitchen is illuminated by a bright overhead fixture.

  “Not really,” he deadpans, and I stop as I reach for the refrigerator handle. I walk back around the breakfast bar and he’s still standing in the doorway, the pockets of his jeans eating his hands slowly.

  “Okay,” I almost stutter. The silence is so loud. I feel goosebumps raise on my arms and I want to reach up and cover my ears to keep the sound out, but I can’t move an inch, so many unspoken words burning in my throat, eyes locked in his, some magnetic force keeping me stock still. The black under his eyes looks blacker, his skin paler. Hot sparks shoot through my veins and everything is willing me to move except my actual legs.

  “Can I shower?” he finally asks, eyeing the short hall that leads to the bathroom before looking at me again. I hold his gaze for an awkward moment and I finally blink, shaking my head, clearing it.

  “Uh, yeah. There’s towels in the cabinet kinda behind the door when you walk in. You want me to show you how everything works?” I walk towards him eagerly.

  “I can figure it out.” His words stop me again.

  “Um, okay. Everything in the shower smells kinda girly. I think there’s a few bars of plain soap in one of the drawers under the sink. Stupid crap from hotels that Aimee brought over here for guests or something,” I ramble, and he just nods.

  “That’ll work.”

  The space between us grows and grows with our exchange even though neither of us is moving. “Um…if you wanna drop your clothes outside the door, I can start them in the wash while you’re in there. There should be plenty of hot water.” God, I am my mother. “I just…I know you don’t have any other clothes here. I mean, I know you sleep naked anyway sometimes.” I laugh, trying to joke, but he just gives me a tight-lipped smile, rocking back on his heels. My smile fades. “Okay. Well, go ahead and shower. I can set up the couch for you, I’m sure you’re exhausted.”

  “Yeah. Sounds good.”

  He’s still giving me that blank stare, and now the room is huge and just swallowing me up and I’m annoyed that he’s being so short with me and I’m so fucking awkward.

  “Okay,” is my genius response.

  “Okay,” he echoes, reaching up to scratch the back of his neck and we still stand there for another minute. I take the first ticket that I can get out of this conversation, which happens to be my stomach growling, the feeling still slightly unfamiliar to me. My feet carry me back to the kitchen quickly and he scurries down the hall, both of us thankful for the end of that humiliating exchange.

  “Fucking dumbass,” I scold myself under my breath as I jerk the fridge open and I hear the shower start faintly in the distance.

  I had just switched his clothes from the washer to the dryer and was washing my dinner plate in the sink when he shuffled out of the bathroom, towel draped loosely around his waist. His skin is pink, almost red, and it looks like he attempted to scrub the top layer off. I don’t even want to know how hot the water was.

  “Feel better?” I ask, eyeing him a little curiously.

  He looks sort of dazed, eyes trained on the carpet. “A little, yeah.” His hand runs over his bristly hair.

  “You okay?” I don’t want to pry, but I usually worry about him regardless of circumstances. Now he’s standing here in front of me fresh out of fucking jail and he looks lost in his own mind. What does anyone expect me to do? I worry. I can’t help it.

  His eyes snap up to mine and he nods. “I’m fine, yeah.” His tone is a little more convincing.

  “The couch is ready. It should sleep alright.” I step around into the living room with an empty gesture and he looks it over. I made it the best I could while he was in the shower, tucked a sheet around the cushions and stacked a few blankets and a pillow at the end. He nods as if he approves and then sits down, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees.

  “Better than the floor.” He shrugs and I kind of wonder what he means. Like I would ever make him sleep on my floor. Then I think maybe that’s where he slept in jail and I feel kind of stupid. Of course that’s what he meant. He sighs as he leans back against the couch, comfortably slouched as always. His towel parts a little between his knees and I tell myself not to look. God, I need to go to bed.

  “Right. Well, I won’t keep you up. Your clothes are in the dryer. There’s the remote, you know, if you wanna watch TV or something.” I gesture toward the coffee table and he nods. “My bed
room is through there.” Again, I gesture. “If you need anything…you know…I’ll be in there.” I shrug and he nods again, laughing a little.

  “I’ll be okay.” I see the corner of his mouth turn up, amused, and I finally realize how fucking neurotic I’m being about all of this. I tuck a piece of hair behind my ear shyly, a little embarrassed by my behavior. He just smiles at me. “You can sit in here if you want, for a little while. It’s your place and all.”

  “I know, I just…” I trail off, lost in the way he’s looking at me, and I wonder if he wants me in here with him. If he’s lonely. I think too many things, and I start to sympathize with him, and I have to stop myself. This is his mess. He is a mess. I can’t always be fixing things, fixing him. I sigh and continue, “I don’t wanna keep you up, and I don’t want you to feel like we have to stay up and chat and make sure everything’s okay with us and all that shit. It is what it is, you know, and…what happened…it happened. And you’re here, and I’m cool with that, and if I wasn’t…you wouldn’t be here.” I nod to punctuate my response. He just gives me a curious look.

  “Right.”

  “So let’s just…go to bed. There’s plenty of time for all that other shit on another day.”

  “Okay.” What else can he say?

  I sigh. “Night, Lex.”

  “Night,” he replies softly, and when I turn down the hall toward my room I hear him call out for me. “Hey, Leala?”

  “Yeah?”

  I join him in the room again, almost too eagerly. He looks at me for a moment, and part of me expects us to have one of those closing scenes where he thanks me for everything, kind of embarrassed to say it and fumbling for the right words. He opens his mouth and I wait for it to come out, but he closes it again and looks down at the floor, his features showing a little disappointment before he looks at me again and just shrugs.

  “Will you get the light for me?”

  I sigh, a twinge of hope crushed inside of me, but I just give him a tight smile, keeping my voice polite. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll get the light.”

  19

  I cross through the living room quietly the next morning to make myself a breakfast of some sort. I hate to admit to myself that I spent all night worrying about Lex, but it seems that lately it’s become a trick I use to keep my mind occupied. Sometimes I just wanted to peek my head in and see that he was okay, but now I figure I shouldn’t bother waking him once I finally look at him and see he’s dead to the world. If he’s hungry later we can figure something out, but part of me knows he won’t be.

  I pour some water into my coffee machine and dig in the cabinet for some cereal. I’m more of an oatmeal girl these days, but I figure the microwave will make too much noise. Considering how much sleep I can assume Lex hasn’t gotten for the past two nights, I want to let him rest as long as his body needs it.

  As I’m pouring my milk into the bowl though, I hear something making weird noises, almost hissing. I squint at the coffee maker, because sometimes that thing acts weird as shit, spurting and scowling at me, but it’s just doing its normal drip this morning. Drip, drip, drip into the pot.

  When I glance back over the breakfast bar into the living room, I find my culprit. Lex is sighing, almost panting in his sleep, kicking the sheets from his legs and tossing his head back and forth.

  “Fuck…stop,” I hear him mutter, and I sigh, setting the milk back into the fridge and walking back into the living room. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him do this.

  I kneel down next to the couch, tucking my feet under me, and I reach out a hand tentatively and place it against his forehead. His skin is warm and I can see his T-shirt is slightly damp and sticking to him when he thrashes.

  “Hey,” I say softly, running my hand back over his hair and letting my fingertips slide down his cheek. He grunts and arches his back off the couch a little, his face screwing up before he goes back to the panting. I hate waking him up from nightmares because sometimes he gets panicked and I figure it’ll be worse with him being here, not really knowing where he is when he wakes up. I just want him to go back to sleep.

  My hand smoothes up and down his arm from his shoulder to his elbow, and when I cup his face again, letting my thumb slide back and forth across his cheekbone, his breathing slows. I watch him for a few seconds to make sure he’s really out, his mouth hanging open just slightly, breathing deep and even, and I trail my hand down his neck and pat his chest softly, trying to settle him. When he shifts against the couch cushions and swallows hard, breathing out a deep sigh before his entire body relaxes again, I stand and tiptoe back into the kitchen.

  The coffee pot beeps once loudly and I turn it off before it continues, peeking into the living room worriedly, but Lex hasn’t even flinched. I fish in the cabinet for a mug, finally wrapping my fingers around the handle of a bright red cup, emblazoned with a yellow and black Ferrari emblem at which I roll my eyes. Some shit my dad gave me from the house because God knows I didn’t have any coffee cups when I moved in here. Who needs coffee when I used to have enough stimulants in my system at any given time to keep me up for days on end? I have to admit that coffee has become a vice. Better than cigarettes, I think, as I reach for the handle of the coffee pot.

  I drain the pot of its hot black liquid, watching steam rise from the mouth of my cup, and I reach across the counter for my sugar bucket, opening the drawer where my spoons are stashed and grabbing one. My eyes flit from bucket to cup as I spoon the sweet crystals into my coffee, counting the spoonfuls, knowing just how many I like to sweeten the drink while still letting it keep its punch. I figured out a long time ago that creamers kill that little devil inside a good cup of black coffee that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up. I like to keep him around, but just sweeten him up a bit.

  I shovel a few spoonfuls of cereal into my mouth, my eyes flitting to the couch, keeping a watch on Lex for any signs of a recurring incident like the one I just saw. When I see him sleeping comfortably I pull myself up onto the kitchen counter with my back to the living room and bring the cup to my lips, remembering nights not so long ago that I would wake up more often than not to find Lex in a cold sweat next to me, thrashing about. He used to have nightmares about his dad, but after what’s taken place over the last few days I can’t even imagine what images are plaguing his sleep now.

  Just as I’m about to drain the rest of my coffee I remember that I forgot to put a stupid dryer sheet in with my laundry. Slightly annoyed with myself and still half-asleep, I push off from the counter with a sigh and round the breakfast bar to pass back through the living room.

  But what I see stops me quickly. Lex’s cheek lays against the pillow, the blood running from his nose staining the golden yellow pillowcase with a large pool of deep red, almost brown.

  Somewhere in my mind I see neon lights, the flickering vacancy sign as we pulled into the parking lot. My heart starts to pound. Very faintly I can smell the cigarettes, I can smell the crack and I can see Fabian lighting up. I feel my veins tingle, feel the scratchy comforter against my naked skin, feel it all coming back...

  Las Vegas, Nevada, 2 Years Ago.

  When I opened my eyes the ceiling was stark white, and I looked around dumbly for the holes where the disco balls must’ve retracted up into. Then I remembered that the disco balls were in the club, and when I looked down at myself I saw that I was butt ass naked and this definitely wasn’t the club. Was that even last night, or the night before? Things were starting to run together.

  I winced as my headache hit me like someone stabbed a fucking fork into my ear and scrambled my brains around like eggs, and the thought of food made nausea roll in my stomach. I pulled my knees up and my spine poked into the mattress. This bed was really fucking shitty, I decided just before I noticed the bite marks on my thighs.

  My eyes roved up my stomach which revealed a few more of the nasty splotches, and I noticed the last two on my breast and shoulder before I looked t
o my left to see the culprit passed out with his naked ass facing me, claw marks scratched into the skin on the back of his neck and between his shoulder blades. I vaguely remembered him dropping me onto the bed, but I wasn’t sure if it was before or after him fingering me on that barstool at the strip club, or was that yesterday? God.

  My back screamed in protest when I rolled onto my stomach and pulled my knees up under me, my whole body trembling as I crawled towards him weakly. I stopped when I saw the blood stains on the pillows.

  “Lex?” My hoarse voice echoed in my ears and sent the fork scrambling again. I squeezed my eyes shut tight but opened them quickly as my panic set in, forcing the headache down with adrenaline as I saw a wide path of blood staining the covers and leading toward where his head was laid against the bed. I knew we’d done a fucking lot of blow, but it was the first time I’d seen his nose bleed because of it. I would be lying if I said it didn’t scare the shit out of me a little bit. “Lex, sit up.”

  I sat up on my knees and reached my hands out toward his arm, grabbing him at his shoulder and elbow and dragging his arm across his body toward me from where it was draped over the edge of the bed, hanging down toward the floor. I turned him onto his back and his head stayed facing away from me but rolled down a little until his chin was resting against his collarbone. I saw two drops of blood spread across his shoulder where they dropped from his nose. Fuck.

  “Lex, seriously,” I grunted as I swung my tired leg over his body and hovered over him, putting both hands on his shoulders and sitting back against his thighs as I rocked my weight back to pull him until he was sitting upright. His head swung down heavy on his neck, and the blood seeped slowly down onto his lips, dripping from his chin onto his chest, and rolling in a narrow, jagged path down his stomach. “Lex!”