Addicted

by Tracy Wolff

  “But he did, Ethan. He did.”

  “I know that now. I didn’t want to believe it then.”

  “But you had no problem believing that I would do something like lie about being raped.”

  “I didn’t know you then.”

  “Would it matter if you had?”

  “Is that even a question?” he demands, his blue eyes glistening with a thousand hints of madness.

  “Did it sound like a question?”

  “Of course it would matter! Of course it does matter!

  “Don’t you think I know the mistake I made? Don’t you think it’s killing me that the little brother I always protected had a part in destroying the only woman I’ve ever loved? The only woman I will ever love? And that through him, I had a part in it, too?”

  “So, why did you lie about it? If you’re so sorry, why did you never tell me what happened? Why did you leave me to find out from your mother of all people? You’ve had the time and the opportunity over and over again these last few weeks. Why didn’t you say something?”

  “I tried. You have no idea how many times in the last three weeks I tried to tell you, Chloe. And then you instituted that no discussion policy and I thought, maybe, just maybe, I could catch a break.”

  I think back to that night, to the way he kept trying to say something over and over again. To the way I kept shutting him down. The memory makes me sick, especially when it registers that I might have been able to stop this. If only I’d listened. If only I hadn’t tried to hide.

  Things get a little gray and fuzzy around the edges and for a moment, just a moment, I think I might pass out. But then reason comes to the rescue. Reason and rage and a sad kind of righteousness as his words finally sink in. “You really thought you wouldn’t have to tell me? That I wouldn’t find out? Ever?” I demand incredulously.

  “No, of course not. You’re too smart not to have found out everything eventually—even without my mother’s interference.”

  “Then why?”

  “I wanted to fix it. I wanted to right the wrong, fix the mistake. I thought if I did it right, no one would have to know about your past, about what happened to you. But I could still make sure that Brandon never had the chance to hurt another girl or abuse his power ever again.

  “Don’t you see? I can’t make it better for you, Chloe. There’s nothing I can do to undo the terrible, disgusting things that happened to you. But I’ve spent the last three weeks trying to figure out how to get you some kind of justice. I’ve hired private detectives to try and pick up the trail, to see if there was a witness to what happened that night. Or some other night, with some other girl. Someone who hasn’t signed an NDA. Someone whose testimony won’t put her in contempt of court.

  “I’ve gone out of my way to sabotage Brandon’s chances of running for office. That’s why my mother showed up. And that’s why you were on the covers of those magazines yesterday. She’s fighting back, fighting dirty—the only way she knows how. She’s bent on destroying you one way or another and it’s my fault. I tried to protect you, tried to make things better for you and all I ended up doing was making them worse.

  “I just spent the entire day with a team of private detectives, combing through evidence I can use to make Brandon step down from the race. And I’m still looking. I’m still determined to make him pay for what he did to you. If I could do that, if I could make him suffer as you did, I was hoping you’d be able to forgive my part in what happened to you.”

  He stops then, his breathing coming in uneven pants as he waits for me to speak. As he waits for me to tell him that I understand what he’s doing and why he’s doing it. But the truth is, I don’t understand. I never asked him to avenge me, never asked him to do anything but love me. To let me love him.

  And yet, here we are. Bruised and bloody and broken, our relationship shot to hell and with no one to blame but ourselves. Me for instituting that ridiculous no talking about the past policy and him for actually listening to it when he had a secret this big, this powerful, this formidable.

  Because I can’t not do it, I reach for Ethan’s hand, stroke my thumb over the palm before I start to talk. “I can’t do this anymore.”

  For the first time Ethan looks panicked. “Don’t say that.”

  “I have to say it.”

  “You don’t.”

  “I do.” I reach inside me, looking for the rage that was there just a few short minutes ago. I can’t find it. I can’t find anything but the hurt and the sorrow that well up from deep inside me, that fill up every crevice of space inside of me. “I love you. And I know that you love me. But sometimes that isn’t enough. This thing we have between us, this addiction fed by the drama of the past and the need of the present … it’s destroying us.”

  “No.” Ethan shakes his head, his hand grasping at mine like it’s a lifeline. Like he’s drowning and it’s the only thing keeping him afloat. “What we have is the only good thing in my life.”

  “Then why do you keep screwing it up?” The anger’s back as readily as it had left. “Why do you keep pushing me away? Again and again and again? Why do you keep making me have to leave you?”

  “I don’t mean to.”

  “That’s not good enough. I trust you. After everything that I’ve found out, after everything that’s happened, I still find a way to trust you. And every time, you betray that trust. Every time you find a way not to trust me.”

  “I do trust you! Chloe, I trust you with my life.”

  “Maybe you do, maybe you don’t. But you sure as hell don’t trust me with your heart.”

  “How can you say that? I’d do anything for you. I know I’ve made mistakes. I know I haven’t told you things you needed to know—”

  “It’s not that you haven’t told me that bothers me at this point, Ethan. It’s why you haven’t told me. And why we keep doing this same thing again and again and again?

  “When you first found out about Brandon and me, your first instinct was to break up with me.”

  “You were so vulnerable. I didn’t want to hurt you anymore.”

  “And when I told you I couldn’t live with the lies, you let me walk away. You left me to suffer alone for two weeks. And if I hadn’t made a move toward you outside that restaurant, we’d probably be alone still.”

  “I’d already hurt you so much. How could I hurt you anymore?”

  “And now this. You knew all along that you were the one who paid that money and you didn’t tell me. You let me be blindsided by your mother rather than trust me to understand. Rather than trust me to be able to look beyond what happened five years ago to what we have today.”

  “How could I ask that of you? How could I tell you about how I betrayed you and then expect you to just live with it?”

  “Because that’s what trust is! Telling the other person the hard shit and knowing that they’ll be there anyway. Knowing that they won’t give up, won’t walk away, no matter what mistake you’ve made.

  “You haven’t done that. Not once.” I pause, take a breath. “How do you see that working in the future? You just omit things? You just don’t tell me stuff that might hurt us? You just let me find out in the hardest, most painful ways possible? And then tell me you love me and beg me to stay?”

  Ethan starts to say something, to answer that, but in the end there’s nothing for him to say and he knows it. Instead, he just closes his mouth, shakes his head. Looks away.

  “How many strikes do you think you deserve? How many chances am I supposed to give you?”

  He shakes his head, still refuses to meet my eyes. “I don’t know.”

  “That’s it? That’s all you’ve got to say? After all this? That’s how you want to leave it? With you don’t know?”

  He doesn’t answer, doesn’t even look at me. And that’s when I know. I can stay here forever, giving him chance after chance after chance, and it will never be enough.

  “Good-bye, Ethan.” I lean forward and brush a soft kiss
across his cheek. Then I pick up my backpack and walk down the hall and straight out the front door. Then I keep walking down the hill, praying with each step that Ethan will come after me. That he won’t let me go.

  But he does, without so much as a whimper of protest. When I get to the wine-making facility, I ask for Rodrigo. It takes a couple of minutes for him to come around to me, and when he sees my backpack his eyes widen.

  “You’re leaving already, Chloe?”

  “I am. I was hoping you could give me a ride to the airport.”

  “Of course I can. But where’s Ethan?”

  I don’t know how to answer that, so I don’t. I just shrug a little and pretend that it’s an actual answer. Rodrigo doesn’t ask again.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  “I’m thinking of calling the doctor. Seeing if I can get one of those collar things for my neck.” Tori sits down slowly at the kitchen table, rubbing the back of her neck as she does.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask, eyeing her with concern. “Did you sleep wrong?”

  “No. I’m just afraid I have whiplash.”

  “From what? You weren’t—” I break off as it registers what she’s talking about. “Seriously? I was worried about you.”

  “And I’m worried about you. This back and forth with Ethan is so crazy and convoluted that I’m seriously beginning to get whiplash. You keep pushing and pulling me in different directions. You love him, you hate him. You love him, you hate him. I never know which side of the fence I’m supposed to be on at any given moment.”

  “That’s bullshit and you know it. Besides, I’ve never said I hated Ethan and I never said you had to be angry at him with me. Don’t be throwing your own issues back on me.”

  “I wish I could give you my issues and take yours for a while.” She pours milk into the cup of coffee I slam down beside her on the table. “Because, believe me, no matter how screwed up I am, I’m smart enough to see a good thing when it comes along.”

  “A good thing? Now I’m the one with whiplash. You’ve gone back and forth between loving and hating Ethan ever since I met him.”

  “That’s because I’m being yanked around by your yo-yoing emotions. But come on, Chloe, he’s a decent guy. More decent than most. The least you can do is see what he’s sent you this time.” She gestures to the unopened box sitting next to the door. It’s another present—one of six that has come since I got back from Napa. Or, it could just be the same present. I don’t know. I didn’t open the others and I don’t plan on opening this one.

  I mean, why torture myself? Whatever’s in there can’t solve the problems Ethan and I have, so why bother with it when I’m sure I’ll like it? Why torture myself when I have no plans to accept another gift from Ethan, ever?

  Once the post office opens, I’ll send it back to him just like I have all the others. I should probably just start refusing them—this mailing them back is wreaking havoc on my budget. But Tori keeps beating me to the door and she’s always “very happy to accept a package.”

  “I need to get dressed,” I tell her, finishing my scalding coffee in one long, painful sip. “I have an interview in an hour.” For a waitressing job at a place that requires the skimpiest uniforms ever. Not that I’ve told Tori that. She’d have a fit, demand that I stay and worry about paying the rent later. But I’ve been mooching long enough, and now that I’ve walked away from my internship with Frost Industries, I need to do something. Not just for the paycheck, but for my own peace of mind. Sitting around here and staring at the walls for the last six days has made me more than a little stir-crazy.

  “And that’s another thing! Giving up this internship when you worked so hard to get it? What about law school? What about your future?”

  “Now I’m the one getting whiplash. Aren’t you the one who told me to just quit, that this internship wasn’t important?”

  “That was before you convinced me otherwise. A girl is entitled to change her mind.”

  “Exactly.” I send her the best fake smile I can muster. “Which is exactly what I’ve done. Waitressing job, not internship.”

  “You’re an idiot,” Tori tells me, leaving her coffee untouched as she shoves back from the table.

  “No. I was an idiot. This time I’m being a realist.”

  “Don’t you think there’s enough realism in the world? Ethan was giving you the fairy tale, Chlo. You should have grabbed on with both hands—it’s what any Disney princess would have done.”

  “And look where it gets them.”

  “Happily ever after?”

  “More like being chased by the big, bad wolf. Or the sea witch. Or—”

  “God, you’re so depressing!”

  “That’s because I’m depressed.” I start down the hall toward my bedroom.

  “Exactly! And if being with Ethan will make you less depressed, I think you should go for it!”

  “Being with Ethan is what made me depressed in the first place.” I ignore the fact that she’s followed me to my bedroom, and start pulling clothes out of my closet, trying to figure out what one is supposed to wear to an interview at a place that is one step up from a titty bar. I can’t believe they’re the only place around that’s hiring.

  “You’re impossible!” she says, throwing her hands up in the air.

  “Impossible. An idiot. Wow, Tor, tell me how you really feel.”

  “Believe me, I will.” She snatches my one and only mini-skirt out of my hand, tosses it on the ground. “You don’t want to do this.”

  I deliberately misunderstand her. “I don’t want to interview for a job?”

  She just rolls her eyes. “You know what I mean. Why don’t you take Miles up on his invitation to come visit him? He seemed sincere when he called to check on you yesterday.”

  “Why would I want to go back there? Going to see Miles means going to see my parents and I’m so not up for that.”

  “So just see your brother, then. Surely he doesn’t still live at home.”

  “No, but my parents will find out and I just can’t face them.” Not now. Not after the huge mess I’ve made of everything.

  “Well, then, I’ll come with you. I can be your bodyguard, keep them away.” She flexes her tiny arms. “I can take them.”

  “I have no doubt that you could. But I don’t have any desire to see that.”

  “You don’t have any desire to do anything these days, Chloe. That’s the point.”

  “And you suddenly are full of ideas of what I should do and where I should do it! For someone who almost never goes home herself, you’re suddenly full of reasons as to why I should go back to Boston for a visit.”

  To my surprise, Tori hems and haws, stumbles and stutters, all while turning a truly interesting shade of pink. She finally settles on, “That’s not true. I just know you’re hurting here and I don’t want to see it get worse.”

  “I’m not sure it could get any worse,” I tell her honestly, sliding into a little sundress that makes my shoulders look good. I figure it can’t hurt at a job interview like this one.

  “Oh, Chloe, sweetheart, things can always get worse.”

  “There’s the pessimist I know and love!” I pat her cheek with mock enthusiasm. “I was afraid I’d lost you forever.”

  She turns her head, tries to bite my fingers, but before I can do much more than dodge her snapping teeth, there’s a knock on the door.

  “I’ve got it!” she yells, all but tearing down the hallway.

  I think about following her, about fighting her for it, but it takes too much effort. Everything takes too much effort these days. It’s not a good sign.

  Maybe I really am depressed.

  When Tori doesn’t come find me again, I figure one of the neighbors has stopped by to see her. It happens a lot. But after I finish getting dressed—which only takes a couple of minutes since I’m not trying that hard to get this job, though I should be—I wander down to the kitchen and find Tori sitting there with a large knife posed
over a package.

  “What’d you order?” I ask as I debate whether I want to eat anything before the interview or not.

  “Nothing. It’s for you. From Ethan.”

  And then, under my horrified eyes, she plunges the knife straight through the packing tape.

  “What’d you do that for?” I demand, rushing toward her and trying to take the knife. She refuses to yield.

  “No, damn it. You act like you’re the only one affected by this whole thing and you’re not. One, because you’re so damned depressed I’m afraid you’re going to walk into traffic one day and not even pay attention to where you’re going. And two, I’m human and if I don’t get to see what’s in at least one of these boxes you keep getting, I’m going to lose my mind. I signed for this one, so I say this is it.”

  “I don’t want to know.”

  She shrugs, but doesn’t stop hacking away at the box. “Fine. But I do.”

  I turn around, head back to my room like it doesn’t bother me that she’s opening my present. But within five minutes I’m back, desperate to see what’s in the package—I only have willpower with closed packages from him, I see.

  By the time I get back to the kitchen, I expect to see packing paper everywhere—Tori’s a little bit of a freak when it comes to presents—but instead the box is sitting neatly on the counter. Open, but undisturbed.

  Fuck.

  I want to walk away. I need to walk away, for my own sanity.

  Instead I find myself walking toward the box, my fingers actually itching with the need to open it. Just like they’ve been itching to open the others that have come.

  I’ve managed to resist all six of those—one for every day since I walked away from Ethan in Napa—but here, now, with the box open and Tori’s words ringing in my ears, I can’t resist this present, too.

  Despite all my convictions circling my head, I open the flaps and peer inside. And once I do, there really is nothing else to say. Because in the box is just one present instead of the bunch of little ones Ethan usually sends me.

  With trembling hands, I reach inside and pull out the small jeweler’s box that is nestled directly in the center of the larger box. I pull it out with shaking hands, then open it, because I can’t not open it.