With a jerk of his head, Keith motions for me to follow them. I rise to my feet as they stagger over to the staircase, Zack’s body limp and hunched forward, just barely harnessing enough energy to lift his feet. With each creak of the wood beneath our shoes, my spirit breaks for Zack that much more.
When we reach the landing at the top, I rush in front of them to open Zack’s bedroom door. Keith drags him inside and gently sets him on his bed that likely hasn’t been slept in since I last saw him.
Looking back to make sure Zack doesn’t move, Keith walks over to me and places a hand on my shoulder before walking out, the door clicking quietly behind him. All I can do is stare at the closed door, too unsure of how to face Zack while he’s in this state.
The house is eerily silent, save for the sound of Keith’s footsteps padding down the hallway and his own door opening and shutting.
A shuddering sigh breaks through the thick quiet. I think it must’ve been me, but then I hear another, followed by a deep inhale, and I turn to find Zack hunched over his knees with his head in his hands, white-knuckling the short strands of his dark brown hair.
I rush over to sit beside him and gently cup his defined jaw to lift his head. My heart shatters into a million pieces when he reluctantly looks at me with bloodshot eyes and tears streaming down his red cheeks. His hand grasps mine, clinging to it as though terrified I might disappear before his eyes.
“I’m here,” I tell him, my voice thick as emotion swamps me. “I’m here.” I say it more forcefully as I stare into those endless ocean-blue eyes.
A guttural sob escapes him, and he falls into me, nearly knocking both of us off the bed as I struggle to hold onto his weight. I pull away to scoot up the bed, holding my arms open wide as I sit with my back against the headboard.
With a strangled inhale, he follows, curling into me as his body quakes and shudders. All I can do is hold onto him as tightly as I can, tears slipping down my cheeks and making soft noises as they drip onto the white pillowcase.
We lie there with our arms wrapped around each other until his body finally quiets, and his shaking breaths fall into sleep’s deep and steady rhythm. My hand strokes the soft strands of his hair and trails down his stubbled jawline as I press a kiss to his slightly parted lips, tasting the salt of his tears. His thick eyelashes cling together like sharp spears against his face.
After slithering out of his hold, careful not to jostle him, I strip down to my bra and panties and pull open a dresser drawer in search of a T-shirt to sleep in. When the cool fabric slips over my shoulders, smelling of fresh laundry detergent and Zack, I walk back to where Zack is sleeping. I gently pull off his shoes and place them at the foot of the bed before I unsnap the button on his jeans.
He shifts slightly with a groan, but he doesn’t wake as I slide them down his legs and off his feet. When I fold them over my arm, a series of thuds echo as various items slip from the pockets onto the carpet, making me wince in fear of disturbing his sleep. When he doesn’t move, I crouch to retrieve what fell. A dark leather wallet, a set of keys, and . . . something else.
My breath seizes as I pick up a small baggie filled with white powder. Cocaine wasn’t my mother’s drug of choice, but I caught plenty of her ‘boyfriends’ pouring the poison out of tiny plastic bags just like this one and snorting it on the kitchen counter or bathroom sink.
I rise to my feet and glance at Zack’s peacefully sleeping form. While his breath remains gentle and steady, mine grows erratic, my chest rapidly rising and falling as I squeeze the bag tightly. The floor feels as if it’s disappearing beneath my feet. A familiar shadow peers up through the depths, wrapping its clawed hand around my ankles and smiling as it readies to pull me back under.
Was he planning on using this? Or worse, has he partaken already? I didn’t hear from him for almost three days. Who the hell knows what he was doing or who he was doing it with? All I know is that he was lost in his pain. And still is.
And while I’d do anything within my power to help him as his father fights for his life, nothing I have to offer will ever be enough in comparison with what lies on my palm.
Everything falls from my hands as I wrench off the T-shirt and pull my clothes back on as fast as I can. The sharp, burning pain of betrayal tightens my chest, and my lungs burn as I suck in a ragged breath. I actually believed that I could allow myself to free fall into the open air because he would be there to catch me. It was all for nothing.
And as the door clicks shut behind me, my battered and bleeding heart crawls back behind its walls, barely clinging to life.
FUCK, MY HEAD HURTS. MY entire body is screaming and my mouth feels bone-dry. Lifting my head off my pillow, I crack open one eye and regret it as the sharp sunlight pours through my window.
My forearm shoots up to shield my eyes, and with a sharp hiss, I scrub a hand over my face. I barely fucking remember coming home last night. Just that I wandered from bar to bar until I couldn’t see or walk straight and called an Uber to get back home.
Thank hell I wasn’t stupid enough to get behind the wheel. But the downside is, I left my Jeep in fucking Delford. Which means it’s likely either gone for good or trashed. Goddammit.
Sitting up with a groan, I swing my legs over the side of my bed, every muscle in my body screaming, along with my pounding head. How much did I drink yesterday? Likely enough to down a three-hundred-pound defensive lineman, and just barely enough to put me out of my misery for at least a few hours.
The bed creaks as I stand, and I don’t bother to throw on a pair of pants before I head downstairs. Crackling and popping sounds echo from the kitchen. I find Keith hovering over the stove, a single egg cooking in the middle of a frying pan.
When I drop onto a stool, Keith’s head swings around. “Hey, hey, sleeping beauty.” His eyes narrow, and he peeks behind me. “Where’s Chun Li?”
My brow furrows. Dahlia? She was here?
He chuckles, shaking his head. “Man, you must have been really wrecked last night. You came home smelling like a drunk hobo. Dahlia and I had to carry your ass up to your room.”
Ah, fuck. She must have loved doing that. Fucking dumbass that I am. She probably threw my slobbering self on the bed and hauled ass out of here. Can’t really blame her. I need to text her and apologize. And make it a damn good one too. I haven’t exactly been the most reachable boyfriend over the past few days.
“May God have mercy on that poor egg,” I tell Keith as I push away from the island. I’ve no doubt he’ll eventually hound me over why I was so blasted last night, but if I can avoid it even for a few hours, I’ll take it. It’s not something I want to think about much less discuss.
He flips me the bird over his shoulder, and I drag my feet, which feel like fucking cinderblocks tied to my legs, back up the stairs.
Glancing at my nightstand, I notice my phone isn’t plugged in. It must still be in my jeans, which lie in a crumpled heap at the foot of the bed. Picking them up, I find a small pile of my stuff underneath the denim. My wallet, keys, and phone all rest on the carpet. I hope my phone still has some juice left in it. I need to call my father to find out the exact date and time of his next tests.
That thought has my stomach bottoming out for an entirely different reason. What’ll happen if I lose my father? The man who taught me how to ice skate and put a hockey stick in my hand, practicing with me for near-endless hours until I shot my first goal. The man who stood by mom through every treatment, every surgery, and held her hand through her last breath. The man who was and is my idol.
God, why is this happening?
I’m the first to admit that my three-day bender was not the best way to handle the news. I need to be stronger for Dad in the way he was strong for Mom, but once the booze started to wrap around my feelings like a cocoon, there was no going back. I need to call him. Need to tell him that I’ll be there for whatever he needs. That I love him.
No more binges. If I can find anything positive in the situation
, it’s that I have Dahlia. I won’t blame her if she’s pissed that I disappeared for three days and came home blasted off my ass. Every time I pressed ignore on one of her calls, guilt ate away at me. She didn’t deserve that, but at the time I didn’t want to drag her down with me. Looks like I’ve got a fuck-ton of apologies to make.
When I pick my phone up off the floor, a small bag filled with a white substance catches my eye. Examining it carefully, I pick it up. What the fuck . . . is that . . . is that coke?
A vision flashes through my mind. Blonde hair the texture of straw, red lipstick smeared sloppily over thin, deeply lined lips and a brief pat on my pocket before she left.
That hooker slipped this shit into my pocket and I was too fucking drunk to notice.
That’s when I remember Dahlia being in my room, with me crying and sobbing into her. A realization hits me like a punch to the fucking gut. She must have found this. She caught me with a fucking pocket of cocaine. And probably assumed I’d used.
Oh shit.
I press the power button with enough force to break it, and the screen thankfully comes to life. Seventeen percent left on my battery life.
Scrolling through my contacts, I press Dahlia’s name and bring the phone to my ear before pacing. “Pick up, pick up, please pick up.”
Her voicemail clicks on, the automated voice asking me to leave a message. Hanging up, I try again. This time, the call goes straight to voicemail, which means she pressed ignore. I make one last attempt to call her, but again, it goes straight to her voicemail.
“Fuck!” I shout, sending a piercing pain vibrating through my skull.
A sinking hollow forms in my chest. If Dahlia believes I snorted this garbage, she’ll never forgive me. Not after everything that happened with her mother.
Which makes this all the more terrifying. If she couldn’t trust her own mother, what the fuck makes me think she could trust me?
PAIN BLOOMS IN MY CHEST, spreading wider each time I press the ignore button on Zack’s calls. Just days ago, the roles were reversed and I would have given anything to hear his voice instead of a prerecorded voicemail.
But I’m not equipped to handle this again. I can’t watch another person I love become a slave to an addiction. Especially Zack. I never knew my mother to be any other way, so I suppose I never had much of an idea of what she would be like otherwise. But I’ve seen how wonderful Zack is, felt it down to my bones, and I can’t sit there and watch as pieces of the man I’m falling in love with wither away.
The campus quad is swarming with students, most of them hanging their heads and dragging their feet like a scene out of The Walking Dead. And I’m no different today, which makes blending into the crowd that much easier as I make my way to my victimology class.
I fixate on my black snow boots, crunching on the frost-coated grass as I walk toward the building. I wonder if Zack will show up and if he does, what will I do? Or more importantly, what will he say?
As though the thought manifested itself, halfway to the building, I glance over my shoulder and see Zack with his gaze locked on me as he runs across the courtyard.
Run, my mind says. Now.
I’m so close to the building, so close to the safety of the classroom walls where he can’t confront me. Ducking my head, I move into the dense crowd, hoping that will stall him enough. Thankfully, luck is on my side, as people notice him and stop to talk to him. Most likely about winning the game last Friday.
The stale air of the classroom engulfs me, but I’m early. By ten minutes, at least. That’s too much of an opening, so I head for the restroom at the end of the hall, probably looking like an idiot as I practically power walk inside.
Some girls are huddled around the sinks, hinging their waists to look in the mirrors while they touch up their lip gloss and run their fingers through their perfectly styled hair. I’ve seen Lexi and her sorority sisters do this often, especially before parties. They’ll spend hours in front of the mirror, making sure nothing is out of place.
I’ve always sort of prided myself on being nothing like that. I don’t wear makeup, and as long as my hair is out of my face, I’m good. But maybe I was looking at it from the wrong angle. Guys come and go for them. Breakups, heartache, rejection. Their resilience seems as strong as their hairspray.
Even Lexi. Her breakup with Josh wasn’t exactly pleasant, and I’m fairly certain if Christie hadn’t dug her claws so deep into Lexi’s head, they’d still be together. But she moved on. She’s not just surviving but thriving. Because she doesn’t live for her fear. Unlike me.
I stare at my reflection, seeing my mother’s face. She lived for her addiction. Sacrificed her only daughter for it. And I’ve done everything in my power to avoid being like her.
But can fear be an addiction? Can we grow so accustomed to living behind it that we give up everything for it—never taking that risk to uncover the reward?
Maybe I’m the one wearing the mask, not the girls next to me with their faces caked in makeup.
I press the button on top of the faucet and cup my hands under the frigid water, hoping to wash away those thoughts as I splash my face.
But my mother’s face is still there, the fear ever present behind my eyes.
MY EYES TRACK DAHLIA AS she scurries away from me, head down and arms clutching her books to her like a shield. She looks like a mere shell of the woman who tossed me on my ass a few months ago. She’s scared. Scared for her. Scared for me. Scared for us.
But what she may fail to realize is that I’m terrified too. Of everything. Of losing my father, of losing Dahlia, and hell, of losing hockey. Everything I love seems to get taken away from me. One after the fucking other.
I don’t want to chalk up Dahlia as another loss, but, hell, she won’t even give me the time of day. She doesn’t even acknowledge me in class. Not when she walked in and not when she sat down. She faces the front of the auditorium, back straight, shoulders down, her hair cascading like a waterfall from her high ponytail as she listens to our old-as-fuck professor ramble on about God knows what. I’m too fucking tired to pay attention to anything but the fact that my girlfriend has shut me out, and, damn, it hurts like hell.
The longer class drags on, the more I feel like the lost toy that fell underneath the sofa. Alone and forgotten. Likely how Dahlia must have felt when she was a kid. Which is why a part of me understands why she’s being this way. The pain of losing my mom has never gone away. Sure, it faded, but the scars are still there. And so are hers.
But my scars don’t prevent me from living my life. From seizing every fucking moment and making the most of it. Because the next is never a guarantee.
When class ends, instead of chasing her like I did in the quad, I stay seated even though my mind is screaming at me to halt her dead in her tracks until I’ve had a chance to explain myself. Mentally pleading to her to turn around and face me proves futile, and I watch her ponytail sway as she walks out.
Seems like the only fucking view of her I get is from the back—which, in a certain context, I would welcome. But in this case, it makes my fists and jaw clench as fury brews like a storm in my chest. She thinks she can run from me and that’ll be that? End of fucking story? Nope. This is so not game over yet.
Well, I know one place to find her where she can’t hide or run.
The very spot where our relationship began and now, potentially, could end.
I SHOULD BE HAPPY TO be in the studio. This place has served as my safety, my shelter for so long, but, today it just feels like another burden and it’s showing. I can feel it, and my students can see it. Much like me, most of the guys in this room have been training here for years. I can’t fool them as I can a room of ten-year-olds. I can’t even fool myself anymore.
Throughout the tumultuous time Zack has been in my world, my skills as Christos’s apprentice have undoubtedly been affected. Definitely not a professional mindset and I’m thankful Christos has enough faith not to babysit me during classes. Y
et somehow, that makes it worse. I feel as though I’m not living up to everything he believes me to be.
I’m hiding from Christos in the same why I’m hiding from Zack. Apparently, that’s what I do best these days, but how else am I supposed to be right now? I feel as though I went from the highest high to the lowest of lows in two seconds flat. One minute I was lying in Zack’s arms and the happiest I’ve ever been in my life. The next, I found drugs in his pocket after not hearing from him in days.
Life is unpredictable, and I can’t say I like it. Not a bit.
As I look out the front window, away from the controlled chaos of sparring, I realize the universe must have caught onto my musings of unpredictability. Because that’s when Zack flies through the door, jerking it open so quickly that the automated bell can’t keep up with him.
The rest of the people in the room don’t acknowledge him, but I can’t seem to focus on anything but him. He marches to where I stand at the front of the room and stops less than a foot away, his lips pinched together and his hands balled into fists by his narrow hips.
He arches a scornful brow. “You look surprised to see me, baby.” His voice is raspy, as if someone’s taken a grater to it.
Acting on instinct, I back up, fighting the urge to wrap my arms around my middle.
“I’m not sure why.” He holds his arms out wide. “Isn’t this our pattern? You fucking run and I chase you down until we eventually end up here?”
I shake my head, feigning indifference. “You can’t keep doing this.”
He steps forward, pointing at me. “And you can’t keep pretending I don’t exist. Goddammit, every time shit goes down, you run away scared.”
Anger brews hot in my chest. As if he’s one to talk. He left me standing alone in a parking lot and without a word from him for days.
My arms cross in defiance. “I really think you should leave. Now. This isn’t the time or place.” I’m careful to keep my voice down so the others won’t hear us.
Sweet Insanity (Sweet Series Book 1) Page 17