Page 6 of Honey Pot
“That feels like a secret.” He narrowed his eyes at me and kissed the corner of my mouth.
I was a little, but it wasn’t anything that would ruin all the good things about that night. “I am, a little, but you were gentle and perfect,” I kissed him, pressing our foreheads together when I pulled away. “And I will never kiss another boy without thinking about you.”
He stared at me with those sad, indigo eyes and whispered, “I wish you would have told me how you felt. Sooner, I guess. I’ve gone my entire pitiful seventeen years knowing one thing.” He brushed a piece of hair from my face and ran his thumb across my bottom lip.
“I could die a thousand times over loving you, Clementine Matthews, and it wouldn’t hurt for a second.”
I wanted to tell him it was true, but I was afraid to let the sadness creep back in. I tried to tell him how much I loved him, but I couldn’t without crying, so instead, I curled into his arms and closed my eyes, giving us a few spare moments to be Cael and Clementine one last time
CODY
2024
I rolled out of bed and away from the girl I fell asleep with. Her dark hair fanned out over my pillow like she owned it. I groaned, digging around on my floor for a pair of clean shorts with my eyes closed. The migraine that woke me dug at the base of my neck and rattled my spine under my skin.
Between the lack of sleep and crippling bad dreams, I couldn’t remember how she got there, but I hated the fact that my bed sheets smelled of fake roses and cinnamon. I would have to wash them later to bring back the lavender smell and get some sleep.
I slipped from my room and down the stairs to the kitchen, my eyes half open, to find my Peachy sitting on the counter reading a book in her pajamas. I rubbed out the knots that formed along my shoulder and rotated it in a lazy circle as I tried to ignore the sharp pain that radiated across the healed incision.
“You look like shit,” Ella chimed, without even looking up from her book. “Is your shoulder bugging you?” Her blonde hair was curled around her pretty face, but she wasn’t hiding her scars with makeup anymore. It made my chest lighter in a way only she could.
“Good morning to you too.” I pulled the fridge door open, deflecting her question, and grabbed a water. I looked up at her, twisting the cap off and throwing it in the garbage can. “Why are you up so early?” I asked her.
“It’s noon, Cael.” Her big brown eyes flickered up over the top of her book at me so she could mock me. “Why are you up so early?”
“Sleeping sucks when you aren’t doing it black-out drunk,” I sighed.
“Yeah.” Ella smiled. “It's a little harder when your brain has time to dream.”
“Nightmares is more like it.” My Texas accent slipped out just a touch with the laughter.
Ella slipped from the counter, pouring me a warm cup of coffee. “It’ll get easier. Maybe Silas can prescribe it for you—”
“No,” I stopped her. “I don’t want anything, I just need to get through this.”
“Sorry, I wasn’t thinking…” Ella gave me a sad look as she handed me the mug. “I’m learning too. I guess it’ll be harder than we expected to navigate this. I’m here, though. I can’t promise to give the best advice, but I’m here.” The ring on her left finger sparkled in the sunlight and I felt genuinely happy for the first time in a long time that my best friend had found someone so special.
Jealousy wasn’t the word.
I wasn’t jealous of them. I was sad, and it consumed all my other logical feelings. Which is precisely what got me into drugs. The need to feel something other than miserable. Rehab had been long and exhausting. I’d spent a month in a facility outside of campus and nothing felt right. Coming out and back into the Nest was tense. Dean avoided me the entire first week back, and that piled the anxious feelings on top of resisting temptation, Arlo leaving, and my shoulder injury. The nightmares started to flood into all the cracks that drugs and booze had previously filled.
I shuddered. I’ll never forget the way the stitches pulled at my skin, lying in that tiny rehab bed, my feet hanging off the edge, staring at the ceiling with the urge to pick each one out.
“Earth to space cadet,” Ella wiggled the cup at me. “Where'd you go there?”
“Nowhere important. Thanks, Peachy.” I winked, holding up the cup and shoving away all the nipping thoughts of addiction to smile for her.
“Good.” She leaned in, giving me a tiny kiss on my cheek. “You have a meeting tonight at seven. Arlo can’t take you, he’s in Dallas for an interview with the owners of the Rangers. I’ll pick you up at six forty-five.”
I hated that I needed to go to the NA meetings and hated that I needed to be escorted, but I was grateful that Ella was willing to take me. I was thankful that Arlo still had hope for me. The selfish little kid in my heart silently hoped hismeeting went horribly. Then he’d come home for good, and the spaces between my family wouldn’t feel so impossibly empty.
“Six forty-five,” I repeated the time to her, so she knew I was really listening, and watched her shuffle from the kitchen to prepare for her day.
Instead of returning to the booty call I had so desperately used for a distraction the night before, I slipped on a pair of running shoes and threw on my headphones that hung on the hook by the back door. The worst thing I could do was go back to bed. Two weeks after the accident, Aunt Riona insisted that I start therapy with someone outside the Hornet family. A therapist detached from the situation.
The rehab facility had a few options. I went with Doctor Harson. He was younger, with funny glasses that never stayed on his nose as he took notes. He was nice enough and had been training me to put my energy into things that make me feel better.
Arlo ran to feel better. So I tried that. And it usually worked. It made me feel like shit in the moment. Every mile I ran closer to campus made me wanna puke. Each droplet of sweat that poured between my shoulder blades reminded me that I was a piece of trash without direction. But at least it was productive and, by the time I slipped into a shower on the main floor of the Nest, Maddison…Mykayla, or Mckenzie, whatever the fuck her name was, had disappeared from my bed.
