Page 98 of Revel
I keep walking because there’s truth in the silence I give. When Hensley and I were together, we fought constantly. And eventually, we stopped knowing why, just that we did. Probably because she was seeing someone else and never truly gave what we needed to work. I stopped trying and caring, but I didn’t walk away. This time I am. For me.
It’s when I’m back in the building that I realize why Red told me it was over. It wasn’t that she didn’t love me, it’s that she knew had she stayed, everything would have been about me, and it wasn’t in her nature to live her life for a guy who was never really hers. She was never mine. The only one I’ve ever belonged to was my desires, and the only one who could fulfill them was a bottle.
SO THIS IS WHAT SOBER IS LIKE?
REVEL
THREE MONTHS LATER
I should feel rehabbed. A brand-new sober man. But I’m not. I’m nervous and indecisive and unsure if I can resist two things. Alcohol and Red. I know my weakness and both have the power to destroy me in this fragile state I’m in.
I’m outside, in the passenger seat of a blacked-out Bugatti. In my hand, water. In the other, my cell phone I haven’t held in close to three months.
The court in Denver, Colorado, had ordered me to a thirty-day rehab along with a two-year probation, but I decided to give a shit this time and went for the extended stay in rehab. At nine thousand a week, three months was my max. I needed to get back to work.
“You look like shit,” I tell Cruz. He looks tired.
“She’s pregnant,” he blurts.
My heart drops to my stomach. “Who?”
“Bella.”
I sigh in relief and nail him in the shoulder. “Jesus Christ, you could have started with that, asshole.”
“I know, but that was fun,” he says with a laugh, smiling at me. “Fucking crazy, huh?”
“What?”
“That I’m going to be a dad.”
I twist the bottle cap on the water, then twist it back the other way. “Yeah, I suppose. Are you happy?”
“I don’t know. Not really. I didn’t want to be a dad, but I guess shit happens. Liz is all over my case about it and Bells, she’s just fucking cool. She’s like whatever, be present or don’t. I can’t get a read on her.”
I’m not surprised. She’s related to Red, and I could see her being the same way, unwilling to rely on a man to make her happy.
Cruz rolls his head and looks over at me, squinting into the sun. He looks at the Promises sign outside the building and then my phone. I don’t say anything to him, his words rattling around in my head as I attempt to clear my mind from distractions and not going running right back to the vice that put me in here.
Cruz notices and dips his head to catch my eyesight. “I know who you want to call.”
“Have you heard from her?” I ask, refusing to look at him. I still don’t like eye contact.
“No, not really.” And then I think he realizes where I’m going with it. “I’ve known you a long time, and I’d love to drive you to her place so you can apologize, get laid, or whatever it is you want from her, but you are bad news for her, and she sure as hell ain’t helping you out. This place, it was one step. You gotta figure this out without her.”
I consider his words. I don’t like them, but they’re the truth. Cruz and I have been friends long before Revved came about. Back when I was just a kid breaking into the local liquor store to steal the mini bottles of alcohol because they were easier to hide from Oma. Through all my shit, he never judged me or lectured me. Not that he hasn’t done his fair share, but not like my fuck ups.
I fight the urge to ask him for a cigarette. Believe it or not, I haven’t touched one in two months. “Did you get the songs I sent you?”
“I did.” He nods, rolling his head to look over at me again. “They’re good. I think we got something. Are you ready to work?”
“I am.”
I don’t know where the next few months will take me but I know I can’t call her. I’m barely hanging onto this new-found sobriety and if I call her now, that’s only using her as a crutch. I refuse to put her in that position.
RESISTING
REVEL
