The Wright Mistake(67)

“Yeah, well, I did.”

She narrowed her eyes in warning. “No, you didn’t. This is the addict talking right now. Not you.”

“What the fuck would you know about it?”

She clenched her jaw. “Why are you trying to start an argument with me? Fuck, I haven’t missed this.”

“Come on. I know arguments get you hot.”

I ran my hand up her bare arm, and she shoved me off.

“Stop it,” she snarled. “I wanted you to go out and celebrate Patrick’s birthday. I thought dinner and some guy time would be good for you. I thought you would be responsible. After everything I told you, I knew you wanted a drink. I fucking knew it. You were doing so well.”

“Well? You think I was doing well? I was fucking drowning. Not drinking was killing me. I finally feel like my-fucking-self again.”

“So…when you’re with me, you don’t feel like yourself?” she asked, her tone low.

I should have heeded it, but the alcohol ignored it.

“I feel like the guy you want me to be. But, if I want a drink, then I should be able to have it without feeling guilty about it.”

Her eyes were hard…yet still sad. “You need help.”

“Fuck that noise!”

She didn’t even flinch. “You know how I know you need help? Because I’ve seen people just like you. I’ve seen my father just like you are right now. I’ve seen him get so wasted that he beat my mom. I dated a fucking drug dealer, Austin. I know what addiction looks like, and I know that this is a problem for you. I might not have been addicted to drugs or alcohol, but Dillon was as good as an obsession. I had nothing and no one! And I was strong enough to get out. You…” Her eyes traveled the length of me with deep pity. “You have everything and everyone, and still, you do nothing.”

She waited for my response, but I had none. What the hell could I say to that?

“I want to be here for you. I needed someone to be there for me, and they were. But I had to reach out. All you have to do is ask for help, to rely on someone, anyone. We would get you professional help. We could get you past this. But you can’t do that. You’d rather try to hide it. Try to bury it. All secrets come out in the end, Austin. Trust me, I know.”

Then, she turned on her heel and walked away from me. My head was swimming with her words. With the cruel indifference I’d flung at her.

Here was the perfect woman for me. Perfect in every single fucking way. And she was walking out the door.

If she left, then I knew she wasn’t just leaving the bar. She was leaving me.

I was running before I even finished the thought.





Twenty-Seven



Julia


What the hell had I been thinking? I had known what I was walking into. I had known that Austin would relapse. It was only a matter of time.

But the argument, the nonchalance, the entitlement.

I could be there for him. I could bring him back to the light. I could even see him through therapy or rehab. But, right now, he didn’t even care. He immediately defaulted to the douche that I’d sworn I’d never get back together with. The kind of guy I’d never, ever date. Because I knew what it felt like to be used, to be manipulated and abused. I was not going to go through that again.

Maybe, when he sobered up, Austin would feel differently about his drinking and our argument. But how long until it all happened again?

It hurt that I’d trusted him. I’d finally confided in him. He knew the danger I was facing. And, instead of having dinner with Patrick for his birthday, Austin had gotten smashed. There would have been nothing he could do if I’d needed him.

I didn’t deserve that.

That was why I’d put a stipulation on our date in the first place.

Austin was a better person when he was sober. But he was the only person who believed otherwise.

“Jules!” Austin called behind me.

But I kept walking. Straight out the front door of Flips.

I had just made it to my car when a hand clamped around my upper arm.

I screamed and jumped back. But the hand held.

And everything narrowed down to the moment when a body stepped out of the shadows by my car and materialized, fully formed, into a thing of nightmares.

“Dillon?”

“Hey, Jules,” he said with a lethal, manic smile.

My heart rate ratcheted up. My body trembled under his touch. I thought I was going to be sick. I couldn’t get my breathing under control. Everything was panic, panic, and more panic. My brain wasn’t firing on full cylinders.

How? How could this be happening to me?

“Wh-what are you doing here?” I gasped out.

“Came to get you back, baby girl.”

He ran the back of his hand down my cheek in an all-too familiar way. I shuddered at his touch and felt sick to my stomach.