The Wright Mistake(80)

“Where did Heidi and Landon go?” I asked.

“I think they wanted to get a bite to eat and pick up the Tahoe from Flips.” He shrugged as we approached his car. “Apparently, Heidi snagged your keys earlier.”

“That sounds like her.”

“How do you feel? With Dillon back where he belongs?”

I shrugged. “Numb.”

“Yeah.”

“I know it should feel like a victory, but it feels more like a joke.”

“How so?”

“Like I’ll wake up, and thinking I’m safe from him is the punch line to a joke.”

“I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

“Doesn’t change how I feel.”

I walked around to the passenger side of his shiny red car. But he paused before opening the door. He stared down at his keys and then tossed them across the roof of the car. I caught them with one hand.

“You wanted to drive her, right?”

I stared at him, momentarily in shock. “You never let anyone drive your car.”

“I know.”

That was all he said as he walked around to the passenger side of the car. He dropped a kiss onto my forehead and then sat down.

I pulled myself out of the trance. What the hell was happening? I was getting to drive the Alfa Romeo?

I sank into the driver’s seat and adjusted the seat for my short legs. He laughed when I had to pull the mirror all the way down if I was going to have any hope of seeing out the back. I thanked my dad for teaching me how to drive a stick the one time he’d been sober in my teen years. Then, I flew out of the police station.

Landon and Heidi’s house was further out in the country, so I got to take her on long stretches of flat land. She really opened up then, and for those blissful minutes, I felt free.

When I pulled into the driveway, a smile was plastered to my face. “Now, I get the car.”

“Exhilarating, right?”

“Like flying without the fear of heights that comes with actual flying.”

Austin leaned across the seat as the soft rumble of the car sounded beneath us. His hand went to my cheek, and I flinched. He sat back.

“I don’t understand, Julia. Dillon is behind bars. You’re safe again. You can move on with your life. You don’t have to be tied to his shadow.”

“You know why I’m afraid of heights?”

He looked intrigued by my change of direction. “No.”

“Well, I always was. But it was really more the fear of falling. I had dreams of falling endlessly, like Alice when she went down a rabbit hole. But Dillon found out about my fear, about how much I hated heights. Then, he spent the next couple of years terrorizing me…apparently, in a way to get rid of my fear. Fear is weakness and all that.”

Austin’s jaw clenched despite the pain I could see on his face.

“What put me over the edge the day that I decided to get out was because he took me to the top of our apartment building at the time and dangled me there by my wrist.” I met his angry eyes. “My broken wrist. The wrist he’d broken.”

“Fuck, Julia.”

“My fear didn’t go away just because he’d dragged me up to the top of the building. My fear of Dillon isn’t going to disappear just because he can’t reach me anymore either.”

“I understand that.”

“Do you?” I asked. “Because I don’t think you understand. I don’t want us to be together.”

“You’re right. I don’t understand that, Julia.”

“Just because Dillon is behind bars…doesn’t change any of the other reasons I broke up with you. I wish it did, but if I’m not going to be the victim anymore, then I have to apply that to all things in my life. I’m sorry.” I choked on that word. “I really am sorry.”

I tried to get out of the car, but he grabbed my hand. “Julia, please don’t go.”

“Austin…”

“It’s really over?”

His eyes searched mine for a flicker of hope. But I didn’t give him one.

“Yeah…it really is.”

I wanted to feel good about walking away and taking control of my life. But, when I entered Landon and Heidi’s house without Austin, I just felt empty. I wanted Austin. But I wanted him sober, honest, and without an ex-girlfriend who just might show up naked at his place. I couldn’t make him want those things. And he hadn’t proven to me that it was even possible. Knowing all the addicts in my life who had failed over and over and over again, I doubted it ever would be.





Thirty-Three



Austin


I stared at the half-empty bottles of liquor still in my house. I’d gotten rid of almost everything. Patrick had become the new owner of the whiskey and scotch that I was only able to get directly from the distributor. I hadn’t been able to throw those out. I’d cut back so much that I had nothing left in the cabinet in my house. I’d once had a fully stocked wet bar. I could have made a Bloody Mary any hour of the day.