Page 6 of Hate Me

It had broken me to pieces.

She had.

Damien had.

Caleb had.

Jett had.

If it hadn’t been for Cas, I don’t know what would have happened.

Yeah, I do.

I would’ve drowned.

I hadn’t shutdown like last time I’d succumbed to addiction. That hadn’t exactly worked out well. So I could still feel it all whenever something triggered those memories. And these days I dealt with it. I talked about it with Cas, had a session with Doctor Granger, I came here to vent, to find solace in others experiencing the same issues. I didn’t… cower. I faced things head on now.

And it was why I could still be okay while feeling a whole lot of hate toward one person specifically.

Skylar fucking Bennett.

The sounds of chairs scraping and people leaving their seats pulled me from my thoughts, and I looked to see that I’d zoned out for the last few minutes, and now the meeting was done with for today.

I pushed out of my chair and shrugged my leather jacket back on over my black dress shirt.

I walked to the garbage to dispose of my coffee—the only drug I partook in these days—and stumbled into Ashley as she inadvertently cut into my path to do the same with hers.

Instinctively, I threw out my hand to steady her and it landed on her hip.

I jolted at the contact.

I hadn’t… I hadn’t touched a woman in… since… since her.

I pulled my hand away quickly, jarringly so.

It must’ve looked ridiculous, because as I dumped my coffee I heard Ashley giggling.

I turned to see those blue eyes of hers shining, her whole face lit up.

Off my less than happy look, she said, “Come on, we could do with a laugh after all the heaviness of this place and our own shit, right? It doesn’t really matter how it comes about, does it?”

“I… no. I mean, I guess not.”

Jesus. Talk about a lack of game these days.

I wasn’t bringing that, though. I wasn’t trying to. And I couldn’t.

At least I’d figured I couldn’t.

But as I took her in, that warmth and sunshine radiating off her, the way there was just a natural ease in her presence, the way she got my world because it was also her world… it didn’t seem like a bad thing to interact with her.

“Wow, you really aren’t the playboy your public rep makes you out to be, are you?” she said, giggling again, the sound rolling through me, and briefly cutting into that constant dreariness that was my life these days.

I never was. That was what I wanted to say, but it fit in with that whole maudlin thing I’d become. And I didn’t want to bring that to her, or negatively impact this more lighthearted and jovial conversation. “I’m glad my ineptitude is coming through with the subtlety of a foghorn,” I said instead.

She smiled brightly. “It’s actually a good thing.”

“Yeah?”

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