Page 47 of The Darkness Within

“Your tongue feels like warm, wet velvet.”

“Do you two need to get a room?” I tease, arching my brow.

He never puts the cat down, not for a second, like it’s become an extension of his hand. Valor seems obsessed with licking Nash’s fingers. Not that I can blame him. If I had a taste of Nash, I wouldn’t stop, either. I would devour him whole.

Nash smirks. His sarcastic little smile does things to my stomach. Unsettling things. It’s the way he pairs it with the look in his bright blue eyes, how he stares at me, so intimately, like he’s challenging me, or maybe he’s amused, I don’t really care which, as long as he continues to look at me like that.

“So what were you saying about the first step?” He sounds about as interested as a vegan being presented with a cheeseburger.

“You have to admit that you’re powerless over your addiction, and that your life became unmanageable due to your drug use.”

“Well, of-fucking-course it did,” he sputters. “Why else would I be here?”

“You have to state the obvious, Nash. You have to own it.”

With an exasperated sigh, he recites, “I’m powerless over my addiction, and my life is unmanageable.”

“Was that so hard?”

“Don’t push me, Brewer,” he warns.

“Moving on. What’s the most regrettable outcome of your addiction?”

“This is fucking dumb. What do these questions solve? I don’t understand how any of this is supposed to help me not want to choke on a handful of pills. In fact, I think it’s having the opposite effect.”

Smartass. “By all means, choke on them. If that’s what you want to do, no one can stop you. You’re responsible for your own choices, and the consequences of those choices. But if you want to recover, you’ll answer the damn question.”

His glare feels hotter than the sun beating down on us. The serenity of the backyard feels like the perfect place to get him to relax and open up to me, but even the tranquility of the sunny afternoon, with the birds chirping, and the sound of trickling water from the tiny electric waterfall, aren’t enough to put Nash in an agreeable mood.

“The most regrettable outcome,” he drones on with a sigh. “I don’t know, that I pissed people off?”

“What people?”

“I don’t know, people. Mandy, Liza, you,” he adds, continuing to stroke Valor’s soft fur instead of meeting my gaze.

“Do you actually care about letting those people down? That would mean you’d have to care about those people. Do you?”

“I don’t know, maybe? A little bit.”

“Dig a little deeper, Nash. Tell me the things you don’t really want to say out loud.”

His throat slides, like he’s finding his courage. “I hate that I was high the day of the barbecue. That I was so close to Violet Gutierrez, and I was high. I feel like I tainted her son’s memory. It was the first time I actually felt ashamed of myself.”

Wow, I wasn’t expecting that. His candor always takes me by surprise. “I’m not sure that she noticed you were there if that helps. The next time you have a chance to meet with her, face-to-face, I’m sure you’ll present yourself in a way that makes you proud.”

“Do you really think she wants to meet with me?” he asks, finally meeting my eyes.

“I do. The time will come. In the meantime, you have a lot of work to do on yourself.”

“Fine. What’s the next question?”

“Did you ever truly betray another person because of your addiction? How did you rationalize that?”

Minutes tick by without a word. Just when I think he’s not going to answer me, he finally breaks his silence.

“I betrayed my best friend. Every time I tried to numb his memory and my pain, I betrayed him, I dishonored his memory, and his struggle to live. To survive. I took his dream of getting free so he could live again and trampled all over it with my muddy boots. I got out, I was given the chance to live, and look what I fucking did with it. Nothing. Not a fucking thing. I’ve done nothing but cower in the dark and gorge myself on pills and alcohol, just so I could forget how bad he suffered. I guess going back to the last question, that’s my most regrettable action as well. I kind of hate myself.”

“What matters is what you do going forward. Dwelling on the past doesn’t get you anywhere.”

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