Page 89 of The Fix

I didn’t entirely choose this life I got. It’s the one I always wanted—at least, it feels like it’s close to it—but it’s so damn empty.

Lonely and isolating.

Trailing the gales of my chosen brothers while someone else made the calls on what we did next. Where we went. Who and how and why was up to everyone except me, because I was too out of it to decide.

Until Anna showed up.

“I want to trust.” The words are barely a broken whisper, their magnitude settling in my scratched throat. “And I want to be trusted.”

The doc nods somewhere in my periphery, but I’m too stuck on staring at the wall instead of looking her in the eye. It makes it too real if I do.

“What’s the first building block of trust, Toby?”

The question is supposed to be rhetorical, I think, but the word leaves my lips on a shattered pain-filled sound anyways. “Honesty.”

With that word, that realization, comes the flash of a face. One lined with wavy red hair and filled with enough anguish to last a lifetime.

Will she ever forgive me?

Six weeks later

Chapter Forty-Six

Toby

“Last dose, Mr. Jeffers.”

I accept the tiny cup with the little pill inside with a cock to my brow as I swallow it dry. “I thought I had another two weeks on this shit?”

The nurse smiles at me. “Doc said to make this it. Says so in your chart.”

Huh. I guess that’s good news.

“And don’t forget,” the nurse continues as she fiddles with things around the room, going about her normal checks to make sure no sharp objects or substances have been stashed. “Group was moved to the next morning for you.”

I nod.

“I’m so excited for you,” she continues, oblivious to my internal turmoil, replacing the throw pillows on the little couch in the corner and dusting off the cushion with her palm. “You have family coming for the first time tonight! How long has it been?”

Sighing, I run a hand down my face, the fingers itching to grow back the length that’s been trimmed down. “Thirteen weeks.”

“Wow.” The nurse straightens, her eyes wandering over the space of my room, still in search of something out of place, something that might cause alarm, before finally settling on me. “That’s a long time. Only a few more to go, though.” She nods with a smile, as if reassuring me, though it doesn’t settle the nerves battling their way through my stomach.

These meds fucking suck.

“Five weeks, six days, and ten hours. Give or take.”

“Not that you’re counting.” The nurse snickers, but nods knowingly. “Well, I’m off. Let me know if you need anything.”

A simple jut of my chin sends her on her way, leaving me alone with my thoughts for the next few hours.

I could have gone down to the game hall, got lost in some gaming system, or a movie playing on the projector, but my nerves keep me planted in my safe space.

Here, I’m surrounded by muted colors. Easy textures. A room that looks similar to many a hotel suite—minus the extravagancies—that I would have destroyed in the past for being just too damn … bland.

Like the singular painting hanging on the wall above the bed that looks an awful lot like the view of the cabin from down the mountain.

That one little painting almost didn’t make it when the staff led me to this room, convincing me to sleep beneath it each night like it wasn’t a sordid reminder of all the things I’d done wrong.

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