Page 12 of Reclaim Me

“Unless you’re going to eat standing up, I think you probably should take a seat, yeah.”

The sass lacing her response surprises me so much it causes the muscles in my face to shift. It’s not a smile. I haven’t smiled since the day Legacy died. She’s actually the last person I shared a smile with. We were laughing about some dumb joke Russ, the head of the detail, made, and that’s when it happened. The ringing of a spent round, the melting smile that slipped off of her face as the life faded from her eyes. The wet squelching and hot splash of brain matter and shattered bone exploding onto me and the wall I was standing in front of.

When I decided to use tonight, that was the image in my mind. Dissolved smiles and interrupted joy. I’ve seen death come for someone before. Soldiers in the unit I abandoned when I was dishonorably discharged from the military for not being a functioning addict like my commanding officer. My father, when he gripped his chest and collapsed, his eyes wide with anger and confusion at being betrayed by a heart his doctors had warned him for years would fail. My mother, whose body yielded to cancer so quickly, her life felt like sand slipping through my fingers. Like my parents, death had come quickly for Legacy, too, but the difference is she hadn’t known to expect it.

Not right then, at least.

“Hunter?” Rae says my name like she’s uncertain of whether she has the right to call me by it. Her brows fold in on themselves, thick, full, and perfectly shaped lines that ask me to sit because my continued standing is making her uncomfortable.

Finally, I drop down into the seat across from her, angling my legs to the side to ensure I don’t accidentally bump her. The sigh she lets out is audible, and she keeps her eyes on me as I grab a menu and pretend to look over it.

“Are you actually looking at the menu or just avoiding making conversation with me?”

I cock a brow, lifting my gaze to meet hers. She’s so confusing. One minute she’s all steel and fire, and the next, she’s soft and unsure, which makes her look as young as I think she is.

“You gonna judge all the choices I make today?”

“Only the bad ones.”

“I guess it’s a good thing I make a lot of those then.”

“So how does this work?” she asks, reaching over to pluck the sticky menu from my hand. I watch her tuck it back into its designated spot between the ketchup, mustard, and hot sauce bottles. With nothing else to do with my hands, I clasp them together and try not to picture them covered in blood.

“How does what work?”

She gestures between the two of us with long, elegant fingers. “I don’t know. This?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never done this before.”

I blink slowly, glancing around for our server because I need water. I’d forgotten how dry my mouth gets after using.

“Sure you have. If you’re one of Will’s sponsees, you go to meetings all the time.”

“This isn’t a meeting. You’re not my sponsor.”

Her jaw clenches, forming a surprisingly hard line for such a delicate curve, as she leans back against the booth and crosses her arms. “Your sponsor isn’t available, so I’m all you’ve got. What would Will say to you right now?”

“He’d ask me what the fuck I’m doing here with his little sister.” Self-consciousness ripples across her features, and she raises her chin, clearly annoyed with me for not taking her question seriously. I push out a long breath. “I don’t know what he’d say to me right now, okay?”

“And you didn’t want to find out. That’s why you were planning to?—”

Our server appearing out of thin air cuts her sentence short, and we pause our awkward conversation to order food I probably won’t eat because the waves of nausea have started rolling, and they won’t stop unless I use again. I’d planned to be gone before the effects of short-term withdrawal started, but now I’m here with Rae.

Alive and ashamed.

When the server leaves, Rae resumes tapping her fingers on the table, and I’m left with no choice but to put us both out of our misery.

“Will would remind me that recovery isn’t linear,” I offer. “And then he’d encourage me to talk about what led me to relapse because he knows there’s always something that triggers the urge to use again after going through the hell of getting clean.”

The way she smiles reveals everything I’d ever want to know about the way she feels about her big brother. Will is a hard ass who has never known a stranger in his life, but he’s also an addict, which means Rae’s love for him has probably been tried more than once. That she can project such positive feelings related to him even when he’s not around says a lot about the work he must have done to repair what his addiction broke.

Like our own resident Houdini, the server comes back, setting plates and glasses down on the table before disappearing once more. I’m certain we won’t see her again tonight. Picking up my glass, I take a slow sip of water, hoping it’ll help with the dryness. It doesn’t. Rae picks up her fork and starts to eat, taking an enthusiastic bite of her hash browns while maintaining eye contact with me.

“Would you tell him?”

My stomach twists. Will is the one person in the world I make a habit of being a hundred percent honest. He never required it of me, but it’s just something I’ve given him because it’s always what he gives everyone else. And there’s something so wrong about lying to a guy who always tells the truth, no matter how ugly it is.

“Yeah, I would.”

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