Page 1 of Unwanted

PROLOGUE

FRANKIE

“Please don’t leave me here.” The quiver in his voice matches the stream of tears running down his face as he stares at the entrance of the rehab center he’s being admitted to. “I’ll do anything, just please don’t leave me here.”

I don’t know what hurts more. How we got here or that it’s the first time in a long time I’ve seen any true and honest emotion on his face. He’s always so blissed out with a needle in his arm or powder up his nose, it’s hard to imagine he’s actually capable of feeling anything at all.

“I love you,” he cries, and the words make my blood boil. “I love you so much. You can’t leave me here.”

Thing is, I know he loves me, and God knows I love him too. I have loved Arlo longer than I’ve loved myself, but the three words, right now, in this moment, are not the words I needed to hear. He was throwing them out like a lifeline, but this time they weren’t going to save him.

This timeIwasn’t going to save him.

I couldn’t.

Love didn’t conquer all. If anybody knew that, it was Arlo and me, and especially not this time.

We may love one another, but we loved very differently. Through the drugs and the overdoses, the debt and the death, my heart burst and bled for him. Through all of it.

But that’s not how it worked for Arlo; his heart didn’t love like mine.

His heart had hardened so much at such a young age, that you could be convinced he was made out of stone. He knew how to hate you and hurt you. He knew how to fight; his tongue as sharp as a knife, his fists as hard as steel when they touched you.

He kept those three words close to his chest. Used them like a weapon whenever he could.

He didn’t feel for just anyone.

There were a select few, and that love and emotion came with conditions and ultimatums.

Especially for me.

He used our past to torture me. He used our loyalty to one another to manipulate me, and he loved nothing more than to fill me with so much guilt I couldn’t walk away.

And this time was no different.

It’s not like I wanted to walk away; I just didn’t have a choice.

This wasn’t just about me and him anymore. There were people we needed to take care of. People who depended on us. And I was sick of waiting around for him to finally wake up and step up.

And it clearly wasn’t happening any time soon.

I didn’t want this to be my life. I didn’t want this to be his life. And I sure as hell didn’t want it to beourlife.

I was finally ready to grow up and heal, and Arlo was insistent, too busy deflecting the blame and passing on the hurt.

It was time to admit, for the first time ever, we were in two very different places.

“You don’t love me,” I tell him coldly, keeping every sliver of emotion I have for him out of my voice. “You love the idea of me. You love how I don’t turn down the high, and how I don’t turn away from the rush. You love the way we fuck. You love the money we make off this shit, you love the power it gives you. And you love that even when you treat me like nothing more than the dirt on the bottom of your shoes, I come running back to you every fucking time.”

I take a deep breath, my chest aching, despite the ice in my voice. “But you. Don’t. Love. Me.”

He reaches for my shirt, fisting the material in his hands, trying and failing to drag me to him. “Frankie,” he grits out.

After everything he’d put himself and his body through, he was a shell of himself.

There was no bravado, no usual swagger, no confidence.

He was empty.

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