Page 71 of Worlds Collide

“You’re goddamn perfect,” Adam interrupts me, still shouting, still pacing on the other side of the coffee table. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

I appreciate his loyalty, I do, but... “Adam,” I say slowly, running out of patience. “I have no idea who I am. Hell, my name doesn’t even mean anything to me. I know I’m a doctor and I’m bisexual, but that’s about it. Everything else I’ve ever done was dictated by my parents. What sports I played, what clothes I wore, where I went on vacation... everything. I fucking asked Wolf to run away with me like that would make all the other shit go away. Like when I came back I wouldn’t be the heir to a fortune of blood money. Like not everyone in fucking LA wanted me to pay off their bills. Like I would magically have a job where no one would remember I was suspended.

“I was deluding myself, and I just brought Wolf down with me,” I say like a confession. “Hawk was right, it was all my fault.”

“What?” Carter asks, very low, and for the first time in a long time, I see true anger in his eyes. “What did you just say?”

“Well,” I start with trepidation. Now I wish I had just kept my mouth shut. But there’s no turning back now. “Hawk called me a little while after I realized Wolf was gone. He just asked what I’d done, then he shouted at me a lot.”

“And what else did he say?” Adam asks, voice also deadly calm.

I shake my head at him. I really don’t want to cause problems in the friends group. Hawk is Derek’s husband, and he’s protective ofhis brother,andI also am not one hundred percent sure that he was wrong in blaming me for Wolf’s relapse.

“He blamed you?” Carter asks.

I feel like I’m between a rock and a hard place, so I just keep my mouth shut and look away.

“That little?—”

“Bloody wanker,” Carter finishes for Adam when he can’t seem to find the words.

“Guys,” I tell them, panic filling me up. It gives me a boost as I try to find the words to diffuse this situation, but even with that I’m too tired to come up with anything more than the simple truth. “He’s not wrong, and he’s only worried about Wolf. They had a huge fight right before we left.”

“Yes, you told us this already, but knowing how his brother is, he should know better than to blame an innocent bystander for Wolf’s fuck-up.” Adam stares me down like he’s daring me to contradict him.

And that’s just enough for me.

“Wolf did not fuck up!” I shout at him and stand too. “He’s an addict, and newsflash, that’s a disease, Adam. Yes he relapsed, yes he said mean things, but that doesn’t make him a bad person. Exactly like I know you’re not a bad person even though you’ve been a huge asshole to Wolf because he’s an addict.”

“Addicts are always bad people, CJ!” he shouts back. “Look at Glenn’s parents, or at Luke’s Dad. You really think they’ve got any good inside them?” he demands.

“You’re fucking stupid if you think all addicts are like them. They were shitty people, Adam. They were heartless and vicious, that’s true, but Wolf isn’t. He got help, he was trying to be better, and he kept quiet while his brother was just making him feel even shittier. And you with your almighty pride and high horse, lookingdown at him with your perfect career, perfect husband, perfect parents, perfect supportive family, and perfect fucking lifedon’t get to judge him,” I scream at the top of my lungs. “You don’t get to decide when an addict is good or bad. Wolf never hurt anyone but himself, not even me. And now I think you should get the fuck out of my house. Go home and get some good fucking rest so you can get that giant head out of your stupid ass.”

With that, I walk out of the room and go up the stairs to my room to be really alone, the way I should’ve been all along.

TWENTY-ONE

CJ

I wakeup the next day knowing I need to go talk to Adam. Of course I’m going to make him apologize to me, but I shouldn’t have thrown his seemingly perfect life in his face.

It’s not his fault he has the most amazing parents in the world and that he’s gotten everything he’s ever wanted in life—because he’s worked hard. Really fucking hard.

I do hope he stops saying Wolf is a bad person because he’s an alcoholic, though. That shit has to stop if we ever get a chance to have a normal conversation ever again.

And if that happens and I lose my best friend, my brother, then whatever becomes of me isn’t something I want to think about.

Carter is nowhere to be found when I get down to the kitchen, and I know I need to talk to him too before he flies off the handle when it comes to Hawk—we didn’t really finish that conversation and it worries me.

I don’t want Carter calling him—or Derek—and starting a fightwhere no one will win. Because thisisn’tabout Hawk, or Carter, or Derek. Hell, it’s not even about me or Wolf.

Am I hurt over how Hawk talked to me?

Of course I am, but from all I know about him, he only did it because he’s scared, and I really hope Carter and Adam will know this as well.

And if nothing else, I really hope they keep their traps shut so Derek doesn’t lose his shit on all of us.

Yes, I’m scared of the six-foot-six wall of muscle. Sue me.

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