Page 66 of Worlds Collide

“No, you can’t.” There’s too much emotion in Rich’s voice, so much that I really feel like I might break if I look him in the eyes. But he doesn’t deserve avoidance from me. Not after everything I’ve put him through. So I take a deep breath and look at his hulking figure, then make my eyes keep moving upward.

“I’m sorry,” I say simply, though I really should be more specific.For making you save my life again, for making you see me like this again, for being an asshole all the time. I could go on and on, but I don’t have the energy right now.

Because CJ also deserves an apology.

He deserves some peace after the way he’s lived. He deserves happiness. And he’s never going to get that if he chases me around, or if he thinks I’m worth anything.

“I need to go,” I tell Rich, making the decision in that instant.

“Where?” he asks with trepidation.

“Back to rehab. I can’t—fuck, Rich I can’t do this anymore.” My closed throat prevents me from saying another word. I don’t want to cry right now. I don’t think I get to feel sorry for myself.

All I get to do is get my shit together.

“What about CJ?” Rich asks, eyes wide.

I nod and swallow hard, hating the taste, but it’s what I gotta do to be able to speak.

“I’ll go up right now. Can you call us a car and maybe see if we can get a plane? If not, then we’re flying commercial.”

That only makes Rich’s eyes grow two times their size, but I don’t stick around for any of his protests.

I go up the stairs quickly, somehow hoping CJ’s awake and that he’s asleep just as strongly.

He’s asleep.

Peaceful. That’s what I thought he deserved just a minute ago, and that’s what he has without me next to him.

So, like a coward, I pack my shit silently. I scribble the lamest note ever, then leave it on top of his phone on the nightstand.

And then I leave.

For good this time.

“Areyou going to call your brother?” Rich asks quietly from the seat next to mine in the car he ordered for us.

“No.” I give a decisive shake of the head, and then take out my phone to text Derek.

Wolf

I don’t know what Hawk has told you but I don’t want to talk about it with you.

It’s hard to write that, to mean it wholeheartedly, and to send it. But I have to accept that Derek is no longer my best friend. He’s Hawk’s husband, and someone I love and respect, but he’s notmyanything.

I’m just letting you know Rich and I are going back to Carmel and I’m checking myself into Cove again.

I will let you know when or if I want to see you two.

He’s going to be pissed at that last one, I know he will be. But he’ll just have to deal with it. Just like I have to deal with CJ finding someone better than me in the future, and like I’ll have to learn not to think about him anymore.

My phone buzzes so much on the way to the airport that I shut it off, and I close my eyes too. I don’t want to see, hear, or feel anything for as long as I possibly can.

Rich managed to charter us a plane and he gets a phone call that I’m guessing is from my brother when we’re boarding. He answers and steps away but that doesn’t mean I don’t hear the desperate screaming coming from his phone.

Again, I do all I can to ignore it, and fake sleep until I actually fall asleep a little while after we level off in the air.

We have to stop somewhere in the midwest to refuel, but we land at the small airport outside Carmel-by-the-Sea in the earlyafternoon of a sunny, early October Saturday.

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