Page 30 of Blackout: Book Two

His.

They’re the tears of love.

Of two broken hearts.

As much as I want to believe everything he’s saying, I know better. He doesn’t mean to lie to me. He doesn’t mean to break my heart. He doesn’t mean any of it, but he also can’t help it.

He can’t help himself.

“You know,” I start, pausing to clear my throat and wipe my eyes. “I think you like breaking,” I whisper. My words aren’t meant to be insulting, they’re meant to inspire. To help him see the error of his ways. I speak to him not as his wife, but as a trained professional—something, I swore I’d never do. I guess we’re both going against our word now.

“I think you like falling apart because for a brief pause, you get to feel whole after someone picks up the pieces. After the euphoria of being complete wears, you come crashing down. You realize you did nothing to help yourself, and you do whatever you can to break again, hoping this time you’ll be the one to pick up the pieces for yourself. I wanted to be the one who changed you. I wanted to breathe life into your fragile soul.”

“You are…you’re everything, Lacey,” he shouts, his voice full of conviction.

“I’m everything and nothing at all, Blackie,” I whisper. “I spoke with Schwartz he says you’re going to have to go to rehab.”

“I’ll get him to appeal the judge’s decision. Whatever it takes to get me home to you and the baby,” he insists.

“Blackie, you have a problem, a serious problem and twenty-eight days in rehab won’t fix you,” I tell him, watching as his expression goes grim. His jaw tightens and the air around us changes. It becomes thick.

Too thick.

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying, I can’t fix you. I’ve come to terms with it and now it’s time you do as well. If the judge sends you to rehab, I think you should go. If you want any kind of relationship with our child, you will go.”

“Don’t fucking do that.”

“What am I doing?”

“Don’t use our child against me.”

“I’m not,” I admonish, hurt he would even suggest the idea. “I’m looking out for our child. There’s a difference. Blackie, you have no idea how it feels to be on the receiving end of your bad decisions. You have no idea how heartbreaking it is to never feel good enough.”

“Don’t I? Why the hell do you think I’m as fucked as I am? I know I don’t deserve you.”

“No, Blackie, you think you don’t deserve me. I’ve done nothing to make you believe that and everything to convince you otherwise. Now, you survived another overdose and by the looks of it, a beating that probably should’ve killed you. God is giving you another chance to get right with yourself. Make it count. Not for me. Not for our baby, but for yourself.”

“And what happens if I don’t?”

“I think you know the answer to that,” I whisper.

This story of ours won’t end with us old and gray. It’ll end tragically with our beautiful child never knowing its father and me burying the man I love.

“You didn’t say it,” he murmurs, forcing my attention back to him.

“What?”

“You didn’t say you love me.”

I didn’t, did I? Not a single ‘I love you’. Not even a ‘Thank God, you’re okay’.

“I—”

“Don’t say it now,” he mutters, shaking his head. I watch him wince and he closes his eyes briefly before looking at me again. “How was it?”

“What?”

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