Page 23 of Salvaged Heart
“Different? How?”
“I’m ready. I’m tired of hurting the people who love me, not that I have many left. I’m tired of falling asleep so messed up that I don’t know if I will wake up in the morning. I’m tired of not having a consistent, safe place to stay at night. Beck, I’m so fucking tired.”
I reached for his chin, tilting his face and forcing his eyes to meet mine. I needed to see them when he answered my next question so I would know if the words he was saying were true. His tears made them a glittering hazel, green seeping around the edges. Fat drops clung to his long lashes before they unstuck and slipped down his cheeks. To give him credit, he didn’t look away.He met my stare face-on, laying every single one of his truths bare at my feet.
“There’s something else. What are you still not telling me?”
He sighed, knowing we were on a precipice. The following words that left his mouth would determine whether I helped or exposed him.
“Aunt Millie was the only person who saw me for who I am, an addict. Everyone else just thinks I am a fuck up—I guess they aren’t that wrong either—but the stipulation in her will was that I not be given the money from this house until I have been sober a full year.” My lips parted to speak, but he forged ahead, “The problem is, I can’t do that on my own. I am in too deep to get over this without professional help.”
“So it is for money, then?” I scoffed. I couldn’t believe the audacity of this guy. Of course, the only reason he would be willing to get sober now after all these years was to gain back access to his wealth, and the second he did, he would turn right back to his vices and blow through all that money as well. I was sure of it, or at least the voice in my head that sounded an awful lot like Laurel was.
“No, that’s not it at all. Beck, you must believe me when I say I did not have to come here. I could have stayed in Atlanta, doing the same shit I did every day. Getting by, sleeping on couches, picking up odd jobs to fuel this monster living inside of me.” His hands were shaking again. I wasn’t sure when I had grabbed hold of them both. “Coming here meant facing a past I’ve tried hard to avoid. Coming here meant having to see the look of disdain and judgment on Laurel’s face every day, knowing how fucking badly I hurt her and that she might never forgive me. It meant separating from the people who sell me this shit and forcing myself to walk the line of withdrawal until I got the money to check into rehab.”
“I trusted you,” I whispered, my voice hoarse with emotion. “Despite everything Laurel told me about you, every single warning, I chose to give you the benefit of the doubt, and you betrayed me.”
“I know. I’m so sorry, Beckham. I’m so fucking sorry.”
The silence between us was as thick and heavy as the breaths we were desperately trying to gulp down. My head spun with all the information I had been given. Had I truly been that blind? My mind snagged on all the little moments I’d shared with Anders. The mood swings, the not eating, his withdrawing from the group to hide up in his room, the day on the dock when he told me straight up that he was hungover despite me not seeing him take a single drink the night before. It was all there now, plain as day. But what was also there were all the other moments. He showed up every morning bright and early, asked me to teach him skills to help with the renovation, worked hard, long hours beside me, and did not complain once. And then there was the way he was slowly coming out of himself, the smiles he sent me, the easy and casual way he now joked with me that hadn’t been there three weeks ago when this all began.His new-found willingness to be open and let me see under the false bravado he wore like a thick skin around the thoughtful, intelligent, and charismatic man hidden inside.
“When did you plan to leave?”When did you plan to leave me?
“I’ve had that for over a week now. I could have been long gone already.” His voice was as delicate as broken glass now. “But this place has been healing me, you Beckham, have been healing me.”
12
ANDERS
Beckham dropped my hands and walked towards the window, plopping himself down on the seat and gazing out over the yard below. I doubted he could see much other than his reflection, the sun having set in the time he had been discovering all my hidden ugly parts. I hovered where he’d left me, worried that the slightest move would have him jumping to his feet again and throwing me out on my ass at the side of the road.
When he finally spoke, the voice that left him was so unlike any I had heard from him before. It was broken and fragile, unsure and laced with betrayal. “I believe you.”
I blinked, sure I had misheard him. After everything I confessed, those were the last words I had expected to hear.I hate you. You’re a good-for-nothing, lousy, useless addict.All of those things I had heard twenty-thousand times in the never-ending hell that was my addiction. But never those three.
I—believe—you.
“I’m going to help you, Anders.” He said next, sounding a little more self-assured. “But there will be rules.”
It was such a Beckham thing to say that a small laugh broke from my lips in relief. “I’d expect nothing less.” I meant it as a joke to lighten the tension, but it fell on deaf ears.
“There will be rules, and you cannot break my trust again.” He still faced away from me, but I could tell he could see every emotion on my face reflected in the window.
“I can’t promise you I won’t use again, Beckham. That’s not how this works.”
If I could turn off this insane need, I would have years ago. I would have walked away the night Jonah died, the night that man in Atlanta left me bloody and violated on the side of the street, or a million other times in between. I didn’t want to be dependent on these substances. I wanted to be clean more than anything, but it wasn’t that simple. I had a fire burning inside of me that threatened to take me under at every turn, and I was fighting it with a cracked bucket full of holes. The harder I tried to put out the flames, the more water sloshed from the sides, and I was left with nothing but an empty bucket, the fire raging like I had never even tried.
“I know that.” He whispered. “But you won’t hide it anymore, you won’t sneak around behind my back, and you won’t fight me when I try to help you.”
I could work with that. “Okay.”
“You need to get some rest. We can talk more about this in the morning.”
A sudden wave of panic swept up, threatening to drown me. The idea of being left alone was suffocating. If he walked out the door right now and left me here with all my self-hatred and darkness, it would pull me under. I wouldn’t stand a chance.
“I need you to stay. I’m not safe with myself right now.” The confession slipped from my lips like a promise, but some of the heavy pressing weight went with it.
Beckham whipped around, lips parted, anguish haunting his endless ocean-blue eyes.
