Page 14 of My Sweetest Obsession
I thought I had a grip on my addiction and my emotions, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.
“I was this close”—I hold my fingers only a few millimeters apart—“to using again last night. I even called one of my old dealers and had him deliver it to my place.” A little sardonic laugh slips from my lips. “And it felt like welcoming back an old friend when I opened the door to him. How fucked up is that?”
I shake my head, clasping the small piece of metal like it’s a lifeline when last night it was the woman I hurt more than anyone on this planet who kept me from doing something truly stupid.
“The only thing that stopped me from using it when it was right there was someone showing up at my place unexpectedly.” I flick my gaze to Mom, knowing how hard this will be for her to hear. “If she hadn’t shown up, in the next five minutes, that needle would have been in my arm.”
And this would have all been for nothing…
My hand tightens around the medallion until the edges dig into my skin.
“I kept telling myself that maybe the alcohol would do it, that maybe once I finished the bottle, I would feel better. That the guilt and agony that were overwhelming me would somehow ebb the more I swallowed. But by the time she walked in, I was three-quarters of the way through it, and all I felt was worse.”
The pain of seeing Drew’s handwriting on that box…
Of opening it and finding the doll…
It rushes back, almost knocking me on my ass the same way it did yesterday.
I had it all so wrong.
From the moment I saw Ivy, I let my addiction to her consume me. And I let it turn me into someone who would believe the worst about the person I loved most in this world…
“I was drowning in it. Stuck in my own head. Suffocated by these feelings that have been building up for the last several months since…” I suck in a sharp breath, trying to swallow a sob that wants to slip out. “Since my twin brother died…”
I squeeze my eyes closed, unable to look at the group or Mom when I say these words that tighten my chest.
“It was my fault. The accident that took his life. None of it would have happened if I’d been in control of myself, if I hadn’t been a selfish asshole.” Shaking my head, I envision his face as I threw those hateful words at him, as I threatened to take Ivy from him. “I blame so many of the things that I’ve done on making bad decisions when I was using, but the truth of the matter is, the decision that led me to all this. The one that destroyed my life and so many other people’s and took my brother’s was one made when I was completely sober.”
The garden flashes through my head.
Seeing Ivy on that bench.
The way my footsteps faltered the moment I laid eyes on her.
How my heart stuttered.
How fucking hard I fell in that instant.
I instantly understood everything Drew had been telling me about her over the previous weeks. Why he said the moment they met he knew he was going to marry her. I saw the way she seemed to just glow in the moonlight, and when she smiled…I was a goner.
But I knew it was wrong.
I knew I shouldn’t do it, and I did it anyway.
Because I had never wanted that way before.
“We always say that we relapse before we pick back up.” I rub at that itch on the nape of my neck that won’t go away, as if I’m going through withdrawals again. “The truth is, I’ve been relapsing for years, before I even went to rehab. I just substituted a different kind of addiction. This woman…” I release a little half-laugh that doesn’t have any humor in it.
Picturing her face. Hearing those little noises she makes when I’m inside her. Feeling her trembling under my touch and that rush that floods my system every time my lips touch hers. “She’s intoxicating, and the more time I spent with her, the more I wanted to. The more I needed to be around her, to hear her laugh, to see her smile, to know that I put that on her face when she had every reason never to smile again…” I swallow thickly, scanning the room. “Because she was my brother’s fiancée.”
Several sets of eyes widen slightly at my confession, but Mom doesn’t react—either because my confession to her earlier told her everything she needed to know or she was able to read between the lines and saw what had happened before I was even cognizant of it.
“So”—I offer a tight smile, clenching the little piece of metal tighter—“the woman whose life I ruined is the one who saved mine last night.” I release a sardonic laugh and shake my head. “And I don’t really know what to do with that. But I’m here today, and I still have this.” I hold up my medallion. “And I’m going to go back to taking it one day at a time. Or maybe just one minute at a time because that might be all I can handle right now.”
A sob threatens to make its way up my throat, but I force it down and look to the back row, to the woman who has every reason not to be here after the pain I’ve caused her. But Mom just offers me a sad smile, her eyes brimming with more tears.
“But I do have a tiny sliver of hope that I might make it through all this…because I have my mom here.” I shrug. “Maybe, though I can’t see it right now, there’s a light at the end of this dark tunnel? Somewhere. I’m not really sure if it does exist—a place where I’m not drowning in the same guilt and agony that sent me down that dangerous road last night. I hope it does, but maybe it doesn’t. Maybe I just have to learn to swim harder.”
