Page 26 of My Sweetest Obsession
Something else can…
My body vibrates, and that little voice keeps whispering in my ear…
I shake my head, trying to force away the divisive thoughts that will only lead me down a road I never want to go again.
But it’s been a real struggle to silence them.
Meeting after meeting. Talking with Dale. Even the time spent with Mom and some very frank conversations with her about all the things I kept hidden from her for so many years have helped keep me on the straight and narrow.
Barely.
On days like this, the pain and restlessness start to become too much even for the strongest of my resolve.
I have to get the fuck out of here…
If I don’t, my eyes will keep drifting to all the paintings along the walls. The ones I destroyed. The ones of her I can’t bring myself to. The ones of him that are all so fucking wrong.
Wrong.
Wrong.
Wrong.
FUCKING wrong.
I stalk over to the counter where my cigarettes sit and snag them.
Because what I told Ivy that night was true—I smoke so I don’t put worse things into my body.
And today, I want Drew back. I want her. And I want those worse things.
The metal squeals along the track as I tug open the loft door, the sound piercing through the storm of voices in my head—at least momentarily—and I hustle down the staircase and shove out onto the street barefoot and shirtless. But the bite of the fall wind against my exposed skin and the cool pavement on my feet barely register.
My sole focus is getting a cigarette lit and in my mouth before I do something stupid—like pick up my phone and call my dealer again, or worse…Ivy.
I light up and start pacing the jagged, cracked sidewalk as I inhale deeply, drawing the smoke into my lungs and holding it there before I release it in one long, slow stream that quickly disappears into the crisp air.
The nicotine hitting my system doesn’t stop my body from trembling.
If anything, it only makes it worse.
“Your brother would tell you to quit.”
Ivy’s words from that day rush back to me, and I wince, looking down at the cigarette between my unsteady fingers still splattered with black and white paint that’s likely in my hair and all over me by now.
Christ, I’m a fucking mess…
This dangerous edge I’ve been walking seems to keep narrowing, and the longer I go without seeing her, without knowing how she really is beyond the placations Mom gives me, the harder it becomes to stay balanced on it.
So, I pace and smoke.
Because it’s better than the alternative, than falling.
Anything is.
And some part of me believes that it will come to me eventually—the answer.
Some way to somehow fix things that are unfixable.
