Page 8 of My Sweetest Obsession
Her eyes narrow on me. “Imagine my surprise when she told me you were in town.”
“Yeah, about that?—”
She holds up a hand to stop me. “She was hysterical. I tried to get her to calm down, to tell me what happened, what was wrong…”
Everything is wrong.
Literally everything.
I swallow thickly, really wishing I hadn’t taken that sip of coffee, as it now threatens to come back up. “What did she tell you?”
Mom holds my gaze, unwavering, cripplingly intense, the way it always was when I was a child and she knew I had done something wrong but was trying to get me to come clean without having to reveal she already knew the truth. “Not much. Just that you were back, that you were at your studio, and that I needed to get over here as quickly as possible. She said that…” She sucks in a sharp breath, her throat working hard to keep her emotions in check. “That you weren’t in a very good place, and she was concerned you might do something stupid if you were left alone.”
Fuck.
Ivy wasn’t wrong.
I squeeze my eyes closed and pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to breathe in through it and out through my mouth so I don’t pass out, or worse, throw up.
The incessant, driving pain in my head doesn’t even seem that bad when I consider what might have happened last night if Ivy hadn’t appeared.
If she hadn’t cared enough, even after everything I told her, to take the heroin from me…
A shiver rolls through me, the acidic bile that now tastes vaguely like coffee climbing my throat again.
I fight it down and force myself to take another sip of the scalding-hot liquid, as if it might shock my system into some semblance of being able to process. “Is…that all she said?”
Or did she reveal all my secrets?
I don’t look up at Mom as I ask it, but I hear her shift, the clank as she picks up the mug and sets it back down on the counter.
“No. She told me to tell you that it’s your story to tell, not hers.”
Shit…
It would be so much easier if she had just told Mom everything. If the truth were already out there and I didn’t have to explain it in excruciating detail to the woman who always loved us and cared for us so deeply, without reservation. No matter what we did. No matter how bad things got. None of it mattered. She was always right there with open arms and a warm hug. Even if she was mad. Or worse, disappointment.
This is going to hurt her more than it does me.
I’ve been living with the agony and the regret for so long, letting it eat away at me, letting it drive me to do things I knew I’d regret the instant I did them. Everything I fought so hard for could have gone down the drain last night. I was this close to throwing it all away.
How do I begin to tell her?
I don’t even know what happened after Ivy left.
All I remember is the world spinning, feeling like it was crashing down around me, like everything was coming to an end. Like I couldn’t breathe.
And then, darkness.
Mom clears her throat, and I finally lift my head, opening my eyes to find her brow furrowed deeply above her anguished gaze. “I found you passed out over there.” She points to the corner near the windows where Ivy left me. Where I had set up, intent on trying to wash away the pain with the things I had sworn to never touch again. “You smell like you bathed in whiskey last night.”
I scrub a hand across my face with a groan. “I did.”
The mere thought of the taste going down is enough to make me gag.
Mom definitely notices. “I need you to explain what’s going on. I need you to tell me why you’re here, why you didn’t call, and why you look like you just got hit by a damn truck.”
It’s how I feel, too.
