Page 87 of This Life and All the Rest

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“Yes.”

“Wanna leave?”

“Yes.” She scrapes her nails down my chest, but I stop her before she reaches my waistband. “For a fix, not a fuck.”

She eyes me again, one brow raised, and I don’t have time for this bullshit.

“I’ll stop by an ATM,” I say, and she smiles.

“Follow me.”

I wakeup on the sidewalk next to the Thames.

My head pounds and my hand aches. My knuckles are covered in dried blood and swollen to twice their size. I groan and roll onto my back.

Everything about the night before comes back to me, hitting me all at once, and I roll back over and vomit on the pavement.

I push myself up, scooting away from the mess I just made, and prop myself beside a bench. I take inventory of my pockets. My jacket is gone. My wallet is gone. My passport is gone. My phone, miraculously, is in my front pocket, but the screen is cracked to fuck.

I relapsed. I didn’t even last a month out of rehab.

I smoked, I drank, and I took some bullshit someone handed me. I might have snorted something. After a while it all blends together.

But fuck, what the fuck have I done?

I squeeze my eyes shut, but the disappointment hits me hard, and tears slip past my lashes. All those months. All that therapy. And I just fucked it all up.

And Lennon...

Lennon and that guy.

I thought she was mine. I thought she felt the way I felt.

I thought she’d wait for me.

I drop my head into my right hand, my left cradled in my lap as I try to breathe through all the pain. Fuck.

After a moment, I reach into my pocket and pull out my phone. I hold my breath as I attempt to power it on, and heave a sigh of relief when it blinks to life.

For the second time now, I dial Trent.

“Macon,” he answers. “Did you find her?”

“Yeah,” I rasp.

“Is she okay? Is she coming back?”

I swallow hard. I try like hell to keep from crying again. I must look ridiculous busted to shit and bawling on the sidewalk.

“Macon? You still there?”

I clear my throat.

“You were right. She needs space.” I take a deep breath. “And I need your help.”

TWENTY-FOUR

I watch her walk out.

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