Recovered

by Jay Crownover

destruction addiction wrought, and there was no way I could stand idly by and let it get its grubby, gross, insidious, infectious hands on someone else in my orbit. Even if that someone else was someone I wanted to dropkick and throat-punch on a regular basis.

When a god falls, he leaves a pretty big dent in the ground where his worshipers walked.

The only way an addict got clean was if they wanted to. No amount of love, supervision, or pressure could make a junkie go straight. She was fighting a losing battle; it didn’t matter how many soldiers she sent to war.

Of all the things I’d ever indulged, girls were always the easiest to score.

I smelled like bad choices and regret.

I was living with a very attractive ghost. One who couldn’t see, hear, or interact with me at all. One who was haunting me. The more he vanished into himself and got lost inside his own head, the harder I tried to grab ahold of him, but it was like trying to clutch smoke between my fingers. He drifted away as soon as I touched him.

I thought she was one of the beach bunnies who followed Cable around like he was the Pied Piper of sex and satisfaction.

I wondered if I got ahold of her if she would be able to keep me from sinking. But then, she told me that it was impossible for her not to worry about me and all I could see was me dragging her down, pulling her under. It’s what I did.

He was forcing his way through my walls and showing me the wreckage that lay in waste inside of his.

No judgment, no recrimination.”

I was so used to people constantly trying to be something. Trying to be popular. Trying to be liked. Trying to be badass. Trying to be a family. Affton didn’t bother to be anything she wasn’t. She was unapologetically who she was and who she was just happened to be an incredibly attractive, competent, and considerate girl.

She was gravity. She held me in place. It was hard to live in the past when she had me firmly moored to the present.

“THERE ARE DIFFERENT kinds of broken, you know.”

“There’s the kind of broken everyone can see. The kind that leaves a mess no one wants to get stuck cleaning up because it’s obviously going to be a lot of work. And, even if you try to get it all, you’re going to miss some of those sharp, jagged pieces. Then there’s the kind of broken no one can see. The kind that’s made up of hairline fractures and narrow little fissures that cover the entire surface. It’s the kind of broken that’s held together by some kind of miracle and pure strength of will. All it takes is one little bump, one wrong move, and that kind of broken shatters. There is no cleaning up that mess. There are too many pieces, and they scatter everywhere.”

I see the two of you getting ready to crash into one another, and I’m telling you, that is going to destroy her and no one is going to be able to put her back together. For once in your life, do the right thing.”

I wondered what that was like. Having someone who cared enough to go toe to toe with the things that scared you so you could be afraid but know you weren’t in the fear alone.

She sighed and reached up so she could rest her hands on my waist. “What are we doing?” I had no idea, but I was positive it was going to be the best and worst thing that had ever happened to me. “Well . . . I’m going to ruin you, and you . . . you’re going to do your best to save me.” I slid my hand under the heavy fall of her hair and cupped the back of her skull. I knew where this was going and I was sure she did, too.

I was going to kiss her. I was going to taste her. I was going to fuck her. I was going to be her first, which was scary, but not nearly as scary as the very real actuality that she was also going to be my first as well. I’d never done this with anyone I cared about before.

He was going to kiss me. He was going to touch me. He was going to taste me. He was going to fuck me . . . and I was going to let him.

She blinked at me and exhaled long and hard. Her breath touched my lips in a phantom kiss and her words wrapped around me in an invisible embrace.

Her gaze was glassy, and her breaths were choppy as she told me, “I’ve always known who you are Cable. I have never agreed with the choices you made . . . but about you, my heart has never been confused about you.”

I chuckled and bent so I could brush my lips against hers again. “You hated me back then and hated me at the start of this ride. Remember?” Her lips twitched. “Exactly. I hate you, Cable James McCaffrey. Now teach me how to suck your cock.”

For once, I didn’t give a shit about being a bad influence. If corrupting her led to her tongue licking me and her lips sucking me, then I was happy to lead her down the road straight to hell.

If you think about it, love and hate really aren’t that much different when you got right down to it. Both make you crazy. Both make you do things you never thought you would ever do, and both were so, so easy to get lost in. I loved that she hated me . . . and I hated that I was pretty fucking sure I was falling in love with her. That realization ripped my heart into two pieces. There was the half that was elated I could feel something that huge and important and the other half that was losing its shit and trembling in fear. I didn’t know how to do love or hate when it came to another person. I’d felt plenty of the latter for myself but never bothered to let myself have such a strong reaction to anyone else. It would remain to be seen which side of my heart was stronger.

“You gotta know that I don’t need to be looking right at you to see you. You’ve always been there, every time I blink, I can see you on the back of my eyelids. I could draw you from memory.”

“I used to jerk off to the memory of you when the lights went out and I got a minute to think when I was locked up. We’d never spoken, other than the time you chewed my ass. I hadn’t seen you in years, but I knew the exact color of your eyes and the exact way your top lip bowed. I knew you had breasts that would be perfect and an ass that would make men weep. I saw you, Affton, I’ve always seen you.”

He was good at making our level of crazy make sense.

being alone with my asshole thoughts and dickhead brain isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. It’s good to hear what other people have to say because the shit I tell myself is what gets me into trouble.”

“Hard to tell, because you aren’t honest with me and I don’t think you’re honest with yourself most of the time. I do know that you do not have to live the way you’ve been living. I do know that you don’t have to risk your life and the hearts of the people who love you if you choose not to.”

“We can’t control where we’re headed, but we can make the most out of where we are right now.”

He held me while I cried and told me to believe in the good parts Cable showed me, but to stay aware of the bad ones. He was the best dad ever, and he handled my first broken heart like a pro.