The Best of Winter Renshaw - An 8 Book Collection - Winter Renshaw Page 0,43

still love this man. And that love is so deep, so much a part of me that I don’t think it’ll ever go anywhere.

I can’t deny it. Can’t ignore it. Can’t hide it. Can’t stuff it into the deep, dark crevices of my heart. His name is permanently tattooed on my soul.

Royal leaves.

Just like that.

All the things I was thinking about saying in this moment will never see the light of day.

I watch him drive away, and then I pack my bag and head to the hospital.

Nineteen

Royal

* * *

“The fuck you doing here?” I tense up the second I see my younger sister, Misty, leaning against my apartment doors. Her pock-marked face is covered in soggy tears, and her baggy eyes are bloodshot.

When she stands, the stench of unwashed hair and day-old alcohol breath fills the space around us.

“Royal.” She cries, wiping her eyes with the back of her hands like a toddler. “Rick died. He overdosed.”

Fuck.

There goes one of the only two people who know the truth about what happened that night.

“I have no sympathy for you.” I motion for her to move and slide my key in the door. “Leave.”

“I’m sorry, Royal,” she sobs. “For everything.”

“Little late for that.”

“You’re the only brother I have. I need you in my life.” She places a hand on my shoulder, and I brush it off.

“Heard that before.” I snap at her. “And we all know how that turned out.”

“I was just a kid,” she says. “You have to let it go at some point. You have to forgive us and move on from that. We did.”

The fact that my little sister and her forty-year-old boyfriend so casually moved on from the most pivotal event in my young adult life only serves to infuriate me even further.

“You can’t just apologize for something like that,” I say. “What you two did goes beyond apologies.”

“We’re family,” she says. “You can’t hate me forever.”

“Like hell. I can, and I will.”

“I wish I could change what happened.” Her frizzy blonde hair highlights three greasy inches of dark brown roots at the top. The sweater hanging off her bony shoulder has what appear to be moth holes, and her jeans are barely held up by a skinny belt using its last hole.

She’s using again.

Though I’m not sure she ever stopped.

Haven’t seen her in seven years.

Since that night.

If there’s anything I learned in my life, it’s to never, ever trust a user. They’re professional liars, skilled at ruining lives—their own and otherwise.

One little lie was all it took to ruin mine.

“You disgust me,” I say. “And you need to get clean, Misty. And I say that not because I care, but because you fucking smell like shit and you’re a pathetic excuse for a human. A waste of oxygen is what you are.”

Misty’s eyes shake and her fists clench. She can’t stand still, and she’s in a constant state of motion. My guess is she’s jonesing for another fix, and sadly for her, her main supplier just bit the dust.

“I have nowhere to go,” she says. “Rick’s kids don’t want me living in the house anymore.”

Shocker.

“There’s a YMCA two towns over. Good luck.”

“They’re full. I checked. You’re really going to put me out on the streets?” Misty stomps her foot.

“Exactly. You’re delusional if you think I owe you one goddamned thing.”

Standing here arguing with a meth-addicted moron is not the smartest decision I’ve made in recent days.

“Bye, Misty. And don’t come back here again. I’m finally off paper, and you’re the last person I need to be seen associating with. Not trying to go back to prison for another crime I didn’t even fucking commit.”

I push the door open and slam it in her face.

She whines from the other side, but I can’t make out the words. Besides, I could give two shits what woe-is-me bullshit is spewing from her crusty lips.

She’s a liar.

She’s a dirty, fucking, filthy, drug-addicted liar.

And she deserves to rot for what she did.

Twenty

Demi

* * *

“The first twenty-four hours will be the most critical.” Brooks’s doctor stands at the foot of his bed, along with an anesthesiologist. Brenda’s on Brooks’s right, and I take his left.

Mom is in the corner, and Dad, Derek, Delilah, and Haven are in the waiting room. They’re planning to rotate in and out since there can only be three of us in here at a time. They all want to be here, waiting for the moment he finally opens his eyes.

Brenda threads her hand through her son’s as a