Poison & Wine - Melissa Toppen Page 0,60
I could change that. How much I wish I could go back and do it all differently. I know I messed up, Oak. I know I lied to you and betrayed your trust. I know I fucked up the only good thing in my life. And while I deserve every ounce of your anger, rest assured that I’ve tortured myself enough to last me a hundred lifetimes.”
“I don’t get it,” she whispers after a long moment of silence passes between us. She looks sad, defeated, and fuck if it doesn’t twist the dagger already piercing my heart. “All these years. You could have contacted me. You could have gotten clean. And yet you didn’t. Instead, you wrote about it. You wrote about me, about loving me, about wanting me back. And yet at the end of the day I was never enough.”
“What are you talking about? You were always enough.”
“If that’s true then why did it take you four years?”
It’s a fair question and one I wish I had a good answer to. Addiction is a funny thing. Even when you want to break away, sometimes you’re just not strong enough mentally.
“Because I was scared,” I admit as if I’m just realizing this for myself. “After the accident, I tried. I tried to get clean. I went to rehab multiple times. And I swore to myself every time that it would be the last. That this time it would stick. But it never did. Because once I was out, once I was back in the real world, reality would come creeping back in. And the loss of you was so great that I couldn’t bear it.”
“But you could have called. You could have reached out. Why didn’t you?”
“Because I was afraid of what you would say if I did. If you shot me down, if you told me to go fuck myself, that would have been the end of me, Oak. I wouldn’t have had any reason to keep going. The thought of you, the hope that one day I would see you again, that’s all I had.” I shift my weight from one leg to the other. “That’s why I asked you to come see me in rehab. I confided all of this to Dr. Bennett, and she agreed that closing that chapter of my life was the only way I stood a chance. But then I saw you, and suddenly the chapter wasn’t closed. It was wide fucking open again. Because while yes, you were angry, you didn’t look at me like I expected you to. You didn’t look at me with resentment or hate in your eyes. You looked at me like you always used to. Like I was the sun in an otherwise black universe. And something in me, something I thought had died a very long time ago, was alive again. I didn’t expect this. I didn’t expect to be here. After you left that day, I swore to myself that I’d work like hell to be a man that deserved you, and until that day came, I wouldn’t contact you again. But then Tommy died and there you were, like an angel sent from the heavens, standing in front of me. I shouldn’t have let you bring me here. And I shouldn’t have done anything that I’ve done since then. But with you, I can’t explain it. It’s like I have no control. You’re my drug now, Oakley. You’re the thing I crave above everything else. And when you’re standing in front of me, looking at me the way you’re looking at me right now, all I want to do is pull you into my arms and never let you go.”
“Four years,” she croaks, trying to process everything I just said. “And now suddenly I’m supposed to believe everything that you’re saying? What happens when you have a bad day, or something doesn’t go your way? How do I know you won’t sneak out and get high like you always used to?”
“You don’t,” I admit with a slight shrug of my shoulders. “I’m an addict. I’ll always be an addict. There will always be that risk. But I’m telling you, it’s different this time. Losing Tommy, finding you again, everything feels different. I’m not the same man I used to be.”
“People don’t change just like that.”
“How do you know?” I ask. “My fucking brother died, Oakley. My brother died. If I was ever going to have a reason to use, that would have been