night after our return from Vegas, alone in my tent after everyone had refused to sell me stuff. For a moment I’d considered driving to the next big city, a place where nobody recognized me, much less knew that I was Adamo’s girl, how everyone around here called me. With the last shreds of my resolve, I’d stayed put and spent most of the night staring at the ceiling of my tent, too afraid to fall asleep and be haunted by new memories, awakened by my recent trip to Vegas. Becoming clean and staying clean had been a struggle. This was the longest I’d succeeded to stay away from drugs since I was fourteen and I’d almost thrown it all away because of my mother. She’d ruined my life once and I’d almost given her the power to do it again. I was furious at myself, but as usual too proud to admit it.
I glared. “You can’t even imagine what kind of images my mind’s been replaying since I saw my mother. So much buried shit has come up. It’s eating away at me, and I know the only way to stop it is to knock myself out with drugs.”
Adamo moved closer. I could tell that he wanted to touch me, maybe even hug me, and I wanted him to, but still I didn’t move. Last night our bodies had joined, fueled by passion and exhilaration, now every touch would be filled with emotions I didn’t want to deal with. “The memories come back twice as bad once the effect wanes off, Dinara. You can’t escape them. I tried too.”
Fuck, it took every ounce of restraint not to fly into his arms. I wanted to be held by him, but I didn’t want to look weak. Though, it was probably a little too late for that. In Vegas, I’d completely lost it. Seeing my mother had twisted my insides, had made me feel like a little girl. She’d changed so much over the years since Dad didn’t pay for her beauty treatments anymore and she worked as a cheap whore, but my mind had pulled up past images.
“What am I supposed to do?” I asked quietly, moving a bit closer to him.
“Whatever it is, I’m there for you, but you don’t need drugs, Dinara.”
“You don’t know what I need. You can’t. Not until you’ve lived what I have. The only thing that makes the pain go away for a while are the drugs.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way.”
He was right. I’d fought too hard to get where I was now. Adamo touched my cheek and I leaned into him. “We’ll figure out a way for you to move past this shit. Together.”
I nodded. “Together.”
Dinara joined me in my tent that night, but she was restless. “Can we go somewhere else? Somewhere away from everyone where we can sleep outside without our tent? I feel like everything’s closing in on me.” Her voice was hesitant.
“Of course,” I murmured.
We packed everything and drove my car about a mile away from camp. Tomorrow wasn’t a race day so it wasn’t a problem. We set up our sleeping bags and pillows on the ground until we created a spacious bed under the stars. For a while, we sat beside each other, staring off into the darkness. In the distance lights from camp illuminated the horizon, but soon those would die as well. I’d set up the gas lamp behind us on the smallest possible flame to create just enough light so we could see our faces. “I’ve been thinking about watching the recordings you gave me but I’m scared. If seeing my mother already unsettled me so much, what will seeing all those guys and what they did, do to me?” She snapped her mouth shut, regret passing her face. In the months since I’d known Dinara, I’d learned one thing about her: she hated admitting weakness, or what she perceived as weakness. I linked our fingers.
“If you want, I can be present when you watch it,” I said, even if the thought of seeing Dinara’s abuse turned my stomach over. Watching a few minutes had already been too much. But for Dinara I’d do it.
She twisted her head around to me. “I don’t think I want you to see me like that, not more than you have already seen.” She shook her head. “Fuck, this is so messed up.”
“I could burn them for you. If Remo hadn’t given them to me, you