“Yeah, Dix. I did. And I’m sorry. God, I am so fucking sorry that happened. He’d been drinking Robyn off his mind and called me for a ride. I didn’t realize how messed up either of us was until it was too late.”
Dixie buries the palms of her hands into her eyes and remains still for several minutes before talking to me again. “So you got charged with all kinds of stuff from the accident then. How’d you get out of it?”
One hard question after another. “Ashley. The attorney that you met.” And wanted to murder, from the looks of it.
“The attorney . . . Ashley,” she begins, and I can hear the venom and hurt in her voice. “How’d you afford her?”
There’s no way to sugarcoat my answer so I give it to her as gently as I can manage.
“Pretty much the same way I’ve always afforded things I wanted and couldn’t pay for.”
“Wow. Okay. I guess I kind of knew that, but hearing it . . . from you . . . Just . . . Wow.”
Her chair scrapes the floor as she moves it back. She shoots upright and takes the two pieces of her glass to the sink, but I know what she’s really doing. She’s disgusted and she needs space from me. I can’t blame her. I’m jealous. I wish I could get away from myself.
I hang my head and wait for the interrogation to continue.
Dixie busies herself using some type of glue to repair her mug and I finish my now cold, bitter coffee. She takes my cup and washes it before returning to sit down. “So you got help because the court made you, but it didn’t work?”
I nod. “Pretty much. Mandatory rehab is kind of a joke. It doesn’t take until you’re there because you want to be, because you want help and you want to change.” She nods as if this makes sense so I continue. “That time I was just going through the motions, complying with whatever simply to stay out of jail. But after the accident, I hit rock bottom. I was the worst off I ever was and Dallas dragged me out of my house, beat the hell out of me, and brought me here to dry out. I did and then I started trying to get some real help. It has helped and I still see an addiction counselor.”
“What were you addicted to?”
Now there’s the million-dollar question. Most addicts have a drug of choice. Heroin. Meth. Coke. Narcotics. Alcohol. Not that some people won’t just take whatever for the hell of it, but actual addicts tend to have a preference.
Mine was none of the above.
“I don’t know that I was ever actually addicted to one particular substance. My addiction issues were more . . .”
“Let me guess. Complicated?”
I nod. “Yeah. Pretty much.”
Dixie hates the generic use of that word and I don’t blame her. It’s vague as hell and basically a cop-out.
“That still doesn’t answer my question. What exactly were you addicted to then, Gav?”
A dull throb begins at my temples and lands in the center of my forehead. She waits patiently for my answer.
“Oblivion, Bluebird,” I finally answer. “I was addicted to anything and everything that helped me to check out, to escape my reality, to forget.”
“Forget what?” Her eyes are wide and round and shining with the promise of tears. Answering will only cause them to fall. But I have to. She deserves to know the truth.
“You.”
An hour has passed since I answered her final question and she went outside to get some air. She must’ve needed a lot of air.
I step out onto the front porch but she’s nowhere to be seen. Walking around the side of the house, I’m reminded of playing hide-and-seek as kids, of me and her and Dallas running and laughing and daring each other to do ridiculous things like mix Pop Rocks into a bottle of Pepsi and drink it all at once.
This house has been my safe place since the day I met the Lark siblings on the worst day of their young lives.
I’m so lost in memories, I think I see a younger version of myself sitting on the cracked concrete garden bench in the backyard.