Worlds Collide (Fan Service #6)

19. CJ

NINETEEN

CJ

I wake up in complete darkness and I know immediately that Wolf isn’t with me in bed.

I’ve gotten so used to feeling him close by and hearing his breaths—and his snores—that the complete stillness around me is disturbing.

Where is he? I fell asleep in his arms?—

My parents’ visit comes flooding back like the worst nightmare ever. God, the way I unloaded all my “poor neglected rich boy” story on him is fucking mortifying. Did he run away again?

I’m going to be damn pissed if he did, although... Well, who would want to deal with this type of mess? Knowing where I come from and what type of people my parents are would for sure put some people off.

I don’t know if I can blame Wolf.

With foolish hope tightening my chest, I slip on my house shoes and go looking for him. The kitchen is the first place I look and it’s empty, so is the sitting room, but the paneled door to the garden is open.

I walk out slowly, scared of what I’m going to find, and see Wolf sitting there with a glass in his hand.

I swallow hard. Somehow, I don’t know how, I know the amber liquid isn’t one of the Cokes he likes so much.

Fuck, this is bad. It’s very bad, right?

“Wolf?” I whisper tentatively.

He turns around and smiles at me but it’s... wrong. He’s never looked at me like that. He raises the glass like he’s toasting me, then downs all the liquid like it’s water. When he puts it back down he turns to the seat next to him and reaches for... Fuck, that bottle was full last night. I know it was because I’ve been eyeing the stupid cart for days, thinking that I should probably move it out of sight.

He pours everything that’s left into the glass and shakes the bottle when there are only drops falling out.

“Are you better now?” he asks me like everything’s normal.

“Why are you drinking?” I ask, not really knowing how to answer his questions.

“Oh, because of you of course.” The simple words hit me like bullets. Each one hurting more and hitting closer home.

“What?” I can’t have heard him correctly.

“Yeah, I’m guilty again. And you’re a saint. And you should never have looked at me twice. But you pushed, and you pushed, and pushed fucking again until I could do nothing but give in to you. Until I’m once more feeling like shit because everyone is so much better than me.”

“Wolf—” I try to interrupt but he won’t let me.

“I think I made it pretty clear, in multiple ways, multiple times, that I wanted to be left alone. But now I care. Now I can see that I’m just always going to do the wrong thing, so why even try? I’m never going to be a good person. I’m never going to be sane or healthy. I’m always going to be the Wolf that watched his mommy kill his daddy, and now that’s not even tragic enough!” he shouts and then laughs darkly.

“Stop,” I beg with a sob lodged in my throat. “You’re not a bad person, Wolf, and you’re allowed to hate your past, and of course it’s tragic enough, Max.” I speak quickly to get it all out.

“Yeah, well there’s no excuse now,” he says like it’s a joke and takes another big sip. I realize then, that nothing I say right now is going to get through his alcohol-filled skull.

“I’m going back to sleep. We can talk in the morning.” I try to sound strong, and like this is a limit or something. I remember you’re supposed to set some of those from the little I know about addiction treatment and twelve-step programs.

“Sure,” he says with a chuckle.

I stand there for a way-too-long moment, just staring at him. It’s true. He made it clear that he wanted to be left alone, but I didn’t want to leave him alone, did I? And didn’t he go along with it every time? It didn’t take too much convincing either.

No. I know he wanted to be there with me every time. I know I didn’t coerce him or “trick” him into anything.

This is just the alcohol talking, and when he wakes up tomorrow we can talk about it and maybe get him the help he needs.

So I spin on my heels and walk back into the house, then up the stairs, into my bedroom, and back into bed. Where I sure as hell won’t get any sleep at all. At least, that’s what I thought, but when the morning light is just starting to peek through the window, that’s when the exhaustion finally hits .

If only I’d held out a little bit longer.

Wolf

My eyes spring open when my body shakes uncontrollably. It’s not the eyes I was dreaming of that greet me, not deep blue ones that seem bottomless, but Rich’s honey-brown ones.

“What?” I sputter, and that’s when I realize there’s something in my mouth.

Jesus, the taste of vomit is not something I miss from my binging days... wait. Vomit?

It all comes back in a rush, and the only image left in my mind after the awful reel of scenes is CJ’s heartbreaking pitying look right before he left me out here alone.

“Your head was hanging over the backrest,” Rich says urgently. “I had to shake you or you would’ve choked, I?—”

“It’s okay,” I tell him, speaking softly and raising a hand to ask for some space. He lets go of my shoulders and I look down.

Well, if there was ever a moment for me to shoot myself, I guess this would be it. “I can’t keep doing this,” I whisper to myself.

“No, you can’t.” There’s too much emotion in Rich’s voice, so much that I really feel like I might break if I look him in the eyes. But he doesn’t deserve avoidance from me. Not after everything I’ve put him through. So I take a deep breath and look at his hulking figure, then make my eyes keep moving upward.

“I’m sorry,” I say simply, though I really should be more specific. For making you save my life again, for making you see me like this again, for being an asshole all the time . I could go on and on, but I don’t have the energy right now .

Because CJ also deserves an apology.

He deserves some peace after the way he’s lived. He deserves happiness. And he’s never going to get that if he chases me around, or if he thinks I’m worth anything.

“I need to go,” I tell Rich, making the decision in that instant.

“Where?” he asks with trepidation.

“Back to rehab. I can’t—fuck, Rich I can’t do this anymore.” My closed throat prevents me from saying another word. I don’t want to cry right now. I don’t think I get to feel sorry for myself.

All I get to do is get my shit together.

“What about CJ?” Rich asks, eyes wide.

I nod and swallow hard, hating the taste, but it’s what I gotta do to be able to speak.

“I’ll go up right now. Can you call us a car and maybe see if we can get a plane? If not, then we’re flying commercial.”

That only makes Rich’s eyes grow two times their size, but I don’t stick around for any of his protests.

I go up the stairs quickly, somehow hoping CJ’s awake and that he’s asleep just as strongly.

He’s asleep.

Peaceful. That’s what I thought he deserved just a minute ago, and that’s what he has without me next to him.

So, like a coward, I pack my shit silently. I scribble the lamest note ever, then leave it on top of his phone on the nightstand.

And then I leave.

For good this time.

“Are you going to call your brother?” Rich asks quietly from the seat next to mine in the car he ordered for us .

“No.” I give a decisive shake of the head, and then take out my phone to text Derek.

Wolf

I don’t know what Hawk has told you but I don’t want to talk about it with you.

It’s hard to write that, to mean it wholeheartedly, and to send it. But I have to accept that Derek is no longer my best friend. He’s Hawk’s husband, and someone I love and respect, but he’s not my anything.

I’m just letting you know Rich and I are going back to Carmel and I’m checking myself into Cove again.

I will let you know when or if I want to see you two.

He’s going to be pissed at that last one, I know he will be. But he’ll just have to deal with it. Just like I have to deal with CJ finding someone better than me in the future, and like I’ll have to learn not to think about him anymore.

My phone buzzes so much on the way to the airport that I shut it off, and I close my eyes too. I don’t want to see, hear, or feel anything for as long as I possibly can.

Rich managed to charter us a plane and he gets a phone call that I’m guessing is from my brother when we’re boarding. He answers and steps away but that doesn’t mean I don’t hear the desperate screaming coming from his phone.

Again, I do all I can to ignore it, and fake sleep until I actually fall asleep a little while after we level off in the air.

We have to stop somewhere in the midwest to refuel, but we land at the small airport outside Carmel-by-the-Sea in the early afternoon of a sunny, early October Saturday.

Not even one year and I’m already back at Cove, the rehab center I came to after my accident.

Adrian, my therapist from my time here, is waiting for us at the door when we get out of the car, and my feeling of failure intensifies at the look on his face.

Only kindness, no judgment or disapproval at all.

I guess someone called ahead that we were going to arrive. I really don’t have the energy to think about who.

“Just take me to the freezer,” I tell him as soon as I’m close enough. The freezer is what everyone who’s checked-in calls the psychiatric-looking room where they leave us to detox for a few days. I know for a fact it won’t feel as torturous as it did last time, since this time around I’m not detoxing from more than a decade of tolerance building.

“Did you go on a bender?” he asks conversationally, and casual as fuck.

“Just one night. Three bottles,” I confess.

“I’m surprised you survived,” he says drily.

“Rich saved me again. From my own vomit this time.”

“You should give him a raise. Or a bonus,” he jokes, and he does make me feel better.

“I should give him a retirement package and put him out of his misery,” I speak the truth.

“Good luck getting rid of me,” Rich says from behind me. I hadn’t realized he’d followed us in. “You’re gonna let me stay again, Doc?” he asks Adrian.

“Of course, we already got your room ready.”

“Awesome. I have some catching up to do with a few series this one”—he points his thumb at me—“won’t let me watch because he says he wants to wait until the last season is out. ”

“Your life is hard,” Adrian tells him, mock sympathy.

I snort and realize we’re at the freezer already.

“Here I go,” I mutter.

“Good luck,” Rich says with a way-too-happy smile on his face.

“Go fu—” I start but he slams the padded door in my face before I can finish.

Just as good, I guess.