Chapter 4 #2
Finding her way back to a trap house in some Pennsylvania town I've never heard of.
She might already be dead, and I wouldn't even know.
The room starts to spin.
My chest tightens, each breath coming harder than the last.
I stagger back until my shoulders hit the wall, and then I'm sliding down, my legs giving out beneath me.
I can't do this.
I can't survive another loss.
Not after my parents.
Not after watching them burn while I carried Leah out of that house, her screams echoing in my ears, the heat of the flames searing my back.
I was nine years old when I learned that love comes with a price.
That protecting the people you care about means accepting that you can't protect them from everything.
That sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you lose them anyway.
I chose Leah that night.
I chose my baby sister over my parents, and I've lived with that choice every day since.
I can still feel the heat of the flames on my back.
Still hear my mother screaming my name from the second floor.
Still see my father's silhouette in the window, waving me away, telling me to run.
I was nine years old, and I had to choose between going back for my parents and getting my four-year-old sister to safety.
There wasn't time for both.
The smoke was too thick.
The fire was moving too fast.
And Leah was in my arms, coughing and crying, her little fingers digging into my neck so hard she left bruises that lasted for weeks.
So I ran.
I carried her out the front door and across the yard, and I didn't stop until we were on the sidewalk, surrounded by neighbors in their bathrobes, watching our childhood home collapse into flames.
I never saw my parents again.
That's why I became the SAA.
It's why I spend my life protecting others.
It's why I can't give up on Vanna, no matter how many times she gives up on herself.
Because if I give up on her, I'm giving up on the only thing that makes any of this worth it.
I'm admitting that I can't save the people I love.
That I'm still that nine-year-old boy, running away from the fire, carrying a weight too heavy for his shoulders.
The sobs come without warning.
Deep, guttural sounds that tear their way out of my chest like they've been trapped there for years.
Maybe they have.
Maybe I've been holding this in since I was a kid, since I watched my childhood home collapse into ashes and flames.
I cry for my parents—the mother who used to sing me to sleep, the father who taught me to ride a bike.
I cry for the years I've lost, the childhood that ended the moment I smelled smoke and knew I had to make an impossible choice.
I cry for Leah, who barely remembers our parents at all, who only has me and the scar on her forehead to remind her of what we survived.
And I cry for Vanna.
For the girl she used to be and the woman she's become.
For the addiction that's stolen so much from both of us.
For the terrifying possibility that I might lose her too, despite everything I've done to save her.
I don't know how long I sit there, slumped against the wall, my face wet with tears and my body shaking with sobs.
It could be minutes.
It could be hours.
Time doesn't mean anything when you're drowning.
Eventually, the tears run dry.
I'm left feeling hollow and raw, like someone's reached inside me and scraped out everything that used to fill the empty spaces.
But there's something else too. Something lighter.
Relief, maybe.
The relief of finally letting go of all the grief I've been carrying since I was nine years old.
I push myself to my feet, my legs unsteady, and catch a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror.
Red eyes. Wet cheeks.
The face of a man who's been broken open and doesn't know how to put himself back together.
But I'm still standing. That has to count for something.
Leah comes to the clubhouse on day twelve.
I see her truck pull into the parking lot from the garage window, and for a moment, I consider hiding.
Things have been tense between us since Vanna went to rehab.
Leah's never forgiven her for the jewelry—our mother's necklace, the only thing that survived the fire—and she's made it clear she thinks I'm a fool for not giving up on her.
But Leah is my sister.
The person I chose to save when I couldn't save everyone.
I can't hide from her, no matter how much I might want to.
She finds me in the garage, because of course she does.
Everyone knows to look for me here these days.
"You look terrible," she says, echoing Ruger's words from a week ago.
"So I've been told."
She moves into the space, her nurse's scrubs still on from her shift at Ruby Memorial.
There's a weariness in her eyes that I recognize—the weariness of someone who spends her days fighting battles she can't always win.
"Have you eaten today?" she asks.
"Aunt Ellie brought breakfast."
"That was twelve hours ago, Garrett."
I shrug.
Food hasn't been a priority.
Nothing has been a priority except surviving until the next minute, the next hour, the next day.
Leah sighs, pulling up the same stool Maddox used a week ago. "You can't keep doing this to yourself."
"Doing what?"
"Destroying yourself over her." The words are sharp, but I can hear the pain beneath them. "She's been gone less than two weeks and you're already falling apart. What happens if she relapses? What happens if she comes back and nothing's changed?"
"That's not going to happen."
"You don't know that." Leah leans forward, her eyes searching my face.
"You've said that before, Garrett. Every time.
'This time will be different.' 'She's really trying.
' 'I can't give up on her.' And every time, she ends up back in a trap house, and you end up back here, breaking down, and I have to watch my brother destroy himself for a woman who—"
"Don't." My voice comes out harder than I intend. "Don't finish that sentence, Leah."
"Why not? Because it's true?" She stands, pacing the length of the garage. "I love you, Garrett. You're the only family I have left. And I can't stand watching you pour everything you have into someone who keeps throwing it away."
"She's not throwing it away. She's sick. There's a difference."
"Is there?" Leah spins to face me, and I see the tears she's been holding back. "Because from where I'm standing, it looks the same. It looks like you giving and giving and giving, and her taking and taking and taking, and nothing ever changing."
I set down the wrench I've been holding, turning to face her fully. "You think I don't know how this looks? You think I don't hear what people say about me? 'Poor Bloodhound, still chasing after his junkie wife. Doesn't he know she's never gonna change?'"
"Garrett—"
"I hear it all, Leah. Every whisper. Every pitying look.
And you know what? I don't care. Because those people don't know what it's like to love someone who's fighting a war inside their own body.
They don't know what it's like to watch someone you love disappear, piece by piece, and still believe that the person you fell in love with is still in there somewhere. "
Leah's face crumples. "I know what it's like, Garrett. I lost her too. She was my friend before she was your wife. And then she stole from me—she took the only thing I had left of Mom—and I can't just forget that."
"I'm not asking you to forget. I'm asking you to understand that addiction is a disease, not a choice. She didn't choose to become this person. She didn't choose to hurt us."
"But she did hurt us. Choices or not, she did."
The words hit harder than I want to admit.
Because part of me—a small, tired, beaten-down part—wonders if she's right.
If I've been enabling Vanna instead of helping her.
If my love has been a crutch that's kept her from hitting the bottom she needed to hit.
But then I think about that motel room.
The look in Vanna's eyes when she said yes to rehab.
The way she kissed me goodbye, trembling but determined.
"She's different this time," I say quietly. "I know you don't believe me. I know I've said it before. But something changed in her, Leah. I saw it."
"And if you're wrong?"
"Then I'll deal with it. But I can't give up on her now. Not when she's finally fighting for herself."
Leah stares at me for a long moment, and I see the battle playing out behind her eyes.
The anger and the hurt and the love she can't quite suppress, no matter how hard she tries.
"I hope you're right," she finally says. "For your sake and hers. Because I don't think I can watch you go through this again."
She leaves without another word, and I'm left alone with the echo of her footsteps and the weight of her warning.
The phone rings on day fourteen.
I'm in my room, attempting to eat a sandwich that tastes like cardboard, when the screen lights up with an unfamiliar number. Pennsylvania area code.
My heart stops.
I answer before the second ring, my hands shaking so badly I almost drop the phone. "Hello?"
"Blood?"
Her voice.
God, her voice.
It's hoarse and weak, nothing like the woman I married, but it's hers.
It's undeniably, unmistakably hers.
"Vanna?" I'm on my feet without realizing it, my sandwich forgotten on the bed. "Baby, is that you?"
"Yeah." I hear her exhale, a shaky sound that might be a laugh or might be a sob. "It's me. I'm still here."
I'm still here.
Three words. That's all. But they're enough to bring me to my knees.
"God, Van." My voice breaks, and I don't even care. "I've been going out of my mind. Are you okay? Are they treating you right? Talk to me."
"I'm okay." She sounds exhausted, like even speaking takes more energy than she has. "It's been... hard. Really hard. But I'm getting through it."
"That's my girl." I'm smiling now, tears streaming down my face, and I don't bother wiping them away. "I knew you could do it. I knew you were strong enough."
"I don't feel strong, Blood. I feel like I've been run over by a truck. Multiple times."
I laugh—a real laugh, the first one in two weeks—and the sound surprises both of us. "You're doing something most people can't even imagine. That's the definition of strong, Van."
We talk for fifteen minutes.
She tells me about the facility, about the other residents, about the counselors who are helping her through the worst of it.
I tell her about the clubhouse, about the brothers checking on me, about the bike I've been working on to keep myself sane.
I don't tell her about the breakdown.
About the nights I've spent crying on my bedroom floor.
About the fear that's been eating me alive since the moment I drove away from that facility.
Some things she doesn't need to know. Not yet.
"I have to go," she says finally. "They're pretty strict about phone time."
"Okay." I don't want to hang up. I want to stay on the line forever, just listening to her breathe. Just knowing she's alive and fighting and still there. "I love you, Vanna. I'm so damn proud of you."
"I love you too." Her voice catches, and I hear her sniffle on the other end of the line. "Thank you for not giving up on me. I know I haven't made it easy."
"You never have to thank me for that. Loving you isn't something I do—it's something I am. It's the only thing I know how to be."
She's quiet for a moment, and when she speaks again, her voice is thick with tears. "I'll call you tomorrow, okay?"
"I'll be here. Waiting. Same as always."
The line goes dead, and I'm left standing in my room, the phone pressed against my chest, my heart beating for what feels like the first time in two weeks.
She's still here.
She's fighting.
And for the first time since I dropped her off, I allow myself to believe that she might actually make it.
That the woman I fell in love with—the one with the golden hair and the bright eyes and the laugh that could fill a room—might find her way back to me after all.
I sink down onto the edge of my bed, still clutching the phone, and let the relief wash over me.
It doesn't erase the fear.
Doesn't undo the two weeks of hell I've just survived.
But it's something to hold onto.
A lifeline in the darkness.
She's still fighting.
And as long as she's fighting, so am I.