Chapter 50 Rae
RAE
WESTGATE RECOVERY CENTER
PARKING LOT SECURITY CAMERA
INCIDENT FLAG: No action taken, per administrative override.
The sun comes up on Saturday and gives me a good look at myself.
I kinda wish it wouldn’t.
I’m kneeling in front of my full-length mirror, assessing the physical damage from last night’s slow-motion disaster. My bruised knees are whining at me, my lips look plump and bee-stung, and when I swallow, my throat replies with a hell no.
Wincing, I struggle to my feet and into the bathroom, where I splash cold water on my face and try not to think about the fact that Lukas Lazarev still has my underwear in his pocket somewhere.
What’s most bizarre, though, out of all the many bizarre twists and turns my life has taken in the last month, is how I feel.
There’s a surface-level sense of embarrassment.
It’s a bit left of shame and a bit south of My divine womanhood has been sinfully besmirched, though it’s got elements of both of those things.
From a purely objective point of view, I made very many bad choices last night.
I also let Lukas make a few other bad choices on my behalf.
But that’s just on the surface. A distraction, almost, from the real thing that’s caught fire beneath it.
Which is that I feel alive.
Again and again, that’s what I come back to. I’m bristling with life, chock-full of it. I’m basically levitating around my apartment as I shower and dress, make coffee and eat a yogurt and a protein bar. I’m skipping, giggling for no reason, singing under my freaking breath.
Yes, Jillian calls me her little Rae of Sunshine, and I’m generally a positive person by nature—but this is overboard even by my standards.
Where are the angry tears, huh? Where are the angsty diary entries? Um, hellooo—where are the police reports?!
All are missing. Because Lukas took something from me last night.
And I’m so grateful for it.
I’ve spent six years clenching my jaw. Last night, I opened it instead.
It. Felt. So. Good.
That’s what he gave me. Not an orgasm—he didn’t even let me touch myself, the bastard. What he gave me was release. Permission to stop thinking, stop planning, stop being in charge of every single detail of my miserable little existence.
He took over. All I had to do was kneel there and let him.
So maybe that’s why it doesn’t feel like I was degraded. It feels like the first deep breath I’ve taken since I was nineteen years old.
That being said, it was a lot to take in, emotionally speaking. I need something normal and above-board. Luckily for me, it’s Saturday, and I know just the thing.
I pick up Jillian at ten, and we point my decrepit Honda toward the Taconic Parkway.
The drive upstate is exactly what the doctor ordered.
Two hours of rolling hills and snow-filled valleys, with Jillian controlling the aux and keeping up a running commentary on everything from the deplorable state of New York’s potholes to the suspicious number of deer crossing signs we pass.
“I’m just saying, if there are that many deer, maybe we should be worried,” she says, squinting dubiously at another yellow sign as she slurps at the straw of her iced coffee.
“Think they’re plotting something?” I tease. “Rebellion?”
“Don’t mock,” she warns solemnly. “You’ll be the first one against the wall when the deer uprising comes.”
I giggle, and Jillian gives me a warm look. “There she is,” she says with approval. “I was starting to worry my bubbly best friend had been body-snatched.”
“I’m just tired,” I promise. “Late night at work.”
“Did he do something new?” she asks.
“No, no, no. I was just stuck on a… a hard project.”
Euphemism of the year alert.
I swallow and look away so she doesn’t see my burning face. “Nothing untoward.”
“Mhmm.” She doesn’t push, which I appreciate. Jillian has a sixth sense for when I need space and when I need interrogation. Right now, she’s giving me the former.
I flip the subject before she can dig any deeper. “Speaking of distant and distracted,” I say, glancing over at her, “you’ve been kind of out of it lately.”
Jillian’s fingers tighten around her iced coffee. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that you, Miss I Never Set My Phone Down For Longer Than I Can Help It, have been taking for-freaking-ever to respond to my texts this week. And now, this morning, you keep looking at your phone like you think you’re gonna get news you won the lottery.”
She sighs, long and heavy, and slumps back against the passenger seat. “Work stuff,” she says simply and evasively.
“Still can’t talk about it, I’m guessing?”
“No.” She shakes her head. “I still can’t talk about it. Soon, but not yet. It’s sensitive. And honestly, the less you know right now, the better.”
I have approximately ten thousand nosy follow-up questions I’d like to ask. But before I can get started, the treatment center makes its appearance through a break in the bare trees.
Westgate in winter is just as beautiful as it was before all the leaves fell. There’s a calming simplicity to it. Snow on the pond, ice on the tree boughs, a big, gray sky swaddling everything. I park in the visitor lot and kill the engine.
Gideon is overjoyed to see us when we go inside. As soon as he sees us, he darts over and wraps me up in a bear hug that lifts me clean off the ground.
“Okay, okay! Put me down before you break something,” I wheeze.
He sets me back on my feet but doesn’t let go right away. When he finally steps back, I get my first good look at him in two weeks.
He’s gained even more weight. His cheekbones don’t look like they’re trying to escape his face anymore. His eyes are clear. There’s color in his cheeks.
He looks healthy.
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the family Jewels!” Gideon engulfs Jillian in a hug next. She pretends to grumble about how much she hates that nickname, even as she hugs him. “You finally dragged yourself away from whatever thrilling exposé you’re working on?”
“For you, yes,” Jillian says as she ruffles his hair like he’s still a little kid. “Couldn’t miss seeing my favorite Everett sibling.”
“Hey!” I protest.
Gideon grins. I love seeing that on him—it makes him look like the kid brother I remember from before the accident, the one who used to steal my Halloween candy and blame it on the dog we didn’t have.
We settle into the visiting room, which has been decorated for the approaching holidays with paper snowflakes, a happily decorated tree in the corner, and a slightly crooked menorah on the mantel. Gideon tells us about his week. We get lost in happy chit-chat for a while.
Until he suddenly pauses and gets serious. “I’ve been thinking,” he mumbles, fidgeting and looking everywhere but at me, “about what comes next. After I get out of here, I mean.”
My heart stutters. In six years, he’s never talked about after. It’s always been about getting through today, surviving this hour, making it to the next therapy session or whatever. The future was this abstract, daunting thing that neither of us dared to name.
“Yeah?” I manage.
“There’s this community college near Albany.
They have a culinary program.” He shrugs, trying to look casual, but I can see that resilient hope of his burning underneath.
“I was always pretty good at cooking, before… you know. Before everything. And I liked it. I thought maybe I could look into that.”
Jillian reaches over and squeezes his hand. “Gid, that’s amazing!”
“It’s just an idea,” he demurs quickly. “I haven’t applied or anything. And I’d need to figure out the money stuff—”
“We’ll figure it out,” I interrupt. “Whatever you need. We’ll make it work.”
He looks at me then, and I see our father’s chin and our mother’s smile glowing on this broken, healing boy. “You’ve already done so much, Rae. I don’t want you to—”
“Gideon.” I reach across and grab his other hand, so the three of us form a little chain. “You’re my baby brother. There’s not a thing on this planet I wouldn’t do for you. You know that.”
His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “I know,” he says. “It’s just that you’ve done so much for me already, even when I didn’t deserve it, and I… I just… I want to make you proud, Rae. Eventually. I want to be someone you don’t have to worry about anymore.”
The tears I’ve been fighting finally win. One escapes down my cheek, then another.
“You do make me proud,” I tell him with a stern look so he knows I mean it. “Every single day you fight this thing, you make me proud.”
We hang out for a while longer, until the time comes for us to leave if we want to make it back to the city before dark. Jillian excuses herself to use the bathroom, and I take the opportunity to stop by the administrative office.
The woman behind the desk, Jessica, greets me with a smile. “Ms. Everett! Here for payment?”
“That’s right.” I pull my checkbook from my bag and fill it out.
It’s easier than it was the first few times around.
No more shaky hands. They used to make writing almost impossible, back when Gideon first got admitted and I had to do math on the back of napkins to figure out if I could afford both his treatment and my rent in the same month.
The raise helps. Lukas’s raise.
I try not to think about that as I sign my name and tear the check free.
Jessica takes it with another smile and files it away. “Same time next week?”
“Same time next week,” I confirm, and head back to find Jillian.
The parking lot is quiet when we step outside. Just the crunch of gravel under our boots and the distant call of some bird that didn’t get the memo about flying south for the winter.
Then I see a strangely familiar face. I do a double-take, but there’s no mistaking it:
Kir Lazarev is here.
Kir is leaning against a blacked-out sedan, scrolling through his phone like he has all the time in the world. When he spots us, his face breaks into an easy, charming smile.
“Rae! Well, would you look at that? Small world.”
Every muscle in my body goes stiff. What the hell is he doing here?
Beside me, Jillian tenses. I can feel it without even looking at her. “Is this bad?” she mutters out of the side of her mouth.
As he approaches us, Kir’s gaze slides to Jillian. It lingers there a beat too long, sweeping over her red hair, her freckles, the stubborn set of her jaw. Something cold slithers behind his smile. I don’t like the look of it one bit.
“Kir,” I say, too quickly. “What are you doing here?”
He pockets his phone, eyes still fixed on Jillian. “Visiting a friend.”
There’s no friend. I know it instantly, the way you can always tell when someone’s lying to your face and not even trying hard to hide it. He’s here for a reason… and, as he proves with his next question, that reason has nothing to do with me.
“Jillian Pierce, right?” Kir extends his hand to shake. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
Jillian doesn’t take it. “Who are you?” she asks bluntly.
His smile sharpens. “Kir Lazarev. Rae’s boss. Well—” He tilts his head and grins with fake sheepishness. “One of them, anyway.”
He pockets his hand and we all stand there awkwardly for a minute. I don’t know where to look, but Jillian and Kir are glaring daggers at each other. It’s hate at first sight.
“We should get going,” I interject. “Long drive back.”
“Of course.” Kir steps aside and gestures magnanimously toward my beat-up Honda like he’s a valet at the Ritz. “Drive safe, ladies.” He holds Jillian’s gaze. “Highly dangerous roads out here.”
Then he’s sliding into his car, and the engine is purring to life, and he’s driving away through the barren trees like he was never here at all.
Jillian’s exhale fogs in the cold air. “What the fuck was that?”
I don’t answer. I’m too busy trying to figure out which Lazarev I’m supposed to be afraid of now.