Chapter Thirty-Two #4
“God, I missed you so much,” he says as his lips find mine again. He pushes me to lie on the bed and moves on top of me. His mouth collides with mine as he rocks his hips into me, his hard cock making itself well known to me.
Suddenly, I feel cautious. Colt is high, and I don’t want our first time together tainted by drugs and alcohol. I pull back, shift my hands to his shoulders, and slightly push so he knows I want him to stop. He does and looks at me with a concerned frown.
“Colt, I’m sorry. I love you, but we need to talk. I need to know and understand that you know you have a problem and that you need to seek some help,” I say, looking into his eyes.
The spark I saw slowly fades.
He huffs and rolls off me to sit on the edge of the bed. “Dee, I’m fine now you’re back. As long as you stay with me, I’ll be fine,” he says unconvincingly.
I shake my head and frown. “Colt, I know you want to believe those words, but you have an addiction, and I have no idea how to help you. You need to come back to London and go to a clinic where we can get you some help. You’ve beaten this before, you can do it again.”
He exhales loudly and stands, rubbing the back of his neck. “You think I can’t handle it? You think I’m turning into my father? Well, you’re wrong! I’m fine. I don’t need to go to rehab. I can quit any time I like,” he states while pacing the room.
“Colt, I never said you were turning into your father.”
“No, but you’re thinking it. I can see it in your eyes. You think I’m a junkie. You think I’m crazy. Well, I’m not. I’m nothing like my father. Nothing!” he yells, which makes me jump slightly.
I stare at this man in front of me and wonder how it went from amazing to agonizing in a split second.
“Colt, please. Please come back to London with me. We can get you somewhere nice, and I’ll visit every day.
You can’t stay the way you are. I mean, look at you.
You’re fading away. I love you and hate to see you like this,” I reply while he continues pacing the floor.
“Yeah? Well, maybe I don’t think I need to change. Maybe I am fine just the way I am. Maybe I don’t need you to help me.” He walks over to the drawers and starts looking through them.
“Colt, what are you looking for?”
“None of your damn business,” he says as he throws things out of the drawer.
I stand and walk over to him and push.
He falls forward into the drawers. “What the fuck, Dee?” He glares at me.
I point in his face. “You think you don’t have a problem? You think you can give up anytime? Well, do you even realize that you’re looking for drugs as we speak? You’re trying to tell me you don’t need them, but all the time you’re saying it, you’re looking for them.” I throw my hands in the air.
“Well, maybe if you didn’t leave me, I wouldn’t need them,” he hisses, small amounts of spittle hitting my face.
Damn! Those words cut me deep, knocking the wind out of me.
“Colt, seriously? You’re going to blame your weakness on me and try to make me feel bad because of the way you’re acting?
Have you even taken a look at yourself lately?
You look terrible and are obviously concerned you’ll turn out like your dad because you brought it up.
Well, news flash, honey, your dad is dead!
And if you keep doing what you’re doing, then you will be too,” I blurt out as I walk away.
He grabs my wrist and pulls me in front of him. “How dare you talk to me like that. I’m only acting this way because of you, woman! You broke me, Dee. You. Broke. Me. You are the reason I can’t live, and you are the reason I started using again. You left me, Dee… not once, but twice.” He pauses.
“What the hell do you expect from me? I’m not a magician.
I can’t simply turn my feelings off, and right now, I’m feeling like you’re only here to make yourself feel better for making the invincible rock god, Colter Slade, into something everyone hates.
Well, news flash to you, honey, I like my life right now.
I don’t have to worry about you or your stupid father.
I don’t have to worry about being a perfect prince for you because, Dee, I’m not.
I’m not a prince. I’m the evil troll who lives under the damn bridge, who’ll corrupt and hurt you.
I’m not going to change, and why the fuck should I?
For you? Ha! You made me this way. You can bloody well watch the aftermath that you created,” he roars, letting go of me and walking over to the nightstand.
He opens the drawer and laughs as he pulls out a baggie of white powder, while I stand in stunned silence.
I fold my arms and look at him with utter contempt. “Colter Slade… I swear if you touch that stuff—”
“You’ll what? You’ll fucking leave? That’s what you do. It’s your M.O. You come in, make everyone love you, then you fly back out, taking our hearts with you and crushing them into tiny little fucking pieces,” he interrupts as he walks over to the coffee table and empties the baggie on its surface.
I scowl and can’t help but feel anger building inside of me. “Are you seriously going to snort that shit in front of me?”
He smiles and pulls out his wallet while I stand and watch. Then he takes a note and rolls it up, making a tube.
“I swear to God, Colt, if you snort that, we’re done… finished. There will be no coming back. Last chance! Please come back to London with me to get some help,” I plead.
“No can do, honey.” The contempt in his voice drips like poison, and the way he says honey feels like an invisible slap to the face. “No one can help me.” He leans down and snorts the cocaine through the rolled note.
I spin around because I don’t want him to see the hurt in my eyes.
This man before me is beyond my help.
I am not capable of dragging him out of the darkness when he refuses to see the light.
I am not capable of staying, not when loving him is destroying me.
“Mmm… that’s some good shit. You want some?” Colt asks with a chuckle, and instantly, I’m consumed with rage.
“Ahhh!” I scream, my fury ripping through me, too wild, too consuming to hold back. I spin around, my vision blurred with rage, grab an empty Jack bottle, and hurl it at him with everything I have.
He dodges—barely.
Glass shatters against the wall behind him, the sound ricocheting through the room like a gunshot.
Colt’s head snaps toward me, his entire body going rigid.
Then he moves.
Fast.
Before I can react, he surges forward, closing the distance between us in two long strides. His hands clamp around my wrists, yanking them up, pinning me against the wall.
My breath catches. Not from pain, but from the sheer force of him. From the look in his eyes.
Dark. Wild. Dangerous.
He inches closer, his face so near that I can feel his ragged breath, hot against my lips.
My pulse skitters, a war raging inside me—fear, anger, something else I don’t want to name.
“You ever do that again, and I’ll throw one back at you.” Colt’s voice is low, lethal, a quiet promise wrapped in venom. “But unlike you, I won’t miss.” He hisses the words through clenched teeth, his grip on my wrists unrelenting, his body wound tight like a predator ready to strike.
Who the hell is this man?
Because he sure as shit isn’t my Colt.
The Colt I know, the Colt I love, he would never threaten me.
A cold, sick feeling curls in my stomach, spreading like poison.
And in that instant, I know.
We’re done.
For good.
I shake my head, my throat tight, my body rebelling against every second he keeps me caged like this. “Let. Me. Go.” The words are sharp, spat like a dagger, but my voice shakes beneath the weight of what this moment means.
Colt looks at me, and for a split second—just a flicker, barely there—I think I see remorse in his eyes.
But it’s gone before I can be sure.
And it doesn’t matter.
Because it’s too late.
His fingers unclasp from my wrists, and without another word, he turns to walk away.
No. Not like this.
Not again.
“Colter Slade, if you walk out that door, we are done. Forever.” My voice wavers, but I force myself to stand tall, to not break. “I won’t come back. I won’t try to help you. Hell, I won’t even attend your funeral.” The words taste like poison, but I need him to hear them. To believe them.
I take a breath, steady my voice. “This time, it’s your choice. You either go to rehab, or I walk.”
Silence.
Then, a slow, humorless chuckle leaves his lips. Cold. Detached. Dead inside.
“I don’t need rehab,” he mutters. Then he lifts his head, staring me down with vacant, bloodshot eyes. “And I’ll make it easier on you, since you’re struggling to let me go.” He steps toward the door. “I’m walking.”
He doesn’t even hesitate.
I feel it before I hear it.
The pain. A billion red-hot knives stabbing me in the chest, over and over, deeper and deeper, until I swear I’m bleeding out right here in front of him. I clutch at my heart, as if physically holding it will stop it from shattering.
It doesn’t work.
Colt turns one last time, his expression blank, his movements eerily slow, detached, like he’s already left me in his mind. “There’s a reason I never told you I loved you, you know.”
My breath catches. No. No, don’t do this. “Why?” My voice barely makes it out, a plea I already regret. I don’t want to know.
I can’t know.
He exhales, rubbing his jaw like this is inconvenient. Then he meets my eyes with a cold, calculated finality. “Because… I never loved you.”
The words slice through me, sharper than any blade, crueler than any wound he’s ever inflicted. He holds my gaze for a second longer. A second too long.
Then—
“Goodbye, Deliah Norman.” And with that, he walks out.
Out the door.
Out of my life.
Leaving nothing behind but the sound of my world caving in.
The door closes, sealing the deathly silence around me.
So this is what dying on the inside really feels like.