Chapter 30
THIRTY
I don’t want to move, let alone answer the phone. But it won’t stop ringing, so I pry myself off the couch—well, at least to sit up—and grab my phone off the coffee table. I don’t recognize the number, but I’m not in the habit of ignoring calls, just in case someone needs me.
“Hello?” I answer cautiously, hoping no one needs me to get off this couch. I went to work today, just like every day for the last four days since I broke up with Kellan—breaking his heart and mine in the process. But as soon as my shift ends, I’ve been here, wasting away on the couch.
I don’t have any motivation to do anything else. I just keep picturing that day in my head over and over. The way Cason looked at us—so hurt and betrayed—because we kept such a big secret from him. The way Kellan looked at me and pleaded with me not to leave him. My chest aches, and I absently rub over it, seeing his face over and over again.
“Social worker? You there?”
Tatum. I sit up a little straighter. “What’s wrong? Are the kids okay?” Is Kellan okay?
“The kids are fine.” I grimace because... Kellan. He didn’t mention Kellan yet.
“Kellan?”
There’s way too long of a pause, and I’m already up and grabbing my keys. “He’s okay.” I don’t believe him, and he huffs out a laugh. “Okay, so he’s physically fine. But I heard what happened, and he’s not doing well. He’s hurting.”
I swallow hard, clutching my keys to my chest, my eyes slowly falling closed as I let the pain wash over me. I keep telling myself we’ll both be okay. But we were in so deep. It wasn’t fake—the feelings we felt. But I needed to make myself believe he’d bounce right back. “It’s only been a few days...” I try, opening my eyes and breathing deep.
“Yeah, four days of hell. I’m worried. Worried enough to call you.”
“I don’t know what I can do, Tatum. I can’t...” My throat is too dry to go on. I think about the agony Kellan must be in for Tatum to notice enough to call me.
“You can. Look, he needs a meeting. And he needs someone to make sure he goes. So you can either come and stay with the kids or you can take him, but you’re going to help him.”
Because I broke him.
He doesn’t say the words, but I can hear his bitter anger. “I’ll take him,” I agree, though I know I’m not strong enough to see him in person right now. I said I can’t let him lose the kids. Breaking up with him cannot be in vain. He can’t relapse because of me.
He needs a meeting.
I hang up with Tatum and drive straight to Kellan’s house, waiting in the car when I see Kellan and Tatum waiting out on the porch. I see Tatum placing both hands on Kellan’s shoulders and saying something to him, his gaze intense, before Kellan nods his head and then slowly makes his way to my car.
He looks as beautiful as always—but he looks tired and worn out—broken down. “Hi,” I say softly when he climbs into my car and buckles his seatbelt.
“You didn’t have to come. I know how to get to a meeting.”
I don’t argue with him, starting my way toward the address Tatum sent me in a text after we hung up. “Tatum is worried about you.”
He just grunts, not really saying anything, and I don’t push. Mostly because I feel like I lost that right. But when I park my car in front of what appears to be a church, he doesn’t move.
I can’t stay quiet. “What happened?” His head jerks in my direction, his eyes cold. And I mentally flinch, hating what he’s thinking because I know he wants to tear into me. I happened. I hurt him. I left him. “I mean today. What happened to make Tatum so worried?” I clarify.
“I burned dinner,” he says quietly, his whole demeanor shifting, like he was the day I first met him. When he appeared numb and angry. Not the man I’ve gotten to know over the past months.
“That’s... happened before,” I say, not trying to be funny, though it would have been a week ago. We’d be laughing now...
“Cason told Rae what happened...” His voice is strained, and I can see the pain in his eyes. That’s not good at all. “He didn’t tell anyone else. He doesn’t know Tatum knows about us, so you don’t have to worry about that.”
I actually wasn’t. But I know how angry Cason is. I’m surprised he didn’t tell everyone—but part of me is afraid he’s waiting to make the most dramatic statement. To hurt Kellan the most because he’s hurting. “What happened when Raegan found out?”
I can pretty much tell, just by the look on his face. Wounded. “They won’t talk to me. Raegan and Cason—they hate me. Rae laid into me pretty good. Said I’m just like our mother—choosing to get laid instead of anything actually important.”
Ouch. I know that had to hurt him, and I want to scream that it wasn’t just getting laid. But of course, that’s probably how it appears to them.
“So they aren’t talking to me. Tatum is worried out of his mind that I’m going to use. The younger kids don’t know what’s going on, but they’re smart enough to know something is happening. And I can’t talk to you.”
That hits me right in the heart, and it takes everything in me to try not to show it. He doesn’t need me to feel sorry for myself right now.
“Tatum overreacted though. I’m not going to use. I know I’ll always be an addict, but I’m not lying when I say I haven’t thought about using. The kids are my priority. I’m not going to mess it up, not for anything as stupid as getting high.”
“Have you been going to meetings though?”
He looks slightly guilty now. “I haven’t been in a month or two.”
I gape at him in shock. I go back over the last few meetings and realize I haven’t asked him. It’s not an actual requirement for him to go, and I didn’t want to harp on it, so I haven’t asked. But I thought he was still going to meetings.
Did he stop because of me?
I’m internally panicking as he continues to talk.
“Meetings are a tool. They aren’t court-mandated for me. They’re there for me when I feel out of sorts or feel like I’m on the verge of using. I don’t need to go all the time, so I don’t.”
I try to relax, breathing in and out slowly. He’s not Pete. He’s not Pete.
“What’s going on?” he asks me carefully, and I realize I’ve closed my eyes while breathing deeply, trying to meditate and not panic—as I panic.
Kellan is not Pete.
He’s right. It wasn’t court-mandated for him to go to meetings or rehab. He didn’t break any laws that led to him having to do that. Kellan is different...
I slowly meet his eyes and see how terrified he looks. “I’ll be here when you get out of your meeting.”
He’s studying me carefully now, still worried. But I think he’s fighting with himself about actually expressing it. Because he probably feels like he doesn’t have that right either.
Because we broke up. Because I’m a goddamn coward.
“You don’t have to wait for me. I know how to get a ride.”
I shake my head and grip the steering wheel with my hands. “No. I’ll be here when you get out.”
He looks like he wants to argue with me, but he just nods his head and then climbs out of my car. I watch him disappear down the stairs outside the building that go down into a basement, and I try like hell to fight with my brain to let Pete go.
But I think, deep down, I know I can’t. I owe Kellan the whole story, so maybe he can walk away with a little more peace.
So he can let me go and do what he needs to do for him and his family—and leave me far behind because I’m nothing but bad luck and terrible decisions.