Chapter 24
MILES
There’s this thing with ADHD where you can forget people.
People. Not some old can of beans at the back of a cupboard—actual human beings.
People you care about. People you love. And, if you don’t see or talk to them often enough for them to occupy your thoughts, they can just…
fall out of the sieve that is your brain.
It’s basically the most guilt-inducing version of out of sight, out of mind imaginable.
Of course, it’s not that you literally forget they exist. There’d be freedom in that.
This is worse. I’ll remember I haven’t talked to my cousin in a few years and should probably email him but, inevitably, the thought is so fleeting that it’s gone before I can do anything about it.
I’ll be hauling rebar or taking out the trash, and then…
distraction. Or, more likely, seventeen different distractions and… poof.
It’s awful. It’s humiliating.
And I’ve never wished harder for it to happen.
Everything reminds me of her. Fucking everything.
It’s not like she’d spent that much time at my place but, still, traces of her live in every room, squeezing the life out of me at each turn.
The couch she’d sat on in her stunning gold dress, the bed she’d slept in, curled against me…
Hell, even opening a drawer to find the hoodie I wrapped around her the night of the fundraiser takes me out.
It’s been like living with a ghost for the past two weeks.
My phone chirps beside me.
Gus
Gym time.
Me
No
Gus
Be there in 10.
Gus had let me off the hook all of twice before he started showing up at my apartment and muscling me out the door to go work out.
Increasingly concerned about my state of mind, he’d dragged me to the beach last week for a change of scenery.
The beach. In mid-November. It was fucking miserable and was not made any better by being surrounded by seashells that reminded me of…
Well, I hadn’t really told him that part.
When he’d caught me turning one over and sniffling to myself, I’d started to make up some excuse about Caroline loving the beach, then tearfully confessed the truth.
I didn’t get too far before he stopped me, looking horrified.
Pretty sure he was considering throwing me in the ocean. He probably should’ve.
Not that it would’ve helped.
Getting up to answer the buzzer feels like walking neck-deep in tar, every movement taking so much mental and physical energy that I collapse onto the nearest chair, sure I could fall into a coma.
“Get dressed,” Gus says when he comes in.
“I told you no,” I mumble into my hands.
“It’s for your own good. Come on.”
I groan and slump lower in my chair. “Fuck off.”
“I’ll fuck off when you don’t look like the guy in the ad before he takes the flu meds. Get the fuck up.”
I’ve tried everything in my toolbox. Water, diet, therapy, exercise. Hell, I was even desperate enough to try meditation once. Nearly threw my phone three minutes in. Imagine filling my body with shimmering, golden light? Been there, lost her, miserable. Thanks for the fucking reminder.
Somehow, Gus bullies me into gym clothes, his SUV, and, finally, into the gym itself. I wince under the fluorescent lights like a vampire thrust into sunlight, the prospect of lifting anything heavier than my head filling me with catatonic dread.
I’m an orphan and an addict. I’ve been through grief and withdrawal. This feels like both—compressed, folded, and compounded together in inextricable layers like butter in a croissant. Only instead of light and delicious, it’s dark and bitter.
It’s possible I haven’t eaten much today.
“Do I have to?”
“Yep.” Gus shoves me over to the bikes.
The bikes. Fuck.
I stiffen, the memory of Caroline on the bike stabbing me in the sternum. “Not bikes.”
He gives me a funny look. “Then get your ass on the treadmill.”
“You’re a dick.” I schlep onto the belt and Gus takes the one to my left. Some sloppy, half-baked part of my brain ponders the possibility that I could run away from this feeling.
“A dick who cares about his best friend. Now move.”
My chest threatens to cave in, but before I can start crying about what a good friend he is, he cranks up the speed on my machine and forces me into motion.
With legs that I’m sure are ninety percent sand, I clomp along, holding the side rails at first until I find my rhythm and can trust myself not to bite it.
“I hate this,” I puff out between breaths that stab my ribs.
“I know, buddy. I know.”
It’s dark in the grocery store parking lot. Using every available mental resource, I’d mustered up the fucks to buy a few easy meal things, but the prospect of driving home with the food is soul-crushing. I’ve fallen into the sit pit and can’t make myself start the truck just yet.
It’s been two weeks since election night.
Two weeks since I told Caroline I loved her—love her, present tense—and forced myself to walk away.
I’ve lost track of the number of texts I’ve almost sent, every one deleted when I remembered I’m the one who said I couldn’t do this.
It would be cruel to string her along by staying in touch, but the temptation to call her is goddamn relentless.
I’ve sat like a zombie through every AA meeting, only catching disconnected snippets of the readings and stories people share. Jude forced me to set up a daily check-in with Barry for extra accountability. Good idea, probably, but I hate needing that much hand-holding from my sponsor.
And I do.
I could really use a session with my therapist, too, but that ain’t happening. Lydia picked the worst time to go out of town.
Parked beside me, an exasperated mom loads her kids into a minivan, shouting at them to stop fighting. Her voice is muffled through the window, but I catch something about the noise.
My tired eyes slip from her weary face to the neon sign flickering above the liquor store next to Lennox Foods.
Stop fighting.
The noise.
Temptation is an opportunistic motherfucker and I’ve taken so much emotional damage that, at this point, I’m an easy target.
I don’t remember getting out of my truck, but my pulse pounds in my ears as I pull open the door to Riverside Liquor I’m not on her level.
My fingers clench around the bottle.
Don’t do it.
Images of her flash in my head.
Caroline stepping in front of me, shielding me from the drink in Pete’s hand. Caroline’s fierce, worried eyes when she insisted we leave. Caroline dragging me the fuck out of there.
Yeah, well, she’s not here to save me now.
The bottle shakes slightly in my grasp as I pour a measure into the glass, not bothering to cap the bottle when I set it down.
This is poison. For me, it’s poison.
I gently swirl the clear liquid, my vision losing focus.
Pour it out. Call Barry. Gus. Jude. Anyone. It’s not too late.
“Miles.”
Caroline’s tearful voice behind me.
Her sad eyes when I’d turned around.
“I love you.”
Then, through tears, I watch myself cave.