Chapter 45 #2
I remembered the truth now. I couldn’t have it all. I had to be grateful for my small slice. It needed to be enough.
Because I deserved nothing more after everything I’d done.
Chatting with Will at the diner, I rolled my tense neck and rubbed my bloodshot eyes.
I hadn’t slept well since I lost Nova, but it had gotten even worse the past week.
The nagging feeling hadn’t relented, and no matter how much I dug through my memories and tried to connect the dots between the tarot reading and what had happened in The Circle, nothing was making sense.
I knew Roman was up to something—something even bigger and more sinister than our one-sided feud.
He wasn’t the only ultra-wealthy psychopath at those parties, after all.
But I didn’t know how to put an end to any of it without endangering Nova.
Or endangering myself—my sobriety—by becoming consumed by my resentments again.
“A world without redemption is a dangerous place, Wes,” Will said. He crossed his arms and leaned back in the booth, considering me in that unnerving, wise way he did.
“What do you think your mother would say about all of this?”
I put down my coffee. “Don’t,” I warned. I stared out the window, weighed down by my exhaustion and still strung out from Nova withdrawals.
God, I fucking missed her so badly, it physically hurt.
“Why not, Wes?”
Will knew how to push me the way I needed to be pushed, even if I fought him the whole damn time.
“Because I can’t stand the idea that she saw me hurt myself and others for over a decade after she passed.
That she saw me consumed by my own hatred.
” I shook my head. “Not after everything I watched her go through. With my dad. With cancer. I said I was getting revenge for her, but it was only for me. I dishonored her, and I still can’t forgive myself for that. ”
I’d been having nightmares of mazes and predators cloaked in dark fabric and golden masks. Nightmares in which I could stop something from happening, if only I just remembered.
But perhaps because alcohol had damaged my amygdala, my past remained a blurry labyrinth I couldn’t escape.
“I don’t think that’s why,” Will said boldly. “That’s a useful framing to justify your addiction to self-punishment.”
I slowly met his dark eyes.
He leaned forward. “You don’t want to ask what your mother would think because you know she would forgive you for all of it in a heartbeat.”
My eyes and throat burned, my fingers tapping rapidly on my knee under the table. An ugly, frightening feeling arose, one I didn’t want to face.
Repenting and denying myself was comfortable. It protected me from ever experiencing the pain of my mom or Kallie’s deaths ever again.
“What if your stories were swapped? Yours and Nova’s? What if she was the addict, five years sober, who believed as strongly as you do that she wasn’t deserving of absolution?”
I came to this damn diner to talk about service opportunities and the Big Book and how to give as much of myself as possible to AA and my community, not to have this same conversation again.
But Will wasn’t going to let up. It was why I’d chosen him to be my sponsor in the first place. I was too stubborn to be helped by anyone I could easily out-maneuver.
“What if, Wes?” he asked, leaning over the table. “What would you say to her?”
I gave in. I imagined it. Nova as the addict, Nova as the one who let someone down and spent years repenting for a crime she didn’t commit. Imagining her feeling the way I felt about myself was too much to bear. I blinked out of the mental exercise, loathing my next words as they left my lips.
“I would tell her she’d suffered enough,” I said, nearly inaudible.
“I would tell her the self-hatred wouldn’t bring them back, that it wouldn’t protect her from future grief or pain.
But it would keep her from the love she deserved.
” I shook my head slowly. “And that would be such a fucking waste.”
Imagining Nova going her whole life without allowing herself love broke my heart. It reminded me of what Roman had said about every sub falling in love with their first Dom. I remembered the way Nova’s cheeks had flushed, how she couldn’t look at me the rest of the night.
I’d taken something that had never belonged to me. But she would find love again. I was certain of it. Even if the thought of her with someone else drove me insane.
“What would happen if you finally let it go, Wes?” Will asked.
It felt like I was holding this resolve so tightly, my knuckles would eventually splinter and crack.
“Because I think if you let it go, the world would keep on spinning,” he said with a warm, half-smile.
It was December first. Greenpoint’s streets were decorated with holiday lights.
Staring out the diner’s windows as I meditated on Will’s words, I watched as couples walked arm in arm on the way to dinner.
Some of them were fighting, tense and silent, while others leaned in close with broad smiles or shook off first date awkwardness.
“I don’t really think you want to live in a world without redemption either,” Will continued, looking out the window with me. “None of us do.”
After another night of restless sleep ruled by racing thoughts and nightmares, I awoke with a start.
I’d been ruminating on the last memory I had of me and Kallie, working on our plans for the Gothic church kink club. When I was awake, the memory had been constructed so clearly: we were sitting on my couch in Chelsea, drinking and blasting music, drawing up our plans.
But in my dreams, we weren’t at my place. My notebooks hadn’t been left scattered on my coffee table when we inevitably abandoned them to retreat to my bedroom.
No. We’d been in Kallie’s apartment. I’d retrieved the notebooks from my bag of kink gear, along with my first copy of The Story of O I’d picked up at McNally Jackson—the copy I’d also misplaced, or thought I had misplaced.
And I knew we’d been at her place with the notebooks because the rest of the memories finally made sense too—the ones I did everything in my power not to think about.
We’d been brainstorming the week before the party I’d drunkenly slept through, after which Kallie was followed back to her apartment and assaulted.
I remembered in one of her voicemails, she’d complained about carrying around all of my shit. The bag of kink gear and books I’d left at her place.
I got out of bed and started pacing. My heart raced. I rushed into my office to grab my phone and discovered I had a text.
Hudson
She’s going to the party tomorrow. I thought you should know.
Tomorrow was now today, but it was seven a.m. I knew enough about Nova to know there was no way she’d be awake this early.
I started typing a message, breaking my vow to never contact her again, when the phone died. “Fuck.”
I scrambled for a charger.
The man who assaulted Kallie had been a stranger, but strangers could be paid. Paid to hurt people. Paid to steal.
I was trembling with a wrath so strong, it rattled my bones. I knew Roman was dangerous. I knew he was capable of thriving in the same cutthroat environment as my father.
But this? Paying someone to rape my girlfriend?
What else had he done? How else could he have manufactured the rock bottom that led me to leave his world for good?
And why the fuck hadn’t that been the end?
He’d gotten exactly what he’d wanted. He’d destroyed me.
He’d claimed an innocent life as collateral with no mercy or remorse.
Did he want me to know what he’d done? Was he getting off on all of this?
I’d had thoughts of violence before, fleeting fantasies of serving justice to those who I believed deserved it. But in this moment, my visions didn’t feel fleeting. I was certain that when I next saw Roman Graves, I was going to kill him.
The phone turned on after another ten minutes of me growing blind with rage.
Before I could text Nova and demand she call me as soon as she woke up, another text flashed on my screen.
Ruby
Someone broke into Third House last night and bashed everything.
The windows. Every piece of art. Our altars.
All our plates and mugs and fuck, Wes. All of it.
They destroyed everything we’ve created together the past four years.
I called the police, but you know they won’t do shit. We’re all in shock.
My heart shattered. Everything in Third House had been handmade and curated with care. Thousands of hours of labor, blood, sweat, and tears. It had all been destroyed because of me.
No.
Because of Roman.
I got dressed, pocketed my phone, made sure my security system was fully functional, and left for Third House. After I checked on my friends, I would go straight to Nova’s place.
The shock of this horrifying realization had finally broken through the cage I’d built from my own guilt and denial. My resolve had been slowly chipped away by Will, by my friends, by my higher power.
The morning sun was illuminating, revealing.
The moment my grip loosened completely, and my lungs let go of a long exhale, cold regret and desperation washed over me.
I’d fucked up.
I’d let Nova slip through my fingers.
I needed to fix what I’d broken. I needed to fight for us.
The moment I saw her, I was going to tell her I loved her. I was so in love with her, living without her had been excruciating, and I didn’t want to harm myself anymore.
I chose her. I would always choose her, and I would beg for her grace on my damn knees if that was what it took.
I pulled up Hudson’s contact as I walked quickly down my street. I typed a message to make sure Nova stayed inside, that I’d be arriving to their apartment in an hour. I couldn’t take the chance she’d blocked me.
Before I could hit send, my world went dark.