Chapter 22
Waking up, I feel more rested than I’ve been in ages. When I open my eyes, the clock reads eight in the morning. I don’t know when the last time I slept this late was.
Will must have turned off my alarm.
The ache from last night is still there when I bend over to pick up my boxers from the floor. I head into the bathroom to do a quick version of my morning routine before I go to find Will. He’s probably downstairs, watching Netflix again.
His fascination with the TV makes me smile, but it dies quickly when I look at myself in the mirror.
My hair is a disaster, and my lips are swollen. It would be obvious to anyone that I was thoroughly fucked last night. But oh well. The kids aren’t home right now.
I go through the motions of my morning routine, brushing my teeth, washing my face. I wonder, briefly, when I reach for my razor, if Will would like me better without the mustache I’ve kept for years.
It started as a joke with Jess years ago. Wondering what I would look like with it. But I actually thought it made my face look better. But Will’s always made fun of me for it. Maybe he would prefer me clean-shaven.
I leave it for now so I don’t startle him with a new appearance the morning after we slept together for the first time. And I like it. The razor goes onto the shelf it belongs on, and all is well, until I reach for my daily blood pressure pill and—
There’s a gap.
The cabinet behind the mirror has become a catch-all for pills in this house. Somewhere Ollie can’t reach, just out of sight enough that we forget to clean it out.
But I know exactly what’s missing.
An orange bottle, prescribed to Jess after a minor procedure two years ago. She only took one after it made her sick. I’ve been meaning to get rid of them, but never got around to it.
And now, the bottle is gone.
The morning after Will spent the night in my bed.
I close the medicine cabinet as my cheeks heat up, looking away. I don’t want to see the face in the mirror. What he’s done to me. But I can’t escape the heartache as the reality of what he’s done comes crashing down.
I force myself to get dressed in my pajamas from last night, thrown across the floor, and I force down the nausea I feel creeping up my throat when I think about his intentions last night. He sat there and watched a movie with me, he kissed me like that, he fucked me—
All so he could steal from me?
The twinge in my ass from last night makes itself known going down the stairs, and I have to stop, clutching the railing as I breathe through a panic attack.
How could he do this to me?
I thought he cared about me.
I’m such an idiot.
I find him in the kitchen when I reach the bottom of the stairs, and it smells really good. He’s made breakfast. Bacon, eggs, toast, all laid out on the island with him standing behind it in his boxers. And yesterday, if I had seen this, I would have thought I’d walked straight into a dream.
Right now, I think I’m living a nightmare.
“Hey,” he says, gesturing toward the food. “I was gonna bring all this up to you. Breakfast in bed. That’s what boyfriends do, right?”
Boyfriends.
How stupid does he think I am?
“So go back upstairs, and I’ll be there in a second. I just need to—”
“Will.”
He keeps talking, about milk, but I can’t care about what he’s saying. I don’t even hear it.
“Will.”
Something about my voice must make him realize this is serious, as the softness drains from his face, morphing into concern. “What?”
Even after everything, I don’t want to say it. I don’t want to ruin things between us. Maybe it was fake to him, but last night was real to me. That version of him was real to me.
But as much as I wish I could, I can’t let him lie to me anymore.
“Where are the pills?”
He blinks, fake confusion flickering across his face. “What pills?”
“There was a prescription bottle in the medicine cabinet.” I keep my voice calm, steady, the one I use to tell patients bad news. “It belonged to Jess from a few years ago. Pain pills. They’re missing.”
“Why would I know what Jess did with her pills?” he says, his brow furrowing.
“The orange bottle. On the second shelf.” I watch his face, but nothing gives him away. “It’s gone.”
He looks confused, wondering why I would be asking him this. But I see the moment it clicks, when his eyes narrow and he realizes exactly what he’s being accused of.
The silence is deafening.
“I’m not angry, Will.” That’s not even a lie. Angry isn’t the word. I’m devastated. “But I need you to give them back before you do something you can’t take back.”
“Nolan.” His voice has gone flat, as his arms cross over his bare chest. “I didn’t take anything.”
“You were the only one who could have. The only one who had access to that room other than me.”
“So, maybe you lost them then.”
I want to believe him. But I didn’t touch them, and he was the only one who could have. And I know how Will is. I’ve been here before with him, believing what I wanted to believe.
‘He’s doing okay now.’
‘He seemed fine this visit, maybe he’s getting better.’
But he never is. It’s always a matter of time before he’s using again, and maybe I didn’t want to see it this time. Didn’t want to believe he would go back on all of his progress.
“It’s not too late to stop, Will,” I say, even though I know it’s useless. All of my efforts never amount to anything. “You’ve been clean for so long. I can help you. We can figure out—”
“I didn’t take them,” he says through clenched teeth, his arms dropping and his hands clenching into fists.
“Okay,” I say, taking a step back from him with my hands up, surrendering the fight before it begins. I can’t do that right now. “I think you should go.”
“What?”
“I think you should leave.” I hear my own words, but they sound like they should be coming from someone else. Someone from town who wants to hurt Will. Not me. “I can’t have you in the house, around the kids, if you’re using again. If you’re going to steal from me.”
He comes around the island, and I take another step back. “Are you serious?” He has an edge to him now that I haven’t seen since before.
“Will—”
“Fuck you.” He points at me, and his hand is shaking.
“I can’t believe this. I knew you would do this, you know that?
” He stops, looking at me with watery eyes that break my heart, even after what he’s done.
“But still— I give in to your shit about liking me, and now you’re standing there accusing me of stealing? ”
“They’re gone—”
“That doesn’t mean I took them!” He’s getting louder now, and I know he gets like this when he’s hurt, but he has no reason to be. He did this to himself. “After last night, you really think I would—”
“I think you’ve never made the decision to be clean.” He goes quiet, and I know it’s hard to hear, but it’s the truth. “You said it yourself. You got clean because you went to jail. You said you might as well go back—”
“Come on, you know I didn’t mean that, I was pissed off and—”
“It doesn’t matter if you meant it at the time.
You’ve spent the majority of your life chasing your next high, and it was unreasonable of me to expect you to stay clean.
I see that now. I shouldn’t have put my feelings on you, I should have been helping the way I said I would, and I’m sorry that I failed you. ”
“I didn’t do anything, Nolan,” he argues, a last-ditch effort to convince me of his lie, his voice stripped raw. “I got up early and came down here because I wanted to do something nice for you. You gotta believe me, man.”
As much as I want to believe him, to try to salvage whatever is left of our relationship after this conversation, I shake my head. “Go home, Will.”
He looks at me for a long time. Long enough that I almost say something else, but I don’t. I can see us breaking. Any feelings he might have actually had for me falling away, as the old hate sinks back in. The Will that shoved me at my daughter’s birthday party.
“Fine,” he says, grabbing his keys off the counter, not even bothering to put on more clothes.
“Will,” I call out when he opens the door. Because whatever this was to him, my feelings are real, and I still care about him. “If you need help, I can—”
“Go to hell, Nolan,” he growls, leaving before I can say anything else, slamming the door behind him.
Leaving me alone, standing in the kitchen full of food he made for me.
It’s all gone cold by now. The jam is open on the counter with the knife still in it, and if I hadn’t gone into my bathroom and discovered what he had done, I would be upstairs, enjoying it with him, and even though it’s better to know the truth—
I wish more than anything that I didn’t.