Chapter 37
THIRTY-SEVEN
my home, my safe place, my love
Arthur
She didn’t say anything. A single tear rolled down her cheek, and she closed her eyes, eventually falling back asleep as the grogginess of the meds took her under again. But she didn’t say anything after I told her about being an addict, about where I was when she needed me.
I stood, frozen next to the chair I’d become very well-acquainted with, watching her chest rise and fall with every careful breath. The silence felt like a black hole, like it could swallow everything.
My confession hung in the air like smoke. Three years clean, Narcotics Anonymous, the shame I’ve carried—all of it now between us.
Alice’s tears replayed in my mind on a loop. Were they disappointment? Relief? Hurt that I’d hidden this from her?
I couldn’t know, yet I stayed, studying her sleeping face for clues that weren’t there.
This has been the worst part. Not the confession itself, but this liminal space where I don’t know if I’ve just lost everything or if we’re about to start over with honesty surrounding us.
I wanted to wake her up, demand an answer.
I wanted to run. Instead, I sat vigil, watching over the woman who now knows my worst truth.
It’s been three days since the car accident, and today is supposed to be when they stop her morphine and start her on oral opioids. Just thinking about it makes my skin crawl and my stomach turn.
On top of the weight of how things were left yesterday, there’s this crushing realization that I need to be her strength.
I’m going to help her manage pain medication schedules, support her through recovery, and be the steady presence she needs.
But I can feel my own foundation starting to shake.
I haven’t called Beau yet today. Every instinct in my recovery toolkit is screaming at me to remove myself from a situation saturated with the very substances that nearly killed me.
But I can’t leave her. Won’t leave her. So instead I’m supposed to somehow compartmentalize watching the woman I love take pills that look exactly like the ones I used to crush and snort, supposed to hand her medication and not think about how easy it would be to palm a few for myself.
I’m supposed to be her rock while standing on quicksand.
The irony isn’t lost on me that loving Alice might be the thing that threatens my sobriety, and losing my sobriety would mean losing her anyway. I’m caught in a trap where helping her heal could destroy the person she has fallen in love with. Hopefully has fallen in love with.
I’ve been pacing in front of her room for ten minutes, and the nurses are giving me strange looks. I didn’t get here as early as I wanted to—as early as I should have. I don’t even know if she wants to see me.
Dr. Marishka comes around the corner and I nearly bump into her. “Arthur, hi.” She smiles, and I can’t return one with my thoughts waging war inside my brain. “Alice will be happy to see you.” That gets my attention.
“She’s awake?” Fuck. That means she’ll probably be asleep again soon. I should have been in there.
Dr. Marishka clearly senses my anxiety as she steps closer.
“She’ll be awake for a little while now.
We’ve stopped the morphine as of this morning.
” I rub a hand down my face as she continues, “Alice has declined our standard pain-management protocol in favor of non-opioid alternatives. It’s going to be more challenging for her recovery, but she was very clear about her decision. ”
I pull in a sharp breath.
What is she talking about?
My shock must be written all over my face because the doctor’s expression softens. “Why don’t you go on in and talk to her?”
“Yeah. Thank you.”
As she walks away, I take three deep breaths before knocking gently on Alice’s door. Her raspy “Come in,” reaches my ears, and I push the door open to see her sitting up. She has color returning to her cheeks, but her eyes are sad and distant until I walk into her line of sight and she looks at me.
My gorgeous girl with her golden eyes is looking at me, not with the pity or disdain I have been expecting and rightfully deserve, but with the same warmth she’s gifted me with since the very first moment we locked eyes.
“Hi,” she whispers. “You came back.” The surprise in her tone breaks my heart.
Did she really think I wouldn’t?
What does it say about me that she’d think that? No, what does it say about the people who should have been there for her before?
“I only leave this hospital because they make me, tesouro, or I’d never leave you.” Stepping closer to the bed, I tentatively reach for her hand, and she lets me take it. The relief that washes over me is instant.
“Your family came, too.” She looks around at the flowers and cards in the room. She pauses on the stuffed pickle Cece insisted on giving her.
“They did. Beau and Josie, too. Elaina, Charlie, Maeve. Everyone from the ranch.” Even the nurse from her grandmother’s facility asked about her when I went there yesterday to pick up her belongings. I don’t think she realizes how much the people who know her care about her.
“Wow,” she whispers as her eyes fill with tears. “I—I didn’t mean to worry so many people.” Her voice cracks, and so does my heart. She thinks she’s such a burden, when the reality couldn’t be further from the truth.
“They came because they care about you, Alice.”
She shakes her head, blinking back her tears. She might not believe my words, but the proof of them is all over this room.
“I want to tell you everything. About my past, about my recovery.” I swallow the giant lump in my throat, knowing this could be the beginning of the end for us.
“No, Arthur. You don’t have to, I—”
“I want to. I need to. I need you to know this part of me.” And I do. I need her to know all the parts of me so she can decide for certain if this, me, is what she really wants.
With a nod, she looks down at our joined hands, squeezing a little tighter.
“I didn’t go to college right after high school.
I stayed at home to help my parents until my dad begged me to get a degree so I could take over Machado Grove.
I was studying business management. I’d moved nearly three hours away to go to one of the best schools that focused on agricultural studies.
I knew it wasn’t what I wanted, but he did.
He wanted it so badly.” I pause as the details of a story I haven’t thought about for a long time come back to me.
“My dad started working at that grove when he moved here from Brazil as a seasonal worker. He went back for three years before he got hired on full-time. He worked his way up, learned the business inside and out and lived on the property with my mom. They got married there. That little house is where I spent my first few years, before we moved to the main house when the previous owner decided to retire and sell the grove to my parents. They’d been saving for ages, and it still took my dad nearly twenty years to pay it all off.
I’d been told since I was a little kid that one day, the grove would be mine.
I thought I could learn to like it, but when I was at school, it was so hard.
I hated it. I was older than everyone else, and I felt like such a loser.
I was stressed out all the time, feeling this pressure to do something expected of me for so long.
It felt like it was too late to tell them I didn’t want to do it. ”
I blow out a heavy breath, and Alice’s grip on my hand tightens, her thumb drawing soothing circles on my skin.
“People partied hard at school. Everyone felt a lot of pressure to do well, and most of my classmates came from families who had owned farms for multiple generations. I always said no to drugs because I thought doing shit like cocaine seemed too dangerous. Then one night in my third year there, I was offered a pill. They said it was a prescription medication, so it was safe, just to take the edge off. And it did. Suddenly, everything felt manageable. I started taking them before tests, phone calls with my parents, anything that caused stress. It helped so much. I didn’t feel high, I felt like I could actually do all the shit that felt so hard before.
But then my tolerance built up, and I needed more. ”
I lower my eyes to our hands, still connected. I can’t stand to watch the disappointment that I’m sure is about to be on Alice’s face. I’m too much of a coward to witness it.
“Six months in, I was starting to miss morning classes because the withdrawal symptoms were so brutal. I couldn’t remember things as easily.
My grades dropped from B’s to C’s to D’s.
I was on academic probation. I spent the money for textbooks and rent on more pills.
Eventually, I spent tuition money, too, until I was kicked out.
That’s when my family found out what was happening.
“My parents paid to send me to a rehab not too far away. It was a reputable facility. Expensive. Between my debts and rehab, I nearly bankrupted them. They could have chosen one further away, but they wanted to be close enough to support me. That was what they did. They loved and supported me, and I was such an ungrateful piece of shit. I didn’t stop using after rehab.
It wasn’t as bad, and I kept it hidden, so I pushed my family away.
It was my lowest low. I didn’t have my family, didn’t have friends, and I hated myself.
That’s when Raf introduced me to Owen. Eventually, I met Beau and started going to meetings.
I was just starting to consider making amends with my parents when my dad told me he wanted nothing to do with me.
I thought they’d all be better off with as little contact as possible from me, so I focused on the ranch and my recovery, and here we are.
Now you know everything. Now you have every reason to hate me, to be disgusted by me, because this is who I am and I chose to keep it from you.
” I haven’t wanted to cry until this very moment, when the realization that my actions are about to push the woman I love away hits me.
This might be the last time I see her, so I let my gaze meet hers, finding those golden eyes shining with tears.
“I could never feel those things about you, Arthur. I won’t.
Ever. How could I? You’re the strongest person I know.
The kindest, bravest, best person I’ve ever known.
” Her grip loosens, but only so she can wrap her fingers around my wrist to pull me closer to her.
“I’m sorry I didn’t let you tell me all of this sooner.
I’m sorry I made you feel like you couldn’t.
” I open my mouth to deny it, but she tips her head to the side, shaking it.
“I did. I was so caught up feeling like my life would be too much for you, like my burden would be too much for you to carry, that I didn’t give you the chance to share your own.
I didn’t trust that when I fell, you’d be there to catch me, because no one has ever been.
But you were. You are. I didn’t trust that when I fell in love with you, you might fall in love with me, too. ”
“I did,” I say quickly. “You didn’t fall alone, Alice. It was when we fell, not just you. I started falling in love with you the moment we locked eyes, but I didn’t trust it then either. I didn’t believe it could be real.”
“And now?” she asks as another tear falls down her perfect cheek. I reach out to catch it, wipe it away.
“Loving you is the realest thing I’ve ever felt, tesouro. I’ve never believed in anything, trusted anything, the way I believe in this. Us.” I keep my hand on her cheek, and she nuzzles into it, a small smile tipping her lips up.
“I came here with every intention of leaving and never coming back. I wanted to leave and find a place that felt like home, where I felt safe and loved. But I found it here. You’re my home, my safe place, my love.
” She reaches up with her free hand, wiping away my tears like I did hers.
“I love you, Arthur,” she whispers with eyes still locked on mine.
A sob that should make me embarrassed leaves me then, and I inch closer to Alice, bringing our foreheads together.
“I love you,” she repeats as we hold on to one another.
“I love you,” I say, kissing her tears away. I repeat those three words until her tears are dry and a giggle escapes her. I’ve never felt so light, so free, as I do in this moment.