“Whoa,” she says and brings it to the sink. “Where are your flutes?”
I wince. She doesn’t know I’m in recovery.
“Oh, I get it.” She puts down the bottle.
Does she get it? Just like that? That I don’t drink?
“You’re a guy. You don’t have flutes.” She puts her hands on her curvy hips. “A wine glass? A beer glass?”
Throat vibrating, I turn and amble into the living room. Telling her about my drug and alcohol problem was part of this. I didn’t think about how long it would take. Or if I should have mentioned that on the way to see her father yesterday.
“Cormac?” She’s there in the living room, looking up at me with hooded, tired eyes full of want and something that feels dangerously like trust.
I lean in close enough to feel her breath on my mouth. But I don’t kiss her.
I can’t.
“Did I do something wrong?” she squeaks. “If I got too comfortable here too soon?—”
“Not at all. I did all of this to help you. And not just because I’m a nice guy, because I’m not. I have a lot to make up for.” I look down, shaking, hoping I can get the words out without bawling like an infant.
“What do you mean?” She strokes my jaw and lifts my head until our eyes are locked.
In that moment, I’m grounded like I’ve never felt before.
“I’m an addict, Scarlett.” The words just come outeasily.
She freezes.
“I got clean about a year ago. But before that, I was living in Las Vegas using anything I could get my hands on to get high,” I go on quietly. “Booze. Pills. Pot. Whatever I could get cheap because I went broke. Darragh took control of my trust and cut me off. I started selling and working cons on the strip. I—” My jaw locks. I force myself to keep talking. “I didn’t ask for help from my family. Not because I didn’t think they’d step in. I didn’t want them to see what I’d become.”
Her breath catches. “Cormac…”
“Then I got into a car accident. The cops found drugs. I was arrested.” A bitter laugh slips out. “Darragh got a call, and next, a fancy L.A. lawyer flew in and got me remanded to rehab in California.”
She stares, hungry for more of the story. “Remanded? You didn’t go willingly?”
“No. And none of what I told you is the worst part. Scarlett, I had a girlfriend at the time.” I look away, throat tight. “It started casually. She was running from something. And I was her port in the storm. The fun didn’t last long. The drugs we were doing took hold of us. I didn’t treat her well. We lived like bums. But we didn’t have any choice. I wasn’t talking to my brother. We were trapped.”
“Cornered,” Scarlett whispers.
I’m slightly grateful that she didn’t guess this was my hidden past. That I don’t wear any of this on my skin anymore.
“The hardest part of my recovery, and I don’t just mean getting clean from drugs, was dealing with the guilt of what I did to…her. That’s not how I was raised. That’s not who I was. Deep inside.”
“You’re not the person now,” she says, defending me.
“I spiraled. Maybe because she needed me and I couldn’t take the pressure.” I scrub a hand down the back of my neck.
“I hear what you’re saying.” She keeps stroking my arm. “You’ll just have to figure out that I don’tfeeltrapped. Or cornered. You’re helping me out, so I can finish medical school. We’re not two junkies fighting over a can of cat food.”
I grimace, grateful it never got to that with Ana. “You make a good point. I want everything I told you to sink in.”
We’re at an impasse right now, and I don’t know if I said too much.
I can’t tell her that mypregnantgirlfriend at the time is now my sister-in-law. Or that Darragh bailed her out and let me rot in a cell for a while to teach me a lesson.
I also can’t tell Scarlett I broke out of rehab to warn Ana that her father’s enemies were coming for her. To the place I told them she was. The biggest miscalculation of my life.