Missing Dixie(53)

She frowns. “Were you addicted?”

I nod. “I don’t know. Sort of. It was like . . . like I was trading one addiction for another. Losing you and filling the void with getting high.”

“I see.” But I know her tone. She doesn’t see. How could she? Dixie doesn’t understand living a life of crime to make ends meet because she’s never had to and she probably never would. She’s moral and good and pure. “So you got caught? How?”

I sigh because this is the beginning of the end and I don’t know what I thought but I’d hoped I’d somehow figure out a way to avoid this part. I didn’t.

“I got busted for possession in a back alley behind a bar a few towns over. Got a suspended sentence, days on the shelf basically, court-ordered addiction counseling and community service for it because Ash—uh, my attorney—was able to plead it down. But I’d no sooner finished the court-mandated program than I got into an accident. I was high and it showed in the tox screen. Since I already had one major strike against me plus a few minor arrests for assault for petty bar fights and other BS, the punishment was a little heavier that time.”

She sits there processing for a while and I sit there hating myself for tainting her with my f*cked-upness.

In a way, I’m glad that much is out there. I feel like I can breathe a little easier. But in my heart I know I’ve glossed over the most painful details of that year and my Bluebird isn’t stupid. She’ll catch on and demand the full story.

It doesn’t take long.

“Were you alone in the back alley? When you got busted?”

I shake my head but don’t answer.

“So . . . did the other person get arrested?”

I nod.

“Gavin, don’t turn mime on me right now, please.”

I swallow hard and choke out a quick “Sorry.”

God, I am so f*cking sorry.

“They got arrested for drugs, too?”

I shake my head, and she narrows her eyes at me. “For performing a lewd act in public, Dix. That’s what she got arrested for. Is that what you want to know? That I found the only peace I could with other women?” She flinches and a white-hot blanket of shame covers me. “I’m sorry. I know it doesn’t mean anything right now, but for what it’s worth, I am sorry.”

I’d say it a million times if I could. More if I thought it would help.

“That’s why Dallas got so mad when he caught us behind the bar in Nashville. Because he thought maybe we were . . .”

“Yeah. Probably,” I answer shortly. It still pisses me off that he thinks I would’ve been doing anything like that with Dixie, but I try not to dwell.

“Jesus.” She’s quiet again, contemplating her next question, I assume. I’d rather be questioned by the FBI, by people I don’t give a flying f*ck about, instead of by the woman I love more than life itself. But she deserves the truth and it’s time she got it. “The accident . . .”

My chest constricts as if she’s placing cinder blocks squarely on it. “Yeah. It was bad. Nearly totaled Dallas’s truck and gave both of us concussions and severe whiplash.”

Dixie’s eyes are wide when they meet mine. “Both of you? As in, you drove high with my brother, with my only f*cking living relative, in the truck?”

Her arm swings left and takes her coffee cup off the table and onto the floor. She barely glances down at where the handle now lies broken.

Technically Dallas wasn’t her only living relative at the time, but this hardly seems like the moment to mention that. I clean up the mess quickly and efficiently setting the cup and its handle back on the table while she continues gaping at me and waiting for her pound of flesh.

“Yeah, Dix. I did. And I’m sorry. God, I am so f*cking sorry that happened. He’d been drinking Robyn off his mind and called me for a ride. I didn’t realize how messed up either of us was until it was too late.”

Dixie buries the palms of her hands into her eyes and remains still for several minutes before talking to me again. “So you got charged with all kinds of stuff from the accident then. How’d you get out of it?”

One hard question after another. “Ashley. The attorney that you met.” And wanted to murder, from the looks of it.

“The attorney . . . Ashley,” she begins, and I can hear the venom and hurt in her voice. “How’d you afford her?”

There’s no way to sugarcoat my answer so I give it to her as gently as I can manage.

“Pretty much the same way I’ve always afforded things I wanted and couldn’t pay for.”

“Wow. Okay. I guess I kind of knew that, but hearing it . . . from you . . . Just . . . Wow.”

Her chair scrapes the floor as she moves it back. She shoots upright and takes the two pieces of her glass to the sink, but I know what she’s really doing. She’s disgusted and she needs space from me. I can’t blame her. I’m jealous. I wish I could get away from myself.

I hang my head and wait for the interrogation to continue.

Dixie busies herself using some type of glue to repair her mug and I finish my now cold, bitter coffee. She takes my cup and washes it before returning to sit down. “So you got help because the court made you, but it didn’t work?”

I nod. “Pretty much. Mandatory rehab is kind of a joke. It doesn’t take until you’re there because you want to be, because you want help and you want to change.” She nods as if this makes sense so I continue. “That time I was just going through the motions, complying with whatever simply to stay out of jail. But after the accident, I hit rock bottom. I was the worst off I ever was and Dallas dragged me out of my house, beat the hell out of me, and brought me here to dry out. I did and then I started trying to get some real help. It has helped and I still see an addiction counselor.”