Addicted(63)

Can’t help wondering how much worse the mess I’ve made of my life is going to get before it gets better.

It would be easier—infinitely easier—to cut my losses. To pack up my shit and walk away from Ethan once and for all. I’ve worked so hard to be strong, so hard to get my life together, that watching it fall apart all over again is the worst kind of torture.

And yet what can I do to stop it? What can I do to make it feel like everything I’ve worked for, everything I’ve tried to be, isn’t crumbling down around me?

Just pretend he doesn’t matter?

Just walk away and hope for the best?

I don’t know that walking away from Ethan is even an option at this point. How can it be when he’s a part of me? When I would just carry him with me wherever I tried to run?

The time I’ve known Ethan can be measured in mere days and weeks, and yet, in that time, he’s somehow become so much more than I ever planned on.

He’s the first thing my sluggish mind thinks of in the morning, when the early morning tide rolls across the cold and lonely beach.

He’s the last thing I dream of in the dark when the sky is still and starshot.

He’s everything in between. The secret that wraps itself around me like a whisper. The promise that burrows its hooks deep inside of me.

He’s my obsession. My addiction.

It’s a truth I couldn’t begin to fight. A truth I’m paying for now as I wait and watch and count the seconds as the clock rolls itself around to another day.

It’s after midnight when I hear the gate rolling open at the end of the driveway, followed by the sound of Ethan’s BMW making its way up the drive. By the time I hear the garage open and close, I’m up and standing at the railing, looking out over the dark and endless ocean.

I go over and over the discussion I want to have with Ethan as I wait for him to find me. It’s probably stupid, but I can’t bring myself to have this fight in the house, surrounded by his things and the awkward memories of my humiliation. Better, if we need to hash things out, to do it in the open air. At least out here, the pain and anger will have someplace to go.

Except it takes longer than I thought for him to find me. By the time he does, I’ve already given up and started walking back toward the house, wondering what is taking so long.

I’m already to the closest patio door when it flies open, Ethan slamming out of it at close to a dead run. “Chloe! Chloe, where—”

He stops dead when he sees me in the shadows, his voice choking off, and it registers just how frantic he is. “I’m right here,” I tell him. “I was looking at the ocean.”

He nods jerkily, blows out a long, unsteady breath. Then braces his hands on his knees and just concentrates on breathing for long seconds.

If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was afraid I had left him. Except my car is out front in the driveway, my shoes near the garage door into the house—the same door he had to have taken to get inside. He couldn’t have missed them if he was looking.

“You okay?” I ask him huskily, hating myself for how much it matters. I’m the one who’s shattered, the one holding on by a damn thread here, and yet I can’t stop worrying about him. Can’t stop wanting to take care of him.

“Yeah, of course. Sorry. I just freaked out when I couldn’t find you.”

I nod. “I can see that. The question is why?”

He studies me for long seconds and I get the impression that he is trying to decide what to say. Not that he doesn’t have an answer for my question, only that he’s trying to decide how much he wants to tell me. I don’t know why I feel that way, except that he’s got that face on. The one he wears when he’s trying to lie to me—in reality or by omission.

The knowledge breaks something else inside of me, something tenuous and uncertain and afraid. I bite my lip to keep from screaming and this time I’m the one concentrating on my breathing.

“I was afraid you’d left,” he finally says.

“Without my car? Without my shoes?”

“I didn’t—I didn’t see your shoes. And your car could have broken down again.”

“Not after you had it fixed. The thing runs like it’s brand new.”

He smiles then. “I’m glad.”

“Yeah.”

He reaches for me, wraps an arm around my waist and pulls me against his body. I go, but I don’t relax into him like I normally would. I can’t. There’s too much inside of me right now and none of it is good.