Come to Me Quietly(91)

I swallowed. “It’s not like that. It’s just something I’ve been wondering about and you’ve never mentioned.” Okay, worrying about. Jared was right. I wasn’t sure exactly how I’d handle his answer.

“All right, then,” he prodded.

I paused, searching for some way to frame the question without sounding as if I were accusing him of something I really didn’t know all that much about. Because it wasn’t an accusation. I just needed to know. “I heard what they found in your locker when you were expelled… ” Knew what I had seen. My heart thudded a little too hard.

Jared sighed with impatience, but he didn’t seem all that surprised or angered by the question. “You want to know if I still use? If I’m an addict?”



I cringed at the bluntness of his words.

Jared sighed again, but this time it sounded like an apology. “Hey, look at me.” He nudged me. I lifted my head and he placed a warm hand on my face. Sincere blue eyes locked with mine. “Yes, Aly, I’m an addict because I’ll never forget how easy it is to slip into oblivion, and I’ll never stop wanting to go there. There are days when I think I’ll go crazy because I crave it so much and other days when I don’t think about it at all. But using is the easy way out. I tried that route, and it didn’t take long for me to realize this life wasn’t going to be easy. I haven’t used since the night they sent me away. I learned then I don’t get an escape.”



“Jared – ”



“Don’t, Aly.” He ran his thumb over my cheek. “You think I can’t feel this? How badly you want the things I can’t give you? That’s why it makes me sick that I’m doing this, because I already warned you… you can’t fix me, and you can’t say or do something that will change my mind or fill up the void in my soul.”



There was no anger in his words. Just sadness.

He increased his hold on my face and I nuzzled closer to him, wishing I could disappear inside him. Wished I could fill that void.

“I know that. I just care about you,” I whispered seriously.

A wistful smile quivered around his mouth, his eyes gentle, and I knew he cared about me, too.

“I know you do, Aly,” he admitted before his blue eyes dimmed. “Just be careful that you don’t care too much.”



I pulled his hand from my face, kissed across the numbers tattooed on the ripped and torn knuckles of his left hand: 2006. Death.

The year he’d lost it all.

I prayed that somehow he could again learn to live again.

The next day, I had to get up early because I was scheduled to work both the breakfast and lunch shifts. Jared had crept from my bed sometime in the very early morning hours, but not without leaving me another glimpse into his thoughts.

The foul spoils the beauty.

His words both touched me and saddened me.

I’d left him with a token of me, a tender kiss I’d placed just below his ear. He’d smiled, his sleepy eyes flickering open to look at me as soft words rasped from his hoarse throat. “Hi, beautiful.”



I’d left feeling good. Alive. As if maybe Jared and I had stumbled upon some kind of understanding, as unstable as it was.

I blew the bangs back from my forehead and began to tap an order out on the computer. Sundays were always busy, which I loved because it meant time passed quickly. I peeked at the clock on the wall. Only half an hour until I could go to him.

“How are you holding up, Aly?” Karina asked, popping her head through the swinging door.