Echo (Bleeding Hearts #1)(66)
It was too painful to think about, so I made myself stop. I wasn’t really dealing with anything, I was just surviving on autopilot. I’d been tempted to take a page from Norma’s book and drown my pain in alcohol, but I still wanted to believe I was stronger than that.
Besides, Brayden was doing enough of that for the both of us. And I’d been treading on eggshells as I thought about how to bring it up with him. I was a stranger in my own house, living with two people who didn’t even look at each other but claimed to live by some code of family.
I couldn’t talk to Brayden the way I used to. He was a changed man. One I was afraid I would never really know again. After our conversation that first day, we’d barely spoken at all. I had yet to bring up the subject of Norma though I’d been trying my best to keep her at home as much as possible. She was already sick of me too, asking when I planned to go back to California.
My presence wasn’t a comfort to anyone anymore, and I wallowed in the self-pity. I started sleeping in. Sitting on the couch and shoveling pizza in my mouth while Brayden watched the Discovery Channel. Norma passed out on the laminate table in a plate of cold spaghetti. It had been five years and nothing had changed. I had no idea what I was doing anymore. But I couldn’t stay here in this smoke-filled, poisonous environment. The walls were closing in on me and I couldn’t breathe. So I stood up and started pacing.
“What the hell is wrong with you now?” Brayden grumbled.
“This!” I waved my arms around the room. “How can you live this way? How can you sit here all day and watch your life go by in this shitty existence?”
“Well, excuse the f*ck out of me,” he snapped. “I didn’t realize it was so goddamned horrible here. You see, I just spent the last five years behind bars… so to me, this is mother f*cking paradise!”
“Don’t you put that on me again!” I pointed a shaky finger at him. “I know what you think of me, Brayden. I know you resent me for it.”
“Damn straight I resent you.” He glared. “I went away so you could have a better life, and what do you do? You run straight into the arms of the one f*cking man I despise. You fall in love with the sadistic bastard, then you come back here with your tail between your legs, expecting me to feel sorry for you. Well, it ain’t gonna’ f*cking happen. So if you don’t like it here, misses high and mighty, go back to your castle in San Francisco. I won’t stop you this time.”
“I can’t,” I snapped.
My eyes burned with tears because I hated fighting with him. I hated that I lashed out instead of telling him the truth. So finally, I collapsed onto the couch and unburdened myself.
“He’s been sending Norma money.”
Brayden blinked as if my words hadn’t registered. But one glance at Norma’s slumped over form in the kitchen was all he needed to put the puzzle together.
The vein in his forehead throbbed as he swung his gaze back to me. “How much money?”
“Enough.” I stared at the floor. “Whatever she asks for I guess.”
He stood up and shook his head in disbelief. “Goddammit.”
“He’s waiting for her to... overdose I guess. Or die from liver failure. Whatever’s quicker.”
Brayden glanced at Norma again, his eyes filling with a rage I’d never seen in him before. It fizzled out a moment later as he collapsed back onto the sofa beside me.
“We can’t compete with that,” he said. “What the f*ck are we gonna’ do?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But I thought maybe we could talk some sense into her, together.”
A dry laugh squeezed from his chest as he dismissed my suggestion entirely. “She isn’t gonna’ f*cking listen to us, Brighton. Are you even hearing yourself right now? When has she ever chosen us over any damn thing?”
“Well, I don’t know what else we’re supposed to do,” I bit out. “We can’t force her to go to rehab. And I can’t babysit her for the rest of my life. I’m going to have to get a job soon.”
A strange calm washed over Brayden’s face as his head fell back against the sofa and he closed his eyes.
“Just let me think on it for a while,” he said. “That’s what we’re going to do.”
***
I woke up in a cold sweat, clutching my pillow against my chest.
I had dreamt of Ryland again. The same dream I’d had every night since I’d been back in Illinois. His hands on my body, his lips on my skin. The heat of his chest pressing against my back. I called out for him, but he didn’t answer. I reached for him with my hand. Usually, I could feel him, somewhere in the darkness. But not this time. I didn’t feel him at all.
I reached for my phone and looked for one of his texts. There weren’t any since yesterday morning. My stomach clenched.
I opened the messages from Nicole that I’d been avoiding all week, scrolling through them. She said she was worried about him, and he looked really bad. He was snapping at everyone around the office, missing appointments, and forgetting things. Important things, from the sounds of it. But I couldn’t do anything else for Ryland. I had to remind myself and her of that. He needed to get help. Help I wasn’t qualified to give him. I didn’t know how to deal with grief on a small scale, let alone a catastrophic one. I didn’t know how to be torn between him and my family. Because no matter what I did, someone would get hurt.