Sloth (Sinful Secrets #1) (47 page)

I was going to go—to get out of here before my trouble pins me down. Go back to California, where I can settle everything the way I want—out on the water. But I couldn’t bring myself to say goodbye to Cleo. Every day, I tell myself
just one more day
. Then Whitney and Pace showed up, with their pleas and their tears and their threats, and Cleo did it for me. She left
me
.

I tried to catch her as she got into her car, but...

But.

After she left, I sent Whit and Pace away. I stood by the door with Truman, slammed by the thought of never seeing Cleo again. God, it hurt. It hurt so much it made me shake. But... no choices.

Robert says he’ll be here tomorrow morning. If I book a flight out of Atlanta, he’ll know. He told me he’s been monitoring my cards. It’s how he knows what I have—or rather haven’t—been doing. I can’t book a plane ticket with cash, and I don’t know if I could make the long drive home.

This is how terrible choices are made. It all comes down to lack of options. I should know that, shouldn’t I? I should be an old pro at this. And yet... it doesn’t get easier. It never gets easier. In fact, if time is any indicator, decisions like mine only get harder.

Because of Cleo... this is so much harder than it might have been.

I lean against the railing of the balcony and try to think. If I hadn’t met her. If I only ever knew ‘Sloth.’ If I hadn’t fucked her tight cunt. If I hadn’t hidden my face in her soft hair. If I hadn’t watched her leave that tube of lipstick on her sister’s headstone. If I hadn’t felt the warmth of her chest against my back, the firm squeeze of her arms around me.

“You seem sad. I like hugging you... I’m a hugger.”

If I didn’t know that, maybe this would seem more like the right choice. It’s the only choice—but I don’t crave it like I used to. Back when my need for control of my own fate outweighed fear or regret.

Now it’s... different. Like I’m opening my mouth and swallowing water, when what I really need is air.

I walk downstairs. I get a postcard and my damaged fountain pen and press the card against my thigh. I close my eyes. Inhale. I open them and steady my hand.

I reach for the drawer where I keep my Post-It notes, then draw my hand back. I need to walk this to the mailbox myself; Manning might not send it, even if I leave it with a note. I get a stamp from one of the kitchen drawers, hold the front door open for Truman, and take my time trekking down my long, dirt drive.

I note the curve of the moon. I used to have a thing about the moon, when I was very young. I would ask Ly if it could see us. He would tell me “no” and I would argue for the moon’s sentience. When Mom died, we decided one night that that’s where she was. Up there, dancing in the glow.

I stop at the mailbox and look up and down the road in front of me. It should look different.
More
. The metal of the mailbox should feel colder on my hand. Truman flounces through the field in front of the house, chasing mice—like always.

My footsteps are the same as I turn back. My left knee still aches where I busted it up that first game of my junior year in high school. I feel the rise and fall of my chest. It’s nothing special. I’m endowed with nothing but the weight of my own ego. Pretty soon, that will be gone.

I go inside and I stop looking for some fucking sign. I drift around the rooms upstairs, trying to smell Cleo in the air. I go into my little room and take a second patch out of the cabinet. Put it in the old spot, on the back of my shoulder. Right beside the one I put on when I woke up by Cleo earlier.

Then I step out onto the balcony and smoke a bowl of Silent Stalker. I try to calm myself. To focus on the dark treeline; the stars. Their brightness hurts.

I go downstairs and get the Snow Queen out and chug. A few more pulls—until I’m warmer and the hard edges are fuzzed.

Truman sniffs around my legs like he can smell it on me—dark intent. I laugh. Somewhere in me, there is an inferno—but I can’t feel it anymore.

I tip my head back and drain the vodka bottle.

I blink a few times, slow and bleary, and there is Truman, sitting on the kitchen floor. So goddamned loyal.

I drape my hand over his head and step past him, into the pantry. “Here boy...” My voice sounds low, the rasped words barely there.

I shift my mind away from that and focus my clumsy hands and the peanut butter: twist the top off... set it on the floor. Truman’s long ears perk in question.

“All yours.” I blow my breath out. Wait—
no
. “Hell...” I scoop the peanut butter container up and get a spoon and dole some into his bowl. “The whole thing would make you sick,” I whisper.

I blink a few more times and lean my head back. There now. I can see straight.

“Ummh...” I lick my numb lips. “Eat that,” I murmur, setting Tru’s bowl down.

I get another bowl—a big glass mixing bowl—and hold it under the faucet for what feels like several weeks. The water sloshes as I set the bowl down. “Now gotta... wash these dishes.”

Truman doesn’t eat his peanut butter. He leans against my legs while I load the dishwasher. I can feel the Fentanyl seeping through my skin, into my veins... Lifting me above the floor.

You’d think that it would help me forget, but I want her no less;
more
. I turn off the sink. Look at my hands. I know them. They are mine. I use them to pull my phone out of my pocket.

I can’t call her.

“No you
can’t
,” I whisper.

I set my phone down on the counter. Through the haze of Fent, I feel a sharp ache in my chest.

I walk into the living room and look at the stairs. I’m not going back up. Don’t know if I could... walk up.

I strip off my shirt. Take my time pulling it over my head and sliding my arms out. It’s weird to not be able to feel my skin. It feels good. I rub my hair. My face. Something to remember me by. I laugh.

I drift over to the TV. The DVDs... I never finished. It’s okay. I feel like it’s okay now.

Truman bounds over, moving faster than my dizzy eyes can follow. Then he’s by me, warm and heavy. My throat is tight and sore as I rub his ears, then lean down and pull his body against mine.

“Thank you,” I whisper hoarsely.

I kiss his head, and then again. I scoop my keys up and walk slowly down the hall.

I can’t believe I’m really here now. Game over.

All I have left is my secret. And a flame of pride, because I never let her near it.

I get into my car, and I start driving. I don’t think of what I’ll do or say. I don’t think of anything but him.

I need to see him. Need to hear it from his mouth.

I’m speeding down a rural highway, en route to his house, when I have to dim my brights for a large SUV.

It looks like Kellan’s Escalade.

THE NEED FOR CLEO
is an agony. I’m so numb, the only place I really feel it is my chest. It’s like a fire in there. The deadened parts of me can sense the heat. My throat and face. My throat aches. My shoulders and my arms and everything feels... bad. My fingers rub the leather of the wheel. I have this urge to shift my legs, but I remember that I’m driving.

I fix my eyes on the dark road and I think desperately of where I’d find her. I want to see her one last time. I know I can’t... but it’s so fucking hard. Denying myself this.

As I drive, I think of what she’d say if she knew. What she might do.

I don’t know. I
do
know.

She would hold me. It would feel good.

Today was bad.

I can’t keep doing this.

My eyes blur.

Even through the haze drifting around me, I know what I have to do. Before he comes. Robert.

The car is bumping over the shoulder before I realize that my hands must have slipped. I hit the brakes. The Escalade fish-tails in the grass. Jolts to a stop.

I lean over the steering wheel.

Cleo
. I can only whisper. I’m so tired.

I lift my head and try to will my brain to think. I can’t pass out here. Need... to keep driving. But—no wrecks. I don’t want a wreck that hurts someone.

I sift through the haze. Cleo. Not at the sorority house. My lips curve a little as I picture her sitting in her car atop the parking deck. She would wait for me there. It would be a fantasy.

The fire is back.

It wakes me up.

I look between the treetops and the moon.

Something... please.

I get out of the car. It’s like my body... thinking on its own. I stumble in the grass and tip my head back.

There. The sky.

I don’t want it. I would tell her I don’t want to. I want her. I can’t. I know. I have to hurry. Now I’m... just too tired.

I get into the car. I dream while I drive. Warm hands and her hugging arms. My mom’s got cookies. Lyon with the football. Cleo on the bed.

She says, “You can talk to me, you know.”

I start to whisper. I press a hand to my forehead... so I can think.

The bridge is near here... right? The rail is bent. The drop is steep.

I tell her all the things. The whole story. Flat green pastures gleam under the moon. I pass a cow beside his fence.

My speeding heart begins to slow, as if it knows the score. My mind clears like the sky as clouds shift, revealing a bright moon. Pale light winks over my hood.

Some ways ahead, the road bends left. I press the pedal: fifty-five... then sixty. I take the curve at seventy.

Cleo... Cleo.

The road runs straight. I can see the bright lines of the bridge’s metal rails.