Page 85 of The Heartbreak List

“It’s okay.” I shrug and let out a heavy breath. “It was years ago. I don’t…I’m not like that now. But I hurt people while I was. Especially my family. I blew through any money I had access to. Mine and theirs. I even emptied Shae’s piggy bank.”

That wasn’t the worst of it. But there’s something about ripping off my little sister to get my next fix that makes me, still to this day, feel like absolute scum.

“It was killing them to watch me try to take myself out. And they didn’t know if I’d be responsible enough not to try around Shae. They wanted to get me in treatment. They had this undying need to save me. I didn’t want to be saved.”

She plays with my hair while I fill in the spaces between the roses with blue skies over fields. Ripped pages that look like they came from her notebook. Clocks without the hands to tick tock away this time we have.

She doesn’t say a word. Just waits for me to decide how much I want to tell her.

Her quiet touch soothes the tension from my muscles and makes it easy to open up to her about the worst parts of my life. “I took my mom’s jewelry, whatever electronics were easy to carry, anything I could offload quickly to buy my next one way trip to join Cooper, and I left. I didn’t look back. Somehow I couldn’t manage to take myself out, though. I ended up making my way to the city. Ran out of money. Started sleeping on park benches.”

“Your parents never tried to contact you?”

“They did.” I smooth the ruffles of her black dress up her thigh to expose more creamy canvas for me to work on. The roses extend up over her knee at this point. “They came out here a few times. Tracked me down on the street. Got me a hot meal and a shower and a clean hotel room to sleep in for a night. Tried to talk me into coming home and getting help.”

Mom would cry and Dad was so tense, holding in all his emotions. He had experience. Had seen clients go down the path. Didn’t hold the same hope as my mom.

“I’d agree and then skip out with whatever I could sell before they woke the next morning. Be high by lunchtime. They got the message. Stopped trying. Left me to do what I was going to do. And that was right about the time I met Harlan.

“He was looking for his brother, who’d gotten himself into some pretty heavy trouble. He found me instead. I honestly don’t remember what we said to each other in that first conversation. But he kept coming to see me. Brought me an old jacket and gloves to help me get through winter. Brought me hot meals a few times a week. And we’d just have these conversations about how fucked up our lives were. And it turns out Harlan’s life is pretty damn fucked up, but unlike me, he was finding ways to deal with it.”

“He’s a good man. Compassionate.” Indy smiles at the drawing that covers her leg from foot to panty line.

“Yeah, he is. He let me sleep on his couch and gave me a job.” I work on improving the shading.

“Wait…” She touches my arm. “Did you work as a tattooist? But now you’re a bartender?”

“And before that I was a law intern.” I finish up and put the pen down. “Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean that’s what you should do.”

“You didn’t enjoy it?” Curiosity and sympathy color her voice.

I lean back and admire my artwork on her skin. “Actually, I did.”

“So what happened?”

“As much as I was doing better on a day-to-day basis, I was struggling.” It was all too easy to find another hit if I wanted one. Too easy to give in when it was offered. And way too hard to deal with my emotions. “And then I met Sigh. He came in for a shoulder piece. We got to talking about MMA. The next thing I know I’m fighting for him three nights a week to numb the ache the drugs used to dull.”

Until I started falling back into bad habits and telling myself I had it under control because I’d constructed rules around my behavior. Never two days in a row. Never get so wasted I missed work.

“I started topping up with booze and then pills.” Losing myself in willing pussy. I was on a dangerous and destructive path. Until Indy.

“Harlan’s shop is his pride and joy. He built it from nothing. People know he’s the best. Even though I was in a much better place, my choices were bringing me too close to being a liability.”

Two lines form between her brows. She straddles my lap. “He fired you?”

“No, but he told me that it was a problem for him. And I respected him enough to quit and find another job.” I don’t begrudge that he was honest with me. He did so much for me, but I needed the fight and the things that came with it. Sort of a pick your poison kind of deal. “Besides I didn’t want to lose his friendship. And I would have if I kept working with him.”

“So now you’re a bartender.”

“And I actually love it. Getting to know people’s stories. Being that person who listens. Dancing on the bar.” I chuckle as I slip my hands under her dress to palm her ass. She’s wearing this tiny bit of floss she calls panties. There’s a whole lot of warm, bare skin for me to touch and knead.

She twines her hands behind my head. “It sounds like you’re right where you need to be.”

“It feels like it.” With her on my lap and the crackle of the fire outside the truck.

She bites her lip and tucks her blue hair behind her ear. “So maybe your family would be happy to see you.”

“I don’t think so.” I don’t think my family will ever get past the irreparable damage that I caused. “I’m still drinking. Still taking pills.”

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