Page 77 of Wicked Surrender

“Help him sober up and stay clean?” He raised his brows.

“He’s not that bad,” I protested. “He’s had a hard year and…” I cringed, hating how stupid this sounded.

“He showed many marks on his skin, Mr. Reeves. I didn’t have long to examine him, but he bore signs of long-term use.”

I covered my face with my hands, dragging them over it. “No. He just deals. He’s never been that hooked on using and…”

I sounded so stupid. So naïve and trusting. Of course, it was fucking dumb to think he was telling the truth when he promised he only sold drugs and didn’t use them. “Where did he go? He walked out of here, right? Where did he go?”

The doctor frowned, setting his hands on his hips. “He was yelling that he was done, that he was getting on the bus and moving to somewhere bigger. He shouted that he’d be fine once he got to New York?—”

“Shit!” This wasn’t the first mention of his proclaiming that he’d fare better elsewhere. He’d threatened to get up and leave, not believing me when I said that he could always count on me. And he could. But my hands were tied. I couldn’t get my trust fund yet and the only money I got was via the money our parents paid the college to keep me there. He just had to wait, but he wasn’t anymore.

My heart cracked and fell at the thought of my brother assuming he didn’t have anyone in the world to be there for him.

I was.

I would be.

But he was gone.

I knew better than to cling to hope that he would still be around. He was probably already checked out, on a bus, bleeding and planning to avoid the pain by finding more drugs.

Hot, angry tears leaked from my eyes as I accepted this new, ugly level of defeat.

William had given up on my helping him.

I’d been focused on exacting revenge, hating Dean Chen while I stayed in college. Now, it only felt like too much time that I’d wasted.

All those nights I was drinking and partying instead of hurrying to graduate and help him.

“I was going to…” I blew out a deep breath, musing out loud to myself at this rate. “I was going to help him. I’d graduate and start in any hospital until I could start my residency and…”

“That’s good. An addict needs support.”

“But I took too long. He didn’t want to wait and let me give him money or?—”

“Give him money to use on drugs?” the doctor guessed.

I glared at him, wiping my eyes so the tears would blur away.

“You can try to be a hero and save him,” he cautioned, “but you can never change someone who doesn’t want to be saved.”

That was the starkest truth, one that I didn’t want to hear.

After asking a few more details, just on the very slim and small chance that he could show up around here and wasn’t on his way to New York already, I thanked the doctor and left.

On the drive back to campus, I hated that I hadn’t helped him. Or that I couldn’t. Wiliam made his choices and stuck with them. That was on him. My plan to graduate and get money to give him to live on probably would’ve gone to drugs, and that was a possibility I never wanted to linger on, hoping against hope that he was clean all along.

I parked at the frat house and stared at the darkness of the night. It shrouded me despite the lights from the house. It enveloped me, squeezing me with a desolation I couldn’t escape.

Iwaspathetic. Pathetic to let anger consume me for so long. Stupid to think that I could somehow fix William’s life. And blind to the fact that his choices would ultimately lead him to believe that he was truly on his own in the world and didn’t have me.

That he didn’t have anyone.

My phone buzzed, and I glanced down at it, jarred from this morose mood.

Seeing Laura’s name sparked me to snap out of this haze of self-loathing.

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