Page 56 of Beautiful Lies
I let out a breath and flicked ash out the window. “Get over what?”
“The way you left. I didn’t know if you were dead or alive.”
Not alive. Surviving but wishing I was dead. I was tempted to tell her everything. About rehab and how I felt like I was crawling out of my skin. The intense cravings. The way it exhausted me, left me wishing I was dead. Those long days riding a Greyhound down to Miami, deluding myself into thinking that I was on my way to something good, that I could somehow make things right.
I wanted to tell her how the reality had kicked me in the ass, leaving me disillusioned and feeling hopeless. I wanted to tell her about Ronan and Keira, about the mother I didn’t remember who had spent the past twenty years pretending Killian and I had never existed. And about the night I walked into the ocean, thinking it would be so much easier to sink into oblivion and let the water cover me. Steal all the breath from my lungs. But I’d imagined her face. Heard her voice in my head. I’d swam back to the shore and lay on the beach. Watched the stars reel in the sky and prayed to God for strength and the serenity to accept all the shitty things I couldn’t change.
I wanted to dump all my excess baggage at her feet and lighten my load. But I couldn’t do that to her, so I kept my mouth shut about all of it.
Silence stretched out between us, but I heard Ava’s soft breathing on the other end of the line, so I knew she was still there.
“I’m sorry,” I said. What else could I say? “I can’t do a damn thing to change what happened in the past.”
“I know. I’m trying to let go of the past. I’m working on it. Just… it’s hard, you know?”
“Preaching to the choir, babe.”
“Did you blame me for leaving you?” she asked.
“Why are you going down this road?”
“It’s important to get it all out there.”
She left me when I needed her most. Twice. The first time I pushed her away because I was no good for her. Part of her must have been relieved to be free of me. Otherwise, she would have fought to stay. She didn’t. She went on with her life, without me. Occasionally, she’d call to see how I was doing. Those calls were hard, our conversation stilted. What do you say to your ex-girlfriend who was living the college life, so far removed from my world she might as well have been living on another planet?
The second time she left me because she couldn’t handle what I’d done to put my life and other peoples’ lives in jeopardy. She couldn’t handle that I’d disappeared without contacting her. Before I left for Miami, we hadn’t been loversorfriends. We’d been two people with a history, who had kept tabs on each other. Sometimes she’d get drunk or lonely and call me for sex only to regret it the next morning. So yeah, I understood all about trying to let go of the past. But did I blame her? I wasn’t sure. She did the best thing she could do for herself.
“I understand why you did it,” I said.
“Don’t chicken out. Be honest. Did you hate me for it? Because there have been plenty of times I’ve hated you.”
“A part of me blamed you. A part of me hated you for giving up on me. You’d always been a fighter… fearless. But what girl in their right mind could love a junkie? I didn’t want to drag you down with me.” If it hadn’t been for her mother, I probably would have. Addicts are selfish. They take, and they take, and they take, and they give very little of themselves in return. She’d been left with the dregs of me and she’d deserved so much more.
“I never really got over you though. I tried… so hard. But something always held me back.”
“What was that something?” I asked.
“My beautiful memories. I want to make more with you. Someday. Maybe.”
Someday. Maybe.
Tate was right. Trying to win back Ava was fucking with my head. Would there ever come a day when we could get through a conversation without playing the blame game? Without dredging up the past?
“I didn’t know, Connor. I didn’t know that my mom was involved in our break-up. When you pushed me away, I thought it was because you chose drugs over me. That’s why I walked away. But I always felt…so ashamed. Like I’d given up on you.”
I squeezed my eyes shut as if that would block out the pain of that memory.
“It’s easier to be honest in the dark,” she said. “Over the phone.”
“Guess so.”
“Connor?”
“Hmm?”
“Maybe I’m bad for you. Maybe that’s why you… turned to drugs.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose and took deep breaths. “You didn’t do anything wrong. It was all on me.”
