Page 52 of Addicted

And Denise deserved me, even if I didn’t deserve her.

CHAPTER 31

DENISE

Hugh left before I got up the next morning. I hadn’t gotten much sleep, and I was sure he hadn’t either. At two, I heard soft clinking come from the kitchen, but I stayed in the guest room, still trying to process what he’d told me.

He was a killer?

No, Switch was a killer.

He wasn’t Switch anymore. He wasn’t even Huey anymore. He was Hugh.

I sat there, silent, taking it all in and trying to reconcile this man with the version of himself he was talking about. The shame that laced the features of his handsome face as he talked, the way he became lost in his memories, refusing to look at me.

The kid he was talking about wasn’t anything like the man sitting in front of me. Remorse made his handsshake. I reached out to grab him, but I don’t think he even remembered I was there. He looked like he was moving underwater, his words slow and measured.

Then he left.

A part of me felt thankful for it. I didn’t know what to say to him at the time. I was unsure what to expect when he started his story, but I know how it made me feel: sad.

I thought back to when I was twelve. My dad had just left and I was furious. With him, with my mom, but mostly with myself. Because I didn’t want to care. I’d somehow convinced myself that caring made me vulnerable, left things out of my control.

But, I was never not a rule follower. A nerd. I paid my taxes. I’d never gotten in trouble with anyone before, but I’d seen it. Kids around me carrying shit for adults, dealing drugs at school. I avoided it all because I was lasered-focused on graduating, so I could leave and never come back.

But what would’ve happened if things had gone differently for me? If I’d been pulled into something that I had only one way out of?

I thought of Hugh having to make that choice and I understood him, why he became the man he did. He owed it to himself to be the best version of himself that he could be. He sacrificed something in himself for a second chance.

I spent the night thinking about it. Trying to figure out what this all meant in the context of the man I’d known for years.

But, I couldn’t see anything. There were no threads that connected the two that I’d ever seen. I was realizing I’d never even heard Hugh raise his voice. In almost three years, even when work was stressful, when someone’s pipes above him burst, when his car got stolen from a client meeting, he never yelled.

He respected my boundaries. When I didn’t want to talk about what happened, he gave me space, he didn’t insist on me talking to him. He asked if I was okay. His grounding presence wasn’t volatile, it was caring. That, that was the Hugh I knew.

I heard my dad’s voice in my head, “Necessity is the mother of invention.”

It was something my dad used to say. I think it was some proverb but, knowing him, it was something he heard in some 80s action flick.

Someone saw a child, confused and in pain, and turned that kid into a weapon.

I was sad for Huey. Sad that his grief was twisted and mangled, and that Grams had to watch him descend into it.

But, that was before I knew him. The Hugh that I know came out the other side a better man. And yeah, his shit was dark, darker than mine, but he was still Hugh.I’dspent the afternoon thinking about how we needed to get to know each other, to really see past the surface to see if whatever it was that was between us was real. And Hugh gave that to me.

That wasn’t going to scare me away.

CHAPTER 32

DENISE

It was a ten-minute walk to the office from Hugh’s condo. My suitcases were still sitting on the ground, full of clothes, so I grabbed the only thing I’d managed to hang the night before. I opted against trying to find his iron and hung the dress next to the shower to steam and hopefully de-wrinkle.

I opted for a pair of thigh high boots to go with my vivid dress. I said a small prayer of thanks that my boots had survived, I’d spent hundreds of dollars on them, and they’d been on sale.

The dress had an empire waist snatched right below my breasts and flared out to a full, unlined skirt. So full that if I twirled, it would flare out all the way. It was one of my favorite features on a dress, but that’s not what made me pay the exorbitant price tag. It was the colors.

The dress was like a watercolor painting, each color flaring bright and fighting for dominance. When I saw it, I saw myself. It felt like the perfect dress for the day. My arm was much less sore, but I knew I had to hide it, so I chose a pink blazer to go over the top and threw on my camel trench coat to keep me warm for the walk.

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