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“I’m not fucking stupid, Ainsley. I can tell that you’re on something. What is it and how are you doing it if you’re not shooting it?”
She takes a deep breath, directing her gaze toward the floor. “Don’t pretend like you give a shit now. I’m not your problem anymore, Killian. What I do and how I do it, doesn’t concern you. You lost the right to ask those questions when you tossed me aside like a piece of trash.”
Reaching out, I cup the side of her face and gently tip her head back as her gaze meets mine. “You will always be my problem, baby girl.” Her eyes soften as I slowly stroke her cheek with my thumb. “I sent you back here to get help and you’re still getting high. It wasn’t fucking worth it.”
“What wasn’t worth it?” she asks quietly, her eyes bouncing back and forth between mine as she reaches out to touch the side of my face.
“Ruining us.”
TWENTY-SIX
AINSLEY
All of the air leaves my lungs in a rush. My body falls still and my eyes widen as I stare back at Killian. His words hang heavily in the air and his eyes are filled with regret.
I swallow hard over the emotion that is thick in my throat. “What do you mean?”
Killian winces, closing his troubled eyes with a pained expression washing over his face. He slowly pulls me in, wrapping his arms around my shoulders. Instead of resisting, I step into him, breathing in his scent as my arms snake their way around his torso.
“I did what I had to do,” he whispers against the top of my head. “I knew that you wouldn’t come here without me and I can’t be here, Ainsley. It’s too risky, me being here, and I’m sure that your mother isn’t my biggest fan right now after all of the havoc I’ve wreaked on your lives.”
“Take me back with you.”
Killian sighs, his breath warm against my skin as he buries his face in my neck. “I can’t, baby girl. You need help and I can’t give it to you. Being here is your best chance of getting clean—well, at least that’s what I thought.”
“You pushed me away on purpose?” I ask him wearily. “All of it was a lie?”
“Everything that I told you that day was a lie.”
I pull back, looking up at him as emotion pushes its way past the drugs in my system. “How am I supposed to believe you or trust you now? You broke my fucking heart that day, Killian. I believed you then and now you’re telling me that I’m supposed to believe that you didn’t mean a goddamn word that you said to me?”
“Yes,” he whispers, the pain and honesty melting together in his voice. “There hasn’t been a day since I met you that I haven’t wanted you. I love you more than you will ever understand. That’s why I did what I did. I thought that it was the only way that I could get you to come back here and get help.”
“Fuck you, Killian,” I whisper, the tears burning my eyes as I stare back at him. “You could have just told me the truth. You really did ruin us.”
He narrows his eyes, staring back at me as he unwraps his arms from my shoulders and takes my face in his hands. “Tell me... if I wouldn’t have lied, if I would have told you the truth, would you have really come back here? Especially if I wasn’t coming here with you?”
I swallow hard over the sharp knives lodged in my throat. My jaw clenches and my nostrils flare as I know that he’s right. It pisses me off, because we could have avoided all of this pain if he would have just been honest with me. But he knows me better than I know my damned self.
“That’s exactly what I thought,” he says quietly, the corner of his lips twitching. “I thought I was doing the right thing, but you’re still using.”
“It’s not what it looks like.” I fist the soft material of his hoodie in my hands. “I’ve been going to an intensive outpatient thing. They haven’t gotten me on any maintenance meds yet, so I’ve just been taking shit here and there to try and scratch the itch. It’s nothing like it was. I went through withdrawal when I first came home. I just needed something to help me not go back to dope.”
“What you need is to be in a fucking treatment center, not some bullshit outpatient program that clearly isn’t working.” His tone is harsh, the tips of his fingers dig into the sides of my face. “Who are you getting the pills from? I swear to god, if it’s Ezra again, I will break every bone in his body before I pull him apart, limb by limb.”
Warmth spreads through my body and my heart grows in my chest, beating a little harder than it has in weeks. It’s hard not to believe him with the way that he speaks. There’s so much power behind his words, even though his tone is harsh, he means every word that he says.
They say that actions speak louder than words, but there’s no doubt in my mind that he wouldn’t follow through with the actions he speaks of. His words alone are enough to let me know that he cares. It’s enough to make me believe and trust what he’s telling me.
“I haven’t spoken to Ezra since that night,” I tell him honestly. “I have no intention of ever speaking to him again in my life. My mom hasn’t said anything about him, so I’m thinking that he just dropped any thoughts of pressing charges.”
He lets out a ragged breath and nods. “Who are you getting them from then?”
I chew on the inside of my cheek. I don’t want to tell him, but it’s time that we both start telling the truth. There’s no reason for me to hide from him anymore—not after everything that we’ve been through and put each other through. “This one girl that is in the same program. She’s been helping me out until I can get put on Subs or Methadone.”
“Yeah, it sounds like she’s really helping by giving an addict pills,” he snorts, rolling his eyes. “I don’t like this girl already. What the hell is she even doing there if she’s still using too?”
His words strike a nerve. Cartier might take pills too, but I’m sure that there’s a reason behind it. She seems like she’s at least on track to getting her life together and that’s enough for me. I don’t trust her because I don’t know her, but I like her enough to feel like I need to defend her.
