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“You were in pain. You were hurting inside and out. I’m so glad you got the help you needed. But I’ll ask again. Are you okay?”
“No. Not really.”
Juliana’s haunting face filled his mind. Watching her die... She wasn’t the first person he’d seen die right before his eyes. But seeing a young woman, so bright and fresh with so much life left to live, drop dead right in front of him broke the last shred of whatever he’d been hanging by these last many months.
“Do you want to talk about what happened last week? Why you didn’t come home as expected?”
He owed her an explanation. “I’m sorry about sending you a bunch of texts about OD’ing, instead of calling. I know that had to have been a shock after I’d just gotten out of rehab the day before.”
“You said it wasn’t your fault. Someone dosed your friend. And you got dosed when you gave her CPR.”
He scraped his hand along his scruffy jaw and dropped it back to his lap.
“My buddy Drake, we served together in the military, he’s the one who got me into the rehab center. His girlfriend Adria’s sister, Juliana, went there, too. We met a couple times in group. She was cool. She got out before I did. Anyway, she was working at her sister’s store. Adria let me stay in the apartment upstairs so I could get my head together before I drove home. There was a commotion in the shop. I went in to see if I could help, because Juliana sounded really pissed. Turns out another guy who worked there wanted to party and get Juliana loosened up because she wasn’t into him. He shoved a bunch of heroin under her nose, not knowing the heroin was laced with fentanyl. The drug suppressed her breathing, and Juliana’s heart stopped. I gave her CPR and got dosed, too, without knowing it. In fact, I thought I had some kind of panic attack or something, and she died because I blacked out.”
Shelby reached over and touched his forearm. “Oh, Chase, it wasn’t your fault.”
“The cops told me they saw the whole thing go down on the surveillance video.” He glanced out the side window. “Adria rushed in just as I hit the floor. Juliana was already gone. Adria gave me two doses of naloxone.”
Her hand contracted on his arm. “She saved your life.”
“Yes. The cop said she didn’t even try to give Juliana a dose. She knew Juliana was gone.” He put his elbow on the window frame and planted his head in his hand. “If I’d gotten there a little sooner... Maybe if I’d been able to continue CPR...”
“Don’t do that to yourself. Don’t put those thoughts in your head. You did everything you could to save her and nearly died trying.”
That’s what his psychiatrist told him. It was not his fault. That didn’t stop the pain and guilt.
What happened with Juliana left him reeling. He knew the only way to get through it was to feel it, no matter how bad it hurt.
Having Shelby here, telling her what happened, it helped.
“It’s a tragedy she died the way she did when she’d worked so hard to get clean.” Shelby looked at him. “Is that why you went back to rehab, because you OD’d and feared you’d relapse?”
“No. I swear to you, I will not use again.” He held her gaze for a moment so she could see he meant those words with everything in him. “Her death messed with my head. I thought I had a handle on everything when I walked out last time, and then...”
“You lost her.” The way she said it made it sound different than him failing to save her life.
He shifted toward her. “Shelby, there was nothing going on between me and Juliana. I barely knew her really. I just couldn’t deal with another loss. The grief and guilt were too much. And Hunt and Max showed up at the hospital accusing me of blowing it again, but I didn’t. I’m committed to staying clean. But I needed to sort out the overwhelming grief I felt about Juliana and all the others I lost overseas, and that meant going back to the counselors who knew me.”
“I can’t imagine all you’ve been through. I know the past sixty days away from Eliza have been a challenge for you.”
He missed his little girl. He wanted to move on with his life. But his past kept dragging him under. “More than you know.” Sitting next to Shelby and not havingthe kind of relationship he wanted with her sucked big time.
“But you survived.”
That’s what I do.
Though sometimes he’d wished he hadn’t.
But that was behind him—he hoped—even if the nightmares were still fresh in his mind.
“You could have died,” she whispered, tearing at his heart.
“I know exactly what I want for my future and what I have to lose if I let my demons loose.” Shelby. His daughter. And the life he wanted with both of them. “I will prove to you that you can trust me. I want us to be a family.”
She didn’t even look at him when he dropped that truth bomb between them. “Why don’t you try to get some sleep? You look exhausted.”
He was, though talking to Shelby about Juliana actually made him feel a little better. He shouldn’t have waited so long to tell her his reasons for the extra week at rehab and that it had nothing to do with him using again.
