Beyond the Horizon (The Sons of Templar MC Book 4) (26 page)

Asher opened his mouth to protest. I put my finger over his lips.

“Don’t tell me you’ll never leave or any of that romance novel stuff,” I requested softly. “This is real life. Shit happens. Stuff you have no control over. You can’t make promises about that kind of stuff….” I paused, thinking of my best friend lying in a hospital bed, of her injecting herself with poison to escape the world I hadn’t even known was wearing her down. “Even if it is some kind of fairytale ending and we ride off into the sunset together, what’s beyond that? What happens after that? I can’t attach everything I am to you because I have to know who I am in order to be with you. I have to be whole myself.”

It was the truth. The inevitable truth that I had to acknowledge. The fact my responsibility to Bex made it pertinent for this truth to come out now was of little consequence. It needed to happen. I needed to be real.

Asher’s beautiful rugged face searched mine, his jaw turning hard. “You’re not going to change your mind,” he declared flatly.

I shook my head slowly, battling the tears that came with it.

Asher sighed, his entire frame tightening. “You’re so fuckin’ convinced shit’s gonna turn this sour you can’t see what’s right in front of you.” His hand tightened on my neck. “That I’d do everything in my power to make sure what’s beyond that horizon is just as beautiful as you deserve, and that I’ll be there as long as my body is taking breaths,” he murmured. “You’re so convinced that you’re some stranger to yourself, you don’t know how you’d see yourself if you just opened your eyes. Looked at yourself through my eyes. Through the eyes of your friend who’d die for you. Maybe then you’d see that you can’t search for anyone better than who you are, ‘cause that person doesn’t exist.” He didn’t wait for the sounds of my heart breaking at his words, he pressed his mouth firmly to mine. Then he was gone.

It was that best friend that would die for me that stopped me from chasing him. From stopping him. Instead, I sank down against the floor and surrendered to the big sad that engulfed me as soon as Asher’s presence stopped chasing it away.

I sat a steaming mug in front of Bex. She stared at it vacantly and silently. She’d been silent the entire ride back from the hospital, the silence saying everything and nothing at once. She didn’t look like herself. Her face was pale, the sprinkling of freckles on her small nose usually covered by makeup were even more prominent on her naked face, making her look like a child. Vulnerable. The vibrancy, the presence she usually brought wherever she went, seemed extinguished.

I sat across from her, cradling my own cup. “When did it start?” I asked, my words seeming to echo in the quiet room.

She contemplated the cup for a second before her empty eyes moved to mine.”

“Six months ago,” she replied quietly, shame in her usually boisterous voice. “First, it was pills, to help keep me energized. Keep me up. Then....” she trailed off.

I sank back. Six months. I’d been blind for six months. “Why?” I choked out.

A spark seemed to flicker in those lifeless eyes. “Why?” she repeated.

“Why did you do that to yourself?” I asked.

The spark that seemed to only flicker before fully ignited. “Why do I do it to myself, Lily? Why I didn’t do it a fuck of a lot sooner is the better question,” she snapped. “My life is a steaming pile of shit. Since I was born, I’ve been covered with filth. Parents that abandoned me like trash. Foster parents that in the best case, ignored me for a paycheck and worst case, came into my room late at night until I was old enough to fight them off.” Her voice was broken. “Living a life where no one cares, no one gives a shit about you apart from what they can take from you. Your childhood for a paycheck, your innocence for some fucked up perversion. I would lie in bed and promise myself that there’d be a better tomorrow. That I’d be better than the filth that clung to me, that was me.”

Her tearstained eyes met mine. “And somehow I did it. Tricked the world into thinking that filth was gone, even though it still seeped into my bones. I got myself out with a scholarship. Somehow a fucked up childhood may have invariably damaged my soul, but it didn’t hinder my ability to do well in tests.”

She laughed without humor and it was an ugly sound. “Then it came back, the filth. The truth of who I was. I realized it would never leave, that I’d never live the life I dreamed of.” She shrugged. “Why delay the inevitable. I traded textbooks for the pole, sold my body. The inside was so damaged I’d never get anything out of it, but my outside was worth something.”

“You are worth something, you’re worth everything,” I said fiercely, tears running down my cheeks at the heart-wrenching story. I knew her background, but she’d told me breezily, as if it didn’t bother her. I didn’t know the extent of it. I should have known what lay underneath those joking words. Those scars beneath the surface. I was her best friend. I should have known.

Bex smiled sadly. “Yeah, that’s what you told me. What Faith told me. The two of you, coming into my life, you’re probably the reason why I didn’t seek solace in the needle sooner,” she stated quietly. “Then it got you. Faith. Life took it away from two people who didn’t deserve it. I couldn’t handle it. I’m not strong like you, Lil. I got Dylan treating my body like it was his, Carlos profiting off it, men claiming it. I needed to escape it all. Have something that took it all away. Made me forget for a while.”

I sat back, blinking. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked brokenly.

Bex smiled again. “Tell my sweet little Lils that I was shooting up whenever she was at the hospital caring for her dying mom? Letting my best friend see the filth, when she was the only one who treated me like it wasn’t there? Put my problems on the girl already carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders?” She shook her head. “No. That’s not what best friends are for. They’re for taking some of that load, not adding to it,” she whispered softly.

I stood quickly, moving to sit next to her, clutching her hands in mind. “That goes both ways you big idiot,” I told her croakily. “You’re all I’ve got. You can’t check out, too. You can’t decide you’re not good enough. You can’t put poison in your body anymore. Promise me,” I pleaded. “You’re worth so much more than that. You can be so much more. My mom knew that. She saw the real you. She wouldn’t want you to give up.” Playing the dead mom card was a low blow, but I was willing to do anything to make sure Bex didn’t meet my mom, wherever she was, anytime soon.

Bex stared at me. “I don’t want to,” she said finally. “I don’t want to live that life. I think I realized that when I was in that stall, shooting up. It was like I was back in bed years ago. I want something more,” she whispered.

“You’re going to get it,” I reassured her.

Her eyes, the ones that had life in them, stared into mine. “I’m not going to some rehab where they do daily circle jerks and talk about feelings. I’m not being trapped in some state-run prison,” she stated firmly.

“Okay,” I replied quietly. I knew the reality of what Bex could afford, which was nothing, which meant places that rivaled the foster homes she grew up with. Only the rich had the luxury of rehabs with tennis courts and spas.

“You don’t need this,” she continued, shame back on her face. “You don’t deserve to have to handle your drug addict friend going cold turkey on heroin.”

I pulled her chin with my thumb and forefinger. “That’s the last time you say something like that. In sickness and in health,” I told her firmly.

She grinned. “That’s marriage.”

I shrugged. “Best friendship is like marriage…” I paused, “and you’re my family,” I told her simply.

“I’m dying,” Bex declared, her entire body shaking while a thin film of sweat trickled off her forehead.

I dabbed it with a damp cloth. “You’re not,” I promised.

“I am,” she argued, any further protest silenced by her emptying the contents of her stomach into the toilet bowl.

I held back her hair and rubbed her back, my heart bleeding for my friend, my heart bleeding with the powerful flashback that hit me of doing the exact same thing with Mom. Only with Bex, her body was having trouble with the poison leaving her body, with Mom they were fighting her body with poison. Unlike Mom, Bex was going to win this battle. I had to believe that.

She wiped her mouth with toilet paper, her defeated gaze turning to me.

“I can’t do this, Lil,” she croaked.

“You can,” I told her firmly, helping her off the floor.

We walked slowly to the living room, Bex relying heavily on me, her body weak. Days of withdrawals had turned her into a shadow of herself, I would have barely recognized her if it wasn’t for the purple tips peeking out of her shaggy bun.

Once I’d settled her back on the sofa and watched her curl into the blanket with a grimace, I walked into the kitchen, where I could still see her.

I was at a loss. I had to work tonight. Had to. My funds were running seriously dry, funds that both Bex and I needed now she wasn’t working. I knew there would be no way I could have afforded a new phone to replace my smashed one. Then one had been sitting inside the door of the apartment when I got up. Someone had broken in. Someone who knew the code of the new security system we had.

Use it.
Were the words that were scrawled on the box.

I had to ignore the pang that came with thinking of him. Of the fact, he was going to do everything he could to take care of me, even with the way I treated him the other night. I couldn’t focus on that. I had someone else to take care of.

There was no way I could leave Bex alone. After snatching a couple of hours of restless sleep after Asher had left two days ago, I consulted a nursing friend who now specialized in treating people with addictions. Her help was invaluable, as were her pointers in finding Bex’s stash. I had flushed various bags of powder, hidden in spots in Bex’s room, including lipstick tubes. I’d felt like I was violating her trust, but her survival was more important to me than her trust at that moment. Though my friend had been more than willing to help in any way she could, I knew having a stranger, no matter how nice, sit with her and witness this, would send Bex into a tailspin.

I was at a loss. Bex’s friends from the club were uncertain, considering she had told me that was where she’d first been offered the bag presenting her with an escape.

Quite simply, I was fucked.

Later that afternoon, after finally realizing I’d have to forfeit another paycheck and figure the repercussions out later, my problems were solved by a small and slightly crazy woman.