I frown. “You haven’t seen me with a cold yet.”
He chuckles. “Babe, I’ve seen people at their worst. Trust me. There’s nothing you could do or no way you could look that would make me not want to bend you over the nearest counter again.”
I gasp. “You’re so nasty.”
“You are, too. You were with me all the way, sweetheart.”
A laugh falls from my lips. He’s right, and I don’t regret a minute of it.
“I was thinking about what you said earlier,” I confess.
He sits up, propping his head against the headboard, giving me a confused expression.
“About not being tempted by seeing me drink. Does it really not bother you?”
He shakes his head. “Why should it?”
“Because you can’t.”
“I can.”
My eyebrows dip as now I’m the one left with a confused look. “What?”
He sits up farther. “Icandrink. The issue is that I know that my taking a drink would lead me to a different place than it leads you. You didn’t even finish your glass of champagne. Not because you weren’t trying to, but because once you finished with it, you were done. That could never be me.
Even when I took my first drink at the age of twelve, I never left a drop in the glass or bottle.”
I chew on my bottom lip, staring down at his lap. “I wish Dierdre could’ve gotten to that conclusion.”
Neil begins tracing circles around my shoulder with his fingertips, and even though we’re both naked in his bed, it’s more comforting than erotic.
“I think she did,” he says after a while. “She just couldn’t figure out how to stop.”
“Shehadstopped, though.” I sit up, covering myself with his dark grey sheets.
“She was sober and clean for three months before she overdosed. I don’t understand it. Things were looking up. She even got her old job back at the restaurant that she loved so much. Why couldn’t she just keep doing that? Why did she have to go out to drink and do drugs again?” I ask, my eyes welling up with grief, and an abiding need to understand.
Neil pulls me into him, kissing my forehead. “I wish I could make you understand. Hell, I don’t even fully understand it sometimes.”
“Maybe I should’ve done more. I went out that night.”
“There was nothing you could’ve done. You did all that you could’ve. You weren’t her babysitter, and there’s no way you can be with someone twenty-four hours a day. It’s not possible.”
Sighing, I lay my head against his chest, knowing he’s right. Deirdre was an adult.
“My parents don’t talk about her. My mother took all the pictures of her down a few weeks after the funeral. It’s as if she’s trying to wipe the memory of my sister away. As if forgetting her altogether will stop the pain caused by her death.”
I let out a sigh and turn to look up at Neil. “Aside from Jackie, you’re the only person I’ve ever really confided in about my sister.”
“They never even mention her?”
I shake my head.
He frowns. “The pain of losing a child is probably bad enough. Add to that the suffering of how she died. I’ve seen parents blame themselves for their child’s addiction.”
“You say that as if it’s not the parents’ fault.”
His forehead creases. “It’s not.”
