“This isn’t how I wanna live, Jayden,” my voice is clipped and stressed while talking into my cell phone, as I sit in the small office at work twisting my hair around my finger.
“How else did you think it would roll out, Tru?” His voice hazed with an angry edge.
“Really! You’re really going to be like that?” I seethe, my tolerance to his bullshit was fading. Weeks I had been up and down with him. Like fuck man come downs are no fucking joke, I know this, but he doesn’t need to be a douche about it.
“Yes, fucking really. I’m Jayden fucking James, Tru, and you’re taking the actual me from that statement making me get all sober and shit.” He barks twisting the knife of guilt deeper into my core. This has been him though the last few days as night sweats and body shakes grip him. The blame game, the guilt. I’m the one who has made him do this. Well, enough! I’m done with his damn, petty, Rockstar bullshit.
“Fuck you!” I scream into the phone. “I’d do anything for you and right now you can sweat your shit out alone, James Dean. I’m fucking done with your kindergarten bullshit.” Pulling the phone from my ear I hit end call and slam it down on the desk. Storming to the bar I grab a jug and fill it with Good George cider, we now have the Black Doris on tap. I have been drinking so much more since Jayden went public with my sleeping body lying on his. Sharing that to Instagram was stupid. The stress alone of being watched is so heavy that this is the only escape I have, unless I wanna go back to drugs. Believe me, that thought has crossed my mind more times than I would like to admit lately. The numbness is calling me and believe me the voice is loud.
Downing the glass and pouring another, I open my phone. Six missed calls, four text messages. Shit, he’s desperate to want to abuse me some more. Nope not happening, babe. Your sad ass is on its own. I need to regain some of my life back, my quiet, private life, before all of me is exposed to the world. Secrets and all.
Pulling up good old Google I search the nearest AA meeting to me.
120A Park Street
Anglican church hall
4pm.
Great, a church and a church I should have known. Granted, it’s a church hall but still that one church I have a past with. Knowing my luck, I will set on fire the moment I hit the front steps. Laughing slightly at that thought of such an act actually taking place, it would most definitely solve a shit ton problems for me, right.
***
Stepping from the black suburban, Gage looks at me his fingers curled over the top of the door frame.
“You good, Tru?” he searches my eyes as I step up onto the curb his heavy hand curled in mine, he pulls me closer as he pushes the door closed behind me.
“Yes, why?” I reply, pulling my hand from his, cracking my knuckles while looking around at the surroundings. I’m always worried that the paps have found me, tailed me or just stowed away in the damn car. It seems that they know when, what and where I go to the damn toilet.
This isn’t a place I want them to see me going into at all. There is still a massive part of my life that I want and need to stay private and this is it.
“Tru, it’s a church,” his eyes look towards the building. “What do you want with achurch?” he turns his body to lean up against the side of the car, crossing his arms over his torso and placing his legs hip length apart. His eyes burn into mine searching for what has me so undone, but I’m a master at hiding what lives behind my eyes. Faking it till you make it. “Well, Gage, not to get married.” A nervous laugh bubbles out.
“I’m worried, Tru.” His tone is low. While running a hand through his hair I join him, twisting my ponytail around my fingers as I lean back against the car. “Don’t be, I’m good. I swear.” Biting the inside of my lip my mind rolls over the film inside my head of my life before him, before he came in and turned my world on its axis.
“Tru, we all know that’s not the case. He’s coming down and losing his shit at us all, you included. New Year’s came and went. All you did was work to try and avoid the chaos. All he did was sweat, scream and spew. And fucking drink. Like that’s helping him one bit, drowning one addiction with another. Now look, here we are.” Taking in a deep breath as his hand reaches for my arm his touch hot. “It’s him, just him and the hurricane that he is. I can’t handle the chaos and it’s dangerous for someone with certain tastes as I had. Well, still have because lately I’ve been dreaming of them all over again.” Shaking my head as the words that I have whispered inside my mind hit my ears, as tears well behind my long lashes. Why the fuck am I so damn vulnerable with this man. “Gage, I get high off that man’s breath alone and this damn media pressure is sending my own demons churning for a lethal hit. It’s like Russian roulette.” His body moves, bringing his massive frame in front of me. Looking up at him, through wet lashes, his arms come toward me, pulling my small 5ft 8 frame into his massive I’m sure over 6 ft body. His inked arms hold me and the warmth from them is running like a ripple of lava over my body. “I’m hanging on by a thread, Gage. It’s fraying. I don’t know how much more I can take.” His body tenses under our touch. I squeeze into him tighter not wanting the safety he brings to leave.
“He hates who he has become, Tru. He hates the shit he puts you through, he’s not free like he believes. He has had no one stay, they all have left. He doesn’t know how to keep someone, let alone a soul as beautiful as you. He will push because he thinks he has to. To save his heart for when you leave.”
Sucking back the tears as a headache falls over my body.
“I don’t wanna be like them, but I have spent nights lying next to his trembling, screaming body trying to find the words to say goodbye and the strength to walk before he drowns me.”
My stomach twists into a knot as my brain realizes just how shitty this is. How much like before it was. A relationship with an addict is like dating a meth pipe or a line a coke. Chasing the dragon and never meeting the dealer.
“I keep secrets inside me locked with an A-Grade padlock, Gage. Like keeping the Queens jewels safe kinda lock and key. This, all this right here, is just another thing that makes me scared and wanna get high.” Gage clears his throat. I hear the crack in his demeanor as my eyes meet his that are showing a slight sheen of tears. He’s breaking for me, for Jay and for whatever is in his closet.
“There’s no escape when it wants your soul. Its teeth are razor sharp and he needs to bleed it all out before I can even help him.” With that I push myself from the black suburban and Gage. That man goes above and beyond.
“I’ll walk back,” I call over my shoulder at him. His face deadpans and I smile wide. “Like hell you will, lady.” His voice is stern, but I hear the grin in it as I have turned to walk inside.
“I so will, Gage. Go have a coffee, some gin, a smoke. Walk something other than Jayden James and his shit. God, even find a lady or something just as crazy.”
Holding up my hand I wave behind myself as I take the last step up to the double front doors.
“Tootles,” I call, faking calmness.
Walking in, my hands sweat as a hot flush runs down my spine with goosebumps chasing right behind it.
