“Okay.” She dragged out slowly.
Lilly was good at getting you to talk, and that’s exactly why the words left my mouth before I could even stop them. “I miss her.”
Lilly didn’t ask who. Which surprised me, considering no one knew about my night with Mya. “I told her no strings, and now strings are all I want.” My voice cracked just a little, and I hated it. “I wanted to protect her from me. From this.” I gestured vaguely at the aisle, the ghosts, and the bottle that still hadn’t moved.
“You think she needed protecting?” Lilly asked gently.
“I know she did.” I swallowed hard. “I’m not… I’m not the kind of guy someone builds a future with. I’m the one you spend one night with and hope you forget before it ruins you.”
Lilly nodded slowly, her voice calm. “Then maybe don’t be that guy anymore.”
I looked at her. She had this stillness about her, not because she was fragile, but because she’d been through hell and came out stronger. She didn’t pity me, never had.
“You ever think,” she said after a moment, “that the reason you’re still standing here,withoutthat bottle in your hand, is because part of you wants to try?”
My jaw clenched. “What if trying isn’t enough?”
“Then try again tomorrow.”
I stared at the bottle one more time. Then I turned and walked away.
Lilly followed me out of the aisle, leaving her basket behind. We were silent at first, but when we hit the parking lot, she glanced sideways at me.
“You should talk to her,” she said.
I shook my head. “She’s probably already forgotten me.”
Lilly gave me a look that said she didn’t buy that for a second. “You’re not easy to forget, Nick. No matter how hard you try to be.”
And then she opened her car door and left me standing there with a full chest and empty hands.
* * *
I had just gotten into bed when my phone lit up on the nightstand. Tyler.For a second, I thought about letting it ring. It had been a while since we actually talked. He was the only oneI never really wanted to disappoint. If I ever had a reason to get sober, it was him. Long before the cancer.
In my other hand, I was holding the wristband from the night I met Mya. The one she couldn’t get off, so I bit through it and shoved it in my pocket like a goddamn lunatic. I didn’t know why I still had it. Maybe I just liked torturing myself. Some cheap plastic reminder of the one good thing I never should’ve touched.
Even though I didn’t want to deal with this right now… I picked up.
“Yo,” I said, voice rough.
“Didn’t think you’d answer,” Tyler remarked. “But I’m glad you did.”
I didn’t say anything. What was I supposed to say?Yeah, I wasn’t going to, but I’ve already disappointed you enough, so here we are?
He gave it a second, then kept going. “I ran into Mark at the gym,” he said. “Told me he saw you looking at whiskey. That true?”
I sighed. “Yeah. I mean… yeah, it’s true. I looked. But I didn’t buy it, for what it’s worth.”
Tyler didn’t say anything for a second. Just his breath through the phone. “That’s big, Nick.”
“I don’t know about big. I shouldn’t have been standing there in the first place.” I rubbed the back of my neck.
“No, man. It is big. You used to drink like it was the only thing keeping you alive. Seeing you sober has been a good change.”
“Because it was. For a while, it was the only thing that made sense.” I swallowed.
“I think about it a lot,” he said. “About you. About the old days. About everything.”
