Leah sighs, pulling up the same stool Maddox used a week ago. "You can't keep doing this to yourself."
"Doing what?"
"Destroying yourself over her." The words are sharp, but I can hear the pain beneath them. "She's been gone less than two weeks and you're already falling apart. What happens if she relapses? What happens if she comes back and nothing's changed?"
"That's not going to happen."
"You don't know that." Leah leans forward, her eyes searching my face. "You've said that before, Garrett. Every time. 'This time will be different.' 'She's really trying.' 'I can't give up on her.' And every time, she ends up back in a trap house, and you end up back here, breaking down, and I have to watch my brother destroy himself for a woman who?—"
"Don't." My voice comes out harder than I intend. "Don't finish that sentence, Leah."
"Why not? Because it's true?" She stands, pacing the length of the garage. "I love you, Garrett. You're the only family I have left. And I can't stand watching you pour everything you have into someone who keeps throwing it away."
"She's not throwing it away. She's sick. There's a difference."
"Is there?" Leah spins to face me, and I see the tears she's been holding back. "Because from where I'm standing, it looks the same. It looks like you giving and giving and giving, and her taking and taking and taking, and nothing ever changing."
I set down the wrench I've been holding, turning to face her fully. "You think I don't know how this looks? You think I don't hear what people say about me? 'Poor Bloodhound, still chasing after his junkie wife. Doesn't he know she's never gonna change?'"
"Garrett—"
"I hear it all, Leah. Every whisper. Every pitying look. And you know what? I don't care. Because those people don't know what it's like to love someone who's fighting a war inside their own body. They don't know what it's like to watch someone you love disappear, piece by piece, and still believe that the person you fell in love with is still in there somewhere."
Leah's face crumples. "I know what it's like, Garrett. I lost her too. She was my friend before she was your wife. And then she stole from me—she took the only thing I had left of Mom—and I can't just forget that."
"I'm not asking you to forget. I'm asking you to understand that addiction is a disease, not a choice. She didn't choose to become this person. She didn't choose to hurt us."
"But she did hurt us. Choices or not, she did."
The words hit harder than I want to admit.
Because part of me—a small, tired, beaten-down part—wonders if she's right.
If I've been enabling Vanna instead of helping her.
If my love has been a crutch that's kept her from hitting the bottom she needed to hit.
But then I think about that motel room.
The look in Vanna's eyes when she said yes to rehab.
The way she kissed me goodbye, trembling but determined.
"She's different this time," I say quietly. "I know you don't believe me. I know I've said it before. But something changed in her, Leah. I saw it."
"And if you're wrong?"
"Then I'll deal with it. But I can't give up on her now. Not when she's finally fighting for herself."
Leah stares at me for a long moment, and I see the battle playing out behind her eyes.
The anger and the hurt and the love she can't quite suppress, no matter how hard she tries.
"I hope you're right," she finally says. "For your sake and hers. Because I don't think I can watch you go through this again."
She leaves without another word, and I'm left alone with the echo of her footsteps and the weight of her warning.
The phone rings on day fourteen.
