I wish I could conquer my addiction by myself, but my therapist already explained that abstinence isn’t the answer since sex is a natural part of life, unlike alcohol. A person can go forever without tasting liquor, but almost everyone has sex when they reach a certain age. And sex involves two people.
So I have to learn how to have a healthy sex life with Lo instead of the one where he feeds into my compulsions. And I can work on being more self-reliant without turning to self-love.
I sigh. It’s all so complicated. It all feels so hard.
“This isn’t the same as Lily giving you a glass of whiskey, Loren,” Rose says. “We’ll all be able to tell if you drink, but none of us will have a clue if you’re enabling her.” Because that means he’ll let me fuck him exactly how I want, when I want. I’ll be so high and so full of Loren Hale that I won’t ever want to leave the bedroom and meet real life.
It sounds so much better than it should.
“You didn’t know I was an alcoholic for years,” Lo refutes. “Believe me, you won’t know if I fall off the wagon one time. It’s the same.”
“I’ll be able to tell,” Ryke says.
“And me,” Connor adds. “I had no clue Lily was addicted to sex, but it didn’t take more than a day for me to figure out that you had an alcohol problem.”
Ryke scratches his hard jaw, cut like stone. “You knew he was addicted, and you drank beer with him? In fact, I saw you buying him Fat Tire at a bar.”
“He’s a true friend,” Lo says with a bitter smile. He says things just to agitate people, I swear.
Ryke looks like he wants to stand up and smack the back of his head.
Rose spins on Connor, but he doesn’t cower beneath her penetrating gaze. “You knew and you drankbeerwith him?”
“I just met him. I wasn’t planning to revolutionize his life.”
“You mean you saw what made him happy, and you gladly enticed him with it to become his friend.”
Lo cuts in, “You’re acting like he shot me up with heroine.”
“He may as well have,” Ryke retorts.
Okay, when did this meeting become a platform to gang up on Connor?
“Just drop it,” Lo snaps.
Connor stays quiet, and Rose doesn’t look like she’s ready to forgive him so easily. I’m sure they’ll have a whole philosophical discussion about it later.
And unfortunately, she remembers the source of our argument.
“Your addiction, Lo, is not the same as Lily’s,” she says. “When you weren’t here, supporting Lily was simple. Now that you’re back, I feel like you’re the only person allowed to be involved in her recovery process. And how healthy is that? You just got out of rehab.”
Should I even be here for this conversation? It feels beyond me, even though they’re talkingaboutme.
His voice softens considerably, losing the usual edge. “I don’t know what you want me to do. I’m her boyfriend. She’s a sex addict. Of course I’m going to be the most involved in getting her healthy. I know what you’re saying. I know what you’reallsaying.” He looks to Ryke and Connor. “I can’t tell you to just trust me, not when I have twenty-one years of being a shitty person on my record. But this situation is weird and unconventional and really, really fucked up. And we’re going to have to figure out how to do it.”
I stare at my hands, a little uncomfortable but also a little grateful they’re not talking behind my back.
“All I want,” Rose tells him, “is for you to not close us all out. If you think you’re doing something wrong or you can’t handle it, don’t just ignore it. You have to tell someone, and it doesn’t have to be me. If you feel more comfortable talking to Ryke or Connor or even the therapist, whoever. I just don’t want Lily to suffer because you can’t reach out.”
I understand her fears. We’ve isolated ourselves for so long that closing everyone off would be a natural regression. I just never really thought about it outright.
“I promise.”
She looks a little taken aback by how easily he relented.
“We both want the same thing,” Lo reminds her.
For the first time Lo and Rose seem to agree on something, but it only puts an insane amount of pressure on me. They may think Lo will enable me. But I fear I’ll screw everything up all on my own.
