“Alright, what's happened?”
She hesitates. I can see it—the battle in her head. Her lashes lower, and she buries her face back into her knees like she's trying to hide from whatever she needs to tell me. But then she looks back up, sadness flashing back at me.
“Is it true?”
That small crease appears between her brows, the one she usually gets when she's overthinking. I just want to smooth it away with my thumb. I want to take whatever this is off her shoulders.
“You're going to have to be more specific, baby.”
She lifts the bottle and takes another swallow. Her face tightens at the burn, but she doesn't seem to care.
“Did you get Rose hooked on drugs?”
That… was not what I expected.
My jaw ticks. “Who told you that?”
I have a fairly good idea, but I need to hear her say it. I need to know exactly what kind of poison has been whispered into her ear about me.
“You're not denying it?” Her words slur slightly, but her stare doesn't waver.
“I’m not a liar, Willow.”
“You're not honest either.”
There are two things in my life that I regret without question: betraying my best friend and letting drugs take control of me when I was too young and too reckless to understand the damage I was causing.
“I was going to tell you,” I say, choosing my words carefully. “I just didn't know when the right time would be.”
She studies me like she's trying to decide if I’m worth believing.
“Do you still take them?”
I know she needs and deserves the truth.
“No,” I answer honestly. “I haven't touched anything in years. I got help. Proper help. Therapy. Rehab. The works. Rose did too.”
My hand moves to the back of my neck, gripping it as the past presses in.
“I never forced her into anything. She wanted to try it. And at the time, I didn't stop her. I should have, but I didn't. I was a stupid teenager with a crush on my best friend's girlfriend, and I let that crush turn into something selfish and reckless. It spiralled out of control until it was too late.”
There's no excuse for what I did.
She pushes herself to her feet abruptly.
“I can't fucking believe you,” she hiccups, tears spilling over again. “Did you know she never wanted me? That she was jealous because my dad actually wanted to be a parent, and because she didn't get any… any attention, she went running to you?”
I want to pull her into my arms. Let her hit me if she needs to. That she's allowed to be angry at me, at Rose, at the entire mess of it.
But one wrong move and she’ll either smash the bottle over my head or pour the rest of the vodka down my back.
Okay, she won't do the first one, but I deserve it.
Mostly.
“I did,” I admit quietly. “I knew she struggled with being a mum. I knew she resented how much Leon loved you.”
The words taste bitter, wrong on my tongue. How can you not love your own child? I never understood it once I held River for the first time.
