She scowled. “You’ve got to be kidding me. So first you tell me you don’t remember most of the tour because you were screwed out of your mind, yet on this matter, you’re absolutely certain?”
It’s not that I couldn’t see things from her perspective. She didn’t trust me—people rarely trusted addicts—but the fact of the matter remained. Given the history Oliver and I had, I could confidently say I understood him better than anyone, and right from that night at the club when he and Ivy first met, I’d seen how he looked at her, and I knew what his game was.
That game only had one winner, and it sure as hell wouldn’t have been her.
“I may not remember the exact words I used,” I said, “but I remember the gist of what I told you. I said Oliver was manipulative, and that he was using you. I stand by those words.”
Her face quivered with so many emotions I didn’t have enough time to parse them out before she sprung up, her chair scraping loudly against the floor. “You are unbelievable.”
“I didn’t lie to you about Oliver, Ivy,” I insisted, my voice rising. “Trying to keep him away from you was probably the only good thing I did during that tour.”
She slammed her palms on the table. Her eyes swam with anger and pain, andfuck, it hurt to see that. “You meddled in other people’s business when you had no right to. Take your dumb apology about the stupid kiss and shove it up your ass. You may have gotten sober, but you haven’t really changed one bit. You’re still a goddamn liar, and I never, ever, want to see or hear from you again.”
Whipping around, she cut through the audience we had acquired by now and let the door slam behind her as she ran out to the street. The patrons turned their faces toward me, their hushed whispers and giggles forcing me to rise and leave.
In my car, I collapsed against the seat and closed my eyes.
That went really fucking well.
I heard my sponsor’s voice in my thoughts.“At least it’s done now. You said what you needed to say.”Nial had a way of putting a positive spin on just about anything, but I thought that even he’d struggle to brighten up the fact that Oliver was still inside Ivy’s head. I could recognize the signs. After all, he’d spent the better part of ten years living inside of mine.
Still, what was I supposed to do about it? It felt presumptuous to assume that Ivy needed saving. Oliver was living in New York, and she was going to school here. With an entire continent between them, how much damage could he really do?
I let out a tired breath and started the car. No, I wouldn’t get involved in Ivy’s life. Not when she had explicitly told me she wanted nothing to do with me. All I knew now, more than ever, was that I had to keep going with the plan that would fix everything once and for all.
9
IVY
I spilledout of the Uber as soon as it parked in front of my apartment building. I glanced up toward our window, praying that Zoey was home. The driver sighed loudly as I slammed the door with too much force. Adrenaline was still pumping through my veins from the conversation with Jamie, and I jogged inside, needing to talk to my friend.
She’d been wrong. I hadn’t gotten closure. I’d just opened a whole new can of worms.
The gall of him. I should have trusted my gut. Guys like Jamie didn’t have the capacity to change. For all I knew, he’d been a liar even before he’d become an addict, and getting clean wasn’t the same thing as getting a personality transplant.
The apartment was empty, and Zoey’s bedroom door was open. She must have gone to the library. She’d warned me at the beginning of the semester that I wouldn’t see much of her during the months she’d have her head down studying for the MCATs. Still, I needed her, so I selfishly texted and begged for her to rush home.
While I waited, I paced the living room and chewed on my frequently abused nails. If I had to put together a list of all the things that I was annoyed with at the moment, Jamie’s shocking appearance would be close to the top of the list. The scraggly, too-thin, sick-looking guy was gone. In his stead was a man who looked like he could be on the cover of the latestMen’s Healthmagazine. The toothpick arms had become muscular and well-defined beneath his tattoos. His chest had expanded. His shoulders looked like two footballs. The haircut suited him perfectly, and the new beard only served to emphasize the angle of his jaw. I mean, for a second there, I’d forgotten who he was, and my pulse had begun to race for reasons other than my anger. He was infuriatingly attractive, objectively so, and I would know, since I was still determined to find him repulsive.
The sound of a key twisting in the lock alerted me of Zoey’s return.
“Thank God, you’re back,” I exclaimed and stopped pacing.
Zoey took off her backpack and cast me a curious look. “I practically ran here. What happened?”
I flung myself onto the sofa with a groan. “I don’t even know where to start,” I told her, flinging my hands up in the air. “It was bizarre.”
She raised her brows and sat down on the other end of the sofa.
“Start at the beginning,” she suggested. “You got to the coffee shop, then what?”
“I went inside and looked around, expecting to find a man who’d seen better days, and boy, was I wrong.”
“Seriously?”
“I didn’t even recognize him at first. I looked right past him. That’s how different he was.”
“You looked past him? So nothing special?”
