Page 49 of Love Me Again

He couldn’t see a way toward getting Josie to forgive him. Not when he didn’t blame her for not forgiving him. But holding her in his arms, even as fraught as that had been, had broken through whatever walls of numbness he’d put up to survive the pain of losing her.

This was why he’d spent so much of his life engaging in whatever self-sabotages he could. Knowing you were fucked was much better than hoping you could fix it.

He had hope, and that was damn stupid because he didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know how to get through to her. Didn’t know how to make the worst decision he’d ever made right.

It would never be right.

He sucked in a breath and let it out as the quiet of the house surrounded him. Everyone was off doing something. Then he heard the squeak of a floorboard overhead. Well, not everybody apparently.

He didn’t want to see anyone, so he hesitated going upstairs, but then figured whoever was up there likely wouldn’t bother him if he told them he was going to go sleep off a pain pill.

So, he climbed the stairs in his slow, painful way. Mom had kept him on the lower level at first, but eventually he’d insisted he be in his own room upstairs. Going up and down, moving the leg was good for it, he’d told her.

Lied.

“What the hell is wrong with you,” he muttered under his breath.

He crested the stairs just as Molly stepped out of the bathroom. Her hair was a bit of a mess, and she definitely looked worse for the wear and like she hadn’t been up doing her chores this morning. More like she’d spent some time slumped over a toilet.

But Boone didn’t think she was sick. The aftereffects of drinking, more like. Again. Normally, he wouldn’t say anything. Wasn’t his place. He certainly had no high ground to stand on.

But he was a little worried about his usually very stable older sister. Not a goody-two-shoes like Shane, just very even keeled. She’d break a rule if she felt like it, follow a rule more often than not. She’d probably snuck a few beers before the legal age at a party here or there, but he’d never considered her a drinker.

“You’ve been hitting that a little hard lately,” he offered, without judgement, just conversationally.

Molly looked at him, a little miserably. “Guess so.”

They stood there regarding each other in silence.

He had no business offering her advice. Look at him, after all. But he found… Actually he probably did have a leg to stand on here. Because he’d been there and he’d done that and he’d learned… “Take it from someone who knows. It doesn’t fix anything.”

“Okay, so what does?” It wasn’t belligerent—like it would have been if their positions were reversed. Or more accurately, when their situations had been reversed.

She asked it as if she was truly searching for an answer.

“I’ve been trying out this honesty bullshit Mom suggested? Kinda sucks, but seems to do something.”

Molly laughed, a little bitterly, a little bit like she couldn’t believe they were having this conversation. “Honestly? I don’t know what the honest truth is. I just can’t seem to find any damn thing to be happy about without too much misery and bitterness ruining it, and drinking takes the edge off.”

Boy, did he know the feeling.

“A while back Shane told me I needed to find a reason. To stay or to go. Didn’t matter which I chose, so long as I chose.”

Molly heaved out a sigh. “God, he’s so annoying.”

Boone laughed, and Molly sighed out a chuckle in spite of herself.

He thought about the other day, when Shane had surprisingly said they were more alike than he’d thought. Maybe the same could be said for Molly. Leaving her asshole husband hadn’t been a mistake.

But eloping with him in the first place sure had been.

“Yeah, annoying. And right. Because I’d spent a good portion of the past almost two years feeling sorry for a decision I made. Instead of making new ones.” He studied his sister and said what he should have a long time ago. “He was a piece of shit, Mol. That’s not on you. You know that, right?”

She inhaled, exhaled, looked down at her hands. “It’s a bit on me when I chose to endure the piece of shit, thinking I could change him.”

Boone didn’t know what to say to that. Wasn’t he the piece of shit Josie once thought she could change? Except the best version of Boone had been the one married to her. He hadn’t been a bad husband.

Until he’d left.