Baby Makes Three

I popped pills before every fight, and I popped pills after most fights too. Sometimes I took them in the morning just to take the edge off. Other times I would swallow them down with a nice cold beer after a win. I liked the way that they made me feel. Like my injury couldn’t beat me, like no one could. But suddenly, watching her look at me like I was some type of monster was killing me inside. All I wanted to do was snatch the bottle out of her hands and throw some down the back of my throat, but I couldn’t do that with her here.

She was so good to me. Sitting by my bed in the hospital, asking all the right questions with the healthcare providers, it was like she was my real girlfriend. But it was only a glimpse into what we could be. And I knew that. I didn’t deserve a girl like her.

She looked at me with tears filling the bottom of her eyes and turned away to blink them out of existence. She wanted to be tough, even though we both knew she wasn’t.

“I can’t believe you’re doing this to me again. I saved your life, dammit! Doesn’t that count for something?”

It did count for something. It counted for everything, but I couldn’t let her waste her life saving mine. I was happy with who I was, and I wasn’t ready to change that. Not even for a girl like her.

“Berkley, I just can’t do that. I can’t be with someone who can’t accept all of me.”

“Then what about me being next to you? How I was keeping you safe? Was any of that true?”

More than she would ever realize.

“I don’t know.”

“Fine! Have it your way. Have a nice fucking life.”

She stormed out of the apartment before I could say anything else. But I knew it was for the best because I didn’t deserve a girl like Berkley. It just wasn’t meant to be.

***

Leo returned just about fifteen minutes later. I still was holding the bottle of pills in my hand. He didn’t even know about my addiction, no one had. I was good at keeping secrets. I had been my whole life.

“Where’s Berkley? I didn’t think she would leave you alone on your first day.”

“We had a fight,” I said gruffly, trying to play off the questions that were about to be thrown at me.

“What kind of fight? What did you say to her?”

“Why the hell is it always my fault?”

“Because good girls like that? They don’t come around very often. And they know about guys like you.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“I know what you do in your spare time. You sleep around, and I’m guessing that’s why she left. Found a pair of panties lying around here or some other God-awful thing. I’ve kept you off the streets, and I thought that I had taught you how to be a proper man. But if you let a girl like that go, then I haven’t taught you a damn thing.”

No one spoke. He moved to the window and stared out into the afternoon. I’d had enough. I couldn’t stand the deafening silence that was in my head anymore. Leo was right—she was one of those good girls. “I have a problem,” I said in a low voice.

He spun around for the window and looked at me concerned. “What is it?”

I held the bottle in my hands like it was my lifeline. Like if he took it from me I just might die right there in that crappy apartment, in a secondhand bed. But if I was going to die, she was the one worth dying for.

“I’m addicted to Oxy. And I need your help.”

SEVENTEEN

BERKLEY

I ran from the building and got into my car, slamming the door behind me. How could he be so stupid? Throwing his life away like that! I just couldn’t understand. I thought Dillon had grown, that he would stop being so dangerous after this past fight, but instead he just wanted more trouble now than ever. How had I not seen the signs? How could I not tell that the guy I was going crazy over was addicted to pain medication?

Every thought raced through my mind as I drove, but I didn’t really know where I was going until I had been driving for over an hour. Naomi was blowing up my phone and I finally had calmed down enough to answer. “Hello?”

“Where the hell are you? I thought you would have been home by now! You said you were just going to do a drop in visit.”

“Well my drop in turned into a drop out, and now I’m on my way to my parents.” I’d had no idea that’s where my mind had taken me, but I knew from the surrounding area that I was on a small highway that took me towards upstate New York. And to the Cassidy family residence.