I visibly flinched at his words.
He eyed me, stare cold and empty. “To the living, they’re everything,” he murmured. “Lost my everything in a tub that day. Cunt who killed her not included. Don’t regret ending her life. Not to this day, and won’t till the day I die. She was sick, yeah, I’ll admit that. But she made a conscious decision to shoot poison into her arm. The same one she held the whole world in. She didn’t deserve to be in the world when she let the junk take mine away. There’s no way to package that, Lauren. No way to spin that to make me come off better, less of a monster. I killed her. She’s not the first person I killed, and she wasn’t the last. Because that day broke me. Broke everything inside me that’s needed to function as a human being. I’m not that now. I’ll never be capable of living a life without blood, pain, killing. That replaced the junk. That’s my life now. I can’t fuckin’ let it be your death.”
It was then that I moved, despite everything in his body repelling me, repelling any human touch. That’s exactly why I did it.
He flinched when I put my hands on his neck, his whole body stiffening as if he was expecting me to strangle him. I stroked his beard and braved the demons in his eyes.
“You’re not my death, Gage,” I said, voice clear. “And I’m not going to let you convince me of that. I’m sorry about your daughter.”
He flinched again.
“I don’t even know how you’re standing here after that,” I continued, going up on my tiptoes and laying my mouth on his. He didn’t respond to my kiss. I knew he couldn’t. “I don’t know how you’re standing, but I thank God you are, here, in front of me. And that’s where you’ll be for the foreseeable future. Hopefully forever.”
His eyes widened as I spoke, in pure shock, as if he’d truly expected me to be disgusted. To throw him out of my apartment and out of my life.
“You should hate me,” he hissed finally.
I tilted my head. “And why is that? Because you hate yourself plenty for the both of us. And that already broke my heart before I knew this.” I stepped forward, clutching his face. “And it shatters it now.”
He stepped from my grasp. I let him.
“You should fuckin’ hate me! You need to!” he roared.
I jumped slightly but didn’t retreat. “No, you need me to,” I argued softly. “And you know that’s never going to happen. If David had died from cancer, you think I’d hate you just because you survived it? Or if he’d died in a car crash, I’d never want to see you again because you walked away from one?” I shook my head. “That’s not how I work.”
“But you don’t fuckin’ get it! I’m not recovered. I haven’t walked away. I haven’t survived.” His eyes zeroed in on me with a force akin to a tornado. “Addiction doesn’t work that way, baby. For all your knowledge, for all your faith, I’m glad as fuck that you don’t know that truth intimately. But I do. And if I stay around you, then you will too. Because my monkey is never getting off my back. It’s hooked into my flesh, my bones. Tattooed onto me more than the ink I’ve tried to cover it with. It’s always there. I just have to choose not to feed it. Every day, for the rest of my fuckin’ life, I have to fight against that bone-deep hunger.” He stepped forward. “And you’re dangerous, you see. Because I never thought I’d have to fight against something stronger than that. Never thought there’d be something I wanted more than the junk. The fix.” His grip was iron on my hips.
But I said nothing.
Because the dull ache in my hips was nothing like the bare and pulsating agony in Gage’s voice.
In my heart.
“And I’ve found it,” he murmured, face close to mine. “You’re the thing I want more than anything. It’s not a healthy want, baby, what I feel for you. Because from the second I took my first hit, everything I loved was gonna be tainted by that monkey. My addiction. Everything will be warped.” He pressed his lips to mine. “You’re my cure, baby,” he said against my mouth. “But I don’t want to be your disease.”
I smiled sadly. “That’s what love is, Gage, a disease,” I whispered.
He stared at me, then kissed me, hard, brutal, unyielding. I clutched the edges of his cut and kissed him back, sharing in the pain coating the room.
The kiss lasted a long time.
It didn’t move on from that, to something else, because I knew there was more to Gage’s story. It was unimaginable to think it, but there was.