Page 78 of Relapse

I didn’t have to tell her about Silas. But something about keeping that secret from her left a bad taste in my mouth. I didn’t know how I was going to make it happen, but somehow, I needed to try to explain to her what happened with Silas.

And that he and I were over. For good.

An image of the little golden airplane drifted into my mind. His gift to me. A symbol of a promise…an escape. I must have left it at his house. Along with everything else—my shoes, my clothes, and my dignity.

My chest throbbed at that thought, and it pissed me off.

To worsen my mood, Damian sat potently in the front room, waiting for me upon entry, sipping his coffee. That’s when I noticed the time—early morning, 6:00 a.m. He was probably getting ready to head into his shift or stop by the hospital to check in on David. Last I heard, they were considering moving him out of ICU. Potentially within the next few days or so.

Damian looked up at me as I rounded the corner, and glared.

“I see someone decided to grace this house with their presence. Nice to see you. Did you enjoy your birthday?” He paused, his expression changing into fake shock. “Oh wait—that’s right. You didn’t come home. You skipped your birthday. You’ve been M.I.A.”

“I don’t have the fucking energy, Damian,” I responded with a glare of my own. I knew he would be pissed, and while the encounter with Delane had pumped me filled with adrenaline, I still didn’t want to go toe to toe with him.

Damian nodded at my clap back. “Oh, trust me. I am fully aware that you’ve exhausted all of your energy. You’ve been busy.”

The hair on the back of my neck rose. Just like a predator who plays with its food, there went Damian, toying with the conversation and beating around the bush of the details he was bound to share with me anyway.

“The fuck are you talking about? If you know something, just say it. You know I hate when you do that shit.”

Damian took a breath, slowly sipping his coffee upon his exhale. “You might want to sit down.”

I proceeded towards him slowly. “What?”

The muscles in Damian’s jaw tensed and that’s when my nerves resurfaced.

“Noah, you’re all over the fucking internet. You. And Silas. You made a fucking headline.”

My heart stopped beating for a moment and I stumbled over my next words. “You’re l-lying.”

Damian paused, studying my shock as if he’d thought I’d have a different reaction. As if I should’ve been fully aware of my actions.

My body floated to the chair opposite him and I sat down. My knees were weak.

“I wish I were,” he said, turning his phone around and flipping it horizontally so that I could see the video. The title read: Unexpected Company: Rival Sons Seen Together on the Strip.

My mouth dropped as the video began. There we were, Silas and I, entirely too close in the back of his car, that intrusive paparazzi from earlier capturing a perfectly framed shot through the glass.

And then to make the video clearer, there I was, rolling the car window down. My face was practically pressed against the stupid camera. My eyes were red, pupils dilated, face flushed.

I swallowed nervously. Seeing myself like that, from someone else’s perspective, hit me differently. I was clearly intoxicated in the clip, slurring my words and spewing insults. Laughing when it wasn’t an appropriate time to. All the while, seeming like the world was mine for the taking. I was overly confident, clearly unaware of the people around me.

And then there was Silas. He was only in the frame briefly before knocking the camera down and out of the man’s hands. The video caught the tires under the car and the crunches of shoes on the asphalt. Watchers could hear Silas loudly defending me from the camera’s placement on the ground.

My heart thudded at the sound of his voice, even through the phone. I didn’t think I’d ever get used to this visceral reaction my body had to him, even when he wasn’t there. Those feelings needed to leave—quickly.

Once the camera was picked up off of the ground, the paparazzi zoomed in to catch video of the Royce blowing through a red light, nearly causing a collision in the intersection.

Damian paused the video before the reporter could continue their interpretation.

“So, Noah. Please tell me, what the hell do you expect me to do about this one? Clearly, you can’t leave this Thorne alone. This whole family has been turned upside down, and he very well might be the cause. You refuse to see it, refuse to care. You continue to see him, despite my warnings. You abandon me, and your own mother to spend the night with him, getting into God knows what kinds of trouble. You were clearly drinking.”

He paused and I could feel my anxiety start to climb from my fingertips all the way up my arms. I tried my best to stay still as he asked the question I knew would come next. “Are you using again?”

My leg started shaking without my consent, and I dug my fingernails into the skin of my thigh, trying—and failing—to focus on anything other than the suffocating feeling beginning to form in my chest.

I had to really focus on my breathing, because I could feel my heart rate increasing, my head pounding, and air started to seem less and less with each new question Damian asked me.