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“Is he okay now? Did—” My voice breaks, failing me. “Did his dad contact him?”
“No. We’ve been keeping an eye out. So far, he’s kept his distance. Reggie’s been trying to convince Way to get a restraining order, just to be safe, but you know how he is.”
I snort softly at that, and nod.
A moment passes before he says, “Maybe I should have come here sooner. Tried talking to him. Tried…harder in general with him. But…”
Frowning, I follow his gaze to the rundown motel.
“I don’t really know how to do this.” At his tone, something in my chest sort of just…cracks open. And it hits me?—
“Have you been alone this whole time?”
He shoots me a look. “No.”
“Shawn.”
“I’m fine.”
Of course you are.
And suddenly, it’s not Shawn I’m talking to, but Jeremy. And I’m not in a car, but standing in a cemetery parking lot.
“Yeah, you’re always fucking fine. What else is new?”
Screwing my eyes shut, I pinch the bridge of my nose, willing the images away.
Later. Worry about all that later. One thing at a time.
Something tells me fixing shit with Jeremy is going to be a lot more complicated than fixing shit with Waylon.
A throat clears softly, and I open my eyes, lower my hand. Shawn’s massaging his stubbled jaw with his fingers. “I just…I wanted to wait until we could do this together. Seems only right.”
Throat thick, I nod.
My gaze searches his drawn features, and it occurs to me just how far he’s not only come, but how far their friendship has.
Shawn and Waylon…there’s always been tension between them. Reluctance, resistance…however you want to describe it.
Sometimes I did wonder if perhaps they only put up with each other because of me. I know how Waylon is—how he’s always been—so it never really fazed me.
Shawn though…he’s tougher to read.
Whereas I wear my heart on my sleeve, and Waylon hides his behind glares and sneers, Shawn keeps his chained up behind an adamantium-enforced wall.
I love the man like a brother, and deep down, I know he returns that sentiment right back, in his own way.
Hell, some would say our friendship is borderline unhealthy. Codependent. A recipe for disaster.
Though which relationships of mine aren’t at this point…
But it’s different with Shawn. We’re both addicts. Recovering addicts. We’re both always seeking something to fill the void left by abandoning our vices—his heroin, mine pills…but, really, we’ll take any kind of substance to dull the sharp bite of living.
And yet, despite how much we’ve come to rely on one another since meeting, basically using each other as excuses not to use—see how well that fucking worked out?—not even I have managed to break through that final barrier when it comes to him. Not beyond the bare minimum.
No one has, as far as I know. At least not since he was a kid, maybe, and even then, who really knows? It’s not like he talks about it much—his past—if at all.
What I do know is the system is shit, and he was a victim of it, and if he had a good life before it was ripped away from him…
