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“Where did you get the drugs?” he asks, and I know why he’s asking. Rhya, his friend who shot herself in the head, she was an addict and got her drugs from my dealer.
“Why?”
“You know why,” he growls, the intensity of his wild stare swallowing the sky-blue.
I groan and toss my pounding head back against the pillow. “Just fuckin’ leave it alone, man.”
“Fine. Destroy your life. See if I care!” he shouts, standing up and knocking the chair over.
He cares. He can’t deny that he does, but I don’t stop him from leaving. I want to be alone. I want this chaos inside my head to be gone, along with the memory of her. I want to rip my face from my skull, dig out the memories and suffocate them until there’s no life left to live.
Just when I think maybe I might get some alone time, nurses come in, check on me and then Ricky appears.
I groan. “Awesome.”
“Don’t give me that shit.” He shakes his head and sits in the same chair Shade knocked over. Only now he gets right in my face and makes me look at him. “I’m glad you’re still alive.”
“For now, I suppose.”
He stares. Like he can’t believe I said that.
“Why are you here?”
His stare doesn’t leave. I wish it would. “Because I have some things to say to you.”
“If I listen, will you leave?”
He chuckles, then speaks. “I never really took the time to understand you.”
Oh, Jesus Christ. I wish this shit would have killed me so I didn’t have to sit here today and listen to this. Am I thinking about the girl? Which one? I think I’m thinking about both.
“I admit, Tiller, I didn’t know how to deal with you, and I was just trying to survive and keep you fed. Dealing with you. . . well, I didn’t. I just let it go that it was just the way you were. I get that you’re a badass, Tiller. I get that no one and nothing controls you. Not the sport, not the sponsor, nobody. I understand that. It’s hard to conform to something you started to do as fun.” He pauses, like Shade did, and waits for me to look at him. I do because maybe then he’ll leave soon. “But what the fuck, man? Drugs? I raised you. I gave up everything to make a life for you, and this shit. . . was I so bad at parenting that I didn’t teach you to be a decent human being? What did I do?”
“It wasn’t you,” I mumble, hating he’d question himself. “It was never you.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you then? If you need help, I’ll get you help. We’ll be there for you, but I can’t sit by and let this happen to you. I can’t let a boy I love as my son kill himself. This is it for me, man. I’ve put up with the drugs, parties, the arrests. . . not anymore. You saw what losing Rhya did to Shade. What do you think he’s going to do if he loses his blood to it too? What are you doing?” He waits. I say nothing. “We all cared about Rhya. It was hard, and here you are being your typical selfish self only thinking about you. Your whole life I’ve stood by and let you take chances. I stood by and let you do what you wanted because that’s you. That’s the Wild Cat we all know.”
He has valid points, doesn’t he?
Straightening his posture, Ricky stands and tosses a brochure on the bed. “We talked about it and here’s the deal. You want to keep living in the house and riding for Honda, you go get help. You go for thirty days and follow the program, and you get your shit together. You talk to someone if you can’t talk to us because we can’t do this anymore. If you don’t go, Honda’s out. They’re dropping you and so is Monster Energy.”
I knew that would happen and you know, I’m surprised they’ve given me as much as they have.
Just before Ricky leaves the room, he looks over at me, tears in his eyes. “My brother might have been your father, but you’remy son, Tiller. I’m not going to stand by and watch you kill yourself.”
And as my luck would have it, like they’re all waiting for their turns to tell me how much of an asshole I am, Roan comes in and I know, because I’m handcuffed, I won’t be able to walk away and he’s counting on that.
Roan scowls at me, menacing and mean, just like I’ve always known him to be, and steps on the tube running to my dick. “I don’t like you.”
“Nothing new.”
“Shut the fuck up. Just listen.”
I roll my eyes. It hurts. “Ordinarily I wouldn’t, but I’m handcuffed to the bed.”
But then he’s staring at me.
I stare back and sigh. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”