Page 85 of Full Out Fiend

“Notice what?” I prod.

“You honestly don’t remember?”

I rake through the depth of my memories, searching for a recollection or a spark of a memory that would make all this less embarrassing.

“No,” I finally choke out.

“It was glass. There was glass everywhere. All over the ground, in Tori’s hair…”

“What the fuck?” I gripe, completely dismayed.

“You had broken a tequila bottle before she came outside. Then Jake said you threw another bottle at her… or to her”—Bile shoots up my esophagus and threatens to spill out—“which shattered and cut her up pretty bad.”

I throw the phone down in anguish. Who the fuck did I think I was? There’s absolutely no way to justify any of that. I was a child. A selfish, indulgent child, throwing a fit because I didn’t get my way.

But that’s not an excuse. Despite my tantrum, I was a fully grown adult. I thought I was in love. I don’t know shit about love—clearly, I never have—but I’m pretty sure it’s not supposed to maim.

I peel myself off the wall and pick the phone back up to find my brother waiting on the line. He’s always had the patience of a saint. He’s always needed it with me.

“I’m good,” I assure him, before urging, “Keep going. I need to know it all.”

He continues. I listen. Listen to every word. I wince at the details but force myself to focus and take in every syllable. Absolutely nothing rings a bell. The story is much more foreign than familiar.

He eventually trails off, his voice low and gravelly.

I’m a dick for making him relive all this shit.

He sucks in a deep breath before another announcement. “That’s not all.”

I bark out a laugh. I’m so fucking pathetic. What else could there fucking be?

What he says next rocks me to my core.

Because this? The admission I spewed? One my fucked-up mind must have thought would convince her to leave her husband for me? This part isn’t a shocking revelation. But I thought it was a secret I’d keep to myself forever.

When Dempsey tells me about the confession—about how I accidentally told him, Tori, and Jake that I handed Rhett Wheeler the keys the night he drunkenly crashed his car into the train bridge—I lose it.

Sobs rip through me, the tears falling faster than I can wipe them away. I’m not upset that the truth came out—serves me fucking right. But it’s clear now that I caused incomprehensible heartache to a close friend—to someone I thought Iloved. I got drunk one night and set out to do my worst. And fuck, did I go full out and deliver. I hurt Tori in ways I didn’t even know I was capable of.

Who’s to say history won’t repeat itself? What if I do it again?

I groan in anguish as the tears keep falling. Dem is quiet, but I don’t have to glance at the phone to know he’s still on the line.

Fuck. I don’t deserve his love. I don’t deserveanyone’slove.

I hurt someone I cared about—physically, emotionally—then I left the mess of destruction for someone else to clean up. Foryears. How the fuck did Jake even begin to forgive me? How can Dempsey stand the idea of sharing DNA with me?

What if I hurt Daphne like that? What if what I did back then is enough to ruin everything we have right now?

Now that I know the details, the severity of what Anthony Adley might have on me…

I can’t fucking take it. It’s too much. I would do anything to shed my own skin and never look back. I would do anything to change what I did.

But that’s not an option now. Not after all this time.

Still.

I have to own up to it. Live with the knowledge of who I am. Completely.