Page 6 of The Tex Hex (Bitches With Stitches #3)

TEX

The room smells like burnt coffee and old floor wax. The kind of scent that sticks to your clothes and crawls into your throat.

Plastic chairs are arranged in a loose circle, and a rickety table in the back is stacked with stale cookies and a coffee pot that’s been burning itself alive since noon.

People talk. Or try to. Some mumble. Some overshare. Some sit in silence with their arms crossed like they’re being held hostage.

I get it. I'm one of them tonight.

Brewer’s here too, seated across the circle, legs folded neatly, arms loose, like he belongs. He’s not wearing his therapist face, just his sponsor one, but I can feel his eyes on me anyway. Not judging. Not pressuring. Just… waiting.

Nash, his partner, sits beside him, his blue eyes also focused on me. I feel like a mouse trapped beneath a cat’s paw.

I stare at the scuffed tile floor, tracing cracks with my eyes like they’re escape routes.

Someone’s talking about relapse, about shame, about how they don’t know if they deserve to be clean.

I could say that, too. But not tonight.

Shifting in my chair, I feel Brewer's gaze like a silent nudge. I know I should share. It’s been a while. And he knows that. I know he knows. It’s like we’re locked in this quiet little game of emotional chicken.

The room quiets. Eyes drift.

It's my turn. Even if nobody says so.

I swallow and clear my throat, but still, I don’t speak.

Because I don't know how to talk about the guilt that’s been eating me alive since I turned down Mandy’s offer to see me home. Since I lied to him. Since I let someone else touch me just to feel wanted for five fucking minutes.

I broke my promise to myself to quit that shit.

Told myself I could flirt. I could date.

But not to keep fucking with them. Random men whose names I don’t care to remember.

It’s supposed to fill me up, but it just depletes me.

Eats away at my self-esteem like a corrosive acid.

Brewer shifts, just slightly, like he feels the shift in me, too.

Fuck.

I take a deep breath and hold it in my chest as I gather my courage, then exhale in a rush.

“My name’s Tex, and I’m an addict. I uh…

I relapsed last night,” I admit. My voice sounds steadier than it feels.

“Not with drugs. Not like that. But with… the other stuff. The stuff I said I was done with. Old behaviors.”

People glance over, quiet now. Listening.

“I told myself I could handle it. That I was in control. But the truth is—” I pause, my throat tight, “—I don’t know what I was thinking, but I definitely wasn’t in control.

And I told myself I didn’t care. But I do.

I got zero pleasure from touching him, and the thought of letting him touch me makes me sick. ”

No one interrupts. No one judges, at least not with their eyes.

So I take another deep breath and keep going.

“I told someone who cares about me that I didn’t need him to follow me home. Lied to his face because I didn’t want him to see where I was really going. I didn’t want to admit how empty I felt. How weak.”

I blink hard and swallow it down.

“I don’t feel clean. I feel hollow.”

The words are out, and for a second, I think I might stop there. But I don’t.

Because it’s like once I’ve cracked the door open, everything I’ve been shoving down starts clawing its way to the surface.

“I tell myself it’s just physical. Just touch. Just sex. But that’s a lie, too. Because I’m not built for casual, no matter how good I pretend to be at it.”

I force a breath through clenched teeth, and my throat burns with bitter-tasting bile.

“I want something real. I want someone who sees me when the mask drops. But I keep chasing people who only want the show. The hair, the smile, the flirt, and the body. Not the mess underneath.”

I glance up for a second and see Brewer watching me now without expression.

“And there’s this guy,” I say, almost too quiet. “He’s... good. Too good for me, honestly. He’s seen things. Been through hell. And somehow, he still shows up with gentleness. With patience.”

I look at the floor again. It’s easier than looking anyone in the eye.

“He makes me feel like I’m worth something. Not because of what I can give him. Just... because I am. And that scares the hell out of me. Because what if he’s wrong?”

My hands are shaking. I don’t even realize it until I ball them into fists in my lap.

“I told myself I wouldn’t use people anymore. That I’d stop looking for validation in the arms of strangers. But every time I get scared, every time I think I’m too broken to be loved, I go right back to it. Like clockwork. Like I’m wired for self-destruction.”

I laugh, but the sound comes out bitter and dry.

“Guess addiction doesn’t always look like a needle or a bottle. Sometimes it looks like a tall, handsome man and an empty bed.”

Silence stretches long and wide. Not uncomfortable. Just honest . I can’t be the only one in this room who’s been where I am now.

I exhale as if I’ve just crawled out of my own skin and laid it on the floor in front of everyone. I sit back in the chair, heart hammering like I just ran ten miles uphill.

No one claps. That’s not how it works here. But someone across the circle nods. Another guy, the one who talked about shame, murmurs, “Thanks for sharing.” It’s enough.

The rest of the meeting passes in a haze. I hear the words but don’t absorb them. My body’s still in the room, but my head’s two blocks away, replaying everything I just said. Every word feels like a raw nerve exposed.

When it’s over, the scrape of chairs against tile breaks the silence. People trickle out in twos and threes. They hug, backslap, quietly check-in with each other, but I linger.

Brewer doesn’t approach right away. He gives me space, like he always does, but I can feel him waiting, like gravity, pulling but never pushing.

Eventually, I head outside into the heavy night air. The parking lot’s mostly empty. The humidity wraps around me like a blanket, but I don’t feel comforted by it. I feel like I’m suffocating.

Brewer comes up beside me, hands in his pockets.

“You alright?” he asks.

I nod. “Yeah. I mean… not really. But better than I was an hour ago.”

He huffs out a soft sound, half laugh, half breath. “That’s usually how it works.”

We stand there a second, not talking, until he says, “That was brave, what you did in there.”

I shrug. “Didn’t feel brave. Felt like bleeding out in public.”

Brewer’s quiet for a beat. “Sometimes that’s what healing looks like.”

He pulls his hand out of his pocket and dangles a white chip in front of me. The plastic poker chip hanging from a metal chain represents surrender.

A fresh start. Just for today.

It’s the reset I needed and was too ashamed to ask for in front of the group.

I glance at him, and he meets my eyes, warmth and forgiveness shining back at me.

“You ever think,” he says, “that maybe you don’t have to be completely healed before you let someone love you?”

That lands harder than I expect. I shove my hands in my hoodie pocket. “What if I mess it up?”

Brewer smiles, but there’s no condescension in it. Just tired wisdom.

“Then you get honest. And you keep showing up. That’s how you don’t lose the people who matter.”

I nod slowly, eyes stinging again. “Maybe I’ll call him,” I say, voice low.

Brewer claps a hand on my shoulder. “Or text. Start small.”

I laugh, just a little. “Yeah. Text is probably safer.”

Nash joins us, sliding his arm around Brewer’s waist like it’s second nature. I’ve seen it dozens of times, but tonight it hits different. Not in a bitter way. Just… longing. Like watching someone warm their hands on a fire I can’t quite reach.

“You ready?” Nash asks Brewer, brushing a kiss to his cheek.

“Yup,” Brewer replies. Then he glances back at me. “Night, Tex. Don’t be late.”

His tone’s light, but the curfew at Serenity House isn’t a joke. If I push it, I risk more than a lecture.

“I won’t,” I say. “Promise.”

They walk off together, fading into the dark lot, laughing at something I don’t hear. I watch until they’re gone. Then, I pull out my phone.

I stare at the screen, thumb hovering, but I don’t open my messages. Not yet. Instead, I tap a fresh note. Because maybe I need to write it out first. Get the words right. Or at least honest.

I lied to you.

Not about where I was going, though that, too.

I lied when I made you think I didn’t want you following me home.

Truth is, I wanted that more than anything.

I just didn’t want you to see me going somewhere I had no business being.

I’m trying, Mandy. I swear to God I’m trying.

I just don’t know how to be loved by someone who means it.

I don’t send it. Not yet. But this time, I save it.

I tuck the phone back in my pocket and sit on the hood of my beat-to-shit car, legs stretched long in front of me, arms folded tight across my chest.

The night is quiet now. Almost too quiet. Like the stillness that comes after a bomb drops.

I close my eyes, and then it hits. Not all at once. Just a flicker, a scent, motor oil and sweat, camouflage fabric, a locker slamming too hard. A laugh that’s not funny. That’s how it always starts.

And then I’m not in a parking lot anymore.

I’m eighteen years old, standing in a barracks shower that doesn’t drain right, surrounded by too many shadows in a place that should’ve felt safe.

Orders barked through clenched teeth. “Don’t flinch.”

Hands on me. Rough. Familiar.

Someone laughing—my team leader, I think—like it’s a goddamn joke.

I’m staring at the tiles, counting the cracks like a prayer. Don’t move. Don’t cry. Don’t let them win.

My body burns… from pain, from humiliation. It’s over in minutes. But the shame sticks to my skin like grease I can’t scrub off.

I don’t fight back because if I fight, they’ll say it was something else. If I don’t, maybe they’ll forget I exist.

But they never do.

Every bruise they don’t leave on my body, they etch into my mind. Every silence that follows is a scream I choke down until it curdles into something quiet and permanent.

My eyes snap open. My throat is dry. My fists are clenched so hard my nails have dug half-moons into my palms.

The streetlight flickers overhead as if it’s glitching. Like the world doesn’t quite know how to stay steady.

I wipe my face, not realizing I’d started to cry.

That’s the thing about trauma… it doesn’t knock. It just walks in like it owns the place.

It definitely owns me.

I sit there for a while, breathing. Grounding. Just trying to be here again.

Then, I reach for the phone one more time. And this time, I open the message thread with Mandy and type:

Can I see you tomorrow?

I don’t hit send, not yet, but I think about it because, as much as I hate confrontation and guilt, I really want to see him.