First Love, Second Chance: Friends to Forever / Second Chance with the Rebel / It Started with a Crush.... Nikki Logan
‘It feels great because you’re love-sick. And all those endorphins feed your obsession. And it’s hurting you but you don’t notice. You don’t care. Nothing matters as much as the feeling. As the subject of your passion. It’s like a parasite. Built to survive. The first things it attacks are the things that threaten its survival. Judgement. Willpower. Self-awareness.’
Marc’s silent breathing began to mesmerize her, his warmth sucking her in. She couldn’t tell whether her words were having any impact on him. ‘And being denied it physically hurts. It aches. You become irrational with the pain inside and out and you lash out at people you care about. And the more they intervene, the more you begin to imagine they’re working to keep you away from the thing that sustains you. And that’s when you start making choices that impact on everyone around you.’
She felt him stiffen behind her and knew he was thinking about his mother.
‘But adolescents learn to deal with infatuation,’ he said. ‘Or they grow out of it.’
Or they give in to it. She wasn’t surprised to hear condemnation in his voice, but it still saddened her. How many people saw addiction as a sign of moral weakness. A character flaw. ‘Mostly because life forces them out of it. Classes. Structure. Discipline. Financial constraints. Exposure to new people. Cold reality has a way of making obsession hard to indulge.’
She turned back towards Marc again. The unexpected move brought her frigid jaw line perilously close to his lips as he leaned in for a slosh. The hairs on her neck woke and paid attention. ‘But imagine that you’re of legal age with ready cash, no particular structure to your day,’ she whispered, ‘no restraints on whether or not you indulge it. A husband who makes drinking a regular part of his day.’ And all the reason in the world to want to numb the pain. ‘No reason at all not to allow the great fascination to continue. Why wouldn’t you?’
Steel band arms circled around her and held her still. Close. Her eyes fluttered shut. He spoke close to her ear. ‘Because it’s killing you?’
‘By then, you are so hooked on the feeling you just … don’t. care.’
He turned her in his hold and looked down on her, a pained frown marring his face. ‘You didn’t care about dying?’
She shook her head. Hating herself. Hating the incredulous look on his face. Not that she couldn’t understand why, after everything he’d been through with Janice. She could feel it in the tension in every part of his body.
‘Because you truly fear you’ll die without it,’ she said.
His frown trebled and he pulled her towards him. Into his warmth. The kind of moment she’d lived for back in school. It was old Marc and old Beth from a time that the two of them could have conquered the world. From inside the crush of his arms, she could feel his chest rising and falling roughly. He was struggling with everything she’d just told him. And why not? It had taken her two years to finally recognise where her addiction seeded. And when.
Emotional and physical exhaustion hovered around her. She struggled to keep her eyes open, leaning her entire upper body into his. So tired, the only thought she had about the two perfect pectoral muscles facing her was what a comfortable pillow they’d make. His hand slipped around her back to better support her.
‘I don’t know what to say,’ he said, voice rough.
‘There’s nothing you can say,’ she murmured thickly. ‘It’s enough that you know.’
‘Thank you for explaining.’
‘I’m glad you understand now.’ Her words slurred. Her eyes surrendered to the weight on them and closed. She leaned more heavily into him.
His voice was only a murmur but it echoed through the chest she pressed against. ‘You want my understanding? I thought it was forgiveness you wanted?’
Nodding only rubbed her cheek against his chest. It was perfect friction. She did it twice. ‘Both. I don’t want you to hate me.’
Marc’s thumping heart beat hard against her ear. Five times. Six times. ‘I accept your apology, Beth.’
Something indefinable shifted in her world. Like the last barrel of a lock clunking into place releasing a door to fling open. And out rushed all her remaining energy like heat from a room, finally freed from her determination to win his forgiveness. Marc was the last of her list. She’d focused on those names for so long she’d never really given much thought to what lay beyond them. A dreadful unknown spread out before her. Something she had to brave without help.
Later. When she wasn’t so warm and tired.
She found her voice. ‘Thank you.’
He took her face in his hands and tipped it up to his. She forced her lids to lift. Hazel eyes blazed down onto her. ‘I think I’ve been angry at you for a really long time.’
She blinked up at him, barely able to drag her lids open after each close. Knowing these words came straight from his soul. ‘I know. I’m sorry.’ She laid her face back against the pillow of warm muscle and sighed as the heat soaked into her cold cheeks.
‘Why couldn’t I let it go?’ he murmured.
I don’t know. The words came out as an insensible mumble as her lips moved against his skin. His arms tightened around her, held her up.
‘Why couldn’t I let you go?’
His voice swam in and out with the lapping tide and, ultimately, washed clear through her head and out again as she slipped into sleep, quite literally, on her feet.
A HIGH-pitched shriek dragged Beth from a deep, uncomfortable slumber. A musty smell filled her nose and she shifted around uncomfortable rocks that had somehow found their way into her bed.
Her eyes cracked open. Not a bed … the back of a car. And the shriek was a Wedge-tailed Eagle that, even now, circled the dim skies in search of breakfast. The rocks were the detritus that littered the back of Marc’s four-wheel drive, cutting into her back and thighs where she lay on them. And the mustiness was a mix of the skanky old blanket that wrapped tortilla-like around her and the salty moisture of her clothes, her hair. Dry yet damp.
God damn it, Marc!
Fury forced her upright and every seized muscle in her body protested violently. She should have kept moving. She should have kept helping. Not sleeping comfortably—or even uncomfortably—while Marc froze his butt off alone with the whale.
She lurched like a caterpillar towards the rear doors of the wagon and used her bare feet to activate the internal handle. Icy-cold air streamed in as she pushed the doors with her legs and her skin prickled all over with gooseflesh.
It took longer than it should have, but she eventually scrambled out of the car and tucked the dirty blanket more securely around her against the chill wind. Up here, exposed above the dunes, it was almost worse than down on the shore. The world around her was still muted but tiny fingers of light tickled at the horizon.
‘How long have I been out?’ She didn’t waste any time with pleasantries as she got back to the shoreline. Marc was up to his knees in the rapidly retreating ocean, practically sagging on the whale for strength. ‘Why did you let me sleep?’
He turned his face her way. Haggard but still beautiful. To her. ‘You passed out in my arms, Beth. You were exhausted.’
‘So are you.’
‘I wasn’t the one asleep on my feet.’ Frost rose from his lips with every word.
Beth’s whole face tightened on a frown. Anxiety flowed through her. ‘How are you?’
‘Freezing. Thanks for asking.’
‘What