Carefully, so I don’t lose our connection, I scoot back until I’m leaning against the headboard. “You can stop letting your imagination run wild, little wife. I’m not a serial killer,” I joke, trying to lighten the atmosphere a little, and she gives me a tiny smile.
“The things I’m about to tell you, I have no excuse for. But I do have an explanation, so please let me get it all out, okay?” She nods. “My home life growing up was shit. It’s nothing I need sympathy or pity over; it’s simply how it was. My parents didn’t give a fuck about me until Lincoln, my best friend, encouraged me to go to an open call for a television show and I was cast as part of the main cast. Suddenly, I was their cash cow, and they began to try and milk my career for all it was worth.
“When I was fifteen, I’d had enough of their demands and frivolous spending of my money. With some help from Lincoln’s dad, who was a lawyer, I managed to emancipate and cut them out of my life completely.” Ainsley makes a little mewl of distress, and I can see her heartbreak for the boy I’d been in her eyes. I brush my thumb over her lips and give her a grateful smile before pushing on. “The cast became my family, the Hayes brothers especially, but when the show ended, we followed different paths. The pressure of being an adult so young, along with the natural stressors that go along with this industry were weighing me down.
“I’ll skip all the details of how I got into drugs in the first place, but it wasn’t long before they were my solution to everything. I needed them to forget about my past, to numb all of my feelings.” My gaze is on Ainsley’s throat, focused on one of my love bites because I’m afraid of what I’ll see if I look into her eyes.
“I managed to keep my habit under the radar until I was twenty. Especially since one rule I stuck to was never to show up to do stunt work while I was high.” I glance up and take a peek at Ainsley. Her expression is blank, and I hate that I don’t know what she’s thinking, but at least I don’t see revulsion. “Then one day, I received a call. It was Lincoln. He’d been diagnosed with cancer, and the prognosis was grim.” I blink rapidly, fighting the moisture gathering in my eyes as I remember that day. “It broke me, and I didn’t know how else to deal with it.”
Ainsley bites her lip and shakes her head, her eyes shiny with tears. “Oh, Rem. I’m so sorry.”
I want to hug her close, but I need to get this over with. “Instead of dealing like a fucking adult, I pumped my body full of heroin to forget the pain. I was in the middle of a film with Grier studios, and after two days of wallowing in self-pity—” I stop and scowl, so angry at myself. “Rather than being there for my friend,” I spit, “I went to the set doped up. The drugs made me reckless, and I made a huge error in the middle of a stunt. I should have died for being so stupid, but somehow I managed to walk away with only minor injuries.” I close my eyes tightly and sigh. “I was terrified of the repercussions, knowing at best, I was going to lose my liability insurance and people would refuse to work with me. At worst, I was going to jail.
“To my shock, Carson Grier didn’t report the incident to the police, but he did have me blackballed in Hollywood. He had every right, and I don’t blame him. Now. But when I was a young, stupid addict, I was in a rage over it. A few months later, I was at a party and got drunk and mixed it with a cocktail of drugs that put me in the hospital. I almost died from the overdose.” My face twists in a rueful grimace. “Lincoln showed up at the hospital the day I was being discharged.” My eyes open, and I shake my head with incredulity. “The guy was in the middle of treatments for a disease that was probably going to kill him and yet, he was at my bedside instead of the other way around.” Ainsley reaches behind me and peels my hands off of her, then brings them to her lap and clasps them in her own. It soothes me, and hope sparks in my heart.
“To this day, I have no idea how Lincoln’s dad managed to keep me out of jail, not even a mark on my record. But when he told me my only other option was rehab, I had no arguments. I’d done incredibly stupid things, but I still had some common sense and knew that if I didn’t get my act together, I was going to get myself killed.”