“I do.”
I don’t need a fix.
I would say I was going to hell, but I was already fucking there. Trapped in my own body, suffering and mentally flagellating myself for being so fucking self-deprecating on the best day of Lily’s life. I had my own little Hades inside my skull.
I squeezed my hands around the bouquet of flowers, taunting me with their beauty when all I wanted was filth in my hands to shoot into my veins.
“You may kiss the bride.”
For one second, beautiful clarity, the thing I’d taken for granted before, settled over me. I was freed from the clutches of the monster that had its grip on my soul to watch Asher grasp Lily and lay a hot and heavy one on her that was so not a chaste kiss. I found it in myself to grin. A real one. Happiness shined through the cracks of my damaged soul because if there was one thing I loved more than heroin, it was Lily. My kind and loving best friend.
And she was happy.
She was free.
For that split second, so was I. And then, for the second after, when Lucky’s hazel eyes met mine, I was something else. Not free, but not held captive by something twisted and ugly. I was clutched by the promise in those eyes, the potential. Held hostage by a beautiful dream.
Then it was gone.
Reality burst back in at such a speed my teeth chattered together and the itch came back full force.
The cocktail of the need for my fix coupled with my disgust in myself and happiness for Lily reached a bottleneck, and traitorous tears leaked from my eyes.
Tears!
I hadn’t cried since… since that night I curled up under dirty sheets, after my childish innocence had been stolen and I thought tears were something useful. That someone might hear my sobs and tear me away from the life that had become a nightmare.
No one did. That night I realized tears were useless, and I never cried again.
Until now.
And I was wearing winged eyeliner. It would fuck up my whole look. Who was I kidding? I was already a total mess; smudged makeup wouldn’t do much to make me look worse. I already was worse.
I hastily wiped my eyes and glanced at Lily, who was getting swallowed by Lucky.
“I love you,” she mouthed.
I tried my best to chase away my demons and let the warmth of this moment swallow me up. “I love you too,” I mouthed back.
“No party,” Asher growled, his rough voice puncturing the soft moment.
I tried to hide my grin, a real one as Lucky looked like Asher had just ran over his puppy. I also tried to ignore how the ensuing bickering over the need for a party to celebrate Asher and Lily’s nuptials made me fall even deeper for Lucky. The way he was such a contradiction. The way he looked like he robbed convenience stores for fun, but then he treated my fragile best friend with a gentleness that she deserved. The way he treated me like I was something. Somebody.
I tried to shake myself out of it. What the fuck was I thinking? Was I falling for him?
Jesus Christ.
This wedding thing was like a drug of its own, hypnotizing me in its thrall, making me think pink sparkly thoughts that were even more dangerous than the prickly black ones I’d been swimming in. At least I could swim in those. I reckoned I’d drown in the former.
I jerked myself out of my head just in time to see Lily convince her husband—so weird that that’s what the massive biker was now—that yes, they would indeed go to the party Lucky was whining about. I smiled on the inside. Lily was changing, growing. She was healing. Before, a party at a biker clubhouse would’ve had her running a mile, but now she was ready. She was stronger. I didn’t miss that it wasn’t me who made her that way, but Asher. It was a bittersweet feeling. I was beyond happy that she was slowly conquering her own demons, but I was upset that I wasn’t the one helping the only person who helped me. The only thing I’d done was given her a bottle and a substance to abuse. The only way I knew how to cope was destruction.
“I’ll take this one in the cage.” Lucky jerked his head to me and my whole body tightened. An enclosed space with him while battling cravings that rattled my entire body? No fucking way. Especially when the threat of destruction meant the prospect of something, or someone, to stave off that destruction was almost as enticing as the needle itself.
“And you take your bike,” Lucky continued, his attention back on Asher.
Before I could do something to get out of the situation, like fake a heart attack, Lucky’s hand snatched mine and dragged me away from the blushing bride and her biker.