I shook my head. “I don’t think that’s it.”
“No one would fault you for it,” he asserted. “And I’m not prying about anything you’re processing since those assholes—”
I shot up a hand. “Well, that’s just the thing. It’s really not about those assholes.” I turned my hand over, as if examining my hand in Jesus-feeds-the-masses mode would lend me new insight. Instead, it had me admitting with even more confusion, “I’m feeling other things. Well, I guess remembering other things would be more accurate.”
“Remembering?” he echoed, narrowing his gaze. “Okay. Remembering things like what?”
“Shit that happened when I was a teenager. Close to the time my mom died, I think.”
“Ohhh-kaaay.” He drawled it out this time, practically adding a smirk. The moment felt like a strange gut punch.
I sprang to my feet and gripped at my hair. “Okay?” I spat. “That’s it? That’s your idea of helping?”
“Whoa. Easy, Twombley. You look like you want to rip my windpipe out with your fucking fangs.”
“Maybe I do!” I shouted—before catching a long look at my reflection in one of the large picture windows that looked out to the pool area.
Holy crap. The guy in that window was a madman.
The sight pulled me up fast. At once, I sank back down on the bench. For a few long moments, I just sat there, my face cradled in my hands, willing my thundering heart to settle the fuck down.
Eventually, in a much lower volume, I said, “And I don’t understand that bullshit, either. I’ve never felt so violent in my entire life. What’s going on with me?”
I’d always prided myself on my even temper. One passionate powerhouse in our posse was enough, and Bas already had the engraved throne for it. But here I was, having to tamp down boiling rage over the slightest provocation.
Elijah still wasn’t helping with a solution, continuing to study me with perplexed attention.
Now I knew what zoo animals must feel like. Trapped and stared at wasn’t working well for me. I shivered.
“You want a sweatshirt, man? Or the heat turned on?”
I held up my hand again, adamantly stopping his mother hen bit. “It goes as quick as it comes,” I explained. “I’m telling you, Elijah, I’m all fucked up right now. Apparently, all the way down to my body temperature.”
I shook my head, because even though I knew damn well that being a hostage wasn’t my fault, I was so disgusted with myself. So disappointed that I had let bullshit like this happen to me. It made me so angry. Angry and ashamed and sad.
After some appreciated silence, where my best friend and I just kicked back on his enormous bed, I mustered the courage to speak directly about the ordeal I’d just been through. Hell, I was tempted to relabel it already. An ordeal? Really? But what other title actually fit? Maybe going through it would lead to that answer…and others that I apparently desperately needed right now.
“I think they were drugging me with whatever bites of food they gave me. It’s the only thing that makes sense. There are too many symptoms, or whatever, to have all at once.”
Elijah remained silent, actively receiving whatever it was I needed to get this mess “into the universe,” as he always said.
“But these flashes of anger…damn it.” I trailed off, throwing my forearm over my face. “What if I lash out at Rio in the same way? You already know how infuriating she can be.”
Weirdly, I laughed out that last part. God, I missed that woman. I needed to see her again so badly. It was becoming a physical ache, but not in the usual places. For the first time in my life, the center of my chest throbbed harder for a woman than between my thighs did.
But then I lowered my arm and bolted my gaze back up at the ceiling. Without looking away from that comforting blankness, I sucked it up to ask the most terrifying question of my world. If I was looking at no one when I spoke it, then no one knew I was afraid, right?
“What if it’s finally happening?”
I finally dared to peer over at Elijah.
His gaze was utterly clueless.
“What if I’m losing my shit?” I persisted. “You know. Just like her.”
“Rio?”
Tamp down the rage. Tamp down the rage.
It wasn’t a far stretch to figure out his assumption. I mean, the current “crazy” person in my life was that woman I was head over heels for, but the guy also went way the hell back with me. So if he had been a little more thoughtful with his guess…
But he wasn’t, and there was the reality. I’d have to deal.
“My mother,” I said through gritted teeth.
He sat up then, holding up his hands. Somebody had gotten the memo about how pissed I was. “That was insensitive, man. My apologies. But Grant, your mother was a drug addict, not insane. There’s a difference.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose between my thumb and index finger again. Christ, no wonder Bas made the gesture all the time. “I think she was both. Chicken or the egg fits pretty perfectly.”
“You’re probably right,” he offered. “But damn, buddy. We were what—fourteen or fifteen when she died? Grown-up enough to think we ruled the world; young enough to screw up a lot of attempts getting there. So how does a kid understand complex mental health issues at that age?”
“Not saying I did. But have you ever remembered something from your childhood, and the more you think about it, the more you think that it doesn’t really add up?”
“I guess so. I don’t really know.” My best friend let out a heavy sigh.
It dawned on me that maybe I’d crossed the line between tapping into his advice and overburdening him with all my dramatic woes. Yes, he was the one who brought me here instead of my own home. And yes, he was the one who kept encouraging me to stay a few days while I tried to get my head screwed on straight. But now, I wasn’t sure a few days was going to be long enough—the same way I sensed that I had more to deal with than just the last two hundred and forty hours.
“I think I’m going to call Rio,” I finally said, needing to change the subject. “I really want to hear her voice.”
Like, right the fuck now.
“I think you should wait, but I’ve said my peace on the matter.”
“Elijah, can you imagine doing that to the woman you love? Letting her worry even a moment longer than necessary? It’s already shitty enough that I’ve waited this long to reach out to her.”
“So don’t tell her you waited. I’ll call her and tell her you passed out from exhaustion the minute we got in my car. I brought you back here, and you’ve been sleeping ever since. It’s not too far from the truth. You’ve only been awake some of the time. It’s been what? Two hours? Three, tops?”
“And you know that so precisely…how?” I retorted, rolling off the bed. “Is this where I add creepy babysitter to the long list of your illustrious nicknames?”
My friend just chuckled as we left his bedroom through the French doors that led back out to the pool deck. I couldn’t help but turn the spotlight on him for a few minutes. God knew I’d had more than my fill of centerstage for the day. No—the year.