I put Anna’s arms through the sleeves like a child and zipped it up, covering her. Next, I put my own jacket on her, and then lifted her into my arms. She was sickeningly light. “Let’s get you out of here.”
“Jag?” she murmured, her glazed eyes focusing on mine for just that second.
Every muscle in my face tensed to keep the tears at bay. I was not going to break down, not when there was something to be done. “I’m here. I told you I would come.”
A smile ghosted her lips. “How do you just get prettier? That isn’t fair.”
I pressed my lips to her forehead.
“My Jagger.” Her head rolled onto my shoulder, and her eyes closed.
I tightened my hold on her and walked out of the decrepit house.
“Just you and me. Promise?” Her voice drifted off.
“Always, Anna. You and me.” I secured her in the backseat of the Range Rover. At least no one had stripped it while we were inside.
I closed Anna’s door and leaned on the frame of the car, the chill of the metal biting through my shirt faster than the frigid air. I welcomed it, the slight bite that grounded me in this moment, reminding me that I was really here. I’d found her.
This time.
A primal sound ripped from my throat and my fists shook, aching to destroy something. I shoved my hands into my jeans pockets to keep them contained, and my fingers skimmed across Paisley’s nickel. I’d promised her I’d control my temper, and I owed it to her. My head slammed against the car, and I stayed there a minute or two, trying to process it. My success at finding Anna. My failure for letting her fall as far as she had. The relief. The resignation that this was never going to end until she chose it for herself.
The engine roared to life, jarring me from my pity party. I sucked in a glacial breath and let it numb me from the inside out. Then I got in the car, ready to take the other half of my soul to rehab. Again.
“You look like shit,” Paul said, handing me a cup of coffee. It was the only drug allowed in this place.
“Thanks.” I rubbed my free hand across my face and took a drink, welcoming the caffeine, and dropped the 5&9s into my bag. Study time over.
“Anything yet?” He looked at Anna asleep in the hospital bed. The bed was the only hint that this room wasn’t in an immaculately decorated house.
“Not since the worst of the withdrawals passed.”
“Worse than last time?” He stretched out in the armchair parallel to mine and kicked his feet up on the coffee table.
“Five days.” I kept my voice flat, but Paul knew. He’d been with me since this started, since before, really. He’d watched her slow decent into hell just like I had, both of us powerless to keep her from poisoning herself.
“Favorite line?” he asked, trying to bring our usual, morbid levity into the situation.
“This time, hmm…” I thought hard. “Definitely the I hate yous, but those are nothing new. But her telling the nurse she was going to use the stethoscope to slingshot her ass back to the hippie commune she apparently was born in was nice.”
“Ah, she’s not digging the holistic approach?”
“That’s a negative. Then again, I’m not sure I’m down with the lack of…everything, either. I’ve been cut off from civilization for the last six days.” They confiscated every cell phone at the entrance, and there were no landlines in the building except the ones for emergencies. No internet, no TV, no game systems. But there was a shit ton of yoga, if that was your thing.
“Why don’t you go out past the property line and make a call?”
I shook my head, concentrating on the rise and fall of Anna’s chest. “I promised her I wouldn’t leave. If I’m not here when she wakes up, we’ve got no chance of keeping her here. As it is, I have one more day before I have to get home to Rucker.” Home to Paisley.
She was going to kill me, and I deserved it. I hadn’t spoken to her since Friday night, and that had been a hurried message on her voice mail that I had an emergency out of town and I’d call her when I could. Talking to her was more crucial than air, but at this point I’d screwed up so royally that I had to do it in person. I’d been consumed with one thought—get to Anna—and everything else had faded until I had her here, admitted.
Anna was my Achilles’ heel, and I was going to have to beg Paisley to understand once I could explain it to her. Now just figure out how the hell to do that. I’d run through just about every scenario possible, every way to tell her, to crack the window into my past and help her absorb that sometimes it bled, hemorrhaged, really, into my present.
“Just call. It will only take a few minutes, and I can stay with her.” He saw me hesitate. “Jagger, that’s your real life in Alabama. This isn’t you anymore, and I couldn’t be prouder of what you’ve done in every aspect of your life. Now get to a damn phone and call your girl.”
The need to hear Paisley’s voice was a physical ache that affected every limb, every finger, even my tongue. I flicked the stud over my teeth and rethought my whole “in person” position. Maybe I just needed to talk to her, to remember my other life, and she was waiting for me. Fuck it. I wanted my cell phone, a quiet room, and a sweet little southern accent in my ear. I stood and made it to the door handle before Anna stirred.
“Jag?”
I deflated like a popped balloon and plastered a smile on my face before I turned around. “Hey.”