Just Say Yes (17 page)

“Do you usually know people you're meeting for the first time?” Tim's retort was quick and firm. He felt the muscles in his body stiffen with Peter's words, the anger and hurt rising within him. It certainly wasn't the first time a person had made assumptions about Tim based on the way he looked. But he'd hoped that the people who'd raised a beautiful girl like Quinn would be different. Being judged by these people—
Quinn's
people—stung more than he'd expected. And what sucked even more was that his past didn't prove their assumptions incorrect. Tim had barely graduated high school and had a history of drug use that would've made GlaxoSmithKline blush. And while he didn't openly talk about his addiction with strangers, he refused to hide it either. It was as much a part of him as the ink on his skin, and there was no use hiding what they were bound to find out anyway. Finally realizing that Peter was looking at him, clearly choosing to ignore Tim's initial rebuttal and still expecting a more suitable response to his question, Tim replied. “What is it you want to know?” The words sounded cold and dry. But he couldn't bring himself to care.

Mr. Sawyer shrugged casually as he picked his beer back up and took a sip. “How about we start with why you don't drink?”

Tim knew his request to have water with dinner hadn't raised any red flags. But rejecting a beer your girlfriend's dad offered you doesn't go unnoticed. It went against every rule of male bonding. Tim exhaled a long breath and folded his arms across his chest. Though he was about to open up about his past to a person he'd just met, he felt the need to stay physically closed, as though his arms might serve as some sort of a barrier. Finally, he brought his gaze up to meet Peter's, knowing that his stare probably revealed the strange cocktail of emotions he'd been feeling since he'd pulled up to the Sawyers' home. “That choice is a pretty standard one for people in recovery.”

Quinn's father gave a short nod and twisted his lips as if he were biting back a comment he knew he should keep in. “Fair enough,” he said. “So you're an alcoholic, then.”

Tim swallowed hard. He hadn't anticipated that Peter would assume that, though he didn't know why. “Addict would be a more accurate description.”

“Hmm,” Mr. Sawyer said quietly, and Tim stayed silent, knowing that Peter wasn't finished. “You mind if I ask what you were addicted to?”

Tim let out a disgusted laugh and shook his head. “Does it matter?”

Mr. Sawyer thought for a moment, his eyes narrowing. “You know, it probably doesn't.”

“Look, I don't mean to be disrespectful. Any father has the right to know the man who's dating his daughter. I get that.” Tim ran a hand roughly through his hair. He felt himself wavering, felt his uncertainty about everything he was sharing. “What I mean is, the only thing that should matter is that I'm clean
now
. After wasting more than ten years of my life, I finally got it back on track. And I'm happy. I haven't taken a drink, picked up so much as a joint, or swallowed a pill—not even an Advil for a damn headache—in almost eight years.”

Peter's silence made it difficult for Tim to read his reaction. Eventually he spoke. “What finally made you stop all of that self-destructive behavior? You made poor choices for more than a decade and then you're just able to quit? What changed?” he asked, his brows furrowing as if he wasn't sure whether to believe that Tim was really clean. Or maybe it was more that he wasn't sure he'd stay that way.

Tim inhaled deeply, letting the oxygen settle into his blood and work its way through his body. “I almost lost someone I love, someone who loves
me
. My brother.” Finally Tim relaxed his arms, allowing one to hang at his side while he slid his other hand into his pocket. “Scott could've died in the passenger seat of
my
car because I was too damn high to even give a second thought to driving. My stupidity and selfishness nearly took the life of my own brother.” Tim's head hurt with the tears that were forming behind his eyes, but he held them back. He always did. “I was done destroying people's lives. And that included my own.”

Mr. Sawyer raised an eyebrow. “That's quite a story.”

“What is?” Quinn's voice floated through the garage before she actually appeared.

Her father glanced at Tim and then back at his daughter. “Your boyfriend here was just telling me about something that happened at the restaurant the other day.”

“Oh. Well, speaking of food, Mom told me to come get you guys. Dessert's ready.”

“What are we waiting for, then?” Peter threw an arm around his daughter, squeezing her tightly as he led her out of the garage and away from Tim.

•   •   •

The ride home was exactly as Tim had expected it to be . . .
needed
it to be: relatively quiet. Quinn had tried to make conversation about the night—how he liked her parents, what he honestly thought of the food. She even joked about how not heading up to her old bedroom had been a missed opportunity. “Maybe next time, then,” she said.

“Yeah,” he replied. Much like the rest of his responses, that one was clipped and devoid of any inflection. Eventually, after he was sure Quinn could sense something was wrong, her attempt at conversation slowed until it stopped completely.

“You want to come up?” Quinn asked when he pulled up in front of her apartment building.

“Not tonight.”
God, I really
am
a dick.

“You okay?” she asked, concern in her eyes as she rubbed a hand on his shoulder.

“Just tired.”

Quinn cocked her head to the side for a moment, as if she were deciding whether or not to press him for more. Thankfully, she didn't. “Okay. Call you tomorrow, then,” she said, more like a question than a statement. Then she leaned in to him, placing a soft kiss against his lips.

He couldn't help but want more. Not because he was some horny bastard who couldn't kiss his girlfriend without wanting to rip her clothes off. But because no amount of Quinn ever felt like enough.

But if there was one thing he'd gotten exceptionally good at over the past seven years, it was resisting temptation. He pulled away slowly without a word, returned his eyes to the windshield in front of him, and said good-night as Quinn exited the car.

Once she was safely inside, the quiet he'd enjoyed dissipated rapidly. Now he was alone with a voice much louder than Quinn's: his own. And that voice told him the same thing Mr. Sawyer was trying to tell him without using the exact words. Tim wasn't good enough.

And the more Tim thought about it, the more he felt Quinn's father had a right to judge him. Tim tried to imagine what it would be like to have a child—a daughter—and to see her come home with someone like Tim. He couldn't deny that he'd have a reaction similar to Mr. Sawyer's. It wasn't enough that he had a successful career, or that he was polite and intelligent. What father in his right mind would knowingly allow a recovering drug addict to date his daughter?

No matter how much Tim tried to cast a shadow upon the person he used to be with the person he wanted to become, there was no hiding who he was. You can gift wrap a present any way you want to. But all the pretty wrapping paper doesn't change what's inside the box.

And it was that thought that caused a physical pain to shoot through his chest, caused his heart to
actually
hurt inside his body. It didn't matter how many times Quinn tried to convince him otherwise. It wouldn't change the truth Tim had fought so hard to ignore.

He wanted what was best for her. And Tim wasn't it.

Withdrawal Letter

Nothing.

Quinn stared at the text, not sure how to reply, or even if she should. Her mind was scattered, trying desperately to come up with a reason for Tim's distance. But like his text said, there was nothing.

Ever since having dinner with her parents, he'd been weird. And in the five days that followed, Quinn hadn't seen him. They'd had only two stilted conversations and had exchanged some texts that were clipped and awkward. It was such a departure from the warm, compassionate conversations they normally had, she didn't know what to think. Finally, she'd reached her breaking point and asked him what was wrong. That's when she got the
Nothing.

Her fingers warred with her brain, the former desperate to reply that something sure as fuck was wrong and the latter not wanting to risk making things even worse. Quinn quickly retreated to the safe side, and she was instantly disappointed in the choice. She thought she'd kicked the safe, innocent Quinn to the curb weeks ago. But with Tim pulling away, she felt her courage retreat with him. It concerned her: was she only strong when Tim was there to back her up? Had she not
really
made the changes she'd convinced herself of, instead wrapping herself in Tim's self-assuredness and passing it off as her own?

Can I see you tonight?
she typed, praying to get a response that wouldn't make her feel so . . . sad.

Sorry. I'm working tonight.

It was the same thing he'd written every time she'd asked that week. He was either lying or his job had decided to employ slave-labor tactics. Opening her desk drawer on a huff, she threw her phone inside and slammed it closed. If he wouldn't willingly talk to her, then she'd just have to barge in there and leave him with no other choice.

•   •   •

Quinn had been staring at Tim's door for a while. She wasn't sure just how long, but the ache that was developing in her high-heel-clad feet indicated that she'd been standing still for a while. She heard sounds from inside.
Clearly not working.

She'd wanted to be mad that he'd lied. Wanted to be furious, actually. But she couldn't quite muster it. At least not as the dominant emotion racking her body. She was too busy fluctuating between panic and all-out fear. She had no idea what awaited her on the other side of the door, and she was almost too afraid to find out. Almost. But the journalist inside of her eventually won out, her curiosity getting the better of her. So she knocked.

She heard muffled footsteps approach the door, but it didn't open right away. Quinn knew he'd looked through the peephole. Knew he'd seen her. And he didn't open to let her in.
God, this is brutal.

Finally the door opened, and there he was. The object of her fantasies for almost a year, the man who knew her in ways no one else did, the man who had irrevocably changed her forever. But he didn't look happy to see her.

“Hey,” he said.

“Really? ‘Hey' is the best you got?”
Okay, so maybe I can muster some anger after all.

He shrugged in reply.

Quinn took a moment to look at him. He looked . . . young. Timid. Resigned. Of course she couldn't be sure, but she had a sinking suspicion that the Tim standing in front of her looked even worse than the addict he'd once been. He hadn't shaved recently, his posture was slumped, and his emerald eyes lacked the vibrancy they normally held.

“You going to let me in, or are we just going to stare each other down across the threshold?”

Tim wiped a hand over his face before backing away from the door and gesturing her inside. She heard him softly push the door shut behind her. “You want a drink or something?” he asked.

She walked a little farther down the hall and turned in to the kitchen, with Tim following. “Oh, I want something, all right. For you to tell me what the hell is going on here.”

Tim shoved his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants, looking down at the floor. “Nothing. I've just been—”

“I swear to God, Tim, if you tell me nothing or that you were working one more time, I'm seriously going to do you bodily harm.” Quinn gestured to the kitchen with her arm, pointing out the pan sizzling on the stove. “You're obviously not working. So stop lying, and level with me.” She closed her eyes and took a breath. Her voice was calmer when she pleaded, “Please. I can't do this. Not knowing what's going on. We've never had secrets between us. But you're keeping them now, and I need to know why.”

He continued to stare at the floor, his jaw ticking like the seconds that passed them by. Finally he released a breath that sounded as though it weighed a thousand pounds and spoke. “I don't want the same things you do, Quinn. I thought I did, or that I could. But I don't and I can't.”

Quinn shook her head in disbelief. “What does that even mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like. We started . . . all this,” he said as he swirled his hand between them, “to help you write an article. But in the process of all that, it made me revisit some dark places. And maybe I clung to you because I was afraid that I couldn't face those demons alone. But now I realize that that's not true. I'm actually better off facing them on my own.”

“Dark places? We've had nothing but good times since we started hanging out. I don't understand any of this.”

He did look at her then, his eyes detached. Hollow. “How could you understand?” His words were devoid of any emotion, as though he were reading them off a page. “You haven't had to walk in my shoes, Quinn. And believe me, I'm glad for that. The things we did for your article, for you they were about stepping outside of yourself, walking on the wild side for a little while. But that used to be my
life.
Shoplifting? I used to do that shit multiple times a day, both to survive and to feed my habit. Hitchhiking? Nothing new there either. I signed up to help you because I liked what you were trying to do for yourself and I thought I could handle it. But I can't. I can't be your knight in shining armor, or your hero, or whatever skewed image you've morphed me into. I'm barely holding myself together. I can't hold you too. And it's not fair of you to ask that of me.”

Quinn felt like she was standing in front of a stranger. He'd never even hinted at any of that before. He was basically calling her selfish, and there was no way she was going to stand there and let him make her out to be the problem between them. Especially when there hadn't even been a problem a week ago. “First of all, I haven't morphed you into anything. I see exactly who you are. It's
you
who sees a lie when you look in the mirror.
Your
perception that's skewed. Second, I won't let you act like I'm some selfish prima donna. I'm a good person, Tim. And I will
not
let you twist that into something ugly. Just like I won't let you twist what's between us that way. Because you and me? We're fucking beautiful.”

“You only see what you want to, not the truth.”

“Then show me the truth.”

He stretched his arms out. “I am. It's right here. This scarred, tattooed criminal is the truth. I don't fit in your world, Quinn. You were fooling yourself to ever think I would. And I let you fool me too. But not anymore.”

Quinn winced at his words. “I didn't fit in my world either. Not until you. Together we fit. Together we're perfect.”

Tim let out a humorless laugh. “Look at me. Do I really look perfect to you?”

“No. Right now you look like an asshole.”

“Well, you asked to see the truth.”

“I know. And I'm still asking. Stop bullshitting me. That night at that restaurant, when you told me about your tattoo and how it represented the Kipling poem, you said it reminded you to never give up. But that's what you're doing. Something spooked you, and you're quitting instead of telling me what happened. Was it my parents? Did they make you uncomfortable somehow? I can't fix it if I don't know what happened.”

“Nothing happened. Your parents are nice people. But I don't belong in some big house that sits on two acres of land. That life kicked me to the curb a long time ago. It isn't me anymore, and I don't want it to be.”

“I'm not asking you to be anyone other than who you are.”

“Maybe not, but I feel the pressure to be all the same.”

Quinn sputtered. How had they gotten this far off track? “Those feelings are all self-imposed. You can't blame me for them.”

“I don't want to argue about this anymore,” Tim said with obvious agitation. “It doesn't matter what we say. Nothing will change how I feel.”

“Tim, you can't just walk away without trying to fix things. We're so good to—”

“Being with you makes me unbalanced. It makes me want to use, Quinn.”

•   •   •

It was a dirty thing to use against her, but he couldn't help it. Because the longer she stood there, fighting for him, the weaker his resolve became. He couldn't lose this battle. For her sake, he had to push her away. And when he saw the fight instantly drain out of her, he knew it had worked.

He watched her brace a hand to her chest as if she were manually trying to prevent her heart from breaking. The sight made him want to fall to the floor and curl into himself. Instead, he stood there, resolute. He needed her to believe the words he'd been spouting, needed her to see him as the piece of trash he felt like.

Ever since dinner with her parents, Tim had tried to figure out what the right thing to do was. The last thing he ever wanted to do was hurt Quinn, but he hadn't been able to see any other way. It was either hurt her now, while things were new and she'd be able to recover quickly, or let them get even more enmeshed only for her to discover what he had known all along, what he was sure her parents knew: that Quinn deserved more than some tatted-up chef with a rap sheet.

It didn't matter that she made him feel worth something, because ultimately he made her worth depreciate. She was like a beautifully ornate kite, and he was the string that would tether her to the ground when she should be up in the air flying. No matter how hard she bucked into the wind, desperate to see where it would lead her, a guy like him would always force her back down. Because Tim had realized as a teenager, no matter how well he did in school or how accomplished he was in sports, he would never truly fly. No one as afraid of falling as he was could ever make a life up in the clouds.

She blinked rapidly, her eyes bright with moisture. Her chin jutted before she reset it and hardened her features.

She is so fucking strong.
Stronger than I could ever even hope to be.

“I, umm, I don't . . .” She cleared her throat. “I'm not sure what to say.”

Tim looked down at the floor again like the coward he was. “Then let's just say good-bye.”

He glanced up to see her nodding sadly. She walked toward him, putting her arms around his neck when she reached him. He didn't return the hug. “I never wanted to make things harder for you. I thought . . .” She pulled away from him and averted her eyes. “It doesn't matter what I thought. Take care of yourself, Tim.”

With that, she walked down the hall, through the door, and out of his life.

He couldn't understand how something could be the right thing to do and still hurt so fucking bad. Tim walked over to the counter where he had been prepping his dinner. With a yell that sounded like an animal in excruciating pain, he hurled everything to the floor. He then pushed his hands through his hair, gripping tightly on the ends and pulling, needing physical pain to match the emotional devastation he was feeling. He turned, leaning back on the counter as his legs gave out. He slid to the floor, knees bent with his elbows propped on them so he could maintain the pressure on his scalp. It wasn't calming him like he'd hoped it would. Finally letting go, he fished in his pocket for his phone. He didn't even let himself think as he scrolled until he found the name he needed and called.

The phone rang a few times before going to voice mail. “Hi. This is Roger. You know what to do.”

Once Tim heard the beep, he unleashed on the only man he thought would understand. “Roger, it's me. I—I . . .” Tim banged the back of his head against the cabinet door. “I'm so lost, Rog. I'm just so fucking lost.”