“Promise.” This was such a mess, such a complete fucking mess. One that Silas had nobody but himself to blame for it. At least he could promise that his current state had nothing to do with Rae. Not even a little. He just hoped she wouldn’t make him promise anything else, because right now he didn’t feel like he could.
And he hadn’t meant to be so loud, part of him cringed at the way she jumped at his raised voice. She’d never seen his temper, not at it’s worse, and she’d never seen him at his very worst. Or she hadn’t until now; he couldn’t say that again. He couldn’t help snapping and being loud, and he wished that her son wasn’t present. Fuck, he didn’t even know what all the noise was about.
“I can’t tell you that,” he told her, his entire body tense and his words clipped, still angry. More at himself than anyone else, but it was anger all the same. “And you can’t help me. You can’t fucking fix this. That’s not how it works.” He knew that she hadn’t meant to hit a nerve with her words, but he’d heard too many well-meaning people in hospitals and rehab facilities say the same exact thing, it was automatic for him to take it and shut down all the kindness and concern. “It’s my problem, Rae. My shit to work through. You can’t just will it all better because you want to help and want things to be good.” He took a step back from her, only narrowly avoiding walking backwards into the table.
He fisted both his hands and took a deep breath, trying to push back some of the panic and anger and shame at the idea that Rae knew. Even though he hadn’t said it, she knew. And in typical Rae fashion she was being good about it, she was trying to help, because that was her nature. Only thing was she couldn’t help with this. It was his decision to make; it was his fuck up to fix. It was the harsh truth that no matter what, at some point –and the point was closer than he’d thought- he’d have to beat his addiction on his own. No one else’s willpower and strength could do it for him.
“You’ve never been this,” he said quietly, the anger ebbing down to plain old irritation, the words not coming out as harsh. “You don’t get it. I’m a fuck up, Rae. I let the damn recovery get the fucking better of me. I wasn’t strong enough to avoid the fucking morphine.” Because being shot hurt a hell of a lot more than he’d thought it would, but it also made him realize why he’d been so afraid of it in the first place. Because it wasn’t the being shot, not mentally, it was the recovery.
Not being able to do what he wanted, having the temptation of easily accessible meds that gave him that same feeling the fucking heroin did.
“And you can be here, and you can say you want to help, but you fucking can’t. You can’t kick this for me.” Why wasn’t she leaving? God, it’d be easier if she was, if she would just go. He could be miserable by himself, and work through the fact that he’d fucked up again. “It’s my fucking problem," he said again, like he could make her believe that she didn't need to get involved.
He really should have known that she would piece the puzzle together, that he couldn’t have kept it a secret forever. Now all he’d managed to do was drag the woman he loved, the woman who was too damn good for him to begin with, into his own world of mistakes.