I shouldn’t have let him kiss me.

That thought kept circling through my mind as I trudged home. I’d taken a cab to get to the club, but had caught the bus home. I had to be careful about money, because regardless of what Piety had said about my job, it would probably be best if I turned in my notice, especially since Kaleb had warned me away from his family.

Besides, I doubted she’d be interested in the truth. I was too tired to think up a polite lie, either.

A polite lie.

Maybe I should have done that before I’d gone to see Jacen—

“No thinking about him,” I said quietly as I turned the corner.

The quickest way away from him had also been the one that had me walking the longest, and every step of the half-mile hurt, but I wasn’t about to wait around the club district looking like a battered woman, and feeling like somebody had ripped my heart out.

It wasn’t fair to be angry with him, and I told myself that I wasn’t, even if my comment after our kiss had been on the snippy side.

I should have stayed clear of Daytin after she broke into my apartment. If I’d done that, then none of this would have happened. I’d still have my brother in my life and I’d still have Jacen. Now I had nothing, and it was my own fault.

I couldn’t even blame her, because an addict isn’t in control so much as the addiction is. At least not all the time.

We took control every day when we weren’t high, and lost it when we gave in, or when we fell off the wagon. We lost control a thousand ways every day, and even though I was recovering, I was still an addict. I would always be one. And I’d lost control when I gave in to the need to try and help Daytin.

Now the yearning for a hit was even stronger, and I knew why. I’d had the taste again, but even though I knew it was poisoned candy, my body wanted more. In my mind, I could picture where the crack house was, and it would be easy, so easy, to go there, buy something to get me through the night.

And I knew I’d really mean it when I’d tell myself it would just be to take the edge off tonight.

Then I’d have to look myself in the eye in the morning.

I couldn’t do it.

It didn’t matter what Kaleb thought, or even what Jacen thought. I knew I hadn’t taken that drug on my own, and that mattered. I’d made bad choices in the past, and I’d owned them. Maybe going after Daytin had been a bad choice, even with good intentions, but I owned that one too.

I refused to own a decision I hadn’t made.

Blinking back the tears, I walked into my apartment and flipped on the light. I loved this little place so much. It was the first real home I’d had since my parents had died. Even if the walls were bare, and the portraits I’d drawn were trashed. I could do those over. Maybe they wouldn’t be the same, but I could do it.

Piety had exclaimed over the one of Kaleb and Jeremiah, and I’d planned on giving it to her for Christmas. Maybe I’d do her another one and mail it to her. Assuming she still wanted one.

I just didn’t know.

Christmas.

It seemed so far off, but I’d already bought a couple of gifts, and now it was too late to do anything other than maybe leave them with Astra and hope she’d give them to Piety and Kaleb.

If she didn’t shun me too.

I closed my eyes, feeling like the space was closing around me. Less than five minutes after I’d let myself in, I was all but ripping the door open to get back out.

My cell phone sat on the counter behind me, and it started to ring as I locked the door, but I didn’t go back in to pick it up.

I couldn’t stand the thought of talking to anybody right now.

So I went to the beach.

When I got there, it was still dark, and some part of me thought about just stripping off my clothes and diving in, but even as dark and grim as my mood was, it wasn’t quite that bad. I’d grown up around the water and knew that swimming when I was this battered, when the beach was this abandoned, was just asking for trouble.

I had enough trouble.

And despite all of it, I wasn’t suicidal.

Dropping down on the sand, I stared at the dark horizon and thought of home.

Jacen had talked about returning to Australia, and I wondered if he meant it. I missed it, and now with Kaleb closing me out, I didn’t have anything to keep me here. But I couldn’t go there if Jacen was going. And even as I thought it, I realized returning to Sydney wouldn’t make things easier. The reminders of him would be there too. Even when he hadn’t been around, he’d been a part of my life for so long that I knew I’d see him everywhere.

But I had a feeling I could go to the moon and still see him all around me.

“I love him,” I whispered.

Now that it was too late to do anything about it, I let myself acknowledge what I’d secretly known for a while. I’d been fallen in love with him...again. Or still.

But whether I’d ever truly fallen out of love with him didn’t matter.

He didn’t believe me and he didn’t want me. Not anymore. And he deserved better anyway. Sure, he’d had issues with alcohol, but after what he’d been through, it was understandable. He wasn’t like me.

Tears burned the corners of my eyes, but I wiped them away. I’d cry later after I figured out what I was going to do now.

I had no idea what to do, but maybe it should involve someplace…else. I couldn’t go to Philadelphia, Las Vegas, or back home and staying here didn’t seem to be ideal.

But there was a whole wide world out there where there was no Kaleb or Jacen. No Piety, Astra or Jeremiah or Dash, either. I could be alone, start all over. Maybe sooner or later, I’d even make some friends who didn’t expect me to fail every other step of my life.

I could re-enroll at another college somewhere, although I probably couldn’t get into counseling. I knew better than to hope anyone else would be willing to overlook my past. Dash had only done it because of Astra. I couldn’t ask anyone else to do it.

I could maybe find something else to do. Hell, there were any number of jobs that didn’t need a college degree. I could get settled somewhere, figure things out, then decide if I should go back and see what options were opened to me.

My psych teacher’s suggestion tickled the back of my mind, but I knocked it down. Being a counselor who specialized in art therapy would have been a pipe dream even under the best circumstances, and now I was staring down the barrel of some of the worst.

“Aw, come on,” I muttered, trying to cheer myself up. “It’s not the worst. You’ve lost your mum and dad. You’ve survived a murder attempt, an abusive pimp, two years of drugs and prostitution, and having somebody stab you with a needle you don’t know was clean or not. This was nothing compared to that.”

But the weight crushing down on me felt…monumental.

* * *

It was getting close to dawn when I finally dragged myself off the beach. I hurt even more now than I had earlier, and the first few steps made me want to cry, but I swallowed it down.

Part of me wanted to find Dr. James and punch him for being a stickler about no narcotics. As I finished through my pockets for the bottle of prescription strength ibuprofen, I wondered if he would like to feel like he’d been hit by a battering ram, then be told to take a couple of aspirin, then call the doctor in the morning.

But, I knew he was right. Narcotics were the last thing I needed. Still, I scowled as I eyed the fat white pill for a moment before popping it in my mouth.

“I got something that will do a lot more good than that, sweetheart,” somebody said from the shadows.

Yes! The little demon of need was all but salivating as I slowed to a stop and stood there, staring at the man who’d stepped into the faint light, a creepy smile on his face.

He was scruffy-looking and dangerous to boot, and he had a light in his eyes that made me think he knew exactly what I’d been thinking when I glared at the bullshit medication I’d been given to help me with the pain.

“You look like you could use it, honey,” he said, taking my lack of cursing as an invitation. “Your old man work you over?”

“No.” Shaking my head, I started to walk. I wasn’t just answering his question, I was denying that thing inside me. That ugly, ugly need, although it was the hardest thing I’d ever done.

It was harder than all the times I’d gone out with Piety and Astra and they’d ordered drinks and I’d been stuck with a soft drink because I didn’t drink anymore. It was harder than it had been to walk through that place, knowing escape was just a few steps away.

It was hard…and it was going to get harder, too. Having heroin again, having nobody around who gave a damn now if I stayed clean or not?

“So don’t do it for them,” I said firmly, blinking back the tears.

But if I wasn’t fighting that fight, if I was just going to end up alone, was there really any point anyway?

I wanted to run, but it hurt too much do it, so I just ducked my head and walked, fast as I could.

I walked on through the dying night, and my demons continued to chase me.