Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
That was all Jacob’s.
“I guess that was rock bottom for Jacob—maybe, at the time, he knew how far he’d gone because he came to me and asked for help,” Lucas muttered.
Which he did.
Without question.
At only twenty-one years old, Lucas could see how that situation would have been a cold and lonely place for his brother to find himself in. No wonder Jacob had accepted help so easily back then. His only other option had been working for his next fix.
“I got him into a rehab in British Columbia for a few months,” Lucas continued, determined to get through this conversation because he believed it would help to put it all out on the table. Even if it meant he might be at fault for how things ended with Jacob if only because he loved his little brother too much. “He relapsed thirteen days out, overdosed a week after that, and then never touched the shit again when he came out of the hospital.”
“That must have been scary.”
Lucas wet his lips, laughing a sad note. “Fucking terrible. It was terrible. But he got a sponsor and worked the Narcotics Anonymous program after that, and he found the gym, so I got him into school again because it seemed like he found a real passion in that too … things have been good. I really—really—thought things were good.”
The biggest lie of all.
Clearly.
Delaney, who had stayed mostly quiet during the duration of his jumbled story that jumped back and forth, seemed to piece something important together that he had yet to fully explain. “You said he started wearing sunglasses and long sleeves, or something?”
God.
Why did his chest have to hurt so much?
Couldn’t he just breathe?
Lucas leaned back in the chair to stare up at the ceiling. “In every picture he posted for the last two months, actually. I tried to check his place when the paramedics were trying the Narcan on him, but I was just panicking because I couldn’t stand there and watch them, so I couldn’t even do that properly. I don’t know how long he was using again, or why.”
The real question he wanted answered.
Among so many others.
Lucas had questions.
It killed him to think he might never know the truth.
“I didn’t call back on Monday because my phone did fall in water,” Lucas told Delaney, sighing as his head fell forward and their eyes locked together. “He’d been running a bath … he liked those in the mornings, but he nodded off on the toilet and the water overflowed to the floor. That’s how I found him.”
“Lucas—”
No, he had to get it out.
Every last bit of it.
“The ER doctor amused me, at least. Bad word choice, maybe,” he told himself, cringing. “Anyway, he hadn’t been breathing before I got there in the morning, and nothing they did changed that fact until they put him on a ventilator. They gave me a few hours until the scans and tests came back, but … well,” Lucas finished lamely, shrugging.
All of the sudden, the woman across the way didn’t seem to know what to say. Her wide hazel gaze, wet with unshed tears, watched him, unashamed.
“I spent Tuesday making what arrangements I could for his cremation—there’s a small service to celebrate his life next week,” Lucas explained, the numbness seeping back into his fingers and toes even though he wasn’t cold anymore. “And I sat there after in my place feeling like the silence kept screaming at me, and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stay.”
It took one pill to kill somebody.
The next hit could be the last. To an addict, it wasn’t until it was, but then would always be too late.
Jacob was proof of that.
It took Lucas until that moment to realize his pain and grief was the unintentional consequence of his brother’s decision. One he would live with forever.
“I’m so sorry,” Delaney whispered from the couch, the tears freely falling down her cheeks.
“Yeah, me, too,” Lucas uttered, standing from the chair, and grabbing his unfinished plate. The food didn’t hold much appeal. “To rub salt in the wound, I have a few hours left to write my brother’s obituary if I want the paper to run something that wasn’t written by some fuck in a cubicle.”
“It would still be appropriate and respectful,” Delaney tried to assure.
Lucas scoffed on his way to the kitchen where he dropped the plate unceremoniously to the island before moving to the cupboards to find a glass for water. “But it wouldn’t be meaningful.”
That held more weight to Lucas.
The end of Jacob’s life couldn’t be for nothing.
Lucas wouldn’t allow that to happen.
“I need this to do something … mean something,” he attempted to explain.
“I could help you write it?” Delaney asked from the sitting room.
At the sink, Lucas ran himself a glass of water while her selfless request tugged at his sore heartstrings. “Would you?”