Falling From Disgrace (19 page)

“Also, call up any credit cards you might have and cancel those.  We have your statement and a description of your purse.  We’ll make sure a lookout is kept for it.  In the meantime, if there’s anything else you think of, give us a call.”  Officer Doogie Howser handed Adrianna a card which she accepted with thanks.

When the officers left, Jack pulled Adrianna from her seat and led her back to his apartment.  He kept her tucked under his arm the entire way there.

A
drianna sat numbly on Jack’s sofa while he fixed her a cup of tea.  She didn’t really like tea and it reminded of her when she was going through withdrawal but she accepted it nonetheless and took a few sips before setting it down.

“You’re awfully calm for someone who was just held up at gunpoint,” Jack pointed out.  He smoothed her hair behind her ear and then tugged gently on her lobe.  The fact that she was so stoic was actually alarming to him.  Was she in shock?

“I’m fine,” Adrianna stated.  And then she burst into tears.

Jack pulled her to him and she straddled his lap, burying her face in his shoulder.  While she sobbed quietly, Jack held her and whispered, “Shh, it’s okay, sweetheart.  You’re okay.”

“I’ve missed you,” Adrianna choked out, hiccupping around her sobs.  She was still shaken from her attack but she was crying more from relief of being in Jack’s arms.  She hated that it had taken another traumatic incident to bring them together.

“I’m sorry,” Jack told her and the fact that he didn’t say his missed her too made Adrianna cry harder.  Maybe she really was losing him.

She pulled her face from his neck to fix her brown eyes on his.  She couldn’t decipher what he was feeling.  Was it anger she saw?  Pain?  Guilt?  Jack wiped his hands across her cheeks to brush her tears away, careful of the injury below her right eye.  More tears replaced the ones he removed but Adrianna leaned down to crush her lips against Jack’s. 

Jack returned the kiss and then pulled away to say, “Ade, I-”

Adrianna interrupted him by joining their lips again.  “Shh,” she told him.  “I don’t want to talk.”

Whatever excuses Jack wanted to give her, Adrianna didn’t want to hear it.  She didn’t care if he needed some space to get over losing his father; she just needed to know he still wanted her.  She needed to replace the worry she had been feeling for the last five days with the joy Jack could bring her with his touch.  She peeled off her emerald green, sleeveless top and then yanked Jack’s off as well.  She removed her own bra and then pressed herself against Jack again, immediately comforted by the contact of his warm skin.

Jack let Adrianna drive their lovemaking, slowly enjoying her soft curves while she fervently worshipped the hard contours of his body.  He let her strip them both naked and when Adrianna straddled his lap again he stopped her from taking him inside her right away.  Instead, he brought her to her first orgasm by deftly moving his fingers between her legs and lavishing her breasts with his lips and tongue.  Only after she came did he gently guide her hips so that he filled her with his erection. 

Adrianna started riding him fast and hard but Jack brought one hand to her hip to slow her movements.  Bringing his other hand up to cup her cheek he held her gaze and declared, “I love you.”

A whimper of relief escaped Adrianna’s lips before she repeated Jack’s words back to him.  Then she moved over him, slowly and sensuously this time, until they both came, crying out each other’s names in unison.

J
ack wished he could just flip a switch and turn his fucking brain off.  After being with Adrianna again the night before, twice actually, he should have been feeling better and free of worries or doubts.  Instead, he was up early again, sitting on his sofa in his underwear fretting again about where his feelings for her were coming from.  He spent five days apart from her and in that time he became uncertain if he actually loved her or loved the fact that she needed him.  Then, when she was in trouble again yesterday, his love for her coursed through him, stronger than ever and he felt rushed with the need to be with her.  If anything, his fear that his sister was right was being confirmed. 

Jack heard Adrianna’s cell phone ring and listened while she spoke to whoever called from his bedroom.  Glancing at the clock on his cable box he was surprised to see it was already past nine.  He had been up and thinking for last two hours. 

Adrianna emerged from his room in his old Metallica t-shirt and a pair of boxers, rolled up at the waist.  “Someone found my purse,” she said happily, taking a seat beside him.  “A small store owner found it behind his building.  The asshole who robbed me just took the cash and dumped the rest, like the cop said he probably would.  My wallet, license, and credit card are all there.  I guess I’m lucky the guy who found it turned it over to the cops.”

“Good,” Jack stated. 

“They’re going to try to get fingerprints but I can pick my stuff up later today.”

“I still want your locks changed,” Jack told her.

“I’ll call a locksmith later,” Adrianna assured.  “How long have you been up?”

“A few hours.”

Adrianna frowned.  Jack was quiet first thing in the morning but if he had been up for a few hours he should be livelier than this.

“Is something wrong?” Adrianna finally asked.  After having sex the night before, Jack seemed back to his old self but now Adrianna could see he was withdrawn again.  He shook his head but Adrianna wasn’t buying it.  “If you tell me you’re still upset about your father, fine, I’ll back off, but I’m scared that something more is bothering you and you aren’t telling me.”

Jack inhaled deeply.  How the hell was he going to explain this to her without sounding like a scumbag?  He turned on the sofa to face Adrianna and tried the best he could to describe his feelings.

Adrianna listened calmly at first as Jack told her about the conversation he had with his sister.  When she started to understand what he was saying her eyes narrowed and she shifted away from him on the couch.

“So what you’re saying is you don’t know if you really love me or if you just are attracted to the fact that I’m a basket case?”  She ground her teeth together while she begged her eyes to stop filling with moisture.

“No…” Jack stammered, “…yes.  I don’t know.”

Hurt and angry Adrianna jumped from the couch and fled to Jack’s room.  She searched for her clothing and angrily started dressing while a few rogue tears escaped.  Jack followed her and tried to take her hand to get her to sit calmly and talk to him but she shook him off.

“Don’t touch me!” she shouted and yanked her jeans up before slipping her feet into her sandals.  She started searching for her purse but then realized she didn’t have one.  She also didn’t have her keys or her wallet.  Sticking her hand out she demanded, “Give me the key I had made for you.  I need it to get into my apartment.”

“Ade, I didn’t want to get you upset,” Jack spoke gently. 

“How the hell did you think I was going to react to that?  You basically just told me that the only thing you liked about me was my problems!  You think I’m going to be okay with a boyfriend who just wants me so he can fix me?”

“That’s not what I said,” Jack insisted.  “I said I didn’t know if Gillian was right and that was bothering me.”

“If you don’t know why you love me, we’re still in a lot of trouble,” Adrianna seethed.

“Why do you love me?” Jack countered, taking Adrianna by surprise.

“Because you’re wonderful,” Adrianna spluttered, unable to keep from crying now.  “You’re kind, and caring, and thoughtful, and funny.  You’ve made me a better person.”

“If you had met me after you got off the pills and your life was perfect would you still have wanted me?”  Jack’s voice was calm and sad.  Only his eyes reflected the anguish he was feeling as he crushed Adrianna’s heart.

“Of course,” she swore.

“How do you know?” he probed.  “How do you know that you really love me and not just because I helped you?”

Adrianna didn’t know how to answer that.  But she knew.  She knew it from the way she felt when Jack looked at her.  She knew it from the way her stomach danced at just his voice.  She knew it from the way she felt safe when his arms were around her.  She knew.

“I just know,” she stated with conviction.

Jack sighed and collapsed on the edge of his bed.  He leaned down to rest his elbows on his knees and held his face in his hands.  Maybe it was just because he was a guy, but he couldn’t tell himself that he
just knew
he loved Adrianna and accept that for what it was.  He needed time to work this shit out.

Adrianna wiped at her face and when Jack just sat without saying anything she literally felt her heart shatter.  Jack didn’t love her.  Not really. 

“We need to stop seeing each other,” she said, choking on her words.  Jack’s head shot up and he looked at her with eyes so intense with pain she thought they would burn a hole right through her.

“Is that really what you want?” he gritted, not able to move, frozen in fear at Adrianna’s words.

“If you can’t figure out how you really feel then it’s probably for the best.”

Jack was tongue tied.  He didn’t know what to say to Adrianna.  He didn’t want her to go and the thought of not seeing her anymore killed him but he had no words to express what he was feeling.  He did love her but he knew it wasn’t fair to tell her that without knowing where that love came from.  When Adrianna walked out of his bedroom and out his front door he didn’t stop her.  Not even to return her key.

Chapter 14

A
drianna managed to make it to the police station that day to reclaim her purse and that was all.  She returned to her home and fell apart.  For days, she spent the time she was awake crying on her couch, mourning her broken heart.  She ignored calls to her cell and knocks on her door.  She didn’t go to the gym or exercise.  She missed an appointment with her shrink and forgot to take her antidepressants.  She didn’t shower and barely ate.  She didn’t care that she never called to have her locks changed.  Without Jack, she felt like her world was coming to an end.

Jack was mistaken, she wasn’t strong, and just like she feared she had become as dependent on him as she had on her pills.  This is what she had been afraid of; Jack would leave her and she would fall to pieces.  Did he leave her?  Or did she leave him?  Oh, who the fuck cares, they weren’t together any longer and that’s all that mattered.  Desolate and beyond sad, she longed for the medication that would ease her from her misery.  She wished she had hidden some tablets away.  She’d take one now to help her get through the pain.

After seven days, Adrianna’s back was hurting again and she felt hopeless.  There wasn’t any use staying clean and she needed a way to dull the ache that she was certain was going to kill her.  Even though she knew it was useless, Adrianna tore her apartment apart searching for a painkiller.  When she came up with nothing, she cried more in frustration.  She couldn’t go back to her doctor and beg; Doctor DeLuca had made her sign a consent form so that he could send correspondence to her old doctor telling him he was treating Adrianna for drug dependency.  She wasn’t about to go out on the streets searching for drug dealers but she was so desperate.  Coming up with only one person who could possibly help her, she said a silent prayer and picked up her phone.

J
ack was just as miserable as Adrianna and though he wanted to shut himself up in his apartment, he didn’t have that luxury.  He needed to run his business and he still had a lot to take care of as far as his father’s death was concerned.  He tried calling Adrianna a few times over the last week but she didn’t take his calls.  He couldn’t blame her.  Why the hell was he so stupid?  Why couldn’t he get his brain to comprehend what he was feeling? 

Jack handed the last box of his father’s belongings to the volunteer from the Salvation Army.  He had decided, and his sister agreed, to donate everything his father left behind, from clothes to furniture.  Jack kept one memento, his father’s sterling silver money clip with their initials, J.H.L, engraved on it, and then packed everything else up.  He didn’t want to sell off his father’s things for money and it’s not like Gillian needed it.  They’d both do well from the sale of the house, anyhow.  After the truck hauled away the donated items, Jack walked back into his father’s empty house to where his mother was waiting.

“All set?” she asked him.

“Yeah,” Jack said, his deep voice echoing in the vacant living room.

“You heading back right away or can you come by the house and have dinner with Denny and me?”

“Thanks, but I can’t,” Jack told his mom.  “I’ve gotta get back.”

Roseann walked over to her only son and took his face in her hands.  “You okay, kid?  You aren’t working too hard, are you?”

Jack half smiled at his mother and shook his head.  “I’m alright.”

“Well, you better come back soon and bring Adrianna, will you?  I’d really like to see her again.”  When she saw her son’s face fall she narrowed her eyes in worry.  “What happened?”

“We broke up, Ma,” Jack confessed.   

“Oh, Jack,” she cried.  “Why?”

“Because...” Jack flustered, not even knowing how to put into words how he fucked it all up.  “Because I’m an idiot.”

Roseann tsked and asked, “What did you do, Jack?”

She listened, sad and concerned for her son, as he told her everything.  He admitted to his mother that Adrianna had been dependent on Vicodin when they met but how, with his help, she stopped using them and got better.  He told her all about Adrianna’s accident, Rachel dying, her guilt over that and then meeting with Jason.  He explained to his mother about Adrianna’s relationship with her parents and how she lied to them and even after she had come clean, they didn’t offer her much support.  And then he finally recounted the conversation he had with his sister and how what she said made him fearful that he really was after Adrianna just to save her.  He talked, and talked, and talked, and he felt like the words poured out of him like blood gushing from an open wound.  A wound within him that only ached more with each word he spoke about Adrianna.

Roseann was quiet for a moment when her son finally finished regaling her with the events of the last three months of his life.  Though Jack was an adult, he was her child, and like any good mother she wanted to comfort him, for she saw in his face the anguish he was suffering from losing the girl he loved.  However, she also needed to set him straight.

“Jack,” she finally spoke with a firmness that had his undivided attention.  “I love you, sweetheart, but you are an idiot.”

Taken aback, Jack gave his mother a confused look and then barked out a laugh.

“One,” Roseann continued, “you’re an idiot for even listening to your sister.  I love Gillian but since she got married, shrewdness took over any kindness she had in her.  Don’t you think that the bullshit she said to you was just to make her feel better about herself for cutting people out of her life at the first sign of weakness?  You don’t have a hero complex, honey, you have a heart.  A big one.  I worry about Gillian all the time but never about you because I know you’re good, and kind, and have a good head on your shoulders.  Or at least I thought you did.”

Jack let his mother’s words wash over him and where he was feeling sad he was now feeling quite stupid.  Why did it take her telling him Gillian was full of shit for him to finally start to believe it?  Since when was he the type of guy who needed someone to corroborate his feelings?

“As far as this love you have for Adrianna, who gives a shit where it comes from?” his mother ranted on.  “Love isn’t about why or how or where.  It’s about having a connection with someone who makes you want to be the best person you can be.  Adrianna found that in you, she had the strength to get better because of your love, don’t you see that?  Yes, you were there to take care of her physically but the power to resist taking the medication came from inside Adrianna that was driven by her love for you.”

Speechless at his mother’s profundity and also embarrassed, Jack just looked at the floor and nodded.

“Look at me, son,” Roseann instructed.  “Have you been miserable since you broke up?”

“Yes,” Jack admitted.

“Do you feel emptiness?  Pain?”

“Yes.”

“Do you miss her?”

“Hell, yes,” Jack breathed. 

“Then go to her.  Tell her
that’s
how you know you love her.”

For the first time, Jack was glad the drive home would take three hours.  He needed at least that much time to figure out what he was going to say to Adrianna.

W
hen a knock came upon Adrianna’s door her stomach twisted; not in relief, but in absolute terror.  Ryan, her old fuck-buddy, had come through for her and after explaining she was not making a booty-call, he promised to send his friend Boggs her way and that he would have what she was looking for. 

Ignoring the nerves that had her hands shaking, she opened her door to find Ryan’s friend standing there.  He was a scraggly looking guy with long, dirty blonde hair that was sticking out from under a beanie.  He wore a pale blue polo shirt and khaki cargo shorts and had a face that looked like someone had grabbed his forehead and chin and tried squishing them together.  His features were disconcerting.  Adrianna was sure that if you looked up pill-pusher in the dictionary, his picture would be there.

“Adrianna?  I’m Boggs,” he spoke, surprising her with a British accent.

“Come in,” Adrianna replied meekly, stepping out of the way to let him enter her foyer. 

“Ryan tells me you’re looking for pills, love?”

Adrianna shuddered at the fact he called her “love” but nodded.  She folded her arms around herself, her whole body now shaking with adrenaline.

“No need to be nervous, I’m not a cop or anything,” Boggs laughed.  “Are you sure it’s pills you want?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Pills are getting harder and harder to come by.  I have some now but there’s more that I can offer you that’ll be cheaper and easier to get.”

“Like what?” Adrianna asked, terrified but curious.

“H,” Boggs said simply, like he was commenting on the weather.

“Heroine?” Adrianna gasped, feeling her throat go tight with sickness.  She suddenly felt filthy that she had this man, this drug dealer, in her apartment.  “No,” she spat, shaking her head.  “Just the pills, whatever this will buy me.”  Pulling money from the pocket of her shorts, she thrust a hundred dollar bill in his hand and held her palm out for him to fill it.

Boggs looked at the bill appreciatively and then folded it before jamming it into his back pocket.  Pulling a baggie from the front of his cargos, he dropped it into Adrianna’s waiting hand.

“Those are Oxys,” he told her. “Strong, so don’t do anything stupid.”

Adrianna nodded and then opened her door, signaling that it was time for Boggs to go.  He took a step and then stopped, appraising Adrianna’s appearance.  Though she looked like she hadn’t slept or showered in days, she had a hot body and a pair of fantastic tits.  Great mouth, too.  He said to her, “Ya know, it looks like you could use some company tonight.  We could hang out, get high together?”  He ran a finger up Adrianna’s bare shoulder and she jerked away in disgust.

“Not interested,” she sneered and then pushed his shoulder until she could close the door behind him.

Grasping the baggy tightly in her sweaty hand, she went to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of water from the sink.  Her heart pounding loudly in her chest, she returned to her living room where she sat on her couch and placed the drugs and the water on the coffee table in front of her.  She stared at the pills with watery eyes and thought, this was it.  This is what she had wanted so badly.  Right there, just inches from her hand was the salvation she needed.  It would bring her serenity.  It would bring her peace.  For just a second she urged herself to be strong, to fight it, to throw the pills away and get through her pain any other way.  But she ignored it and reached into the bag.  Withdrawing a little green pill, she tilted her head back and placed it gingerly on her tongue.