PROLOGUE
OURS
Prologue
Ellie
Sometimes you’ve got to walk through fire to get burnt—so you can go on and heal from those burns. Those burns then turn into scars, reminding us not to walk through similar situations. But sometimes those scars aren’t enough of a reminder and the fire that burned you before, returns to sear you again. When it came to Hudson St James, the burns that I received from our relationship, weren’t surface deep. He cut me to pieces—my heart basically dying the moment he ended things. I still don’t know how I picked up the pieces. I still don’t know how I moved on. Then again, maybe I didn’t know because I never really did. Because the only way I knew how to cope with the loss of Hudson were pills—and the drugs relieved me from the pain.
Before I knew it, I was deep into a lifestyle that I once looked down on. My father never gave up on me, putting me through rehab after each relapse. The relapses got worse as my addiction battle went on. Every time I fall that bit further, and push my body’s limit that bit more.My father had to watch me from afar as I tormented my body with poison. To be honest, I was hoping that one day I’d give my body the final push over the edge.
I didn’t care about the future. I just cared about my next high. I didn’t give two fucks, if I wasn’t breathing after the high wore off.
Then the high would wear off and I wasn’t dead. After that it was how would I get another high? An endless deadly circle. I wasn’t living, I was just trying to. . . hell, there was no way to describe it because it wasn’t living.
I was numbing every part of my body. Then one overdose changed everything. I pushed my heart to the limit and I had a heart attack. The doctors, surgeons, nurses worked that night, and the days to follow—didn’t know I was an addict. After all, I was using prescription medication, and sometimes not all mine. There were no track marks or signs of abuse on my blood work.
It was the fifteenth of December, right before Christmas, that I had my heart attack and died.
Sometimes life can be bittersweet. That night, there was a car accident. The driver lost their life, but through their death they gave me a second chance at living, donating a fresh heart to replace the one that I spent half my life poisoning.
My father knew the truth. He held my hand through the whole recovery process— never sharing or revealing my guilty secret that I was a pill popper.
I was given a second chance at life. So, I stopped getting prescriptions filled, insisting that my father come to every doctor’s appointment, so I didn’t ask for pills.
He came to every one, and every time we walked out prescription free, he’d give me this smile—a mind-blowing proud grin, and then told me “Ain’t no one braver than you, teacup.” Then we don’t mention it again, until the next doctor’s appointment.
I’m twenty-five, and two years sober from pill popping my father still comes to every doctor’s appointment because I still don’t trust myself.
I stopped living because I didn’t want to feel, and now I live to feel every breath.
I wanted to feel pain, happiness, and every shade of emotion. Until. . . he came back.
