Söbriety • Mötley Crüe •

75. Safe

Warnings: Mentions of Past Drug Use & Abuse

Two Months Later

Ryan's POV

The humid April air makes my hair stick to the back of my neck as I take a drink of my watered-down coke, my back starting to pool with sweat as I lean against the wooden park bench.

"Hey, baby." Tommy's sweet voice is like music to my ears and I look up to see him opening his arms for a hug.

"Hi, Tommy." I gratefully take the invitation, locking my fingers behind his back as I squeeze the life out of him for once.

"I'm not happy that you took so long to call." His eyebrow raises in disapproval as I give him a weak smile.

"I know. I'm sorry. I've been dealing with a lot lately." My fingers intertwine with his as we sit back on the bench in front of the playground, Wylie screaming in the distance as she falls down the slide.

She hasn't noticed his presence quite yet and I prepare for even louder screams when she does.

"Yeah? What's going on, babe?" He lets go of my hand to dig his pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and I gratefully take one when he offers it to me.

I haven't admitted it to anyone, but I have a pack of my own hidden in the console of my car and I sneak a smoke every time I have a moment alone.

These past few weeks I haven't talked much to anyone, too entranced in my own depressing thoughts to put forth any effort into my relationships.

My heart is broken, and that's all there is to it. Life is dull and void of any color, each day a monotonous slur into the next.

But I've made peace with the fact that this is all it'll ever be, and I try and put what energy I do have into school, the one thing I have left to be passionate about.

"I'm sure you know, Tommy." I snort out a laugh as I take a pull on the cigarette, the comforting aroma of tobacco filling my nostrils.

"Oh, I definitely know, but I wanna hear your side." I roll my eyes when he pops my nose with his pointer finger.

"There's not much to it. Nikki got fucked up and called me fucking bawling, spitting some shit that he needed me. So, of course I come running, and when I get there the dude looks like an absolute shit show, right? He cries and gives me this big 'I need you back' spiel, all while the liquor on his breath is nearly making me barf. When I tell him we need to wait to talk about it until he sobers up, he completely flipped shit on me, Tommy. It was bad." I shake my head as I take another drag, his eyes still solely focused on me.

"What do you mean it was bad?"

"He pinned me down to the bed and wouldn't let me get up. I had bruises on the inside of my arms for two weeks. It was like something inside of him just fucking flipped and it scared the shit out of me. We've had our abusive moments, Tom, but not like that. It was...venomous." I force the tears back into my eye ducts, refusing to shed any more over that night.

"He didn't tell me that part." He sighs out through his nose as he looks away from me, his face falling into a deep frown.

"I'm sure he didn't." I breathe out a scoff. "But that wasn't even the worst of it. When I finally got out from underneath him, he started yelling really fucking mean shit and when I went to get my keys off the counter to storm off, I found a fucking open condom wrapper. He had someone in that room before he called me."

"I can speak for him on that-"

"Oh, you can?" I interrupt, mocking his voice.

"Don't be a dick, Ry. We went to the Seventh Veil after we left the restaurant that night and we got really fucked up. The bartender gave us some coke and Nikki did way too much in a short time span. He was hallucinating. He kept saying the stripper on stage looked like you. I think he actually thought she was you. He took her to the hotel with him and you're right, he fucked her. I won't deny that it was a mistake, but when he came to he realized what he'd done."