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Author's Note: There's a lot of talk about addiction in this chapter. Because I've had some issues lately, comments disparaging addicts will be met with a block. We attach a moral weight to people who struggle with addiction because it helps to separate us from them. And I find that, sometimes, people who have never struggled with this tend to get high and mighty when, really, addiction doesn't discriminate. It never gives a shit about who you are. It just takes. Money, your time, your relationships, your life.
Stigma drives misunderstanding and compassionless thought and behavior. Mostly, people struggling with addiction have a genetic disposition, an addictive personality, trauma, or all three. When I was using, I felt like an open wound. People who use drugs deserve compassion, empathy, love, and understanding just like anyone else.
CW: Discussions of addiction, discussions of death, smut, rough sex, spanking, D/S dynamics, blowjobs, rimming, spitting, choking, hand necklaces, masturbation.
SADIE
CLINT AND LAURA'S HOUSE || EDEN, KENTUCKY
I feel like someone's set me on fire. Every sound Clint makes while he brews coffee makes my blood boil. Every scratch of clothing on my skin makes me want to rip it off and scream. It's too tight. This chair is too hard. I'm so fucking angry at everything and everyone that I want to stand up, flip this table over and scream until my lungs explode.
"You want coffee?"
"I wanna know why you all kept this a secret from me," I snap. "I don't want your fucking coffee."
I've never felt rage like this before, not since Nashville. Not since being pushed up against that bar and raped so fucking brazenly. This anger feels old, lurking beneath the surface and all of my sunshiny smiles. This anger feels like betrayal. Like grief.
Like the mother I could have had was taken away before she even got the chance to get clean.
"Sadie, you have to understand—"
"I don't have to understand shit," I spit. "He fucking killed my mother and you all hid it from me. Even my own dad hid it from me, didn't he?"
Clint doesn't answer and my rage grows fangs that want to rip him apart just for breathing wrong.
"It's complicated," Clint whispers.
The back door opens and Bucky and Laura step through the threshold. Bucky is pale, almost sick as his eyes lock onto mine. My stomach twists and all of that rage I had built up inside of me falls to pieces, and I jump up out of my chair, rushing toward him. His entire body tenses up and he takes a step back. I shove him backward, a garbled sob spilling from my mouth. I don't even know what I'm trying to do. Justify my anger? Work myself up again so that I hit him?
Clint grabs me underneath my arms and pulls me away. I don't thrash, I don't resist, I just... go limp.
