Home > Work > Recovered
21 " I wanted to tell him that sometimes the only way to excise an infected wound was to slice it open and let all the poison out. "
― Jay Crownover , Recovered
22 " Tell me what you need me to do right now, Reed. I’m used to being the villain, not the hero. "
23 " Thank goodness I had made the right choice by picking the absolute wrong guy to love and perfect guy to hate. "
24 " I was sure that if I took a single step out of line, if I veered even slightly off the path I’d set for myself, everything would end up crumbling down around me. I didn’t have the time to fail. I didn’t have the confidence to get back up if I fell . . . so, I never wavered, and I never wandered. "
25 " I could still see him on his knees, shaking and breaking apart in the counselor’s office. That night didn’t just hurt him when he talked about it; it destroyed him. "
26 " What if I don’t want to change how I feel about that night? What if I know I deserve every sleepless night and every single minute it haunts me when I’m awake? "
27 " I was so used to people constantly trying to be something. Trying to be popular. Trying to be liked. Trying to be badass. Trying to be a family. "
28 " It was a daily struggle to present myself as something close to a normal human. And here I was, all kinds of twisted up and confused over a chick who made life, and all its ups and downs, her bitch. "
29 " Thinking about any of it was going to ruin the pleasant buzz I was feeling. The first one I’d ever had that didn’t come from shooting, snorting, or smoking something I shouldn’t be putting into my body. "
30 " Losing myself in someone who had no interest in knowing where I’d come from or any concern about where I was headed wasn’t going to work. "
31 " Because of Affton, I understood it had to matter more than that. I was starting to see I was supposed to matter more than that. I didn’t necessarily agree with her, but the part of me that woke up and took notice every time she told me she cared about me sure as hell did. "
32 " I hadn’t had a drink or a hit in almost a month, but I felt drunk on her taste. "
33 " I was capturing a fantasy, creating a memory I could hold onto later. Holding something that shouldn’t be real, shouldn’t exist in my hands. "
34 " The truth was, I’d never had my dick anywhere near a girl who was like Affton and everything about her was so potent. She wasn’t watered down or cut with any kind of filler. She was all honest response and heated reaction, and that was more of a turn on than being buried inside something easy and temporary had ever been. "
35 " I knew from firsthand experience that addiction didn’t discriminate. "
36 " Everyone else had been a distraction, but Affton Reed, she was a destination. She was the place I wanted to go and maybe, just maybe, she was the place where I wanted to stay. She was the place I was going to have to work my ass off to reach. "
37 " You aren’t so bad yourself, McCaffrey.” He really wasn’t. He did bad things, made bad choices, tended to think bad thoughts about himself and everyone else, but he wasn’t bad. And the outside, well, that was better than good. I wanted my hands and mouth all over every single inch of him. "
38 " His thumb found that spot, the one everyone insisted was magical. They were right. It only took a little tap, a soft stroke, and my eyes crossed, and my toes curled. "
39 " I was, without a doubt, going to break her, and there would be no cleaning up afterward. My pieces and her pieces were going to be scattered from here to hell and back. There would be no putting either of us back together. "
40 " I was going to kiss her. I was going to taste her. I was going to fuck her. I was going to be her first, "