Free Finding Justice by Rachel Brimble

was?”
    “Four months, two weeks and five days.”
    “Wow.”
    Jay grimaced. “Yeah, wow. I took the stuff for two years and it
took me that long to even start the journey of staying sober. So you asked how
George knew where to find me...” He blew out a breath. “Sarah told him. Sarah
told him because I was with her. I did something really bad, Cat. Something that
severed Sarah’s and my relationship completely.”
    He closed his eyes. “She saved my frigging life and I never had
the chance to thank her. She called George, rather than my dad, to come and get
me. She called George rather than the police. I owed her so much but she refused
to see me after what I did. Refused to answer my calls, so after three months of
trying, I left her alone.”
    She slowly pulled her hand from his and the hook in his chest
pulled tighter. He opened his eyes and turned. The concern in her gaze had
changed to wary accusation. “Sarah loved you. You were her best friend. What did
you do?”
    Guilt and shame twisted in his gut like the spikes of a claw
hammer, scraping and ripping his pride and self-worth to shreds, leaving the
regret to bleed inside of him where it would never escape.
    “I went to her work.”
    “You went to the primary school?” Her eyes widened and she put
her hand on her forehead. “You were high when you went there? Where there were
kids?”
    He clenched his jaw, pursed his lips and nodded.
    “Why? Why would you do that? What did you want?”
    “God knows. I can’t remember going there or seeing Sarah. When
I tried to contact her once I was sober, she wasn’t having it. So...” He let the
sentence drift off as the helplessness he felt when Sarah hung up on him time
and time again rose like a bitter pill in his throat. A sharp reminder he would
now never be able to atone for putting her through the professional and personal
stress of dealing with a drug addict in front of kids no older than seven or
eight.
    He met Cat’s eyes, and her shock and disappointment blazed hard
and hot in the semidarkness. “She must have been terrified, Jay. Terrified what
you were going to do. She might have thought you had a gun, were violent,
capable of hurting her or any one of those kids.”
    “I know.”
    “I can’t do this.”
    He turned. “What?”
    She pushed to her feet. “Have you any idea what that sort of
humiliation and fear can do to a person?”
    He scrambled from the grass. “I do now, yes, but then—”
    “Stop. I can’t listen to it. It’s too much like my... It’s just
too much.” She fisted her hands into her beautiful red hair and turned her back
on him.
    Jay trembled with the effort it took to not wrap his arms
around her. Tell her to stay, not to leave. To look at him like she had when
they were having dinner, to touch his sleeve and wink and playfully tease
him.
    She turned back around and optimism surged into his heart that
she’d come back to him. Come back and sit and talk and...forgive. She shook her
head.
    “I have to go to bed. Have to absorb what you’ve told me. How
could you...” She stopped, held up her hands. “I’m going to bed. I love you.
Always will. It’s just when I think about what that must have done to
Sarah...”
    Her voice cracked and she put her hand over her mouth. It was
too much. He couldn’t leave her standing there when he’d tipped her entire world
on its axis. Jay stepped forward with his arms outstretched. She hesitated,
tears streaking silver down her cheeks before coming forward. She reached her
arms around him and the breath left his lungs. Her warm tears soaked into his
shirt and Jay stood immobile as her anger and disappointment joined those of so
many other people he hurt. It spread a pool deep in his soul that he hoped one
day he’d be ready to lift the plug from and let drain away, drop by drop.
    “Will you take me in?” Her voice broke the silence.
    He pressed a kiss to her crown. “Sure. We’ll talk more
tomorrow.”
    She straightened in