But no more relapses.

No more fucking up.

From now on,

I was going to be good. If there was someone to be good left after this was all over.

“So let me tell you what happens now, Ruckus,” Vicious spat my childhood nickname, his breath fanning my face as his hold on my collar tightened. I let him have his moment. I kicked his ass on a weekly basis when we were teenagers. I got it. I fucked up. Atonement was in order.

“I’m going to help you. One time. One, fucking time, and you’re not going to make me regret it. No. You are going to go up there, and you are going to apologize. To her, to her parents, to Millie. To the fucking nurses, the receptionist, and the guy who cleans the windows. To everyone. Because you. Fucked. Up. You fucked up so bad, and other people had to fly across the country to clean up your mess. Understood?”

“Save the bullshit, Oprah.” I pushed him away, striding inside the hospital. “I know exactly how bad I ruined things, and while I appreciate you being on my side, I know how to make this right.”

We passed by Millie, who was getting herbal tea from the Starbucks under the hospital. Vicious stopped and jerked his chin in her direction.

“Make peace with her.”

“We were never at war.” My eyes were sunken, tired. I didn’t have time for Millie. I was at the phase where I wanted to make things right, not dwell on the past.

“This is pointless, Dean. Rosie will never take you back without Millie’s blessing, anyway. So just do it.”

Reluctantly, I approached my high school girlfriend, who looked very pregnant and very pissed off, sitting at a table at Starbucks, sipping her tea. Vicious waited outside and pretended to mess with his phone. Asshole.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hi,” she said.

We never talked anymore, Millie and I. There was no anger there, though. Just indifference. We made small talk when we spent Thanksgiving together, and I even helped her with the dishes, but we mainly stayed away from one another.

“Tell me something, Dean. Do you love my sister?” Her blue eyes searched mine. I sucked my anger in, refraining from losing my shit.

“She’s my whole fucking world,” I admitted.

“Then why did you let her down?”

“I was selfish.”

“My sister can’t be with a selfish man.”

“I will change.”

“What if you can’t change?”

“Vicious did,” I snapped. “Vicious changed, for you. Look, Millie, I like you. I do. Always have. But Rosie…Rosie is it. Whatever you think Vicious is capable of doing to be with you—I can do that, probably more, to be with Rosie. It was one little fuck-up. I learned my lesson.”

It was her turn to be thoughtful and blink away tears. “I’m scared,” she admitted, biting on her lips. “So scared.”

“Me, too,” I said.

We hugged. Hard and long. I counted the seconds, the seconds I was away from Rosie. But when Millie finally let me go, I knew it was with her blessing. I thumbed away a tear on her face.

“I really love her,” I said.

“I know.” She nodded and laugh-cried. “God, how were we even together?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Everyone wants a piece of me, I guess.”

She punched my arm.

“Show her that you love her, Dean.”

I was going to, even if it was the last thing I was going to do.

It was the eighth time I walked to her room since she was admitted into the hospital three days ago, hoping she was awake and her parents were feeling generous enough to let me see her. Machines were beeping lazily from the rooms along the long hallway. Nurses in blue uniforms hurried past me, their shoulders brushing mine as they flipped through their reports. Vicious was by my side. We rounded the corner. Four doors down from her room, I stopped. Vicious halted next to me.

“What?” he asked, his eyes were still hard on his phone.

“Tell me my hangover is messing with my vision.” I pointed at her door. He swiped his front teeth over his lip, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

“Darren,” I spat out. “Fucking Darren. Doctor Dickhead just walked into her room.”

There was a moment when so much adrenaline coursed through my veins, every nerve-end in my body sizzled. What was he doing there, and who gave him the courtesy call I never got? It couldn’t have been her. It couldn’t. Picking up my pace, I noticed Vicious following suit.

“What the fuck are you doing, man? Let it go.”

The fuck I will.

“Charlene!” I called out to her mother, who was at the other end of the hallway. Her head shot upward from the chewed foam cup she was staring into, and she got up from her seat. Her grave expression suggested that I was Lucifer himself, and at that moment, she wasn’t completely wrong. I’d had enough of this bullshit. I stopped a foot away from her and jerked my finger at the door.