Things Remembered (Accidentally On Purpose Companion Novel #3) Read Free Page B

Puddle. Therefore, it had been surprising when, some months later, she’d accepted a promotion as his personal assistant and department manager. It had been more baffling when a couple years after that, she’d somehow ended up in bed with said douche puddle.
    That whole situation had been a hot mess. He’d had a girlfriend, and Emmy later got a boyfriend, but they’d continued to screw around anyway. Even though Emmy hadn’t been very sensible, I had hated Kyle for his role in that relationship. He’d been in a position of authority over her and in my opinion, he’d had the bigger responsibility not to stick his prick in his employees.
    That screwed-up relationship had come to a very explosive and violent ending after about a year, though, after Kyle had gone into a violent psychopathic fugue.
    Amazingly, Emmy doesn’t hate him for what he did to her. Even though I’d hated him for hurting one of my best friends, I had been able to relate to Kyle Sterling. I had a few of my own VPFs when I was younger. I understood how drugs could completely alter a person. I understood the denial and the cravings and helplessness. I understood the desire to die, but unlike Kyle, I hadn’t minded trying to take my own life.
    I wish I could say that those feelings and deadly thoughts faded with time, but they didn’t, not truly. Kyle understood that, and very few others did. So, despite my many reasons for hating the guy, it was the destructive pieces of ourselves that had brought us together in an unexpected and strange association, which in a way debunked my whole broken people can’t help broken people theory…
    “It’s that kind of day, is it?” Kyle asked at the end of the meeting.
    He glanced at the origami flower on my lap. I had used the paper sleeve of my coffee cup to make it during the meeting.
    I had learned the art of origami during my last stint in rehab. My therapist thought it would be a soothing distraction for me whenever I was anxious, depressed, or had the desire to shoot up or have a line of coke. I didn’t think it would help at all. I thought it was the dumbest idea I’d ever heard. However, before I knew it, there were paper animals and flowers all over my room at the rehab center. It wasn’t a miracle cure or anything, but it helped me, as long as I really want to be helped.
    “I saw someone I used to know today,” I admitted immediately. I was never one to beat around the bush, and neither was Kyle. It was another reason why we had an equal hate for each other before, and yet another reason why we could tolerate each other later.
    “Another phantom,” Kyle said, nodding knowingly.
    “Not this one. This one is pretty solid.”
    He gave me a surprised glance. “You remember him? Without the help of your cousin or Em?”
    My cousin Tack was just “your cousin” to Kyle, but Emmy was “Em.”
    So many years later he could still say her name with an intimate familiarity that sometimes made me feel a little uncomfortable, and there wasn’t much in the world that made me uncomfortable.
    “I do remember him. Like anything else, there are some dark patches in my memory, but I remember him pretty clearly.”
    Many people were still milling about, drinking sludgy coffee and nibbling on stale cookies that someone had brought in. Crazy Judy and Drunk Larry spoke earnestly in a corner, and I prayed that the two were both sterile and wouldn’t procreate while Judy healed him with her pussy…cat.
    “That’s good, isn’t it?” Kyle prodded. “You want to remember.”
    Slightly bending back the pedals of my paper flower, I spoke softly. “I don’t want to remember this time.”
    He matched my soft tone. “What is it? Who was he to you?”
    My hand closed into a tight fist, crushing the delicate flower to my palm. I took a deep breath.
    “He was a lot of things. The older brother of a good friend Tack and I used to get high with. He was someone I used to…love…” I said the word hesitantly. It