Текст книги "Scorched"

Автор книги: Jennifer L. Armentrout

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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

Chapter 23

Andrea

As expected, things sucked at first.

With no phone, no internet, and limited access to TV, it was an immediate shock to my system. Heck, even my little room with its single bed and dresser was a huge change, but these things weren’t the biggest differences in my life.

Crying. Dear sweet Lord, there were a lot of tears. I cried when my parents left. I cried when I had to take the inpatient survey and got to the question: have you had thoughts of self-harm? I cried when I was shown my room after the tour of the facility and the grounds. I cried myself to sleep that night, and that took hours, because the sleeping pills had been taken from me. I cried in the morning, because it was the first morning there, and I realized my life had spun completely out of control.

I was in treatment.

And I wasn’t supposed to be there. I was supposed to be a doctor. No. Scratch that. I was supposed to be a teacher. I was supposed to be a daughter and a sister, a friend and maybe…maybe even a girlfriend, and now, I was none of these things.

A nurse served breakfast in my room after she took my blood pressure and temperature. The utensils were plastic. Plastic. As was the plate. What did they expect me to do? I ate some of the eggs and a piece of bacon, but it tasted like sawdust to me.

Dave showed up about half an hour later. “Walk with me.”

I didn’t really have a choice, so I pulled myself off the bed and followed him out into the wide hall. There were other doors that I guessed led to rooms like mine. As we passed them, a girl who appeared younger than me smiled at Dave, but looked away when her gaze met mine. She disappeared into one of the rooms, and all I could think was how thin she was—so thin that she appeared ill.

“How are you feeling this morning?” he asked.

Folding my arms across my chest, I shrugged a shoulder. “Okay. I guess.”

“Okay? Today is your first day in treatment. You’re going to be here for at least thirty days,” he said, shooting me a look of disbelief. “And you’re okay?”

I shuddered. Well, when he put it that way… “I’m a little freaked.”

“That’s completely understandable. You probably feel like your life is out of control. You’re where you never thought you’d be.” He stopped in front of a dark-colored door while I wondered if he was able to read my mind. “Most, if not all, feel that way at first. Come on in.”

Dave led me into a small office with shelves overflowing with books. As I sat in a chair, I looked over the titles. None of them appeared to be medical tomes. I squinted. Upon closer inspection, they appeared to be…a slew of romance novels. What the…?

“You’ve noticed my books.” He dropped into the chair behind the desk and shrugged unapologetically. “I love me a happily-ever-after.”

Okay.

“You’re welcome to borrow as many as you like,” he offered.

With no television or internet, I would so be taking him up on that offer with a startling quickness.

“Alright, I’m going to give you a little background on who I am and what we do here.” Leaning forward, he picked up a baseball. “I’m a clinical psychologist who specializes in addiction counseling and treatment. Sounds spiffy, huh? Now, The Brook treats a whole wide variety of things. After all, variety is the spice of life, or so they say.” He tossed the ball up and caught it.

Okay. This guy was kind of weird. Cute. But weird.

“We have people who are addicted to drugs and alcohol. We also have people here due to eating disorders and some who have depression. We’ve even had some who have extreme phobias and some quite random addictions. But what does this all mean to you?”

He tossed the ball again, catching it. “Some just do drugs. Some people just drink. We treat the addiction in those cases. But in others, we treat the disorder driving those addictions. If we don’t, then all we are doing is treating the symptoms, but never the cause.” Catching the ball once more, he put it aside and then tapped a slip of paper on his desk. “Now, based on your answers to our generic-as-hell questionnaire, you say you don’t drink all the time. Is that the truth?”

My fingers were digging into the skin of my arms. “Yes.”

“Are you lying, Andrea?”

I blinked. “No.”

“But you drove drunk. Most people who drink occasionally do not drink and drive.”

“I…I drink—”

“Don’t answer that question yet,” he cut in, and I frowned. “Answer this. Was that the first time you drove while under the influence or have you done it before, but were not that drunk?”

I shook my head a little. “I’ve never driven…” Pausing, I wetted my lips as my gaze shifted to the window behind him. “I might have done it before, after one or two beers, but I normally wait at least an hour or so.”

“Normally? What made you not wait this time?”

My muscles were tensing up as my face heated. “There was this guy there, at the bar, who I didn’t recognize at first, but he knew me. We must’ve hooked up, and I wanted to get out of there.”

“Did you do that all the time, hooking up while drinking?” he asked.

I shrugged again as my face continued to burn.

“Andrea, I need your answers. Your real answers. Or this is an absolute waste of time.” His stare met mine. “I need you to be honest. Sometimes painfully and embarrassingly honest. It’s the only way I’m going to help you. In a way, I’m going to break you, because that’s the only way I can really help you.”

Wow. This sounded like fun.

“Do you want to change?” he asked.

I suddenly thought back to those moments before I left the bar, when I realized that the change I needed wasn’t something external but all inside me. I’d recognized that before I’d gotten in the car.

Lifting my gaze, it was hard to hold his. “Yes. I want to change.”

Dave smiled.

I didn’t feel like smiling. “I’ve hooked up with guys when I’ve been drunk. There are times that I…” My face was seriously on fire. “That I don’t remember the details. I don’t even know what I’ve done or didn’t do.” Once I started speaking, the words kept pouring out. “I don’t even know if I wanted to be with them or if I thought it was expected. Or because I’d been drinking. I’ve done it a lot.”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s been two or two thousand, Andrea.” He spread his arms wide. “There’s no judgment here.”

“That’s…”

He waited. “What?”

It was hard to get the words out. “No judging? That’s a… unique concept.”

“Get used to it,” he replied, flashing a quick grin. “Is that the only time you’ve had sexual relations?”

Goodness, this conversation got awkward quick. Totally no breaking me in, but I wanted…I wanted to change more than I cared about being embarrassed.

“No. Not every time,” I whispered, staring at the front of his desk. There was a Baltimore Orioles sticker plastered across the center. “There was this one guy. He didn’t like that I drank like…like I did, and I think…he really liked me.”

Over the next couple of weeks, Dave became a magician when it came to getting me to put a voice to all my thoughts and fears and the random crap that sort of just came out of my mouth. There was a lot of talking and a lot of listening.

Sometimes we walked. Sometimes we talked in his office. Other times he made me talk in the art studio while I sat in front of a blank canvas. I had no idea what in the hell that was supposed to symbolize, but Dave…yeah, he was weird in a really effective way.

I didn’t have withdrawal symptoms from alcohol, something that didn’t seem to surprise Dave or the staff, but I did have a problem. I was a binge drinker, possibly one of the most dangerous forms of alcohol abuse. Where some…some alcoholics drank every day, a little here and a little more there, I drank until I was so drunk I couldn’t say my name. I drank to the point that the alcohol in my blood could kill me. I drank until I was unable to think, every single time. I didn’t have whatever people had in their heads that made them stop.

I couldn’t.

That wasn’t the only diagnosis. There were a couple more. An understanding that came two days after I’d told Dave how I had a habit of rearranging my furniture and painting the walls during those quiet moments. Of course, it wasn’t the only thing that led to the diagnosis. Years worth of stuff had led to it.

Depression and Anxiety.

The…the diagnosis didn’t surprise me either, not if I were being truthful. Maybe part of me had always known. Interesting enough, it would be a while before the role that alcohol played in my…my illness was known.

There was also an emphasis on physical activity. Besides the fact I was a little weak and a lot sore from surgery, there was a stress on staying healthy. I was lucky, though. I didn’t need physical therapy.

After the third week, I was allowed visitors twice a week for an hour each time. My parents came the first time, along with my brother, and that was hard. Syd came the second time, and that had been even harder.

Syd had told me that Tanner wanted to visit me. I wasn’t sure if I was ready for that, but I couldn’t avoid him forever. He hadn’t done anything wrong. For the most part, he’d done everything right, and I agreed to see him.

Tanner came on a Thursday afternoon, in the fifth week. Without makeup, I felt exposed as I waited for him in one of the visitation rooms. The whole makeup thing felt silly, but there was nothing between us now. Not even a layer of foundation. No pretenses.

The room wasn’t bad. It had a couch and two chairs, a table in the corner, and it was painted a pretty robin-egg blue, but I figured the room was monitored. Made sense. No one who worked here wanted people passing drugs or something to the patients.

I’d been waiting for about five minutes when the door opened. I looked up and my tummy dropped as I saw him. Goodness, it felt like forever since I’d last seen him.

Tanner walked into the room and then stopped. The door shut behind him, and he didn’t move as he stared at me. His brown hair appeared freshly cut, buzzed on the sides, and his jaw bare of stubble. Those electric-blue eyes burned bright from behind a fringe of dark lashes. His striking face was pale. For a long moment, neither of us moved, and then I stood on shaky knees.

He came forward, his long-legged pace eating up the distance between us, and then I was in his arms. I let out a soft gasp as I squeezed my eyes shut as he held me close to his chest, and I soaked up the warmth of his body, breathed in the fresh clean scent of his cologne.

“I had no idea if I’d ever get to do this again,” he said, his voice gruff as his chin grazed the top of my head. “The last time I saw you…” He pulled back, sliding his hands to my arms. Despite everything, a tight shiver coiled down my spine. “I didn’t hurt you, did I? I wasn’t thinking—”

“No. I’m fine. Nothing really hurts anymore.” My gaze drifted to his and caught. I didn’t know what to say.

It seemed like Tanner didn’t know either, but after a few seconds, he took my hand and guided me over to the couch. We sat side by side. I expected him to let go of my hand, but he didn’t. “You look a thousand times better than last time.”

“I can imagine.” I laughed, but it was without humor. I studied our hands. “I wish you hadn’t seen me like that.”

“I wish that had never happened.”

“Me too.”

He was quiet for a moment. “I don’t know what to say. We only have an hour and I don’t want to waste a second, but all I can do is sit here and stare at you.”

Oh gosh, why did he always have to say the right stuff?

“I guess I’ll start with saying I’m happy that you were okay with seeing me. I knew you were okay, but I…I just needed to see it with my own eyes.”

“I know…you heard the call go out and that you came straight to the hospital,” I told him. “I’m sorry you had to go through any of that. I just wasn’t ready to…to see you.”

“You don’t need to apologize.” He squeezed my hand. “What’s been going on in here?”

I raised a shoulder and then became aware of what I was doing. I wasn’t being honest. I was hiding, and damn, if Tanner deserved anything from me, it wasn’t to sit here and act like a tool.

Taking a deep breath, I slipped my hand free. I couldn’t be touching him when I had to be honest. Weird, but true. “I’ve spent a lot of time talking.”

“About?”

I smiled wanly. “Everything.”

“Would you…would you tell me?” he asked.

This was hard. Putting voice to this stuff, especially to someone like Tanner, who probably had only ever seen one side of me, but it was something we focused on during my sessions with Dave. To put a voice to what I was feeling, to cope that way instead of bottling it up…and turning to a bottle.

So I told him.

I talked about always rushing toward tomorrow, my restlessness and all those quiet moments. I confided in my fear of letting my parents down and how I couldn’t settle on a future. I even told him about when I’d taken my first drink and how it felt to not care about anything, to feel like I was free, and I told him about the crash, because that feeling never lasted.

When I was done, I was exhausted. It was like shedding skin, but all of these things I spoke to Tanner about, it wasn’t the first time I gave them a voice. These were all things that Dave had snaked out of me, one meeting after another.

I exhaled loudly. “So that’s…that’s everything.”

“Yeah,” he said quietly, and I peeked at him. He was staring at the wall. “That is everything. I…”

My cheeks heated. “You’re probably wishing you hadn’t asked.”

“No. Not at all,” he replied quickly. “I just didn’t know. I mean, I knew you…I thought that there was something going on, but you’re getting help.”

I shifted. “Sometimes I wonder if I would’ve changed on my own. If I hadn’t gotten in that car and had the accident, if I would still be doing what I was doing,” I admitted.

Tanner nodded slowly. “I don’t think you’ll ever know, but you know what, it doesn’t matter. You’re doing something about all this now, and that’s what counts.”

I glanced over at him. “Really? That’s what counts?”

His brows knitted. “Yes.”

“I don’t know. I think it has to be more than that. I messed up, Tanner. I drove drunk and could’ve killed someone. I think that counts.”

“It does.” He twisted toward me. “But you didn’t. You only hurt yourself. And you’re getting help. The fact that you are facing this is a big deal. And Syd told me you didn’t fight it when your dad said you were going to treatment. Facing this takes real courage.”

Courage? I wasn’t sure about that.

His gaze searched mine. “Just in case you’re wondering, I’m not looking at you any differently, and I’m still waiting for you to come to me.”

My jaw nearly hit the floor. “What?”

He grinned a little. “Andrea, I really care about you. What I feel…” He moved his hand to his chest, above his heart. “I—”

“I’ve been diagnosed with depression. They think it’s a chemical imbalance, since I haven’t had any major life changes that would cause this, but that’s not something that is as easy to diagnose as people think it is. I have anxiety too, and it could be coming from the depression or the drinking. Or it could be a whole different set of issues. It could take months to really give a definitive diagnosis, but I’ve been self-medicating,” I rushed on, getting it out there. “With alcohol, and God knows what else.”

Tanner blinked. “Okay.”

A knot crept into my throat. “I think I’ve always known. I mean, I knew my head—my thoughts sometimes just didn’t make sense. Like it always went to the worst-case scenario and I…I don’t think I’m good enough or worthy enough, and those quiet moments, God, they’re killer. That’s what’s really going on with me, so please—please don’t say anything you really don’t mean.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment and then, “First off, you are fucking good enough and you are worthy. Okay? Yeah, you made a shit choice when you got behind the wheel of that car, but that’s not going to define who you are from this point on. You know why?”

My eyes widened. “Why?”

“Because you learned from your shit choice. You are still learning. You are doing everything to not make a shit choice like that again. And secondly? You have depression. So do how many million other people? I’m not trying to downplay it. I know it’s serious shit, but do you think that makes me think less of you? Depression isn’t a villain in this. The way you were trying to cope with it was. Depression isn’t the bad guy and neither are you. Not when you recognize what you’ve done.”

Tears rushed my eyes.

“And finally?” he continued. “I love you, Andrea.”

My lips parted. “Come again?”

He barked out a short laugh. “I love you. Okay? I’m not quite sure when I realized it or how long I’ve felt it, but I know that’s what I feel. Trust me. When I thought you were going to die, the panic and horror I felt? Yeah, I know how I feel.”

All I could do was stare at him.

“I’m not expecting you to say it back to me.” He gently cupped my cheeks and tilted my head back. “I don’t want you to say it back to me now, because when I hear those words, I want you to be sure. I want you to say them with only happiness in your eyes. I can wait for that. I will wait for that.”

As I stared into his eyes, in that moment, I knew that I still loved him, but I could not shake the feeling, the realization that I so did not deserve him.

I did not deserve the happy ending Dave loved so much.

Chapter 24

Andrea

“Do you really believe in happy endings?” I asked.

Dave arched a brow as he sat behind the desk. “Of course I do. Without them, what’s the point of all of this?”

It had been two weeks since I’d seen Tanner, two weeks since he’d said that he loved me and he’d wait to hear me say it with only happiness in my eyes. Two weeks where I had a hard time accepting that I deserved a happy ending.

“It’s a strange question to ask,” he commented. “May I ask why?”

The last thing I wanted to do was talk about Tanner with some oddly attractive guy. Why, oh why, did my counselor have to be a dude? “Tanner said—”

“Oh, the dreamy Tanner?” He grinned when I narrowed my eyes on him. “Continue.”

“He said that he loved me,” I told him.

Dave picked up the baseball. It was like he had a special relationship with the damn thing. “Is this a bad thing? From what you’ve said, he’s a good guy.” He threw the ball up and caught it. “Or do you not feel the same?”

My heart did a little jump. Answer enough. “I…I love him.”

“Does he suck at kissing?”

I rolled my eyes.

He chuckled and then quickly sobered as he clenched the ball. “Do you think you don’t really deserve it—the happily ever after?”

I pulled my legs up and wrapped my arms around my knees. A moment passed and Dave waited, and from prior experience, I knew he literally would sit there and wait until I opened my mouth. “I don’t know,” I said, shrugging one shoulder. “I mean, I’m a fuck-up and I’m a shitty person. I could’ve killed someone, and he…he deserves someone better than that, you know?”

“Having depression does not make you a fuck-up, Andrea.”

I frowned. “That’s not what I mean.” Or was it? I was still coming to terms with what it meant to have something that was shaping my life.

“We obviously haven’t gotten through your skull yet. Not completely. I see I still have lots of work to do,” he said, placing the ball on the desk. It rolled to a stop against a large binder. “That’s good. I like job security.”

“Ha. Ha.” My lips twitched, though. “Seriously. I just…I just want to be normal.”

“You are normal,” he replied. “Depression does not make you abnormal. Neither does anxiety, but the way you cope with it, the way you treat it, is what can make you abnormal.”

I nibbled on my lower lip, mulling that over.

“Let me ask you a question. When you volunteer at the suicide call center, do you think the people you talk to are fuck-ups?”

“God.” I scrunched up my face. “No.”

“Do you think they’re abnormal?”

“No. I think…I think they just need…” They just need help. God, I closed my eyes, exhaling softly. A few minutes passed before I reopened my eyes. “I think that’s why I volunteered there. Maybe in a way I related to them. Maybe I was coping…”

“And that would be a good coping mechanism as long as you’re not bringing that home with you.”

I hadn’t. At least as far as I knew. We’d talked about my volunteering before. Dave thought it would be a good idea if I backed off from that until I had a better grip on everything.

“I’m going to ask you another question.” Dave inclined his head. “Do you think I’m a terrible person?”

Odd question. I looked around the room. “Um, no?”

He sat back, resting his ankle on his knee as he studied me. “When I was close to your age, maybe two years older, we had a lot of things in common. I didn’t drink a lot.” He smiled. “Or at least I didn’t think I did. I just liked to relax on the weekends or whenever I was out with friends or when the day was stressing me out.”

Yeah, that sounded familiar.

“One night I was at the bar with a couple of friends and it was getting late. I had what I thought was a couple of drinks. I didn’t think I was drunk, and no one stopped me. No one was like, ‘hey, drunk guy shouldn’t be driving.’ I left. I got in my car and I started to drive home. I didn’t make it. I wrecked, but right there is where our similarities ended.”

I couldn’t look away.

“I totaled my car, but I was basically uninjured. Sure, I was bruised a bit, but I walked away from the accident with nary a scratch.” The smile faded from his lips. “But I didn’t hit a barrier wall, Andrea. I hit another car.”

At that moment, I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t.

“His name was Glenn Dixon. He was thirty-six years old and he was getting off from his shift at one of the warehouses in the city,” he continued quietly. “He was married and had two children. One was four and the other was seven.” Pausing, he drew in a deep breath. “I didn’t realize I’d crossed the center line until it was too late. I tried to swerve, but it was virtually a head-on collision. He died on the scene.”

I closed my eyes then. “Oh my God…”

“My actions took his life. One decision. One choice. I got behind the wheel of a car, and although I spent time in jail for it and I’ll spend the rest of my life making damn sure I try to stop another person from making that one choice, I will never fully pay for what I did.”

Horror filled me—horror for the deceased man’s family and even for Dave, because I couldn’t imagine living with something like that. But that horror—God, that horror—was also for how close I’d come to becoming Dave.

“So, let me ask you again, Andrea,” he said, and I opened my eyes. “Am I a terrible person?”

I never answered Dave’s question. I tried to give him an answer, but I never found the right words, and it wasn’t until later that I realized there was no right or wrong answer to that.

At first, I did look at him differently. I hated to admit that about myself, but I couldn’t help it. He’d killed someone. Accidentally, a dozen or so years ago, but he’d made a choice that had ended with someone losing his life.

And his story, what he confided, hit close to home. That could’ve been me, but it wasn’t. Not because I did anything different or better than Dave. I had luck on my side that night. Just damn luck.

Did I think Dave was a terrible person? That was a stone I wasn’t ready to cast, and there was a good chance I would never be able to, but something about his story not only hit home for me, but shook things up hardcore.

I wasn’t Dave. Whether it was due to luck or what, I wasn’t him. I, for the most part, could walk away from all of this and move forward without major baggage. I could get to that happily ever after, but I was going to have to work hard.

So I stayed in treatment longer than was required. Not because I was hiding, but because I knew, deep down, I knew that I still needed help. I needed to learn to recognize when I was feeling depressed and what those quiet moments signified. I needed to develop better coping mechanisms, and that’s what Dave and the staff helped with. When I started to become restless, it was time to pick up a book, go watch a movie or take a walk, call a friend or visit family. I learned that I needed to open myself up. I had an amazing support system right at my fingertips. I just needed to allow myself to use them.

But I was leaving, after all that.

My suitcase was packed up and my parents would be arriving soon to pick me up. I’d briefly considered moving back in with them, but right then, I was sure I could handle being on my own.

I would be attending therapy sessions once a week and Dave was hooking me up with local AA meetings. Even though my addiction to alcohol was not as severe, it was still an addiction. The outpatient therapist would determine if I needed medication to help keep balance or if I could continue without meds.

When I left my little room for the last time, I went and saw Dave. He was in his office, with that damn baseball in his hand. I didn’t say anything as I placed my suitcase down and walked to where he stood by his desk.

I stretched out, wrapped my arms around him, and gave him a quick, tight hug. Settling back, I exhaled softly. “Thank you. For everything.”

A quirky grin appeared. “You’re going to be okay.”

“I know,” I said, without hesitation. “And even if I’m not okay, I’m going to be okay.”

“Right.”

I nodded and then turned, heading back to my suitcase. “Goodbye, Dave.”

“Make yourself proud,” he called as I walked out. “Don’t forget, Andrea, make yourself proud.”

That was something I wouldn’t forget as I walked down the wide hall, toward the doors leading to the reception area. Make yourself proud. That’s what mattered, because I could still be a daughter, a sister, a friend, and maybe even a girlfriend one day. I could be a teacher or I could be whatever I wanted. I could be all these things.

This was the new normal—my new normal, and I was going to be brave. I was going to use that courage some had seen in me long before I ever had.

Tanner

My legs burned and my heart thundered as my sneakers pounded on the treadmill. The whole damn thing was shaking, but I didn’t slow down. It was early, way too damn early to be up and running, but once I woke up, I couldn’t go back to sleep.

Forty-two days.

It had been forty-two days since I’d last seen Andrea in the treatment facility. And those forty-two days felt like a lifetime ago.

I knew she was out. She’d been out for the last week and a half, according to Sydney, and I hadn’t heard from her. There was an ache in my chest, but I’d meant what I’d said to her that day. I would wait as long as she needed me to and I wanted her to come to me when she was ready.

I was not and could not be her first priority right then. I understood that and believed in that a hundred percent. She needed to take care of herself first, and if that required another forty-two days, then so be it.

But I missed her. Fuck. I missed her.

I missed her snappy comebacks and the way she gave as good as she got. I missed the sound of her husky, throaty laugh and the way her brown eyes reminded me of aged whiskey. I missed those tiny, feminine sounds she made, and I missed the way she said my name.

I simply just missed her.

And truthfully, I didn’t think of her differently. Yeah, I’d wanted to yell at her when I found out she’d been drinking and driving—she could’ve killed someone or herself. I was pissed, fucking in a rage, but the fact that she’d immediately gotten treatment and held herself responsible for her actions lessened that anger pretty quickly.

I was just happy that she finally had an answer for why she turned to alcohol—that we all had an answer to why. Knowledge was everything, the only way she could get better. Having depression didn’t make me think less of her. Honestly, if anyone thought less of someone because of that, they could go fuck themselves.

A huge part of me wanted to be there for her right then—wanted to help her in any way possible, to take care of her. But I knew she didn’t need that. Andrea didn’t need me to swoop in and save her. I knew damn well she could save herself.

She would save herself.

A beep intruded on the music blasting from my phone.

Slowing down, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and hit the screen, revealing the text message.

I straightened and almost fell off the damn machine. Smacking the stop button, I stared at the message, no longer feeling the burn in my calves or my lungs as my lips spread into a wide smile.