Determination (23 page)

“Of course I do, Jamie. I love you more than anything.” It was almost a plea, as if he was begging me to believe him.

“Then that’s all that matters. You took me in. You’re taking care of me and helping me to get clean. You saved my life.” I took another drink of the hot coffee as the statement rang true through the small kitchen. Without my father, I wouldn’t have been able to go to rehab. I 146

Jamie Mayfield

wouldn’t have a lawyer to help with the police investigation. Leo, Alex, and maybe even Brian would have been on my side, but my dad had resources they didn’t. “I’m lucky to have you.”

“Don’t say that,” he snapped. “If I’d had the balls to stand up to your mother, you’d be in college and happy right now. The stuff that’s happened to you is my fault.”

“I’m not going to blame you for what’s happened. Whatever happened before, you’re here for me now.” I was glad he was, especially because I felt so hollow without Brian. Dad opened his mouth and closed it again, seemingly unable to voice whatever continued to plague him. He took another drink from his mug and gazed with glassy, wet eyes out the nearby window. I followed his lead, letting the conversation die, and watched out the window as well. The sun had risen fully over the dew-covered yard, bringing sparkles of light to the freshly mown grass. I had to tilt my head at a different angle when the sun reflected off an ornate but neglected birdbath and nearly blinded me. As I let my gaze trace over the sharp, symmetrical lines of flowers in their bed near the back fence, I wondered exactly how I would fit back into my father’s perfectly manicured life.

Later, he sat at my tiny student desk near the window and read his e-mail on his smartphone while I showered. For nearly a week, I’d needed parental supervision to bathe, and it still humiliated me. My dad never said anything about it, but I was sure he had better things to do than sit in my room and wait for me to crack my head open on the porcelain sink because I couldn’t control my body.

“Detective Sanchez wants us to come down to the station this afternoon so you can give a formal statement. I left a message for your lawyer, and he’s going to meet us there.” My father’s voice floated in on the billow of steam from the shower. I closed my eyes against the spray and let the hot water melt some of the tension that tightened my muscles and made them ache. To be honest, I’d wanted to meet with the police since coming home a few days earlier, but the lawyer my father hired hadn’t been available. He said once my father paid the retainer, he became my attorney of record, and I couldn’t talk to anyone about that night unless he was present. He was just one more babysitter.

Determination

147

“Okay, Dad.” My voice carried over the rush of the shower as I hurried to finish. Because of the seizures, I never lingered in the shower. I could do a hell of a lot of damage to myself if I lost control in there. Rinsing the shampoo from my hair, I thought about how much Brian loved to run his fingers through it. For just a moment, I imagined Brian in the shower with me, sliding his hands over my slick, naked body like he used to when we had lived together at the apartment. God, he loved showering with me. Sometimes he’d wash my hair and wrap his arms around me under the pretense of rinsing out the soap. We’d even made love in the shower once or twice. I smiled at the memory even through the ache in my chest. Missing the coconut smell from our bodywash, I opened the medicinal-smelling stuff my dad had given me.

I finished up quickly and let my dad go get ready for his day. He was about to start the second week of emergency vacation time he’d taken to be with me. Already feeling like an inconvenience, I didn’t want to make things worse by being late. My hair, still somewhat short, dried quickly as I dressed. It had been a while since I cared about the way I looked. Throughout the withdrawal, being with Steven, and then in the hospital—my appearance had never been a priority. However, I wanted to make a good impression on the therapist, so squirting out some hair gel, I got to work.

It turned out to be a very long day.

“JAMES, my name is Dr. Fisher,” the woman said as she sat down behind a large, well-worn desk, which seemed to be empty except for a nondescript phone and blank notebook. She was either a complete neat freak, or she didn’t have that much to do. I sat in one of the thinly padded chairs in front of the desk and put my hands in my lap and waited. After a few minutes, I slid them under my thighs. My legs bounced when she unlocked a lower drawer of the desk and pulled out a cream-colored file folder. I didn’t need to be able to read it to know it would bear my name.

148

Jamie Mayfield

“I just need to add some information to your file, and then we can talk for a while.” The tone of her voice didn’t sound as if I had an option.

“Okay,” I replied, but the word came out more like a croak. After clearing my throat, I tried again. “Okay, uhm, what did you want to know?”

“James, it says here that you’re nineteen and you were treated for an addiction to OxyContin, is that correct?” She looked up from the file, and I swallowed thickly.

“Uhm… Dr. Fisher, could… could you call me Jamie?”

“I’d like to call you whatever would make you feel comfortable,”

she said, making a note in her little file.

“How about a cab?” I asked with a nervous giggle. Her expression never changed, and I sighed quietly. “Sorry. Yes, I’m nineteen, and I was treated for oxy.” Going through rehab would be a hell of a lot easier with a therapist who had a sense of humor. Maybe after she got to know me, she’d loosen up. Looking at her perfectly cut bob and razor-sharp suit, however, I doubted it.

“How long had you been taking the oxy when you came to the clinic?”

If she was going to help me, she’d need the whole truth. Still, I paused before answering, not wanting to admit it aloud. “Since the beginning of August, but before that, I’d been doing cocaine and ecstasy. I started the oxy because of an injury,” I admitted. After scribbling in the file, she looked up again.

“Thank you for being so candid,” she said, and the sentiment sounded completely genuine. The lines around her eyes disappeared as she smiled, and I smiled back.

“Okay, Jamie, can you tell me why you’re here?” she asked as she sat back. Resting her elbows on the arms of the chair, she let her fingers steeple under her chin as she watched me with brown eyes that seemed, in that moment, to be almost kind.

“I’m here because Dr. Lindman said it would be part of my treatment,” I explained, a little confused. Why the hell did she think I was here? It wasn’t like a day at the spa or something.

Determination

149

“Yes, but why did you come to the clinic in the first place?”
Oh,
duh, I really need to get some sleep.

“Right, sorry. I haven’t been sleeping well. There are a few reasons why I’m here, I think. First, the doctor said that the drugs I’d been taking would be really bad with my new anticonvulsant medications. He told me that staying on them could kill me. Then my dad came back into my life while I was in the hospital, and said he’d help me. I also want to… I want to get clean to show Brian I’m serious about our relationship.” I watched her as she made a few notes on the legal pad, but upside down from that distance, I couldn’t read what they said. “Jamie, do you notice who is missing in that explanation?” she asked as she set the pen down again and settled back into the chair.

“My mom, I guess. She isn’t a part of my life anymore.” My gaze followed the course of her scribbling pen as she made a note. Then she looked up at me, and I could have been wrong, but her eyes looked almost sad.

“No, Jamie. Of all the people you talked about quitting drugs for, you didn’t mention yourself.” She wrote something on the pad of paper as I thought back over what I’d said. I wanted to get clean for the doctor, for my dad, and for Brian. I didn’t trust myself enough to want anything for me. As long as I did it for my dad or for Brian, I could manage. But for myself, I deserved to be facedown in a ditch, not living in a comfortable house bleeding my dad dry with rehab.

“I didn’t,” I admitted, unsure if I wanted to get into all the dark things in my head on the first visit. What if I said something that scared her? Would she throw me into an institution somewhere? I didn’t know if I could stand being locked up again. Standing quickly, I started to pace the room.

“Jamie?” she asked, remaining seated at the desk. Her calm unnerved me.

“I… I’m just… I don’t know what you want. I don’t know what to expect, and I’m scared I’m going to mess this up, just like I mess up everything else in my life.” It all came out in a rush, and I hadn’t meant to say most of it, but my nerves were shot from lack of sleep and being there in the first place.

150

Jamie Mayfield

“Okay, then let’s start there,” Dr. Fisher said as she held out her hand and indicated I should sit back down. I didn’t want to sit, so I stood behind the chair and rested my forearms on the back.

“I’m… restless,” I admitted. The exhaustion caught up with me, and I pressed my head to the back of the padded chair for a just a minute before looking back up at her. The sweet oblivion of the E, or even the oxy, would be so nice. I hated myself for having that thought on my very first day of rehab.

“It’s normal for you to be restless. It’s also understandable to be scared. You’ve never been through the process before, and you have no idea what’s going to happen. Today, we’re going to get to know each other a little better, and we’re going to set some short-term therapy goals. I also want to address some of your fears about therapy. Have you ever talked to a therapist before?” Her face relaxed into a kind smile again, and I sagged against the chair, pushing it forward an inch before walking around it and sitting down.

“No, I’ve never been in therapy before.”

“Okay, what do you think is going to happen?” she asked and laid her pen on top of the pad of paper so she could focus all of her attention on me. My T-shirt collar suddenly seemed too tight.

“We’re going to talk about my addiction. I’m scared if I say something wrong… that you’re going to put me somewhere, that I’m going to screw up so bad that… I… I….” I had to stop there. A huge weight compressed my chest, and the air seemed to solidify in my lungs. The edges of the desk swam in front of my eyes, and I wanted to scream
please not now
! The thinly padded floor nearly broke my knees as I dropped onto it and fell over onto my side.

“Jamie, it’s okay,” Dr. Fisher said. She came around the desk at a run just before the seizure took over.

“HOW was your first day?” my father asked as I fell into the front seat of his car. After I slammed the door a little too hard, I leaned my head back against the headrest and closed my eyes. Mentally and physically exhausted, I didn’t want to get into the horror of my first day, but since he was paying, I probably owed him a status report.

Determination

151

“Well, I had a seizure during my therapy session, my lunch made me vomit, and some guy threw a punch at me because he wanted the blue paint I was using,” I recited. I could feel his gaze on me even though my eyes were still closed. “But on the bright side, they gave me some pills to help me sleep.”

“What happened with the guy who tried to punch you?”

“He was just having a bad day—edgy, you know? Okay, well, no, you probably don’t know. Anyway, he apologized. I just want to get this stuff with the police over with.”

“Dr. Lindman called to let me know that you’d had a seizure. We rescheduled your meeting with the police.” His voice, low and tense, wavered a little at the mention of taking me to the police station.

“They’re okay with that?” I asked. They’d been wanting to talk to me for nearly a week, and the lawyer kept putting them off. That couldn’t bode well for me.

“Once I explained about the seizures, they were, yes. They offered to come to the house tomorrow if you felt more comfortable, but I told them the station would be fine. I didn’t want them to think you were being evasive.”

I sighed and ran a hand through my hair; the fear of not knowing what would happen with the police just made everything ten times worse. Like looking at something through a microscope, it made all my other problems seem exponentially bigger. The seizures, Brian, my future—everything would become horrifyingly worse if I went to prison for murder.

“Fine, then I want to go home and work on this assignment Dr.

Fisher gave me so I don’t have to think about it anymore.”

“Dr. Fisher is your new therapist?” he asked as he turned the key in the ignition. I breathed a silent sigh of thanks that he would drive while he talked.

“Yeah, she wants me to do some directed writing. Do you have any notebooks or anything at the house? I just thought of that.”

He was quiet for a moment before throwing the car into reverse.

“How are you feeling now? Are you up for dinner and a little shopping? We can get you what you need,” he said as he pulled out of the space. The thought of going out and spending time with people 152

Jamie Mayfield

almost paralyzed me. If I had a seizure at the restaurant, I’d be mortified. When I opened my eyes, I saw my dad was watching the road with a little too much attention, as if he wanted to give me time to think about it.

“Can we pick up the stuff and then take something home?” My counteroffer sounded like a much better alternative.

“That sounds good to me,” Dad said with a smile. About twenty minutes later, we pulled into the parking lot of a local shopping center.

At first, I thought he would head for one of the discount retail stores.

Instead, he parked in front of an electronics superstore.

“Uhh, Dad, I don’t think they’re going to have notebooks and pens in there,” I reminded him, but he just grinned and turned off the car. With a jerk of his head to indicate he wanted me to get out, he opened his door and climbed out. Curious, I followed, my fears about having a seizure momentarily pushed to the background. The fears never left me entirely, but sometimes I could turn them from a high-pitched scream to a murmur in my head.