Until now.
Swoon.
I am totally staying in rehab.
I wait all day for the hammer to come down. I mean, yes, I didn’t get caught with Wade, or even outside on the grounds where I’m not supposed to be yet, but there’s no way Madam didn’t tell someone I never showed for my session. Adam, most logically.
I tell myself that I’m already in rehab with limited privileges and access, so really, what can they do to me if I am in trouble, other than lecture me or kick me out? And they’re not going to kick me out, at least not yet. Still, alongside my giddy, Wade-induced bliss is a knot of tension I can’t quite shake, and I am dreading my next encounter with Adam.
When I see him outside the dining hall before dinner, I have to force myself to look him in the eyes, and then looking him in the eyes gives me a full-body flush that’s obviously related to my guilty conscience, which makes my act of wide-eyed innocence hard to pull off.
“What’s up?” he says.
“Not much,” I say.
And then…a too-long pause as he just stares at me.
“You changed,” he says, finally.
“W-what?”
He glances down at me, taking in my jean shorts and cropped tee.
“Oh,” I say, and then start breathing better, feeling like I’m out of the woods. “Yeah. You know, just in case I have to climb up onto any more doctors’ tables.”
He doesn’t laugh. Instead, he says, “I think the doctors from now on will have couches or chairs, not tables.”
I give a weak laugh and curse at myself inwardly for bringing up doctors of any kind.
“So, speaking of doctors…?”
“Let’s not, actually—”
“How was therapy?”
“Therapy?” I say, as if it’s a distant memory. “Oh. Well it was…as expected, pretty much.”
“Oh yeah? What was it you expected?”
He knows. Shit, shit, he knows.
In case there’s any doubt, though, better to go on the offensive.
“Do I have to talk to you about it? I mean as your mentee? I thought that kind of thing was confidential.”
“Yeah, it’s confidential,” he says, eyes narrowing. “But you can talk to me if you want to.”
“Awesome.”
“So?”
“I don’t want to.”
“All right, Lola, but—”
“New subject,” I say brightly. “How are you? What did you do this afternoon? Do you have other patients to mentor, or is it just me?”
“I’m fine. I did paperwork and prep work. I have other duties besides mentoring, as you’ll see. And I’ve got a couple of other patients I mentor but they’re settled into the program—progressing and complying nicely.”
Complying nicely. He knows. He knows but he’s not saying. Why?
“I’m not your full-time job, then?”
The corners of his mouth quirk up, just a bit.
“No,” he says, a glower replacing the almost-smile. “But you should be someone’s.”
After that, he walks me into dinner without saying anything about Madam, and leaves me with Talia while he goes off to sit with some of the staff.
I glance repeatedly at him throughout the meal—to the point that Talia asks me if I’m looking for someone—but I’m trying to figure out if he knows, and if he does, why he didn’t say anything. Maybe he knows and he’s just being patient—giving me a pass because it’s the first day. Or he knows and he’s playing some kind of mind game with me, trying to wear me down, make me feel shitty, drive me to confess. Or he knows but doesn’t have the authority to do anything about it because he’s just a summer student, and I will be getting in trouble later, from Dr. Koch. Or he doesn’t know, because he was busy and/or Madam decided not to tell him because she is playing games with me—gathering information and waiting to see what I’ll do, the better to strip my psyche with.
None of these are good scenarios.
And yet, it occurs to me that if I’m going to succeed at this masquerade and subsequent rescue mission and love connection, et cetera, I can’t afford to get all fucked up and stressed out like this every time I break a rule. I’m going to break a bunch of rules. I broke a bunch already just by coming here. This problem is not a problem until it is actually a problem. When it comes to me as an actual problem, I’ll deal with it. In the meantime, I have to forget about it. Stay focused.
Exactly.
My schedule says, and Talia confirms, that every evening there’s a big meeting—everyone at Sunrise can attend. Sometimes it’s a guest speaker, sometimes it’s an AA meeting.
“Even for the people who aren’t alcoholics?” I ask Talia, who is sitting across the table from me, noshing on a piece of spelt-crust pizza.
She nods vigorously. “It’s a catchall. It’s called AA but it addresses and includes all the types of addictions. Because really, the disease is the same no matter what the substance or substances.”
“But it’s not, like, the TV thing where you have to stand up in front of everyone and say, ‘My name is so-and-so and I’m an alcoholic,’ and tell them your sob story, is it?”
Talia starts laughing.
“What?”
“It’s totally that,” she says.
“No.”
“Oh, yes. Unlike how with police procedurals and legal dramas where it’s totally different from real life? AA is, well of course every meeting is different, but that part? That’s it exactly.”
“Oh my God.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll be great.”
“No, no. I won’t be.”
“Well…you don’t actually have to go,” she says. “You do, but not every night. People don’t always go on their first day. I mean, half of us are still detoxing and totally unable to go the first couple of days. There’s a certain number of nights per week that you have to attend, but I can’t remember what it is because I always go. I like to see people, keep busy.”
“Huh.”
I decide to skip AA.
No need to overexpose myself to Wade on the first day.
And, well, yuck. I’ll sit through whatever class or group, but I’m not standing up in front of a bunch of people and making a big mortifying speech about my supposed alcoholism. I’m not into telling my business to strangers—even my fake business. Plus, the longer I’m here the more I realize that I cannot possibly be well rehearsed enough to do it.
In addition, I need to call Sydney and find out what the hell is going on and why she left me to fend for myself here, so on my way back from dinner I stop in the lounge—a cozy room in an odd Starbucks–African safari fusion style—where one corner has a wing chair and side table with a landline with a cord (seriously) on it.
It’s funny, but I feel sort of naked, twitchy and disconnected without my phone. I keep going to check it every few minutes and then it’s just not there.
Anyway, time to make some calls on the dinosaur. Thank God Sydney’s number is one of the few I have memorized, due to her being allowed to get a cell phone a full six months before me, and my having to call her on a landline that entire time.
But when I reach for the phone, a staff member (one of the nonmedical, non-counseling staff who’re apparently called “techs”) materializes to inform me I don’t have privileges yet.
“To make a phone call? Are you serious?”
“It’s on the first page of the rule book.”
“I haven’t gotten that far yet.”
“Well, I suggest you get started.”
As I’m stalking to the door I spot Jade, sitting in a corner smirking at me. I stop and turn my glare on her.
“What?” I snap. “Doesn’t look like you can make any calls either, Miss Mute.”
She smiles and gives me the finger.
Just before dawn, the center seems to go up in flames.
I am yanked out of a deep sleep by a screaming bell that is obviously the fire alarm and leap out of bed, stum
ble to the door, and lurch into the hallway before noticing I’m all alone.
Shit.
I dash back into our room.
“Talia! Jade! Get up!”
I flip on the lights. Talia, already sitting up, squints, and Jade, also awake, flinches away from the light like a vampire. That would explain a few things, actually. Regardless, at the moment it’s my job to save her life.
“Girls! Get up, we have to go!”
“Well sure, eventually,” Talia says.
“Not eventually. Now!”
“Where’s the fire?” Talia says.
“I don’t know! I don’t smell any smoke but—” I pause, realizing abruptly that the alarm has stopped ringing. “Okay, it’s stopped, but we should still evacuate just in case.”
“Hunh?”
I walk over to her and wave my arms in front of her face. “Fire! Hello? There was a fire alarm! I’m having a freaking heart attack here and nobody has moved.” I turn to include Jade in my rant. “Is everyone in this place so depressed they’re not afraid of burning to death? Are you deaf as well as mute? Joan of freaking Arc?”
“Um, Lola?” Talia says.
“Yes, okay, that was insensitive. Sorry, Jade. My point is—”
“No, Lola, it was just the wake-up bell.”
“May I point out it’s the middle of the night?”
“Six a.m.”
“Exactly.”
“Six a.m. is when we get up.”
“We get up at six.”
“That’s what I said,” Talia replies. “For Contemplation.”
“Contemplation? Related to, or as opposed to, Reflection, which I believe we do every night?”
“In the morning we Contemplate, in the evening we Reflect. I know, I know. But it’s on the schedule: Contemplation, six fifteen. We’re supposed to make our beds first and I suggest you do it fast. Hey, I love how you keep repeating everything I say, by the way.” The sincere grin that accompanies this last statement only irritates me more. How can she be so sunny and helpful and devoid of sarcasm, even this early in the morning?
Fifteen minutes later, I’ve pulled on a pair of distressed jeans and a cropped sky-blue sweater, thrown my hair into a ponytail, and grabbed one of my pairs of Ray-Ban Fat-Asses, though I could have sworn I packed two pairs and I only see one in my dresser. We arrive in the lounge, which reminds me of last night and being denied use of the phone and the fact that I’m not supposed to leave the damn building, much less get a massage.
To top it off, Adam is sitting on one of the khaki linen-covered couches with a steaming coffee and a binder, looking perfectly awake and well-groomed, and still not mad at me, not even noticing me at all, in fact. He is almost chipper, sitting there laughing and talking with one of the prettier female patients from my hallway.
She’s probably one of his mentees. A better behaved, more compliant mentee who doesn’t actually even need his help or attention and now just likes to sit around having cozy talks with him and telling him how great he is. Or maybe he’s telling her how great she is. Whatever. It’s irritating. Everything this morning is irritating.
Talia and Jade make a beeline for the coffeepot.
I march up to Adam, who finally notices me, and then has the nerve to smile.
“My parents would never have sent me here if they knew about the human rights violations,” I say.
“What?”
“My dad especially. Communication is very important to him and he’s going to be seriously pissed when he finds out I can’t call or even text or email him.”
“Contrary to popular belief, Lola, use of the telephone and internet is not a human right.” He swivels back to talk to the pretty female patient again.
“I beg to differ. Freedom of speech. And another thing,” I say, running over him as he turns to me and starts to speak, “there are studies—scientific studies about teenagers and sleep. It’s proven we function much better when we are not woken at the crack of freaking dawn.”
“Is that the scientific wording? Crack of freaking dawn?”
The girl laughs. I hate her. I hate him.
He leans back on the couch and studies me, again with that gaze that seems to hold superpowers. There is something about Adam, about the way he looks at me, at anyone he’s talking to actually, that’s very intense, very present. He locks on, pays attention, sees. He doesn’t seem to care if it’s weird or if it creates an awkward silence. It’s disconcerting, annoying, and yet when it stops it always leaves me feeling a little bit…less. Relieved, but less there, less colorful, less interesting. At the moment, though, we’re still in the disconcerting, uncomfortable zone.
“What?” I demand.
“Nothing,” he says, pleased with himself, obviously.
“Stop smiling at me, Adam,” I say through my teeth. “And don’t mock me, either. And one more thing: being so rudely awoken by a bell that sounds like a damn fire alarm is very bad for the overall mental outlook of any teenager, much less a bunch of addicts who are obviously easily upset!”
The other girls, eighteen in total, plus a few older people who must be the other mentors, are filtering in and sitting with their mentees, but the room has gone quiet.
“Ah. You’re upset?”
“Yes, I’m— No, I’m…I’m just making a point.”
“Okay,” he says, then dismisses me with a shrug, leaving me less, and with everyone looking.
“Okay? What do you mean, okay?”
He opens a binder that’s sitting beside him on the couch and starts to read, but I am not going away because now I’ve got a real fire—a fire burning up my belly, chest, and throat.
“You know what?” I say, pointing an accusing finger at him and willing him to look at me. “This is not a spa.”
Adam looks back up again, finally. “Sorry?”
“This is not a spa! It’s not like a spa at all. It’s nothing like a spa.”
I’m shouting. Everyone is staring at me. I’m making an ass of myself, I know, but I can’t stop.
“Nope,” he says calmly, “it’s rehab.”
“Well, obviously! But regardless whether it was supposed to be a spa, or like a spa, and that it’s actually fucking rehab, this…this is not a reasonable time of day to ask a person to get up. Unless there is a fire.”
“It seems she’s not a morning person,” says Talia, who has come up beside me with a mug in each hand. “Coffee, roomie?”
I’m shaking. I’m losing it. I’m staring at Adam, glaring at him and shaking with a sudden, choking fury that has to go somewhere, a fury that, if I were in my right mind, might seem unreasonable and out of proportion and even a little bit crazed.
But I am very much not in my right mind, and so I reach a hand out and take the coffee without looking away from Adam, who makes things worse by ignoring me and turning back to his damn binder.
“I am not having a good time,” I say through clenched teeth. “And I don’t like this kind of coffee!”
And then I reach out and slowly, purposefully…
…pour coffee all over Adam’s binder.
Chapter Nine
So there’s a cold, ugly white room with no windows for people who pour coffee on their mentors’ binders. It’s called “solitary” and it’s quite a bit more jail-like than spa-like.
I spend the morning there.
Breakfast is pushed through a slot in the door, but there’s nothing on the tray I want to eat and anyway, I’m not hungry. No one talks to me. I am left, presumably, to think about what a bad thing I’ve done.
I know it was a bad thing. And sitting all alone in the silence, my brain goes on a loop, repeating it over and over, and it’s all I can do not to curl up into a ball in the corner and moan. I am an idiot. I made an idiot of myself. And for a person who considers herself to be relatively “together,” I really lost it.
But the thing I feel the worst about is Adam, who may be uptight and irritating but who obviously has a difficult jo
b and didn’t deserve to start his day like that. Not to mention it’s not his fault he gets under my skin the way he does—he’s just doing his job. Meanwhile I’m being an asshole.
A few hours later, I’m starting to think I’m locked in the white room permanently and pondering how I’ll fend off boredom and eventual lunacy when the locks finally turn and someone comes in. My insides lurch. It’s Adam. While I’m super relieved someone has come, and even almost happy to see him, I can’t quite look him in the face. Instead I sit, slumped at the edge of the single bed that is the only piece of furniture in the room.
He leans against the wall inside the door, arms folded across his chest, and I can tell he’s looking at me by the way I want to squirm away.
“Lola.”
Of course there’s nowhere to go.
“Yes.”
“You’re lucky Dr. Koch likes you, because we have zero tolerance for violent behavior.”
“I wasn’t being—”
“Zero. That’s company policy.”
“Okay.”
“And I personally have a no-tantrums policy.”
“Look,” I say, head snapping up finally to brave his gaze, “if you would stop giving me shit for five seconds, I would apologize!”
“Wow,” he says. “This should be good.”
“Except you’re annoying me again already, and that makes it hard to keep feeling remorseful. Which I am, actually.”
He shakes his head and turns, as if to leave.
“Wait!” I stand. “Please don’t leave.”
He turns back. Still having trouble looking into his eyes, I glance down and notice he has changed his clothes into a darker pair of jeans and a rather tight T-shirt. I wonder if he keeps extra ones here, or if he went home to Venice. I wonder when he finds time to work out, because obviously he does. Maybe he does it in one of the gyms here…
Lola Carlyle's 12-Step Romance Page 8
