by Faust, Megan
“At least we can take our time eating,” he said as they grabbed a table. “Was Seth mad that I didn’t come back down?”
“No, not angry. He seemed disappointed though. He said he’d come back tomorrow. Has this happened before?”
“Once. I got angry and hid. That was the day I talked to you in the library. And the day with Penny.”
“Oh, I see.” She turned to her food, some sort of noodle dish with grilled chicken strips. That wasn’t that long ago. I’ve dated men with tempers before, I won’t do it again. Maybe he’ll listen to that. “Were you mad today?”
“No, I just had a lot of thinking to do about why I get so angry. I’m starving. Who knew soul searching could make you so hungry.”
They ate in silence mainly because Brant was eating too fast to talk. He wasn’t as distracted as he looked and he happily noted that Alice wasn’t picking and poking at her food with that ‘don’t notice me’ posture that had caught Brant’s eye the first day.
How many men saw that body language and thought ‘easy target’? Brant suddenly thought. No wonder she was scared of me.
When they had finished Brant led her to the garden door. Alice hesitated. “It’s getting late, maybe we shouldn’t.”
“You aren’t afraid of the dark, are you?”
“No, I’m afraid people will think I’m a whore like Penny was.”
He sighed. “The Common Room gets fuller in the evenings; I thought we could use a quiet place so we could talk, if we wanted to.”
“It’s Friday, they all watch TV Friday nights. The Common Room won’t be that crowded.”
“Okay, we’ll stay inside.”
They settled on the couches, an awkward silence descending over them. Brant suddenly stuck out his tongue and Alice giggled. “What are you doing?”
“I’m making faces at the security camera there.” He did it again.
“Stop it! You wanted to talk, so talk!”
“Fine, I guess I’ll start.” He sighed. “Dr. Keaton made me realize something today and it changed everything. I don’t like the person I was when I came here. I felt trapped, stuck in that angry, petty, and controlling personality. I tried to tell my adult sister who to love! I don’t know why I didn’t realize how badly I was hurting people before this.”
“Seth,” she said.
“What?” His heart started to crumble.
“Seth helps people, he protects them. Haven’t you ever noticed? He protected you from the consequences of your attitude and your actions, and he probably made all your apologies for you too.”
She wasn’t changing the subject. Calm down and think!
She went on. “He never allowed you to learn from your mistakes. Dr. Keaton says that’s one of the biggest ways we grow as people, making mistakes and learning from them.”
“That’s what he was talking about. He said I never noticed how much he helped me. Because he was there I got used to being that person and I stopped wanting to change. I couldn’t admit to being wrong about Chloe, or the drugs, because I’d never had to admit anything like that before. Chloe didn’t pull any punches, she told me just how arrogant and stupid I was, and it only made me angrier.”
“It sounds like you were addicted to anger.”
“That’s a scary thought. Getting mad is unavoidable.”
“Getting mad is natural, sustaining anger is dangerous.”
“You’re splitting hairs.”
“No, I’m setting up boundaries. Dr. Keaton made me do this too. He said being afraid is normal; staying afraid of everything is not. I had to learn to let go after something scared me and go back to a neutral state. You have to do the same thing. No more holding on to the ‘mad’ until it becomes this deep seated anger again.”
“How did you get so smart about all this stuff?”
“I’m not; I just had a lot of meetings with Dr. Keaton.” She flushed a little. “But you’re right, it’s easier to get mad than it is to get a hold of the drugs.”
“How am I supposed to change? I’ve been this person for so long I don’t know how to be someone else.”
“You should give yourself more credit, Brant. I think you’ve changed a lot since you’ve been here. Haven’t you noticed?”
“Yeah, it’s been like watching a movie of someone else. I like this new person better but it scares me. Can I keep it up when I leave here? Am I leaving myself vulnerable? Will people believe I’ve changed or will they expect me to turn back at any moment?”
“I don’t know the answers to any of those questions, I’m sorry. I hope you find some answers.” She sighed. “Do you know why you changed? I know that’s really personal. Maybe you want to talk to Dr. Keaton about that, or maybe you haven’t got that far in your soul searching. I just thought maybe, if you knew why you changed you might want to talk about it. It might lead you to other answers.”
As she rambled he thought, It’s you, Alice, I changed because of you. I saw you and loved you and I knew I had to make a fast change or you’d be gone from my life for good. But how do I tell you that when you’ve only just started to trust me? He smiled at her. “I guess I have some more thinking to do. What about you? What kept you so preoccupied all afternoon?”
“I have a choice to make and I think I need more time.”
“Are they asking you to leave?”
No, Dr. Keaton says I’m not ready yet, but I think I will be soon. I’ve made a lot of progress this week.”
There was a shout from the Entertainment Room and Brant could see the crowd of patients gathered around the television.
“I told you, it’s Friday night. They watch the car race every Friday.”
“Car racing huh?” He stared longingly at the door.
“I take it you’re a racing fan?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“You look like a kid on Christmas Eve staring at the tree on his way to bed. Did you want to watch?”
“What about you? You don’t like crowds.” And Bill might be in there. I don’t want to give him any reason to come after you.
“I’ll stand near the back.”
He nodded and stayed near the back with her. The TV wasn’t overly large but the quality was good. It was a paved track formula one race but Brant couldn’t take his eyes off the screen. An ache was building in the pit of his stomach and he swallowed hard.
“You look like you’ve seen the love of your life,” Alice whispered.
“Not quite,” Brant whispered back. “But it’s close.”
“What kind of racing do you like?”
“Stock cars on a dirt track,” he replied. “The dust makes it trickier than paved track. On the other hand we don’t go quite as fast as the formula one cars do.”
“You mean you drive a race car?” she squeaked, a little louder than she intended.
“Yeah,” Brant said. “I’m a driver.”
A young woman in front of them turned around in her seat. “East or west?” she asked.
“I drove East division,” he said, still trying to keep his voice down. More people were turning to look.
“My dad and my brother are huge stock car fans. Okay, they’ll watch anything that drives fast but they love going down to the local dirt track for live races. They follow all the drivers online. What was your name again?”
“Brant,” he muttered.
“Not Brant Bye? Number thirty-four east?” When he nodded she squealed. “I can’t believe this. My sixteen year old brother worships you. I have to get your autograph for him.”
“I don’t really have anything on me to give an autograph.”
“Hold on a minute,” Alice said. She disappeared into the library and came back with a neon orange strip of paper and a pen. “Here.”
He quickly scrawled his name and the number thirty-four on the paper and handed it over. “Here you go. It’s nice to know I have fans outside of my home town.”
“Thanks so much. Oh, this is a bookmark.”
&nbs
p; Alice nodded. “The center keeps a pile of them in the library. They’re free.”
“I can see why. They probably print them right here. Look.” She showed Brant the back.
‘Sun Mountain Out-Patient Center’ and all the contact information was printed in bold letters. Brant shrugged. “You’re not going to lie to him about where you got that so I guess it doesn’t matter.”
“You’re really a race car driver?” Someone else asked. “Man, what’s that like?”
Alice was ready to slip out before the patients started noticing her but then Brant started speaking and she froze, instantly captivated.
“What you see on the TV, all those dots moving around the track, that is nothing like driving. You don’t see the whole track when you drive, all you see is the quarter lap ahead, or the next turn. It all goes by so quickly you almost have to feel the track and guess at what’s ahead because by the time you see it you don’t have time to process and problem solve. You only have time to react. Driving a race car is like living on pure gut instinct. It’s one hell of a rush and a lot of nail biting stress. It’s competitive as hell. It’s pure adrenaline.”
Alice smiled and slipped out in the moment of silence.
“Sounds romantic, I’m Tessa.” The girl sitting backwards in her seat held out her hand. “Can I get a second autograph for myself?”
“Another time. I’m turning in. Enjoy the race.”
Alice was sitting in the Common Room. “I didn’t know you were famous.”
“I didn’t know I was known this far out. I chose here because I thought no one would recognize me.”
“I’m sorry for blowing your cover.”
He shrugged. “No big deal. Are you coming up?”
“No, not yet. I just need to steady myself. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Good night, Alice.”
Chapter Seven
Over the next six days Seth, Brant, and Alice fell into an easy routine of shared meals, card or board games, and walks in the garden, broken up only by Brant’s meetings with Dr. Keaton every second afternoon.
On meeting days Seth left after dinner to give Brant time to sit in his room and think. In return Brant waited until after dinner to lock himself away in his room so Seth wouldn’t get kicked out.
After his breakthrough about his anger issues Brant’s meetings with Dr. Keaton were going much smoother, and taking a lot longer. Seth didn’t mind one bit, with Brant preoccupied with the healing process he had almost an hour to spend alone with Alice. They filled those hours with light-hearted discussions about childhood memories and told silly jokes but Seth never asked any of the tough questions. Give her time and she’ll forget all the pain. Her past is her own and no matter how much I want to pry it simply isn’t my place.
Brant didn’t mind asking questions that might hurt Alice, even if Seth had taken to stepping on his toes again. At least he’s not kicking me and he doesn’t step on my broken foot. I didn’t realize it would take this long for the bruising to heal. My bruises are like my addiction and Alice’s past—if you don’t poke them once in a while you don’t know if they still hurt or not.
He found he was full of all sorts of insights like that since he’d started taking the healing process seriously and had let go of the anger. Every day was hard, Seth had taken to baiting him whenever possible, and he had snapped at his brother a few times, but Alice’s advice was keeping him on track. When it’s done, let it go, don’t stay angry longer than you have to.
While Brant made progress towards a more peaceful frame of mind, Seth got angrier and angrier. Brant didn’t need Seth to step on his toes whenever he said the wrong thing because he was thinking before he spoke. Brant didn’t need Seth to patch things over with Alice, or anybody else; he had learned to apologize before a fight broke out.
One day he had turned suddenly in the dining room and knocked a tray out of someone’s hand. Seth had braced for a fight, ready to whisk Alice to safety, but Brant had gotten down to floor level and had helped pick up the mess. He’d even told the lady at the till to put the ruined meal on his bill so the other patient could have a fresh tray. And then he’d apologized loud enough for half the dining room to hear and called himself a clumsy oaf.
The way Alice stared at Brant with adoration and respect made Seth’s stomach roll. I’ve never seen him go this far into a game for one girl. There will be others, like that Tessa. She’s hanging a lot closer lately. I wonder what her interest in Brant is.
It didn’t take long for Seth to find out that Tessa was a serious fan of Brant’s but when he tried to set things up so the gushing fan could hit on Brant, Brant only excused himself politely, without embarrassing Tessa or himself.
Dammit! He’s serious about Alice or he’d have jumped at Tessa. She’s definitely more Brant’s type. Why can’t he go chase the flirty race car fan and leave Alice alone? When he gets out of here his newfound inner peace will evaporate. You can’t live a sedate existence and race competitively. And then Alice will get hurt. Why can’t he see that?
Alice’s meeting with Dr. Keaton was full of more revelations, for both doctor and patient. “How much of your past have you told Brant and Seth?”
“Mostly we talk about stuff that happened before the drugs,” she replied. “They know it’s not my first trip to rehab.”
“Take this at your own pace, Alice. You never need to tell them if you don’t want to.”
But it had made her thoughts more chaotic. Do I want them to know? If they love me they have to accept my past, too. Maybe if I tell them they’ll finally realize I’m not girlfriend material, that I’m only good at being friends. Maybe if I tell them, they’ll hate me. This was added to the regular litany of ‘I love Brant, I love him not. I love Seth, I love him not’ until she felt like her head and heart would burst.
She would spend an evening talking to Brant about race cars and find her thoughts centering on him. And the next day she’d spend an hour laughing with Seth and her thoughts would slide the other way.
I have to decide, or I have to tell them both to back off. I can see it in their eyes that they won’t walk away unless I do something.
The end of Brant’s second week in rehab was drawing to a close and Seth had managed to keep their parents in the dark as to their true location. Brant had forgotten about the secret he had asked Seth to keep for him, thinking only of the apologies he owed to the members of his family for so many things.
Chapter Eight
Seth was waiting at the visitor’s entrance at eight am and he was waiting at the dining room door when Brant came down, still yawning. “Hey Seth, you’re here early. Have you had breakfast?”
“I need to talk to you.”
“Can we get coffee first?”
“This is important.”
Brant shrugged. “Okay, if that’s what you need.”
They went to the entertainment room and Seth started talking in a low voice. “Brant, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.”
“There was a lot of that going on this week. What was your big revelation?”
“You’ve made it clear on more than one occasion that you don’t need any help in your life. You certainly never noticed or appreciated any help I provided.”
“I was thinking about that earlier this week and…”
Seth held up a hand for silence. “Let me finish, for once, don’t make this about you. Please.”
Brant nodded. “I’m sorry, you’re right.”
Brant’s lack of temper only made Seth’s worse. “I think we’ve reached a point where I just can’t help you anymore. I’m going to remove my name as your support person.”
“I think that’s a good idea, Seth. I need to figure some things out on my own. You shouldn’t be stuck here while I do that. I don’t want you forced to sit around that motel on the days I need to be alone.”
“You’re not mad?”
“No, it’s time I did this on my own. Are you going home then?”
“Why are you doing this, Seth?”
“I don’t expect you to understand, or to like it, but I think I’m in love with her. I know you think you love her too and I know you think you have some first claim, but I couldn’t help it. I just fell for her. She’s been hurt before, bad, and I want to keep her safe.”
“Keeping someone safe is not the same as helping them,” Brant said softly.
“Don’t be stupid. And don’t say anything to Alice about any of this. I have to time it just right.”
“Are you doing it today? Because I don’t have an appointment today.”
“I don’t know. Don’t say anything to Dr. Keaton tomorrow either, just in case it takes me that long. Okay?”
“Fine, but I’m going for breakfast. I need coffee before me head explodes.”
There wasn’t really that much to do at the Sun Mountain Out-Patient Center. The board of directors didn’t want anyone getting too comfortable. A high success rate, shown in a high turn-around rate, meant more recommendations, more patients in the door, and more government funding. Brant, Seth, and Alice had played every board game and were tired of cards. Reading was a solitary pass-time since none of them enjoyed reading aloud and none of them really enjoyed TV. That left sitting in the Common Room, which they did a lot of, or walking in the garden. Since the sun was shining in the windows in the most inviting was Alice suggested they go outside.
For the most part the garden was very well kept but tree roots had pushed up through the gravel path in several places. One of these roots caught Brant’s foot when he was looking at a bird Alice had spotted and he hit the ground on hands and knees.
