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Didn’t think about it.
Hence why I’m here, back in rehab, starting the fuck over. Like lies, truths have a way of catching up to you too.
The center cannot hold. The voice in my head sounds suspiciously like Jeremy, and my mouth dries considerably, my knee starting to bob.
“Just a line from a poem I like. ‘Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.’ Basically means that, no matter how hard we try to maintain control and order, chaos will inevitably get its turn. There is no one without the other. Things break and start anew and break again. It’s inevitable.”
I frown. I can’t remember when he told me that. Was it before or after we lost Izzy? Before, surely…right? Why can’t I remember?
Shaking my head, I refocus on the conversation at hand.
No, I didn’t go off the deep end this time around. I got drunk. Didn’t touch a single pill. But by definition, it’s a relapse. Two years of sobriety down the drain.
Did I need to admit myself back into inpatient because of one slip-up? Debatable.
I could’ve upped my meetings.
Could’ve gone back to seeing Lionel, the outpatient therapist I’d started seeing when I was discharged from rehab the first time. Therapy that I’d dropped a little over six months ago, because I no longer felt like I needed it.
Idiotic of me?
Most certainly.
But the comfort of denial in all its shapes and forms is a tough state to shake. Goes against every fucking instinct inside me.
“And it’s honorable, Mason,” my therapist goes on, pulling me back to the conversation at hand. “Your loyalty to Izzy.”
I huff through my nose. “You make it sound like an obligation.”
Her mouth thins, and I feel that familiar sense of indignation rising up—the one that in the past would have me blowing up on whoever tried to talk sense into me, and get me to accept the reality of the situation.
But that was before.
And this is now.
And now, I’m trying to be less of a shit show.
“I have no doubt you love her very much,” Cleo says placatingly.
“I do,” I say, my voice tight, raw, on the verge of breaking.
“But is that why you’re holding on?”
Staring at her, I say nothing.
Her gaze flicks down to her tablet, and she runs her finger over the screen, like she’s flipping through pages. Masking a tsking sound, she finally seems to find what she’s looking for, and says, “We’ve talked about your dad in the past.”
Despite the unexpected turn in subject, I nod, a hunch as to where this is going already forming.
Sure, last time she veered into this territory, I cut her off before she could spell it out. But again, things are different this time around. I’m more…open, I guess you could say.
“It fucked me up.”
Cleo looks up from the tablet, brows rising gently in a rare show of surprise.
My lip ticks up ruefully. “I mean, it doesn’t take a psych degree to figure that out. No offense.”
“None taken,” she murmurs, narrowing her eyes thoughtfully.
