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Like I give a shit.
I have a throbbing headache as well as a sore stomach, tremendous thanks to my new best friend, Devon, and all I really want to do is crawl under the covers and hide away from the rest of the world for as long as I can.
I don’t want to deal with anyone and their stupid rehab crap today. I can’t deal with it anymore. I’m totally losing it. I can’t think straight. My vision’s blurry, and my hearing is coming in and out in long waves. Time stands still in my mind, sluggish, like frozen ice in a slow moving river.
Rehab is all kinds of screwed up. And that’s just the truth of it. Yeah, some days are easier than others. But some days are harder than others, too, and that prick this morning just made what should have been a relatively easy day for me, very hard. And yet, despite my intense anger, and the regret I can feel coursing through my veins, the emotion that fills me the most in this moment, is defeat.
He got to me. Devon got to me. And I let him.
Progress, meet setback.
I’ve spent the last few years in all sorts of moods, the majority of them bad. And alcohol has been the only thing that has managed to lift me from those dark moods. Alcohol is an easy girlfriend, a slutty reminder that I’d do just about anything to take the edge off. Alcohol is the one thing in my life I can count on. She never turns her back on me. I’ve had addictions in the past, varied and many, and they all have a voice in my head, demanding my attention. Raised voices, the words mostly warped and indistinct. But alcohol is the one temptation I’m most powerless over, constantly seducing me with her delicious, numbing qualities.
My gut twists.Shit.
How am I going to explain any of this to Nick? He’s going to kill me when he finds out I got into a fistfight barely one full week into rehab. I can’t get kicked out of the band.
I just can’t.
Chad strides back into my room a few minutes before two o’clock, announcing it’s time for me to go to my first one-on-one counseling session with my new therapist.Oh, yeah. I almost forgot about that.
And who could blame me, really?
What a trainwreck. The woman has a set of balls on her bigger than mine, and the way she looked at me… man, it was fucking frightening.
It seems the rehabilitation gods have managed to team me up with the one woman in the entire city who doesn’t want to jump my bones on sight. She actually looked at me like I repulsed her. Flattering? Not so much. And I wonder briefly why she is the way she is—a little bitter and a whole lot pissed off.
She’s probably wondering the same thing about me.
I guess we’re about to find out.
Sienna
“Andrea, honey, listen. I’ve got to go. My next appointment will be here any minute, and I don’t want him to catch me talking on the phone.”
“Who is it?”
“You know I can’t tell you that.”
“Anyone famous?”
“Andrea, seriously, I can’t tell you. It’s confidential.”
“Oh, come on. We’re cousins, you can trust me. Family means everything.”
“Did you get that from a Hallmark card?”
“Ha, ha,” she says sarcastically, huffing out a sharp breath. “Come on, Sienna,please? We tell each other everything. I heard that place is full of really famous people who can afford the hefty price tag. And you just saidhim, so give me a hint… is he an actor? An athlete?”
“My lips are sealed. And we don’t tell each other everything.Youtellmeeverything, not the other way around. Thank you, by the way, for the update last night. I would never have been able to sleep without knowing you gave your new boss a hand job in the copy room. The mental imagery that accompanied your call kept me awake for hours. So, again, thank you for that.”
“You say it like it’s a bad thing.”
I stifle a small laugh. “Isn’t it?”
“He’s not married or anything. Mr. Beaumont is handsome, in a middle-aged, dad-bod kind of way, and besides, we’re just fooling around. It’s nothing serious.”
“Until you fall madly in love with him, and he breaks your heart. Then you’ll be running back to me with your tail between your legs. Men, honestly, they aren’t worth the bother. My advice to you, my dear sweet cousin, is to steer clear of them at all costs.”
